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FBI Releases Document Confirming Roswell UFO

schwit1 writes "An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as circular in shape with raised centers approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape, but only 3 feet tall dressed in metallic clothing of very fine texture."

481 comments

  1. Last words... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Funny

    Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Last words... by thomasdz · · Score: 4, Funny

      Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."

      So the aliens either were trying to speak TCP/IP or they were related to Bloom County's "Bill the cat"?
      (or was somebody playing cowboy yodeling music somewhere near the crash site?)

      --
      Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
    2. Re:Last words... by dogsbreath · · Score: 1

      Um.... bill says "ack...............phhhhhhhhtttt!"

      I understand he disappeared shortly after getting a job as a nuclear power plant operator in the glorious people's republic of the Ukraine.

    3. Re:Last words... by Ekhymosis · · Score: 4, Funny

      Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."

      No no, the last words heard were: "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn!!!!"

      --
      Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
    4. Re:Last words... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116996/trivia

      The writers weren't sure what the Martians should sound like so the script read "ack, ack, ack, ack" for all of their lines of dialogue. This became the actual words spoken by the Martians in the film.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    5. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was probably all the fault of my great aunt Loretta, who lived next door to where the UFOs crashed. She had a Slim Whitman collection.

    6. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      oh wait.. his first album was out in 1954. I guess that was during her "yodeling" phase.

    7. Re:Last words... by LifesABeach · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Past primitive human culture's ability to survive, after meeting in some way, an advanced culture when it takes its first crap, is pretty dismal. I can not help but think what it would be like for Leif Erikson vs. Princess Cruise Lines at the port of Port of Akureyri, Iceland, what the outcome would be.

      "What's in your wallet?" - Capital One, 2009

    8. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is how Bill Goldblum got the virus onto the alien mothership in the film where the aliens had no vocal cords but when one of them was shot he managed to produce sound.

    9. Re:Last words... by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      Obviously they died of a SYN flood.

    10. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HNNNNNNNNGGGGG!!!

    11. Re:Last words... by djdevon3 · · Score: 1

      So does Cathy... don't you people watch The Big Bang Theory?

    12. Re:Last words... by Daimanta · · Score: 2

      Woo, no packet loss!

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    13. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WHY IS THIS ON THE FRONT PAGE, when more interesting things don't get any love?? How about The Stealth Blimp???

      http://www.thestealthblimp.com/

    14. Re:Last words... by Spewns · · Score: 1

      So that's where Eric the Midget came from.

    15. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Translation: "For the fundamental truth self-determination of the cosmos, for dark is the suede that mows like a harvest"

    16. Re:Last words... by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 1

      I didn't see that one :(

      --
      This is the sig that says NI (again)
    17. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While reading from a label maker, no doubt!

    18. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Every time somebody crashes their saucer a packet is lost."
      -- Intergalactic Universal Postal Service

    19. Re:Last words... by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      So it worked, then?

    20. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "So the aliens either were trying to speak TCP/IP or they were related to Bloom County's "Bill the cat"?"

      They could have been using morse code you insensitive clod!

    21. Re:Last words... by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      he did, but he came back to the US and scored a gig playing the tongue in the band Deathtongue, which was later renamed Billy and the Boingers after Steve crumbled under pressure at a congressional obscenity hearing.

      It's all documented in the annals Billy and the Boingers Bootleg, which also describes Bill's friend Opus' romance with a tree-hugging dirt-worshipping sculptor named Lola Granola. :)

    22. Re:Last words... by El_Oscuro · · Score: 1

      Didn't they have "Bill the Gates" towards the end of the strip?

      --
      "Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
    23. Re:Last words... by dogsbreath · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that. A bothersome gap in my knowledge has been bridged and now I am at peace.

    24. Re:Last words... by scottrocket · · Score: 1
      "April Fool's is gone and past..."

      Sincerely, DOD (Roswell Div.).

    25. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."

      Truth to be told, that was the sound of their zipdrive with the saucer control software on it. There's a reason no other aliens bothered to look for the flight data recorder.

    26. Re:Last words... by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

      Is that Jeff Goldblum's more attractive twin brother?

    27. Re:Last words... by qubezz · · Score: 1

      No, Fred Norris was being called home...

    28. Re:Last words... by Lectrik · · Score: 1

      No no, the last words heard were: "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn!!!!"

      Kirk: No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space.

      --
      --- As to make my comment seem, by comparison, more intelegent... doodie doodie doodie poop poop poop!
    29. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no no, the last words heard were: "all your Roswell base, are belong to us"

    30. Re:Last words... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      Actually, that was only true when the "discoverers" survived the encounter. There are even more recorded cases of when they did not, and the "primitive" tribes continued to live in peace until they were later "discovered" again.

      Further, the worst cases of "primitive" societal carnage happened when the natives thought the discoverers were gods. But even that was not universally fatal to the "primitive" culture. Take Captain Cook for example. The natives thought he was a god at first, but then he royally pissed them off... end of THAT story.

    31. Re:Last words... by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      So, under DCP/AP (Dead Cat Protocol/Amusement Protocol), instead of SYN/ACK, it's ACK/PHHHHHHHHHTTTT?

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
    32. Re:Last words... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      I hit "submit" too soon.

      My point was that today, there is probably little danger of us thinking aliens are gods. Their technology would have to be so far superior that they would practically have to BE gods, in order for us to make that mistake.

    33. Re:Last words... by dogsbreath · · Score: 1

      Is there an RFC?

    34. Re:Last words... by avgjoe62 · · Score: 1

      This SO reminds me of the review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture from Time magazine, where the reviewer confused the Klingons that were on board three ships destroyed by Vger with the non-existent crew of Vger itself.

      While I am not defending the entirety of Independence Day, I do feel compelled to point out that the alien was using the vocal cords in the body of Brent Spiner to talk, not the non-existent vocal cords in its own body.

      Far more incredible to me is how the aliens could not patch their OS and update their virus signatures...

      --

      How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

    35. Re:Last words... by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      Cutting edge stuff here. Still in dev hell. There's some jerk in a wheel chair holding up the committee.

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
    36. Re:Last words... by AmonTheMetalhead · · Score: 1

      You overestimate human intelligence (sadly)

    37. Re:Last words... by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      "peace" would be better way to put it.

      usually a nation is born when warring local tribes stop bickering with each other over wifes and cows.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    38. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This simply proves that nuke hoarding atheists are the fittest population in the event of an alien encounter.

    39. Re:Last words... by Phoghat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Um.... bill says "ack...............phhhhhhhhttt

      Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."

      On a slightly more serious note, no one here seems to be taking this even a little bit seriously ( and no, I'm not new here) It seems to me that this is the first acknowledgement by the government that the "Roswell Incident" was something real. That an actual alien craft was involved. No weather balloon, experimental Russian or American aircraft or anything else.

      --
      Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
    40. Re:Last words... by dogsbreath · · Score: 1

      Well, actually, there is no government acknowledgement of any sort. Just a note that somebody reported something. No investigation notes, no corroboration,

      I really don't see how this is much at all. The submission headline is misleading.

    41. Re:Last words... by bratloaf · · Score: 1

      Same thing... Advanced enough aliens would, in fact, be Gods... "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -- Aurthur C. Clarke

    42. Re:Last words... by samjam · · Score: 1

      The advanced aliens might actually BE gods - of course it's down to definition of "god" which is usually some hand-wavey straw-man, implicitly defined as "doesn't exist".

      Stargate SG1 always makes me laugh, when Daniel starts out: "They're not gods, they're just ..." and then starts to recite the natives definition of gods.

      The fact that the natives speak english with all it's american nuances also makes me laugh, but hey - it's just for fun.

      The more response answer is: if they are gods, so what? What have we got to do with them? Are we their cattle or their distant relatives? That sort of response is much more useful

    43. Re:Last words... by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      I'm trying to pinpoint just where between the 1980's and 1990's space stopped being "outer" and just became "space".

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    44. Re:Last words... by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 1

      My point was that today, there is probably little danger of us thinking aliens are gods.

      A sizable chunk of the people on this planet are willing to believe in a god based on no evidence at all except for the crap they got spoonfed by their parents, their school and their church. Now enter aliens capable of doing really whizz-bang stuff...

      --

      People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
    45. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On September 30, 1983, Bill drove his Ferrari into a cactus at 140 miles per hour, dying instantly in the crash (the media, not wishing to divulge the true nature of Bill's death, claimed that he died of acne).

      Bill, we hardly knew ye...

    46. Re:Last words... by operagost · · Score: 1

      That NYT review is unintentionally hilarious. Thanks.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    47. Re:Last words... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      When they finally found out that the concave hollow earth theory is true, but didn't want to say "inner space" as to not confuse the uninitiated. :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    48. Re:Last words... by alexborges · · Score: 1

      "usually a nation is born when warring local tribes stop bickering with each other over wifes and cows."

      Yes, that happens when one of the tribes finally royally fucks all others and proclaims superiority and ownership over its neighbors.

      --
      NO SIG
    49. Re:Last words... by Unequivocal · · Score: 1

      "Because it's very very cold in.. spaaace."

    50. Re:Last words... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Actually (as mentioned in the linked article from the UK... why the UK?) the US government did acknowledge finding UFOs at first. Then -- like the very next day -- they retracted that statement and denied everything.

    51. Re:Last words... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "A sizable chunk of the people on this planet are willing to believe in a god based on no evidence at all ..."

      Sure. But put a little green man in front of those same people and ask them to accept it as a God, and likely as not you will get shot at.

    52. Re:Last words... by mldi · · Score: 1

      usually a nation is born when warring local tribes stop bickering with each other over wifes and cows.

      They bickered so much before only because they had a hard time telling the difference!

      I jest I jest... mine's a whale.

      --
      If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
    53. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ack ack ack as in "don't run, we are your friends!'

    54. Re:Last words... by Ed_Pinkley · · Score: 1

      "Space, the final frontier" puts it at 1964.

      --
      "Long time listener, first time caller."
    55. Re:Last words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure it wasn't PONG ?

    56. Re:Last words... by multisync · · Score: 1

      That's great. My favorite line: "the spaceships take an unconscionable amount of time to get anywhere."

      Your review reminds me of this Rolling Stone review of the first Led Zeppelin album, which complained about the "weak, unimaginative songs" and concluded that the musicians had "(wasted) their considerable talent on unworthy material."

      Years later, the same magazine ranked Led Zeppelin 1 at #29 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

      --
      I don't care why you're posting AC
  2. Great news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We have confirmation the FBI is not a serious organization...

    1. Re:Great news! by zill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      According to Mr. _______ informant

      They debriefed their informant and recorded down what he said. It doesn't necessarily mean FBI actually believe the information provided. Under the FOIA you can't just destroy the document because the source wore a tin-foil hat.

    2. Re:Great news! by plover · · Score: 4, Funny

      We have confirmation the FBI is not a serious organization...

      "No, ma'am. We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we're aware of."

      --
      John
    3. Re:Great news! by icebike · · Score: 1

      Exactly. In those days you could get away with lying to the feds, especially when any evidence or lack thereof was locked up in an official coverup of secret projects.

      The fbi was probably investigating loose lips and the subject was spinning and yarn.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    4. Re:Great news! by Peet42 · · Score: 1

      Indeed. The fact they say that no further investigation happened tells you how reliable they considered the "informant" to be.

      As an aside, I find the "style" a little too informal for an official 1950 government memo; it reads like it's been edited by a tabloid sub-editor, which sounds like just the sort of source that would have an interest in sending the FBI off on such an investigation.

    5. Re:Great news! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

      We have confirmation the FBI is not a serious organization...

      In other news, famous pop-skeptic "Amazing" Randi says he was just joking about the $1million. He denied charges that any grown man who refers to himself as "amazing" or spells his first name with an "i" at the end should never be taken seriously. Regarding the FBI's Roswell documents, "Randi" said that until he can put his hand into the wound on the alien's side or can touch the holes in the alien's hand, he wasn't buying it.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re:Great news! by JWSmythe · · Score: 3, Informative

      Check the memo on the FBI site.

          Mr. [redacted] informant was an investigator for the USAF. Not just some random civilian, or someone who thought they knew something.

          There would have been no further investigation necessary, as the USAF was already investigating, and any further investigation would be done by them, and any information necessary would be reported back to the FBI.

          Pretty much, another agency had control and jurisdiction on the case, and possession of all materials relating to the case. There was nothing for the FBI to do. What were their options? Demand access to now (as of the minute the military touched it) classified materials? Good luck there. I'm surprised the FBI was provided with as much detail as they were given.

          If that were to happen today, it may be something more like "We found something, and are investigating." Or as was provided to the public "Nothing to see here. Just a weather balloon. Move on." Use tthe official USAF aircraft identification chart for identifying unknown flying objects.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    7. Re:Great news! by CheerfulMacFanboy · · Score: 1

      Exactly. In those days you could get away with lying to the feds, especially when any evidence or lack thereof was locked up in an official coverup of secret projects.

      The fbi was probably investigating loose lips and the subject was spinning and yarn.

      Didn't the FBI see all the UFO talk as a Communist disinformation campaign spread to cause hysteria and distract from the actual Communist infiltration as well as Soviet spy planes?

      --
      Fandroids hate facts.
    8. Re:Great news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      subject was spinning and yarn

      WTF does this mean?

    9. Re:Great news! by brusk · · Score: 1

      spells his first name with an "i" at the end should never be taken seriously.

      What do you have against the Luigis and Zvis of the world?

      --
      .sig withheld by request
    10. Re:Great news! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      What do you have against the Luigis and Zvis of the world?

      At least they don't dot the "i" at the end of their names with a little heart like Randi.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    11. Re:Great news! by Richard+Dick+Head · · Score: 0

      Watch your CPU when you visit that "document"...all 6 of my cores went to 20-60%, freaky

    12. Re:Great news! by Peet42 · · Score: 2

      I read it as the part that says "An investigator from the Air Force stated" having been part of what the "informant" said, assuming the redacted "By:" at the beginning was the name and address of the informant. Thus, we only have the informant's word that the person they are talking about was an official "investigator", and IIRC as the Roswell "incident" predates the final combining of the two services, shouldn't it have been the AAF (Army Air Force), not the Air Force who were investigating, as it happened almost on top of one of their bases?

  3. It's the NUKE CODES! by Grindalf · · Score: 0

    I thought this was a reference to early sightings of over the horizon nuclear tests that needed to be suppressed, during the time of Oppenheimer. So I was wrong all along For Relia!!!

    --
    The purpose of existence is to make money.
    1. Re:It's the NUKE CODES! by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I thought this was a reference to early sightings of over the horizon nuclear tests that needed to be suppressed, during the time of Oppenheimer.

      I had been assuming the stories were a "second cover".

      This is a psychological ploy allegedly used by security agencies to hide things that are really important and worth the effort. They set up two cover stories: The first cover story is public and something plausible. The second cover story is nutty and withheld, but evidence for it is planted. When somebody realizes that the first cover is a lie and digs deeper they encounter the planted evidence for the mind-numbingly wild second cover. Then they are placed in the position of either looking like a fruitcake or giving up. (After all, anything they dig up on the REAL story could also be another lie.)

      If it is a second cover, the existence of such a memo in the archives could just be a leftover piece of the planted evidence.

      As for what's behind the hypothetical second cover, an explanation released a few years back seems plausible: Balloon-lofted high-altitude drop tests of a predecessor to the mercury capsule reentry heat shield - which looked a lot like the contemporary depictions of flying saucers.

      The Cold War was raging at the time and the early space program was military and extremely secret. So tests on the first cut at retrieving people and devices from orbit would logically be performed at a remote, highly-classified, military aircraft test site, with the agencies going to extreme lengths to cover the work from spies, just as they did with the Manhattan Project.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    2. Re:It's the NUKE CODES! by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 1

      "This is a psychological ploy allegedly used by security agencies to hide things that are really important and worth the effort. They set up two cover stories: The first cover story is public and something plausible. The second cover story is nutty and withheld, but evidence for it is planted. When somebody realizes that the first cover is a lie and digs deeper they encounter the planted evidence for the mind-numbingly wild second cover. Then they are placed in the position of either looking like a fruitcake or giving up. (After all, anything they dig up on the REAL story could also be another lie.)"

      +1 Matrix!

      --
      My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    3. Re:It's the NUKE CODES! by dominious · · Score: 1

      MOD UP!

    4. Re:It's the NUKE CODES! by leftie · · Score: 1

      Which leaves me wondering if this is a distraction from attempts people are making to research what happened at Building 7 of the World Trade Center?

  4. Questions. by webmistressrachel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This raises more questions than answers. For a start, this really is on vault.fbi.gov servers, so either it's real or a VERY risky hoax.

    However, assuming it's real for now, WHY HAS THIS NOT LEAD TO A FLURRY OF OTHER EVIDENCE FROM ELSEWHERE?

    Clearly the mask is off now? The government know about saucers, otherwise there wouldn't be such a casual write-off at the end of the doc.

    So were they short Russians? Germans who found it in a barn after WWII and got it working? COME ON FBI, do your jobs and give us a proper INVESTIGATION!

    --
    This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    1. Re:Questions. by ZosX · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread685706/pg1

      Did some more research.... apparently this was declassified in the 70s and published in several books from that time. I don't know how much I would read into it.

    2. Re:Questions. by intellitech · · Score: 0

      Did you ever consider that other information on the subject is likely classified? Anyway, I'm shocked that this was released by the FBI, if it actually was.

      --
      vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
    3. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's a memo. There is no confirmation of the "findings". This is merely a report of what supposedly happened.

      There is lots of memos about total bullshit, like Sasquatch or whatever.

    4. Re:Questions. by hduff · · Score: 1

      Clearly the mask is off now? The government know about saucers, otherwise there wouldn't be such a casual write-off at the end of the doc.So were they short Russians? Germans who found it in a barn after WWII and got it working?

      Obviously, they were midget meteorologists in weather balloons.

      --
      "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
    5. Re:Questions. by wonkavader · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Webmistressrachel, what this document says is that an FBI agent interviewed someone who heard a rumor.

      They did that a lot. They should be many, many documents just like this one, all mutually contradictory. It's to be expected.

    6. Re:Questions. by dkegel · · Score: 4, Insightful
    7. Re:Questions. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Informative

      If there's one time to ever RTFA, it's when it's a government document supposedly admitting UFOs of the flying-saucer variety exist and were found near Roswell.

      Turns out this isn't that. It's the FBI noting that some dude claimed that two 50-foot saucers landed near Roswell because the nearby radar station disrupted their control mechanisms, and then doing nothing.

      "Disrupted by the radar you say? Ah of course. And where are these saucers? Oh they've mysteriously vanished since you saw them the night of the full moon. Got it. Thank you, citizen. We'll definitely look into that -- might be the Russians you know."

      Only other thing to say is -- good job, submitter. Made me look.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    8. Re:Questions. by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      child labour

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    9. Re:Questions. by mfnickster · · Score: 2

      COME ON FBI, do your jobs and give us a proper INVESTIGATION!

      "After performing a rigorous investigation, he have determined that an investigator for the Air Force did, in fact, state that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico."

      --
      "Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
    10. Re:Questions. by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When I was young I thought there might be something to stories like these, then I grew up and realized that many people are doped up, drunk, compulsive liars or completely bat-shit insane. And some are all of those, all the time.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    11. Re:Questions. by DamonHD · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's no way to speak of our elected representatives.

      Rgds

      Damon

      --
      http://m.earth.org.uk/
    12. Re:Questions. by Saxerman · · Score: 2

      I wouldn't read any conspiracy theory into it. For those interested, read up on the Frank Scully UFO hoax. Here's one of many links: http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2011/04/guy-hottel-fbi-ufo-memo-roswell-proof-not-exactly/

      --

      A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.

    13. Re:Questions. by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      Did you ever consider that other information on the subject is likely classified? Anyway, I'm shocked that this was released by the FBI, if it actually was.

      What level of classification is "likely."

      --

      I'll trade you a Sasquatch scat for one of those space suits. The kid needs one.

    14. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      this. why people are calling this new is beyond me. Its the entire basis for roswell

    15. Re:Questions. by binkzz · · Score: 2

      When I was young I thought there might be something to stories like these, then I grew up and realized that many people are doped up, drunk, compulsive liars or completely bat-shit insane. And some are all of those, all the time.

      Even sane people misremember (a lot), and eyewitness stories, especially over time, can change. What people forget or can't remember but have some importance in remembering, they often confabulate - but still believe they are actually memories. People with Alzheimers do this a lot, and can create the appearance to outsiders that they don't have Alzheimers at all.

      --
      'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
    16. Re:Questions. by osu-neko · · Score: 2

      However, assuming it's real for now, WHY HAS THIS NOT LEAD TO A FLURRY OF OTHER EVIDENCE FROM ELSEWHERE?

      Because, if you read the document in question, there's no reason to suspect it's not real, nor to think it would lead to other evidence, because all the document says is that someone said there were flying saucers in New Mexico. This is not an incredible claim, nor is it something we don't already know. Lots of people have said there were flying saucers in New Mexico. We knew that before the FBI provided written proof that someone said it. This doesn't "lead" anywhere since it's nothing we didn't already know...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    17. Re:Questions. by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      It's a memo. There is no confirmation of the "findings". This is merely a report of what supposedly happened.

      It's not even a report of "what supposedly happened", unless by that you mean it reports the fact that someone said something, not that anything actually occurred beyond someone flapping their jaw..

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    18. Re:Questions. by BobSutan · · Score: 1

      "Only other thing to say is -- good job, submitter. Made me look."

      I had to double check the date to make sure they weren't submitted on the 1st.

      --
      "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
    19. Re:Questions. by hedwards · · Score: 1

      That wasn't a hoax, but it wasn't a UFO in the sense of aliens either. If you read the account carefully, it's likely to be correct. The reason being that during that period of history, the US government was using false reports of UFOs as a way of covering up the surveillance balloons they were using to spy on the Russians. From your link.

      The Daily Mail posted another archived UFO document dated July 8, 1947 as further proof the Hottel memo referred to Roswell. Reading the memo and the document there are distinct differences between Hottel’s descriptions of three UFO spaceships–’circular in shape with raised centers’–versus the 1947 document description which stated ‘one flying disc’, ‘hexagonal in shape’. The flying disc, ‘suspended from a balloon by a cable’.

      Sounds an awful lot like what one would be using for that sort of task.

    20. Re:Questions. by hedwards · · Score: 1

      It was most likely dropped because it wasn't so much a UFO as a surveillance balloon that the US didn't want to acknowledge. Remember, that while spy satellites are known about now, balloons being used for that sort of thing weren't very well known and they were much easier to shoot down.

    21. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Erm,"our" elected representatives? Elected, perhaps, but by whom, exactly?

    22. Re:Questions. by pckl300 · · Score: 1

      They have done a proper investigation; they're just not giving the information to us.

      --
      In the beginning, there was null.
    23. Re:Questions. by linest · · Score: 1

      The aliens?

    24. Re:Questions. by bennomatic · · Score: 1

      Scully? What about Mulder?

      --
      The CB App. What's your 20?
    25. Re:Questions. by equex · · Score: 1

      Yeah, the '"Disrupted by radar" gives it away. This is some kook with attention issues.Funny how all alien technology magically gets disrupted and makes them crash all around the planet :)

      --
      Can I light a sig ?
    26. Re:Questions. by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 2

      Even sane people misremember (a lot), and eyewitness stories, especially over time, can change. What people forget or can't remember but have some importance in remembering, they often confabulate - but still believe they are actually memories. People with Alzheimers do this a lot, and can create the appearance to outsiders that they don't have Alzheimers at all.

      When I was studying I had an acquaintance who when you told him a story would later retell the story as if it had happened to him. Once he did this using an anecdote I had told him not 30 minutes before and as far as I could tell he was 100% serious and unaware of what he was doing. I hope in his case it was the weed but even sober he was a bit "off".

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    27. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's no way to speak of our elected representatives.

      Rgds

      Damon

      The problem isn't that our elected representatives are doped up, it's their choice of poison. They do all this coke and get all energetic, writing these idiotic omnibus bills. What we need to do is switch them to weed or ecstasy. C-SPAN would become a lot more entertaining to listen to...

    28. Re:Questions. by HangingChad · · Score: 2

      >For a start, this really is on vault.fbi.gov servers, so either it's real or a VERY risky hoax.

      Maybe start by thinking it through for a second. The investigator took a statement from an Air Force officer, nothing more. At the bottom they recommended no further investigation, which tells me the subject didn't have any proof and the investigator didn't really buy it. If you have to drive all the way from the nearest field office to Roswell, you have to put something in the report.

      I've worked with a wide sample of military personnel, officers and enlisted, as a contractor and I've heard a lot of strange things. One enlisted person claimed there were assassination teams that "erased" people digging too deeply into UFO reports, and that he was formerly attached to that unit. Officers were less likely to parrot complete nonsense, but I was still frequently shocked at the level of ignorance and near complete lack of intellectual curiosity some people displayed after years in the US educational system.

      --
      That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    29. Re:Questions. by 7bit · · Score: 1

      It's the FBI noting that some dude claimed

      "An Air Force Investigator" is hardly just "some dude". And I guess you thought the fake quote with made up info was funny.

      Great ways to try and falsely trivialize something, debunking 101. Though I suppose it's understandable to have a knee-jerk reaction like that when you read more into an article title than you believe should be there after actually reading TFA, so there's that.

      Still, please sit back and calmly think about what is in that memo. A statement from an Air Force Investigator in 1950 made to an FBI agent. That actually is pretty serious. And as to the assumptions made by a number of posters here that the FBI never followed up on this or took it seriously.. There is nothing in the memo or TFA to indicate that; simply a lack of announcement from the FBI, which many would expect.

      Feel free to look the document-scan over again and allow yourself to see it in a clearer context.

      http://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/at_download/file

    30. Re:Questions. by 7bit · · Score: 1

      And as to the assumptions made by a number of posters here that the FBI never followed up on this or took it seriously.. There is nothing in the memo or TFA to indicate that; simply a lack of announcement from the FBI, which many would expect.

      Yes, this memorandum to the Director of the FBI does state that the agent who took the statement had not further evaluated "the above". This refers to that single lone agent as of the time the memorandum was submitted, it does not in any way tell us what the FBI as a whole did to "further evaluate" the statement and circumstances it refers to once the Director of the FBI received and read this memorandum.

      The lone agent would likely not be in a position to "further evaluate" something of this scale and magnitude by himself without support, planning and discretion given to him by his superiors; which would have to occur After giving them the info he had on it in the first place. Notice who this memorandum is addressed to?

    31. Re:Questions. by REALMAN · · Score: 1

      No. What this says is that an Airforce Investigator, who was later referred to as Mr. BLACKED-OUT informant, stated the information. More than likely an Airforce investigator would not have the authority to report such things to the FBI so he became an informant.

      --
      - A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
    32. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm "all of these" and life is OK. Really, it's good. Most of the trouble in this wold is caused by people who have a plan, based on the erroneous belief that they know what the hell is happening, or magic incantations from their invisible-but-real-deity. Ignore these people and you'd be surprised how wonderful this planet can be.

    33. Re:Questions. by snowgirl · · Score: 1

      http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread685706/pg1

      Did some more research.... apparently this was declassified in the 70s and published in several books from that time. I don't know how much I would read into it.

      Reading the message myself, it sounds like a "we got a report from someone else, and didn't look into it." I'm sure you could find dozens of "reports of UFO activity" in police and FBI call logs throughout the entire time it became popular.

      Plus, he got it from an Air Force informant? Whoop dee doo, We already had a public Air Force informant telling the public that we recovered a UFO, who was later overruled by the rest of the military.

      The whole memo reads like a damned telephone game. "I heard from Jessica that Barbra told her that Jill likes Henry"... awesome.. thanks for the info...

      --
      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
    34. Re:Questions. by atisss · · Score: 1

      That means, FBI is in possesion of time machine stolen from flying saucers, and they have now injected this document into past internet :P

    35. Re:Questions. by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      "An Air Force Investigator" is hardly just "some dude".

      The fancy title doesn't mean they don't wear a tinfoil hat. You can get quite far in government bureaucracy while not being completely sane.

      One could argue the insanity helps navigate the bureaucracy.

    36. Re:Questions. by quantum+bit · · Score: 1

      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

    37. Re:Questions. by broggyr · · Score: 1

      This. Why do folks start a post with "This."?

      --
      Irony? Yea, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron!
    38. Re:Questions. by kasperd · · Score: 1

      They should be many, many documents just like this one, all mutually contradictory.

      Somebody did an equation to estimate the number of such reports to be expected. It was similar to the drake equation except it was estimating how many false UFO reports to expect given the size of Earth's population. Unfortunately I don't remember who did it. It may have been Neil deGrasse Tyson.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    39. Re:Questions. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      "An Air Force Investigator" is hardly just "some dude". And I guess you thought the fake quote with made up info was funny. Great ways to try and falsely trivialize something, debunking 101.

      But Mr. Redacted Air Force Investigator's informant is. Not that it really matters; if we're thinking calmly instead of grasping for proof of the alien conspiracy, you'd note it's utterly ridiculous for someone connected to reality to claim to know the mechanism by which the two saucers of unknown make and origin were brought down. No wonder you thought my attempt at humor was an attempt at debunking anything, rather than simply making fun of something that came pre-debunked and pre-trivialized.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    40. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because a craft, supposedly capable of INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL can't stand up to a radar station and powerlines while in the middle of a desert...

      Yeah....Mod parent up, submitter down.

    41. Re:Questions. by Sean_Inconsequential · · Score: 1

      Specifically the lizard people. It is true, i saw this guy talk about it. They are from the constellation Draco. It is real. I promise. Also: sarcasm - because you never know when someone saying something like that is serious.

    42. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The world is a scary place once you actually look around.
      Best just turn on Fox and drink it up.
      Life is too short to worry about anything.

      PS: If I could fann you I would Charly.

    43. Re:Questions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, what you're saying is everyone around me has Alzheimers.

    44. Re:Questions. by Zenaku · · Score: 1
      --
      If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
    45. Re:Questions. by kasperd · · Score: 1

      Thanks, that is indeed the one I had in mind. I misremembered the source. If I accidentally caused somebody to look up what else Neil deGrasse Tyson had to say about UFO sightings, I'd say no harm was done that way.

      I had briefly wondered if xkcd might have been the source before writing my post, so I looked it up and found a different view on the drake equation. It didn't occur to me that he had gotten inspiration from the drake equation more than once.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    46. Re:Questions. by Ancantus · · Score: 1

      ...but I was still frequently shocked at the level of ignorance and near complete lack of intellectual curiosity some people displayed after years in the US educational system.

      I am usually surprised that intellectual curiosity survives after years in the US educational system.

      --
      Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Isaac Asimov
  5. Good news, everybody. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows it was Zoidberg, Leela, Fry, Bender, and Professor Farnsworth.

    1. Re:Good news, everybody. by captjc · · Score: 1

      That's funny, I thought it was Quark, Rom, and Nog.

      --
      Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
    2. Re:Good news, everybody. by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      I thought it was an alien crash test

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  6. Riiiiiight by DurendalMac · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The document almost makes it sound like hearsay. It says an investigator stated that, but then goes on to say that it was provided by an informant. Doesn't sound terribly sound, and it says that no further investigation was done, which probably means that the FBI had a good laugh about it and then filed it away.

    1. Re:Riiiiiight by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agreed, this is only a filing of the report, no follow-up. It's customary in every law enforcement organisation to file every report, no matter how stupid. Hell, I've heard about the police filing a report by a guy claiming every evening, after the news ran, the newscasters came out of his TV set, and beat him. No investigation was done, naturally, but the report had to be filed, as the SOP went.

      Just another sensationalist samzenpus headline, it would seem...

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    2. Re:Riiiiiight by magarity · · Score: 2

      which probably means that the FBI had a good laugh about it and then filed it away.

      No, in the 40's it was still thought that Venus was probably inhabitable (ever read Heinlein's Future History?), and maybe Mars too, so the FBI guys probably were scared witless over a pending invasion.

    3. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      which probably means that the FBI had a good laugh about it and then filed it away.

      Or they were told by higher-ups or Uncle Sam not to "bother" with that. The reasons would be obvious. Cover up, panic, cold war advantage, etc.

    4. Re:Riiiiiight by t3sser4ct · · Score: 1
      Here's the text from the PDF of the actual memo:

      TO: DIRECTOR, FBI
      FROM: GUY HOTTEL, SAC, WASHINGTON
      SUBJECT: FLYING SAUCERS INFORMATION CONCERNING
      DATE: March 22, 1950

      The following information was furnished to SA [REDACTED]

      An investigator for the Air Forces stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed flyers and test pilots.

      According to Mr. [redacted] informant, the saucers were found in New Mexico due to the fact that the Government has a very high-powered radar set-up in that area and it is believed the radar interferes with the controlling mechanism of the saucers.

      No further evaluation was attempted by the SA [REDACTED] concerning the above.

      </karma whore>

    5. Re:Riiiiiight by dsheeks · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh come on, you obviously don't understand anything about proper conspiracy theory analysis. Obviously no further investigation was done because it was covered up. That fact alone (no further investigation) absolutely proves without a shadow of a doubt that the report was true and that aliens were found, taken to be autopsied, and that the autopsy findings were ultimately linked directly to the Kennedy assassination. Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy... what's become of the Slashdot commenters these days...

    6. Re:Riiiiiight by osu-neko · · Score: 2

      The document almost makes it sound like hearsay.

      No "almost" about it. The document is quite plainly a report of what someone said to an FBI agent, who dutifully recorded what the person said and filed the appropriate paperwork. It does not, contrary to the article, confirm a UFO, it confirms only the existence of people who claim the existence of a UFO -- which is hardly in need of further confirmation, being quite well established fact already.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    7. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > "every evening, after the news ran, the newscasters came out of his TV set, and beat him."

      Sounds Jonathan Hoag-like.

    8. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like monkeys used as test pilots, probably for some early, small, stealthy type plane.

    9. Re:Riiiiiight by _0xd0ad · · Score: 2

      Agreed, this is only a filing of the report, no follow-up. It's customary in every law enforcement organisation to file every report, no matter how stupid.

      No, it isn't just a "filing of the report". It's a memo to the Director of the FBI informing him of the report that they received.

      Granted that they do have to file something on every report they receive, I'd still presume that they don't send a memo to the FBI director every time some crackpot reports seeing UFOs.

    10. Re:Riiiiiight by nixman99 · · Score: 2

      Agreed, this is only a filing of the report, no follow-up. It's customary in every law enforcement organisation to file every report, no matter how stupid. Hell, I've heard about the police filing a report by a guy claiming every evening, after the news ran, the newscasters came out of his TV set, and beat him.

      Why the hell did he keep watching the news each night?

    11. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did they tell him what the frequency was?

    12. Re:Riiiiiight by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      They have at least done some investigation in order to figure out what kind of drugs this informant was on, wouldn't they?

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    13. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude. That wasn't cool. It really happened to me! Those fucking newscasters! I swear!

    14. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll give you the karma whore point, because you had to transcribe that by hand...

    15. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fact that people read science-fiction novels and were scared witless by radio programs doesn't mean that the majority thought there were little men on mars. It just means that there were lots of stupid people around at the time. Same as now, actually.

    16. Re:Riiiiiight by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I've heard about the police filing a report by a guy claiming every evening, after the news ran, the newscasters came out of his TV set, and beat him.

      Fox News can certainly feel that way
         

    17. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if he didn't the Vince Shlomi, came out with a Shamwow and would try to strangle him to death.

    18. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because it's funny and they thought the director could use a good chuckle? Because the government encourages the U.F.O. rumors to make Area 51 seem ridiculous and intentionally leaks things like this from time to time so everyone focuses on flying saucers and anal probing and pays less attention to whatever new classified new aircraft they're testing out in the desert (and if it takes some attention off all the wars we're fighting, the rampant stupidity and corruption
        and all the other BS that's going on in the world that's welcome too).

    19. Re:Riiiiiight by shpoffo · · Score: 1

      Nice job, agent.

      Anyone who can read and research knows that there exists lots of corroboration, when looking at the timeline of information.

    20. Re:Riiiiiight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For science! http://xkcd.com/242/

  7. Hearsay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The document is a report outlining another individual's report. It's neither admission nor documentation of the incident by the FBI, just a record that someone has made a statement about the incident. It's worthless.

    1. Re:Hearsay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sup dawg, I herd yo liek statements. So I make this statement about my display stating that my computer states that Slashdot states that you state that TFA statement you reached through what you state is TFS statement is just a statement about a statement about an observation: It's just a statement, dawg!

    2. Re:Hearsay by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      It's worthless.

      Not to Hollywood it isn't.

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    3. Re:Hearsay by sjames · · Score: 1

      Yes, these documents are absolute proof that someone claimed he saw a UFO. I suppose if there was a government conspiracy to deny the existence of UFO reports, this might mean something. :-)

    4. Re:Hearsay by trifish · · Score: 1

      someone has made a statement about the incident. It's worthless.

      Someone? Except that the someone was an official investigator (eye witness) giving testimony to an FBI agent (another credible party). That's world of a difference if you ask me.

    5. Re:Hearsay by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Someone? Except that the someone was an official investigator (eye witness) giving testimony to an FBI agent (another credible party). That's world of a difference if you ask me.

      Eh? Did you read the memo? Although it doesn't contradict what you just said, there's absolutely no claim made in it that the person in question was an eye witness, and you're being charitable in calling it "giving testimony", as the memo itself says nothing because that it was "said" by this other person. For all we can tell from the memo, it was casually said over a couple of drinks at the local bar, with the off-duty investigator assuming his G-man friend wouldn't take it seriously, much less file a report about it. I have no idea if that's the case, but the memo fails to say anything that contradicts that scenario, either. Don't insert into the memo allegations that it does not itself make.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    6. Re:Hearsay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All I see is your speculation. WTF did you take the "over a drink" crap? WTF, man? Baseless speculation.

    7. Re:Hearsay by khallow · · Score: 1

      Except that the someone was an official investigator (eye witness) giving testimony to an FBI agent (another credible party).

      There's no indication that the air force investigator was an eye witness, much less that anyone involved was serious.

    8. Re:Hearsay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bingo.

      If the names had not been blacked out, it might be useful in tracking down the source of the initial report, since to this day there's only ever been one person to claim he actually witnessed anything, and his testimony is suspect (to say the least).

  8. Asgard! by improfane · · Score: 1

    Just when I'm watching DS9 this comes up. AWESOME! This doesn't actually prove that there WERE actual aliens, only confirms of the original report which could just as well be bogus.

    I HOPE IT IS NOT. I want me an Asgard friend* and one of those computers that lets me build what I want!

    * Everyone knows that Slashdotters have no friends.

    --
    Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
    1. Re:Asgard! by Needlzor · · Score: 1

      Unless they somehow discover youtube and thus decide to destroy us all. I know I wouldn't blame them !

    2. Re:Asgard! by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      I have friends. My Mom said so and I believe her.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    3. Re:Asgard! by corbettw · · Score: 1

      Your mom's not a trustworthy source. After all, she told me she was clean and I still wound up with the clap.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
    4. Re:Asgard! by isorox · · Score: 1

      Just when I'm watching DS9 this comes up. AWESOME! This doesn't actually prove that there WERE actual aliens, only confirms of the original report which could just as well be bogus.

      I HOPE IT IS NOT. I want me an Asgard friend* and one of those computers that lets me build what I want!

      * Everyone knows that Slashdotters have no friends.

      Ferengi == DS9
      Asgard == SG1

    5. Re:Asgard! by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      Nah, as a Slashdotter, the most you can hope for is a holographic projection of an Asgard friend.

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    6. Re:Asgard! by Oceanplexian · · Score: 1

      Actually, I seriously hope that this was a hoax or a cover for some military technology.

      Any encounter with actual beings from another planet will 99% of the time, not turn out well. The sheer difference in technological development would be the equivalent difference between us, and a common fruit fly.

    7. Re:Asgard! by dominious · · Score: 2

      Any encounter with actual beings from another planet will 99% of the time, not turn out well

      Because it already happened 100 times and only 1 of them turned out to be good right?

      The sheer difference in technological development would be the equivalent difference between us, and a common fruit fly.

      You make common assumptions that COULD be wrong.

    8. Re:Asgard! by lennier · · Score: 1

      The sheer difference in technological development would be the equivalent difference between us, and a common fruit fly.

      So... we meet aliens, we find a way into their solar systems, watch as they store up huge container-loads of goodies, we steal it all without any side effects, they scream and yell at us ineffectually and swat us with planet-buster missiles which miss by trillions of lightyears nd then sigh and give up, and we snigger and go on helping ourselves to their stuff?

      A terrifying vision of the dark future.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    9. Re:Asgard! by Apothem · · Score: 1

      I'd be more worried about them finding 4chan....

  9. finally, some friendly honest folks offer help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDVt_hSo_EU&NR=1

    so spys really do like us?

  10. April Fools! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I didn't realize it was still April Fools day...maybe someone forgot to notice the 0 after the 1 in 10.

  11. wat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    epic

  12. Secret FBI memo by seepho · · Score: 1

    Is it really a "Secret FBI memo" if I can get it on the FBI's website?

    1. Re:Secret FBI memo by webmistressrachel · · Score: 1

      No, but it used to be a "Secret FBI Memo" until someone got hold of details of the names and dates, and requested it under Freedom of Info laws.

      It was then published under the FOIA, rendering it an "Ex-Secret FBI Memo". Thanks for playing.

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    2. Re:Secret FBI memo by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Was Cleopatra really a beautiful pharaoh if she's actually a pile of dust and bones?

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    3. Re:Secret FBI memo by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      So, your point is that since it's just a report filed about the fact that some (non-FBI) guy said some ridiculous, unverifiable nonsense, that the report shouldn't have been filed away (let alone secretly) in the first place, right?

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    4. Re:Secret FBI memo by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      So it was never secret, but it was instead just previously unknown. "Secret" means they wouldn't have released it under FOIA.

  13. Radar interference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So they believe the powerfull radar in the area messed up the saucer's equipment.

    1. Re:Radar interference by zill · · Score: 2

      Just like how in most movies a 5.56x45mm round drops the alien invaders dead despite the fact they managed to survive a crash landing to Earth.

    2. Re:Radar interference by navyjeff · · Score: 1

      Maybe inertial damping fields don't work on bullets?

    3. Re:Radar interference by froggymana · · Score: 1

      Or perhaps they were damaged by the crash landing and the bullet shot pushed them over the edge?

      --
      "To prevent this day from getting any worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD THING" 1GJU8xLuDKDxEs4KLf8fAGyptoDsqvEsBT
    4. Re:Radar interference by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      Just like how in most movies a 5.56x45mm round drops the alien invaders dead despite the fact they managed to survive a crash landing to Earth.

      There is not an inconsistency there.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  14. April fools? by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow, I have been spending way too much time coding. I completely lost track of the date!

    --
    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:April fools? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I take it you weren't a Y2K debugger

  15. obligatory by austinpoet · · Score: 5, Funny

    does the document detail whether the base did, after all, belong to them?

    1. Re:obligatory by MarkRose · · Score: 1

      Of course. In fact, it's written in stone.

      --
      Be relentless!
    2. Re:obligatory by sisinka · · Score: 1

      whether the base was, after all, belong to they
      FTFY

      --
      My parser is a grammar nazi.
  16. Read the article carefully by lscotte · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the article carefully - it neither denies nor confirms anything. This is a report documenting what an informant said, and does not suggest any first hand knowledge about anything...

    --
    This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
  17. Al lwe need to know by BlindRobin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is just how did Obama manage this from Kenya BEFORE hes was born, I bet Glen knows...

    1. Re:Al lwe need to know by zill · · Score: 1

      Too bad the aliens removed him from Fox. Now we may never know the truth.

    2. Re:Al lwe need to know by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 1

      Duh, Obama is an alien who came to Earth to get revenge for his fallen Muslim space-communist comrades, so cruelly attacked by that American radar installation. Why do you think he is hiding his birth certificate? It's because he was born in space! Isn't it clear that he's here to destroy our planet, or at least prepare it for alien colonization?

    3. Re:Al lwe need to know by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      That would explain a lot. I mean what human would admit he eats arugula?

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    4. Re:Al lwe need to know by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      The ears are a dead giveaway!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    5. Re:Al lwe need to know by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      No, it was the MAN that got rid of Beck... they always take people out when they get to close to the TRUTH! First Bob Marley, now Glenn Beck! Wait... he's still alive? Damn!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    6. Re:Al lwe need to know by unitron · · Score: 1

      You know, he does remind me a little of Tuvok.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  18. Horrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Worst slashdot article title ever

    1. Re:Horrible by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 1

      FBI Releases Document Confirming *A REPORT OF A* Roswell UFO

      FTFY

    2. Re:Horrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FTFY

      Twitter twaddle.

    3. Re:Horrible by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 1

      Oh, I'm so sorry for using an abbreviation that's been in common use on /. for years. Maybe you could post on your account instead of AC next time you want to crtiticise someone.

  19. Deception against soviets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just proves that one arm of government was good at deceiving\misinforming another arm while trying to deceive a different government.

  20. Reverse cover up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Funny how they chose to cover up a military experiment with a UFO story. They thought UFO crashes were so common no one would bother asking questions.

  21. brought down by RADAR? by Zecheus · · Score: 1

    Really. We are to believe these have some level of technology that is vulnerable to RADAR?

    1. Re:brought down by RADAR? by RockoTDF · · Score: 2

      (speaking purely hypothetically) If radar is dead technology to them, they could have. I'm pretty sure catapulting a boulder into the shuttle or setting an F-16 on fire would do some damage. I would imagine that any sort of miraculous hover technology is dependent on manipulating magnetic fields. So I'd imagine that it caused some kind of interference that made the craft difficult to fly and eventually brought it down (as opposed to just dropping out of the sky). (I am not a physicist or engineer)

      --
      There is more to science than physics!

      www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
    2. Re:brought down by RADAR? by tgd · · Score: 1, Insightful

      (I am not a physicist or engineer)

      Yes, we can tell.

    3. Re:brought down by RADAR? by eljasbo · · Score: 3, Funny

      As an avid follower of the x-files (at least until that awful final movie), i believe i have some expertise that can clarify this further. The alien craft do indeed manipulate the magnetic fields. However naturally magnetic materials can make this technology malfunction. The reason they crashed into the roswell desert is due to the high concentration of magnetite in the area that caused their guidance systems to go haywire. This magnetite concentration is also the reason ancient civilizations such as the Anasazi built villages among the hills in these parts, and why the illuminati have started creating modern villages in these parts to live when the new world order arrives. This magnetite rich environment protects any inhabitants from the powers an alien civilization uses to control humans, and is the only hope for human civilization to survive. The hybrid alien/human species will take over every other area of the planet, but those who live in the desert with the magnetite will survive and be able to repopulate the planet.

    4. Re:brought down by RADAR? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine a small shuttlecraft like saucer with not much shielding getting struck by a high powered radar beam and
      losing navigational control during high G maneveurs.Is it any stupider than early cell phones interfering with communications equipment?
      Aliens wouldnt have tech screw ups???

    5. Re:brought down by RADAR? by Entropius · · Score: 1

      The issue here is energy density. A very strong radar set might put out 1 megawatt of power; the intensity of that forty miles away is about a milliwatt per meter squared.

      It takes *vastly* less energy to communicate (with radar or radio) than to actually do anything, like heat your food or make a magic hoohah floaty-drive work.

    6. Re:brought down by RADAR? by Zecheus · · Score: 1

      Thanks for that explanation. For a while I had lost hope for the human race.

    7. Re:brought down by RADAR? by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Really. We are to believe these have some level of technology that is vulnerable to RADAR?

      The kids out for a joyride in their parent's fully automated UFO were certainly unprepared to fly it manually when the RADAR, never before encountered by the on board computers, caused an unforeseen case to be fallen into in the code, revealing in the most tragic of ways a previously undiscovered bug in the guidance software.

      If you think those with advanced technology would naturally have the best software available, explain the continuing dominance of Microsoft on the desktop? Hmm?

      Shit goes wrong. The more complex the technology, the more spectacularly it goes wrong...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    8. Re:brought down by RADAR? by unity100 · · Score: 1

      it says usaf's initial guess is that new radar brought them down. that is just a guess. they did not say that they know radar did.

    9. Re:brought down by RADAR? by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      I find your ideas intriguing, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    10. Re:brought down by RADAR? by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      The old radars put out a crap load of power, enough to scramble the brains of migrating birds that flew over them. They would circle for hours, their directional sense apparently gone haywire. They would also pretty much microwave cook anything really close to them.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    11. Re:brought down by RADAR? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Yes, we can tell.

      Well, I am a physicist and an engineer, and I can assure you that catapulting a bolder into the shuttle could indeed damage it. (However, how they would get a torsion weapon like a catapult along with crew into orbit or on a military base like where the shuttle lands or is stored is beyond me.)

    12. Re:brought down by RADAR? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize that we are speculating about alien technology that is likely far beyond the understanding of any engineer on earth at this point, right? You don't know how their "electronics" (for lack of a better term) work. If such a craft were brought down by radar, we would have no way of knowing if it were even the propulsion system that was screwed with.

    13. Re:brought down by RADAR? by tgd · · Score: 1

      I don't have to speculate about the techology. All I need to to know is that there's nothing particularly strange about the radio waves used in radar. They're not a unique frequency. They're not an unusual power level. They're not unusually polarized. Because of that, it doesn't matter what the alien technology is. If RADAR took it out, they couldn't have gotten here because there's a whole lot of RF between here and wherever they came from.

      Thus the point. The original poster was just being stupid, as was the other reply to my post. I *absolutely* with 100% certainty can say that no alien technology will be taken out by our RADAR because they wouldn't have gotten here. Anyone who was a physicist, an engineer, or franky who has a moderate level of common sense would realize that.

  22. The truth is out there by dgun · · Score: 1

    or not.

    --
    FAQs are evil.
  23. Dwarf test pilots by mkraft · · Score: 4, Informative

    The document says "so-called flying saucers" with 3 foot tall human shaped bodies wearing test pilot guard, No where does it say "aliens" in the document. They were obviously dwarf test pilots.

    1. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Peet42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, you're not so far off one of the more interesting "oddball" theories.

      Lets assume that something happened. There was a communication blackout, the local undertaker was asked to provide three child-sized coffins and thereafter the Army Air Force claim that nothing happened.

      The "oddball" theory is that a scaled-down test plane, manned by children crashed in the desert. Can you imagine the US Government ever admitting to that?

    2. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Garb, test pilot garb.

    3. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      No where does it say "aliens" in the document. They were obviously dwarf test pilots.

      Dwarfs may have been very useful for small craft needed for specialized missions. They fit in places others can't. (Please, no sexual midget jokes.)

    4. Re:Dwarf test pilots by timholman · · Score: 1

      They were obviously dwarf test pilots.

      All humor aside, it is worth noting that the description of the "aliens" coincides perfectly with the image of "little green men" common in movies, books, and comics of the era. After "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" became a hit, the imagery of popular culture changed, and the descriptions of aliens shifted accordingly.

      As you read the alien encounter stories from the 50's and 60's, it becomes quite obvious how the stories of extraterrestrial visitation are basically rehashed images from popular culture of the time, with the aliens possessing none of the day-to-day technology that is so commonplace today - because it didn't exist in movies and TV shows.

      I have no doubt that 40 or 50 years from now, our grandchildren will find today's stories of close encounters equally amusing, because they all lack some "obvious" technological development that the aliens did not possess.

    5. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey that would make a GREAT concept for a Japanese cartoon series...

    6. Re:Dwarf test pilots by lennier · · Score: 2

      They were obviously dwarf test pilots.

      But don''t you see, that's the real coverup here!

      What effect will our dealings with dwarves have on US diplomatic relations with the Rivendell Elves?

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    7. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The "oddball" theory is that a scaled-down test plane, manned by children crashed in the desert. Can you imagine the US Government ever admitting to that?

      Why not?

      The US government will admit to killing hundreds of unarmed civilians (children included) as well as quite a few other undesirable things.
      It just takes time for the full story to come out.
      1947 should be "old enough" for that type of info, especially considering the amount of people that would have had to have been involved with the alleged program and "coverup".

    8. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      The "oddball" theory is that a scaled-down test plane, manned by chimpanzees crashed in the desert.

      FTFY. It's even more plausible, but unlikely to be admitted to.

    9. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they needed some crates to pack all the debris into. They don't have any handy, since they were in a rush, and the actual recovery guys won't be here for a few hours. They don't want any civilians seeing whatever it was. So, they go into town, and find an undertaker. The undertaker has wooden boxes, of an appropriate size, which can be sealed easily. That'll do - we'll have three, please.

      Seriously - if you're going to cover up an alien crash, why would you put the alien bodies in coffins? That'd just be stupid.

    10. Re:Dwarf test pilots by meglon · · Score: 1

      Dwarf test pilots? How do you test pilot a dwarf?

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    11. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "oddball" theory is that a scaled-down test plane, manned by children crashed in the desert. Can you imagine the US Government ever admitting to that?

      That was always a theory I rather liked.
      But I thought it was more plausible that the AF was using adults with Dwarfism in an effort to reduce weight by shrinking the space requirements for the cockpit and etc. I've always wondered if the UFO theorists have ever bothered reviewing Air Force external recruitment programs, since children or dwarves would not be found in the uniformed ranks of regular AF personnel. If anyone is planning on doing the research, I'd recommend checking with hospitals that treated dwarfism-related maladies, as well as various Boy Scout troops in the region.

      I think the request to provide three child-sized coffins is pretty good proof that the bodies were human. If there had been any kind of entity from a different planet, or any kind of previously unseen form of life, they would have loaded them up in some bags or something and hauled them back to a lab. The LAST thing they would have done is stuck them in a coffin and buried them.

    12. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Peet42 · · Score: 1

      The US Government could weather the storm of a few animal-testing protestors, but any government that was in office when they revealed that they had killed children to see if a plane would fly knows that, even though they didn't actually do it, they would be out of office in a flash and never allowed to return. It's the kind of secret that could never be revealed.

    13. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh please, they were OBVIOUSLY gnomes!

    14. Re:Dwarf test pilots by ygtai · · Score: 1

      The medium height of 90 cm for human is at about 25-30 months old. I don't think it's a good idea for human children of that age to pilot any real test plane...

    15. Re:Dwarf test pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      would it not be possible that the 3 human shaped bodies only 3ft tall could have been chimps, or monkeys? after all the yanks and the had tryed sending them into space in a rocket that cost enough to buy a small island - would it not be possible that some idiot came up with crazy idea of using them as test pilots? i admit for what kind of vehical exactly i really dont know but it would seem to fit and would explain previous comments about roswell base ordering 3 child size coffins

  24. conspiracy in these comments by Titan1080 · · Score: 1

    too many AC naysayers here. clearly the govt. is still trying to cover it up.

    1. Re:conspiracy in these comments by Beelzebud · · Score: 1

      Obviously you are a CIA plant here to do psy-ops on the board by instilling doubt in the ACs!

    2. Re:conspiracy in these comments by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      Oh, that kind of stufff only exists in spy movies. Those CIA types are really cool: They eVen sent me a fre3 videp gaeme calllled "Polybius"! i;ts reallty COool.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    3. Re:conspiracy in these comments by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Nah, the government agents all have slashdot accounts. With low user numbers.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  25. Releasing it now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ... so the human race is prepared for the incoming attack fleet of aliens that are on the edge of the solar system as we speak.

    That is all.

    1. Re:Releasing it now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Joking or not, I do find it amusing that people always assume that an alien race is coming to attack us. What if they're peaceful - or, like some of us, are simply interested in finding out if they're 'alone' or not. It could simply be a scouting mission for finding other intelligent life in the known galaxy.

      I'm not happy to say this, but I feel humans would be the aggressors and probably attack first (and ask questions later) fueled by the general insecurity, hubris and fear. Too much Hollywood and video games - and not enough thinking.

  26. call Agent Mulder ! by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 2

    call Agent Mulder !

    1. Re:call Agent Mulder ! by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      You call Mulder, I'd much rather talk to Scully!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:call Agent Mulder ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, this is a classic case of demon fetal harvest.

  27. Suspicious timing by Livius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem with the Roswell folklore has always been that the story completely went away until the point in time when, coincidentally, the actual witnesses had died of old age.

    1. Re:Suspicious timing by turkeyfish · · Score: 2

      With the high prices of gasoline, it looks as if Roswell is getting desperate for tourists.

      If they want to save their industry, they need to hurry up and find the bodies. Lack of bodies clear demonstrates that the entire thing is a scam, but hey that pretty well sums up business practices in the US these days.

    2. Re:Suspicious timing by Peet42 · · Score: 1

      The story went away completely until the National Enquirer published a plea for people to submit their memories of "the incident" and be paid for any that were "Interesting" enough to publish. I think that was 1971 or 1972.

    3. Re:Suspicious timing by Again · · Score: 1

      The problem with the Roswell folklore has always been that the story completely went away until the point in time when, coincidentally, the actual witnesses had died of old age.

      If you want to read an eyewitness's account of what allegedly happened, then go read the book The Day After Roswell by Phillip Corso. I haven't read it but apparently it's interesting.

    4. Re:Suspicious timing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      rather like the story with Jesus you mean?

  28. 1950? by recoisiche · · Score: 1

    Now, I'm no expert on this incident, but Wikipedia says that the first report of a flying disk came in 1947. This memo was dated March 22, 1950. It doesn't say when the statement was issued (or that part has been redacted), but if people had already been speculating about flying saucers, then that eyewitness account proves nothing.

    Also, that is a major MAJOR headline fail.

    1. Re:1950? by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Nothing in the memo asserts that the informant was an eyewitness. It doesn't even say he actually investigated this particular incident in any official capacity, or at all, really.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    2. Re:1950? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1

      Also, that is a major MAJOR headline fail.

      You're new around here, aren't you.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  29. Finally, proof... by istartedi · · Score: 1

    ...that somebody at the FBI has a sense of humor?

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  30. Aprils fool by Snaller · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that was an aprils fool guys.

    --
    If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
    1. Re:Aprils fool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, that was an aprils fool guys.

      Funny, I never knew April Fool's was the 10th of December, 2010.

  31. Nothing new here by ALeader71 · · Score: 1

    We've had confirmations for years. I still say this is the cheapest way to keep our true tech level a secret from the rest of the world. This is a self-feeding conspiracy theory.

    --
    Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
    1. Re:Nothing new here by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      We've had confirmations for years

      We've had confirmation of what for years? That someone told an FBI agent some nonsense? Yes, we've seen plenty of that over the years. I'm sure there are FBI interview reports indcating that they've been told about people's experiences with Leprechauns, Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, and the Arkansas state trooper that took them to Bill Clinton's hotel room when he was governor, too.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  32. Who cares? by no-body · · Score: 1

    1 - If any government comes into possession of unknown advanced technology gaining a (military/economic) advantage over other's, they will hide it, make it top secret, obscure it and take any measures to keep it that way.

    2 - Considering the number of existing suns and planets of known galaxies, one can be 100 % sure that there are other advanced civilizations far older than the 0.4 - 1.5 M years since human-like species on this planet have used fire.

    3 - Would a more advanced species even bother to deal with humans on this planet given the idiocy going on - hardly.

    So, get a beer!

    1. Re:Who cares? by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      4 - We might be good for a laugh, but that about it. Comedy tourism, perhaps?

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:Who cares? by no-body · · Score: 1

      4 - We might be good for a laugh, but that about it. Comedy tourism, perhaps?

      Really? I'd say pity (probably already happening) - it's such a great planet, or was in the near future until the next species is "created by god in his own image".

  33. bla bla bla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ho hum. If the aliens thought we were worth rescuing, they would have come back already.

    1. Re:bla bla bla by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Dude, they were just looking for a bathroom! You have any idea how hard it is to find a rest stop in this spiral arm of the galaxy?

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  34. my personal theory by jollyreaper · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Area 51 is chock full of advanced but terrestrial technology. The government leaks this stuff seemingly confirming UFO's or half-assed and inadequate cover stories just to stir up conspiracy nuts. You tell someone you saw strange things in the sky over Groom Lake, people will smile and twirl their fingers in circles beside their heads.

    I think the odds of alien life in this universe are very good; I think the odds for intelligent life are also good. But unless there's some lovely scifi physics waiting out there for us, space travel seems like it'll be awfully damned expensive and complicated. And little green men in flying saucers seems a little too -- how should I put it --- mundane? Too mundane for an interstellar alien intelligence.

    When you consider that in light of the cheesy denials, it seems like it's not just paranoids getting worked up over nothing, it looks like the government is egging them on. Therefore my theory of using aliens to cover for the real secrets.

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    1. Re:my personal theory by sjames · · Score: 4, Funny

      How do you know that's not what they want you to believe?

    2. Re:my personal theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      probably. it was no weather balloon in that famious crash; I met the photographer who was on base at the time. He wasn't allowed near the thing and he had top security clearance. He documented nuclear testing including 1 of the bombs dropped on japan -- when it was really new and really secret. Some UFO 'nuts' confirmed the guys identity; he didn't seem to have any reason to mess with people - in fact it was his neighbor who set him up with some people to check him out; he didn't seem all that interested and wasn't sure it was a UFO but knew it was a big cover up probably on par with something like that.

      He said the "weather balloon" was put into a hanger surrounded by fencing and guards and nobody was allowed near it; he was surprised he wasn't allowed or called upon to document it since that was his job. He said they never were so extreme about keeping something secret and was sure it was no weather balloon. If it wasn't a big deal then they sure over did it for something not worth documenting. The paper on base is the one that called it a UFO and he thought that was where the term and story came from that 1 issue that got out.

    3. Re:my personal theory by hey! · · Score: 1

      Dang, we used to be such a great country. Now we're just a bunch of ignorant, unimaginative blockheads bickering over the legacy of our better, more creative forbears. Even our cynical government conspiracies look like crap next to theirs.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    4. Re:my personal theory by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      The odds of any aliens considering it worthwhile to travel all the way to our planet, except for the purpose of exterminating us, are extremely small. We're still here, so obviously they haven't been here.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    5. Re:my personal theory by Antisyzygy · · Score: 1

      It has to be possible to make interstellar travel economical and feasible for humans to do eventually. It just may take several thousand years.

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
    6. Re:my personal theory by vux984 · · Score: 1

      The odds of any aliens considering it worthwhile to travel all the way to our planet, except for the purpose of exterminating us, are extremely small. We're still here, so obviously they haven't been here.

      And yet we're plumbing the depths of the oceans, the insides of volcanoes, and the surface of mars... and we get excited when we find evidence bacteria might have been there at some point... ... just saying.

    7. Re:my personal theory by vux984 · · Score: 1

      And little green men in flying saucers seems a little too -- how should I put it --- mundane?

      That's what the little green men say too...

      Giant pale men to full on mocha-men in flying wiener shaped spacecraft? Tee hee,...

    8. Re:my personal theory by garompeta · · Score: 1

      Not mundane, it would make sense under the light of Convergent Evolution.
      Like it is said in K-PAX: Why all bubbles have the same shape? Maybe it is because it is the most efficient shape, under the current physical laws.

    9. Re:my personal theory by garompeta · · Score: 1

      That reasoning is retrograde. You can't extrapolate inhumanity to extraterrestrials. Not because we are immature and uncivilized it means that every single species in the universe are as self-centered assholes as we are.

    10. Re:my personal theory by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Area 51 is chock full of advanced but terrestria technology.

      No. Paste tense only, please. Area 51 is a chemical dump. An industrial hazard. It has been largely shut down for many years now.

      But unless there's some lovely scifi physics waiting out there for us, space travel seems like it'll be awfully damned expensive and complicated.

      Before the invention of the steam engine, traveling a thousand miles would have seemed dammed near impossible too. A working Boussard ramjet or other sustainable fusion reactor would completely redefine space travel, and make intergallactic travel quite possible.

      NOTE: I didn't say you'd hop on a ship and head to the far end of the universe, as space westerns depict future space travel. Instead it's likely to be something like solar-system hopping space colonization... a few hundred people get on a ship, fly for 5 years to reach the next solar system, and build up society and industry just in time for a number of their kids to grow up and get on the next ship going to the next solar system.

      I think the odds of alien life in this universe are very good; I think the odds for intelligent life are also good.

      I don't. I believe it's far too covenient that with a massive number of unknowns, and no evidence, that people (scientists included) are reaching the conclusion that there MUST be intelligent life out there, somewhere. It strikes me as purely wishful thinking that then gets justified despite no evidence objectively supporting it. It seems everyone just WANTS the Deus Ex Machina to be out there, ready to come along and solving all our problems, and giving us an easy shortcut to everything we hope to accomplish.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    11. Re:my personal theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My thoughts exactly. After seeing documentaries claiming agents threatening "UFO" witnesses with accusations of spying for communists, it occurred to me that they government guys were hiding something much more ... down to Earth, but still extremely secretive. Same goes for Area 51. which is obviously a top secret advanced aircraft technology test grounds, which is not a secret itself, but technology researched and tested certainly is.

      I would be very surprised if it would turn out that there wasn't any Soviet/Russian/Chinese spies among "ufologists". When you think about it, it is very clever intelligence strategy - by launching a hoax, you can recruit thousands of reconnaissance observers who wouldn't suspect they were used up against their own country, on pretext of satisfying some higher, supranational goal, such as advancement of science or contacting extra terrestrial intelligent beings. Perhaps similar operations were used repeatedly through history to target some specific individuals or organisations, sometimes growing out of control and turning into mass hysteria, thus rendering the whole operation useless, but nevertheless working successfully for a certain finite initial period. For example, disseminating among citizens of an Bronze Age city a legend that foreigners are sometimes supernatural beings in disguise, you can make sure that every stranger will make a lot of excitement in the city, so you wouldn't miss any infiltrators.

    12. Re:my personal theory by epine · · Score: 1

      One of the biggest secrets of all is when you haven't actually got a secret, but wish to convince some people that you really do.

      No one would be sent in to document a secret about not having a secret if you're trying to make it look like a chart topper. Getting people so wigged out that no-one knows who to believe is SOP in these matters. Furthermore, the director of the FBI would potentially receive memos on both sides of the matter: reality, and the ruse regarded as reality. Presumably, he's paid to know which are which. Memo writers themselves are not in on the loop.

      The other possibility is that they got a very stiff message over subspace about messing with an intergalactic accident scene, and the entire Milky Way has been cordoned off ever since pending arrival of the investigatory team.

      The next big secret will be the direction reversal of the Voyager space probe when it bounces off the intergalactic yellow police tape.

      I know exactly what goes on (or went on) at Area 51. The whole place functions just like the two kids in the teletype room in "The Falcon and the Snowman" who mix martinis with the paper shredder. All those kids had to cover their antics was a locked door with an ominous security clearance. Area 51 has rings of Misty Mountains within which to squander a Saudi-like feed of taxpayer dollars. It's a boys with toys tree fort packed to the rafters with things that blow up operating under a regime of oversight through inuendo.

    13. Re:my personal theory by ozbird · · Score: 1

      You tell someone you saw strange things in the sky over Groom Lake, people will smile and twirl their fingers in circles beside their heads.

      That's the sign for circular polarised mind control rays; you never say it because of listening devices.

      Excuse me, there's someone at the door.

    14. Re:my personal theory by lennier · · Score: 1

      Area 51 is chock full of advanced but terrestrial technology

      ... that isn't quite out of beta yet, but if you don't mind a laser Gatling gun that only explodes killing the operator once every fifty shots, is perfectly usable. Oh, and never touch that trailing wire, no not that one, the oth -

      FEYOOOWWWWWWOOOOOOOMMMMMM

      Jenkins! Cleanup team in Hangar 19! And we're going to need another of those robot duplicates of the General.

      Okay, that's the last time we're giving the brass a tour of the labs until we work all the bugs out.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    15. Re:my personal theory by lennier · · Score: 1

      The odds of any aliens considering it worthwhile to travel all the way to our planet, except for the purpose of exterminating us, are extremely small.

      And we know precisely the energy cost of interstellar travel, and the motivations of alien species... how?

      The only thing we know for sure about quantum mechanics and general relativity are that they must be incomplete because they're mutually contradictory, yet some cosmologists feel perfectly happy extrapolating our ignorance of fundamental physics to all other sentient races, from a billion years in the past to a billion years in the future. That's some cosmic chutzpuh right there.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    16. Re:my personal theory by lennier · · Score: 1

      and we get excited when we find evidence bacteria might have been there at some point.

      Of course we're excited, it means more lifeforms to exterminate! HU-MAN RACE! HU-MAN RACE! We're No. 1! Primates rock! Single-celled organisms suck! Huzzah for Her Majesty's etheric solarwindjammer fleet!

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    17. Re:my personal theory by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > Area 51 is chock full of advanced but terrestrial technology.

      That would be foolish at this point, because Area 51 is quite famous, virtually a byword for conspiracy theory. There's way too much risk that somebody would manage to figure out how to sneak a peek.

      At one time, Area 51 may well have been chock full of advanced (for the time) technology, possibly including various experimental aircraft, some of which may have since been declassified, others not. At this point, however, anybody who wanted to keep anything secret (and was at all clever about doing so) would certainly not put it there.

      Sure, *some* people will ignore whatever is there on the assumption that there's nothing to be found but a heaping load of wacky tabloid space-alien conspiracy theory. However, other people would want to investigate it anyway, and if you want to keep something secret you have to keep it secret from both kinds of people. It makes a lot more sense to put a weather station at Area 51 and maybe a training center for, I don't know, radar operators or some jazz like that, pay a few soldiers to guard it (hey, we've got to have a standing trained army anyway), and let it be a decoy.

      If I were in charge of it, I'd pipe /dev/random through a filter that transforms everything into alphanumeric characters, print a few hundred thousand pages of the results, and fill up a large set of locked filing cabinets with that, just in case anyone ever does break in. Put nice color-coded labels on the folders, each marked with a randomly selected dictionary word.

      Then I'd run a Markov chain generator on a large collection of input, pipe its output through a relatively simple substitution cipher, and fill another set of locked cabinets with that.

      I'd fill the third set of cabinets with random unimportant junk paper, like obsolete office memos about when the next staff meeting is and the new enlightened gender-equality improvements to the dress code policy, doodles made while bored during meetings, and whatever other meaningless junk makes itself available. The bodies of randomly selected messages from usenet, whatever, it doesn't matter as long as it looks like text and isn't important. Maybe I'd have a low-level file clerk use disappearing ink (or just lemon juice) to circle or underline a few letters at random on each page.

      Call it a shell game: anybody who manages to break in and steal samples of the files (or even all the files if they're really good) can have a jolly old time trying to figure out which ones are the red herrings and which ones contain the top secret info, but there's no risk of their figuring out anything of consequence, because in fact the pea isn't actually under any of the shells at all. Well, that's what I'd do, anyway.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    18. Re:my personal theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The aliens are in your head, just ask the cult of Scientology.

    19. Re:my personal theory by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      I didn't say you'd hop on a ship and head to the far end of the universe, as space westerns depict future space travel. Instead it's likely to be something like solar-system hopping space colonization...

      ...as the only "space westerns" depict future space travel. Firefly took place in one solar system.

    20. Re:my personal theory by meglon · · Score: 1

      “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” -- Calvin

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    21. Re:my personal theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you consider that in light of the cheesy denials, it seems like it's not just paranoids getting worked up over nothing, it looks like the government is egging them on. Therefore my theory of using aliens to cover for the real secrets.

      It's not a theory, the military has outright admitted to it. At first, they tried to deny anything happened, but that just whipped people up into even more of a conspiracy frenzy. (Oh, they denied it, eh? Then it MUST be true!!!)
      Then they realized that any time the public got a whiff of whatever top secret test project was underway, they could just say "Well, we can't tell you folks anything except that this was NOT a UFO with aliens in it!" and the public would froth at the mouth over the Coverup of the Impending Alien Invasion.

      What made it even more appealing, was that the public uproar was enough to convince the Soviets that we might actually have come into possession of alien technology. Especially since we kept denying it; this obviously meant we had some new tech that would lead to a Super Weapon that would render their Nukes obsolete. This freaked them out so badly that they launched their own secret, official UFO investigation.

    22. Re:my personal theory by Issarlk · · Score: 1

      Maybe they're alien hippies? Make love, not war. All that stuff.
      Also, why bother going to some planet to kill stuff when you have awesome lifelike MMORPGs to satisfy any "exterminate! kill! destroy!" urges?

    23. Re:my personal theory by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Not every other species. It only takes one civilization of assholes and all the civilized, non-violent, pacifist civilizations either get wiped out or go into hiding. The good news is, we might be lucky enough to be that one civilization!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    24. Re:my personal theory by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      We know nothing of motivations, but energy costs can pretty safely be projected as astronomical even with our current rudimentary understanding of physics.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    25. Re:my personal theory by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      And we know precisely the energy cost of interstellar travel, and the motivations of alien species... how?

      From the Roswell incident, of course! :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    26. Re:my personal theory by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      Except that it's not really little green men. It's large, hairy men. What do you think why Yeti and Bigfoot were only seen occasionally, and never found when searched for? Well, obviously because they were there only a short time, then went back to their flying saucers and left the planet when nobody watched! :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    27. Re:my personal theory by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      Maybe they're alien hippies? Make love, not war. All that stuff.

      So the anal probes are really attempts to have sex with us? :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    28. Re:my personal theory by garompeta · · Score: 1

      We should be aware of being too anthropocentric.
      I have a personal theory that tries to prove that advanced civilizations can not be hostile (or to be more prudent, it is very improbable), I might finish the essay one day but my arguments are quite strong. But the thing is, I wonder what could I do with it once I finish it.

    29. Re:my personal theory by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      You're saying if they were too hostile they would have wiped themselves out? Not necessarily. You can be xenocidal without being homicidal.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    30. Re:my personal theory by garompeta · · Score: 1
      That doesn't make sense. Homocidal vs. xenocidal might make sense in a pure rhetorical debate. But we are not talking about logic: psychologically speaking, it is absurd.

      That, plus other variables that I've left out, makes me feel very confident of my conclusions.

  35. the goverment worldwide toyed with us by Mr_Nitro · · Score: 1

    to the point that they can even disclose real material without any fear for any reaction anymore, mission ******* accomplished. so sad. mrn

    1. Re:the goverment worldwide toyed with us by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      You do know that you don't need to bleep out the word "fucking" on slashdot, don't you?

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:the goverment worldwide toyed with us by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      No, no, he's cool with the word "fucking." "Belgium" is a whole other level of obscene, though, and I can understand why some would self-censor.

    3. Re:the goverment worldwide toyed with us by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      He didn't. The mission was called "*******", to be pronounced "seven stars".

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  36. ufo Disclosure Project. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vyVe-6YdUk

  37. Why there will be no more probing by Ranger · · Score: 1

    Two documentaries explaining why those aliens will never contact us First Contact and They Are Made Out of Meat .

    --
    "You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
  38. Last Modified Date by nettdata · · Score: 1

    Is it a coincidence that the last modified date on the PDF is March 31?

    You know... as in the day before April Fools?

    If that were the case, I'd be even more scared... who would have thought the FBI had a sense of humour?

    --



    $0.02 (CDN)
    1. Re:Last Modified Date by sjames · · Score: 4, Funny

      All right now, aliens in Roswell is one thing, but you actually expect me to believe a government agency has a sense of humor?

  39. queer cave people falling out of ufos over utah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    more mormons? not another missing hymen joke? jesus & the easter bunny are still tossing the coin (best out of infinity, or the bunny gets all the lettuce), over whois doing the big parade/pageant/sports events gigs next week...

    all mommys.... they're aiming the biblical holyographic laser canons at us now.

    1. Re:queer cave people falling out of ufos over utah by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Man, this AI is SOOOO flunking the Turing test! This is just random gibberish! Even ELIZA could do better than that!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  40. most misleading slashdot headline ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The FBI records testimony for all sorts of incidents. They sometimes release those testimonials. The testimonials are worthless except if backed by evidence. I'm pretty sure they have testimony from random people for all sorts of things.

    The release of sealed testimony hardly confirms anything. The release of this document means that at some point someone said these things to a FBI investigator and he wrote them down. Saying that this "confirms UFOs" is ridiculous. What it really means is that someone told investigators this information, they wrote it down because writing testimony down is part of their jobs, then the document that they wrote it down was eventually released.

  41. Okay, that's it by guyminuslife · · Score: 1

    Samzenpus, I'm filtering your articles. This is ten levels of stupid.

    --
    I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
  42. Obligatory rip on slashdot by antifoidulus · · Score: 1

    Man, you guys never get news stories out in a timely manner, this one is 9 days old!

    1. Re:Obligatory rip on slashdot by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      Sammy's dyslexic. He thought April 10 was April 01.

  43. Sammy Hagar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe Sammy Hagar was telling the truth when he said he was visited by aliens......
    http://www.bernertechreport.com

  44. I was watching DS9 at the time, not SG1 by improfane · · Score: 1

    Shadow == B5

    --
    Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
    1. Re:I was watching DS9 at the time, not SG1 by lennier · · Score: 1

      Servalan == B7

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  45. So, by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

    Where are the bodies?

    1. Re:So, by John+Hasler · · Score: 2

      > Where are the bodies?

      They vanished mysteriously from a locked and guarded room along with all the other evidence. That proves that aliens were involved.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:So, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their deaths were a coincidence. They're working in the financial sector dreaming up a new financial catastrophy to build their temples of gold.

    3. Re:So, by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Gone. Turns out, aliens are VERY tasty!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    4. Re:So, by Antisyzygy · · Score: 1

      Watch "Bad Taste" some time.

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
    5. Re:So, by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

      Gone. Turns out, aliens are VERY tasty!

      Reminds me of when I used to play 'X-Com' aka "UFO: Enemy Unknown"

      You'd do missions and kill lots of aliens, capture technology etc. At the end of a mission you'd also end up with lots of alien corpses.

      The alien guns etc you could use. Pretty much the only think the corpses were good for was selling for cash. I wondered where all these corpses went.

      Then it occured to me; ask no questions, eat no fast food...

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    6. Re:So, by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      And X-Com was the best Laser-Weapons / Exotic Corpse Product company ever. I made extra bases filled with engineers making laser cannons just to fund my hunger for large rockets.

  46. Probably slightly more to it than that by Schnoodledorfer · · Score: 1

    I agree that it's just "another sensationalist samzenpus headline", but I think that there was probably more to the original Air Force memo than what you said. IIRC, there actually was a crash in the area, apparently of a secret airplane. The USAF would naturally want to know how much foreign spies could learn from talking to the local population. It's not surprising that the USAF would have investigators find out and document what the locals would say about the crash, no matter how crazy it was.

    --
    Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify. (Ambrose Bierce)
    1. Re:Probably slightly more to it than that by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      I heard a plausible explanation where they were testing things (which thing will probably never be known now, despite the fact that whatever it was should be unclassified by now, space capsules, nuclear devices, secret airplanes, etc.) and the government purposefully planted information about UFOs. They did this so that leaks could be more quickly identified and squashed. And, if the real thing were leaked, they'd have an army of nuts out there shouting "it wasn't that, it was UFOs."

      I have no doubt there were UFOs. However UFOs are not aliens. That logic is no different that our eyes failing in low light being proof that Satan sends in giant pink elephants every night to poop odorless and invisible poop in our homes. If you can't prove it false, then that's proof that it's true, right?

  47. already happened by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

    " However, assuming it's real for now, WHY HAS THIS NOT LEAD TO A FLURRY OF OTHER EVIDENCE FROM ELSEWHERE? "

    Already has already happened, many times. For example, respected and not discredited Retired Colonel Philip J. Corso exposed his part in this. But there is a group of crackpot disbelievers who just can't accept the truth, and just keep repeating the same nonsense like "if this were true someone would have leaked it" no matter how many times people do try to leak and expose it.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:already happened by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is a group of crackpot disbelievers

      Also known as "99.99999999999999999999% of mankind", or "100% of rational people".

    2. Re:already happened by frovingslosh · · Score: 2

      Percentages don't indicate actual truth. A survey of U.S. four year olds might indicate that similar numbers believe in Santa Claus. A lot of adults believe in a god. Long ago most believed the earth was flat. I guess if you believe in the wisdom of a herd mentality then you can go to China or India and enjoy the wisdom of the masses, but as you apparently haven't, then maybe you don't really believe that either. But maybe you can't even see the hyproacy of saying that 100% of rational people must believe exactly as you do on this subject, implying that anyone who has any other information isn't rational and should be ignored. Which helps further make my point, the crackpot disbelievers will dismiss anything. Before Curso came forward, the common argument was "If all this were true then it couldn't be kept secret, someone would leak it". When someone did no only leak it but put his good name behind it, I didn't see the crackpot disbelievers say "Oh, maybe I should re-evaluate things based on new information", I just saw more "If this is true why don't we ...." type of denying, which apparently can be applied to anything and any amount of information, recursively.

      --
      I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    3. Re:already happened by dave420 · · Score: 1

      You missed the word "rational" in the post. With rational people, percentages do matter.

  48. Actually by Snaller · · Score: 2

    What the document says is "there is this guy who says he saw flying saucers" - that doesn't really prove anything.
    Hell there are constantly people who say they've seen flying saucers.

    --
    If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
    1. Re:Actually by _0xd0ad · · Score: 1

      Claiming to see flying saucers and claiming that 3 of them crashed and were recovered are slightly different things. I would think that floating unidentifiable spots of light are a little bit easier to hallucinate than crashed disc-shaped aircraft with dead crews.

      He could very well be lying, but the idea that he's a crackpot imagining all of it is a little harder to swallow.

    2. Re:Actually by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      I've seen UFOs myself... three silver objects with the sun glinting off them hovering in a triangle formation over Mt. McKinley, seen from a hill 100 miles away. Of course, I've always kind of assumed these silver objects were aircraft.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    3. Re:Actually by stephathome · · Score: 2

      That's what THEY want you to think.

    4. Re:Actually by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 2
      I would think that floating unidentifiable spots of light are a little bit easier to hallucinate than crashed disc-shaped aircraft with dead crews.

      You might want to try a better grade of LSD next time!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    5. Re:Actually by Old+Wolf · · Score: 1

      I guess you haven't heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Waltonthis guy

    6. Re:Actually by ZosX · · Score: 1

      Seeing as how they are flying in the air, calling them aircraft seems appropriate.

    7. Re:Actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the document says is "there is this guy who says he saw flying saucers" - that doesn't really prove anything.

      Not without confirmation from that guy's college roommate's second cousin's accountant anyway.

    8. Re:Actually by darkgrayknight · · Score: 1

      that seems reasonable, they are also UFO as in they are unidentified flying obects.

  49. Ahm, so they're related to Bill the Cat? by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 1

    Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."

    So they're like... related to Bill the Cat? I mean, surely... not? Bill was nothing but a collection of hairballs...

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
  50. In any event by turkeyfish · · Score: 1

    No bodies, no story.

    No story, no UFO industry.

    No UFO industry, no Roswell.

    Therefore by staying home, space aliens have destroyed Roswell, New Mexico. I get it now.

    1. Re:In any event by mangu · · Score: 1

      No Roswell, no Demi Moore

      No Demi Moore, no Ghost

      By staying home they have also destroyed all sorts of paranormal phenomena.

  51. Ah, nevermind! by Schnoodledorfer · · Score: 1

    I misread something on another site. The informant was saying what an Air Force investigator supposedly said, not the other way around. It is notable that the SA (FBI Special Agent) decided that what what the informant said wasn't worth investigating. That's in the PDF of the FBI memo. I wish I could delete my own comments.

    --
    Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify. (Ambrose Bierce)
  52. Nothing to see here, move along by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is just a glorified evidence locker, it is not a repository of secret government files. If I make a statement at a police station nanobots are in all my electronics and that is why they break down after 3 years, then that becomes a document filed in the evidence locker (or 'vault' as the FBI calls it). It is by no means considered truth or even sane, it is just a part of my permanent file.

    You should spend your time looking up more worthwhile stuff, like Kennedy assassination or 9/11, stuff the FBI was actually investigating.

  53. Nope! by Greyfox · · Score: 2

    I'm not buying into the idea that some super-advanced alien race would defeat the speed of light somehow and then immediately use that technology to travel millions of light years just to give some pink barely-evolved half-monkeys anal probes. Every report can be explained away as hoax, government experimental test aircraft or some guy in a trailer park not wanting to admit that his anal probe came from his neighbor, not some alien species.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Nope! by DarkOx · · Score: 2

      I am not buying the idea that the most advanced nation state the earth has even seen would pay farmers to grow surpluses of grain and then literally destroy the a portion of the harvest to support prices. Oh wait that happens...

      There was a Kids in the Hall sketch that addressed the issue of why they come and probe. The punch line was that intergalactic anal probing puts allot of people to work...

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    2. Re:Nope! by osgeek · · Score: 1

      Even worse, these super intelligent interstellar beings crashed not one, but THREE of their sufficiently-advanced-to-be-indistinguishable-from-magic space ships into the New Mexico dessert.

      Whoops! What, are they too short to reach the pedals?

    3. Re:Nope! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Suprisingly many people go a long way to give pink barely-evolved half-monkeys anal probes. Just saying

  54. Nah. Just wasted a little of their time. by Schnoodledorfer · · Score: 1

    The FBI didn't seem to be deceived. A special agent talked to the informant, and didn't bother investigating any further. Guy Hottel (probably his superior) wrote a memo summarizing what the informant said. I think that was all that there was to it.

    --
    Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify. (Ambrose Bierce)
  55. Is it really a confirmation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you take a look at what's here, you'll see that it's really nothing, and certainly doesn't confirm anything. It's simply a memo (if you even want to call it THAT.) relaying information that was reported to the author. There is no conclusion, or statement of fact, or supporting statements, and absolutely no confirmation.

  56. BREAKING NEWS - WAS: Re:Last words... by bmo · · Score: 0

    BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS!

    I'm hijacking this thread because I need to point out that some time in the past couple of years or so, Florian Mueller was abducted by a UFO and his mind was altered by the Alien Greys.

    The breaking news is that he is currently flipping out on Linux Weekly News because the alien virus finally ate his brain.

    lwn.net/Articles/437650/

    He is extremely buttmad that PJ of Groklaw is getting all sorts of accolades for a job well done and he is being ignored. I think he deserves more attention, so please do visit the above URL and read for yourself, and then you may quietly console Florian for the damage the aliens did to him.

    THE ALIENS ARE REAL! LOOK AT WHAT DAMAGE THEY DID TO POOR FLORIAN!

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:BREAKING NEWS - WAS: Re:Last words... by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Holy shit! You weren't kidding about Florian Mueller flipping out. What a nutcase: he actually called Rob Enderle a "smart analyst", and Maureen O'Gara and Dan Lyons too. Maybe the UFO claim is real: you'd have to be a seriously damaged person (or a complete moron, or a complete shill) to praise Dan Lyons, Maureen O'Gara, and worst of all, Rob Enderle, and then claim to be any kind of friend of OSS at all.

    2. Re:BREAKING NEWS - WAS: Re:Last words... by Nursie · · Score: 1

      I just wonder how much money he made when he put his soul up for auction.

    3. Re:BREAKING NEWS - WAS: Re:Last words... by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1
      What Mr. Mueller had to say:

      It's not about a "disdain for all things PJ". The problem is that Groklaw has constantly tried to capitalize on many people's desire for simple fairy-tale-like black-and-white views. Groklaw has, partly in its articles and partly in discussions, engaged in character assassination. The net effect of that big brainwashing effort is that some of the more credulous and less informed people now distrust a very smart analyst like Rob Enderle, very smart journalists like Maureen O'Gara and Dan Lyons, or a very smart author like Ed Bott, only because they comment on certain issues with greater sanity than Groklaw.

      I personally believe that Mr. Mueller gives far too much credit to PJ and Groklaw. I'm pretty sure the listing of esteemed individuals had more than a slight amount to do with damaging their own credibility without any help from PJ and Groklaw. And if Mr. Mueller wishes to hold these individuals up to such heights, it only speaks further of his own credibility.

  57. Nine days late by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 1

    Government bureaucracy again. Nine days late.

  58. Something to keep in mind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "When Wernher Von Braun [German rocket scientist] was dying of cancer [1974], he asked me to be his spokesperson. Von Braun actually told me that the reasons for space-based weaponry that were going to be given - the enemies that we were going to identify - were all based on a lie. He said the strategy that was being used to educate the public and decision makers was to use scare tactics; that first the Russians are going to be considered the enemy. Then terrorists would be identified. Then we were going to identify third-world 'crazies.' The next enemy was asteroids - against asteroids we are going to build space-based weapons. And over and over during the four years that I knew him and was giving speeches for him, he would bring up the last card. 'And remember, Carol, the last card is the alien card. We are going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens, and all of it is a lie.' He was too afraid to talk about it. He would not tell me the details. I am not sure I would have absorbed them if he had told me the details, or even believed him in 1974... In 1977, I was at a meeting in Fairchild Industries in a conference room called the War Room... They continued the conversation about how they were going to antagonize these enemies and at some point, there was going to be a war in the Gulf, a Gulf War. Now this is 1977!" - Dr. Carol Rosin, Fairchild Industries Corporate Manager, Von Braun spokesperson

  59. bwahhhhhaaaahhahahaha by argontechnologies · · Score: 1

    All of your bases belong to US.

  60. No not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's spend 2 to 3 times our planets GDP to send graduate students on an interstellar field trip.

  61. Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 1

    its an official fbi document, on official fbi site, stating that an official usaf investigator has had told an official fbi agent that 3 saucers were recovered in roswell.

    its an official memo piece of an official fbi agent. political investigations have been conducted and charges conveyed in court cases and inquiries with lesser testimonies and evidence before. yes, its solid enough.

    and this information was reported to j edgar hoover, the greatest psychopath to be ever in charge of a major organization in united states. he had made a habit of knowing every single usable information piece in order to keep his hold on a lot of matters, and apparently this was no exception. it is 100% that, hoover, in all his control mania, had not left that case there, and obtained further information.

    1. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by ScentCone · · Score: 2

      Do you ever, you know, come back a couple of days later and actually read the things you've said? Just asking.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    2. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 1

      and ?

    3. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by j-beda · · Score: 2

      its an official fbi document, on official fbi site, stating that an official usaf investigator has had told an official fbi agent that 3 saucers were recovered in roswell.

      Actually I read it as an official FBI document, on official FBI site, stating that an informant, one "Mr. [redacted]", stated that an official USAF investigator said that 3 saucers were recovered in Roswell. I doubt very much that some guy saying that the USAF knows stuff is strong evidence for much of anything.

    4. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      and ?

      Well, it's just that your comment, above, is full of complete nonsense. I just wondered if when you read it back to yourself, later, you notice that.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    5. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 1

      then you read it with your ass instead of your eyes - its not 'an informant'. its USAF INVESTIGATOR telling FBI investigator. not 'someone'. it was usaf investigator investigating the incident.

    6. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 1

      "actual official fucking fbi report"

      so, it is nonsense for you ? and you, random internet persona #3956829's ridiculeing of my 'opinion' is, somehow, for some obscure reason, is more respectable and solid than a fucking government agency report ?

      there is nothing in your post, but the implied ridiculousness of actually believing an official government report admitting to an incident that the government had been vehemently denying, with potential repercussions for all those involved in the denial of.

      so, we are to take random internet geek's random emotions regarding the incident and its attributed ridiculousness, as opposed to a government report. or, is your displayed ridicule and scorn, expected to make me somehow realize the error of my ways in believing a fucking GOVERNMENT report about the existence of extraterrestrials or saucers ? WHY ? "hey, random internet geek #3956829 ridiculed me - i'd better forget that fucking GOVERNMENT REPORT" ..... is it ?

      sheer morondom. nothing else.

      again, word of a government report admitting something that is very detrimental to the government, versus, random ridicule of random internet personality without any basis.

      hahahahaa ...

    7. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by ScentCone · · Score: 2

      You're (deliberately, obviously) completely mischaracterizing what it's a report about. Your local police department is full of "official government reports" filed by police officers who have to write down what completely insane people tell them.

      The "report" doesn't admit anything, other than admitting that some guy told somebody something, made up from whole cloth, with nothing backing it up, and no evidence to support it ever presented by anybody. An FBI agent essentially writes down the fact that somebody BSing about something that didn't happen did, none the less, BS about it. And so it's now a document, because he wrote down the fact that he had that conversation. Are you actually understanding the fact that the document in question doesn't establish anything with regard to UFOs, in any way? Sure you are, and you're just pretending you don't. Because you can't possibly be that foolish, otherwise.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    8. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 1

      how are you idiotically insisting the 'miss' the fact that, it was not a 'random dude' telling an fbi investigator, but, AN OFFICIAL USAF INVESTIGATOR telling an official fbi investigator that saucers were there in roswell ?

      less evidence has been used in senate commissions or court cases to convict wrongdoings or politicians before.

      this report, can be used as evidence in a court case, yet, random internet persona discredits it by saying 'some dude' 'local police report' ....

      i am reiterating - IT IS NOT A RANDOM PERSON BUT AN USAF INVESTIGATOR, WITH HIS NAME ERASED, TELLING AN OFFICIAL FBI AGENT THAT SAUCERS WERE RECOVERED IN ROSWELL. NOT YOUR RANDOM SOMEONE TELLING THINGS. USAF INVESTIGATOR THAT INVESTIGATED ROSWELL, TELLING FBI INVESTIGATOR. it is official.

    9. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      "its not 'an informant'. its USAF INVESTIGATOR telling FBI investigator."

      That's not what it says.

      The investigator is written as "SA [redacted]," the SA standing for special agent. The top of the document says the information was given to SA [redacted] by [redacted], presumably the investigator. However, the middle part says that Mr. [redacted]'s INFORMANT told him about the saucers.

      In other words, some unnamed third party told the USAF investigator there were some flyin' saucery thingamajiggers recovered at Roswell, which the investigator passed on to the FBI investigator. Nothing to see here.

    10. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 2

      are you a moron, or do you have problems with reading comprehension ? here :

      report says that AN INVESTIGATOR FOR AIR FORCE STATED THAT three flying saucers and bodies HAD BEEN RECOVERED.

      the investigator for air force, STATES that three flying saucers were recovered at roswell.

      the 'informant' part, is the last part in the last paragraph about the REASON for the saucers being found in roswell, and relevance of radar to the incident.

      the 'informant' of the usaf investigator takes part in that explanation. NOT about recovery of saucers, in roswell. it says ACCORDING TO MR XXX'S INFORMANT, THE SAUCERS WERE FOUND IN NEW MEXICO DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS A VERY HIGH POWERED RADAR there, and it interferes with saucers' control mechanisms.

      what the informant of the usaf investigator says, the REASON for the saucers being found in new mexico is government's radar.

      really. wordage like 'nothing to see here' and all that, trying SO hard to reject, its being ridiculously pathetic and sad.

      its a fucking fbi document using clear words like STATED and whatnot.

      why the fuck are you trying SO hard to still reject and ignore ?

      never mind - i dont give a fuck. i have no time to lose with an idiot who is so doggedly conditioned to ignore reality even it slaps him in the face as an official government document. have a nice day.

    11. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      "its a fucking fbi document using clear words like STATED and whatnot."

      Yes. Let me clear this up for you: Informant tells USAF investigator that saucers were recovered. USAF investigator *states* this to Special Agent [redacted], who tells his superior, who files it in a report to the Director. This situation would result in the document you saw with no further explanation needed. Note that, as written, any of the three people from the USAF investigator through SAC Hottel could have used the words "so-called" in describing the saucers.

      "why the fuck are you trying SO hard to still reject and ignore ?"

      You've got that backward there, cowpoke. I don't have to try hard at all to reject something for which there is zero evidence. I don't need to put any effort whatsoever into not believing in sky fairies of any stripe. You can scream about "OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT FUCKING DOCUMENTS LOL" all you want, but you've already been slapped down hard on this count in other threads, so no need to rehash it here.

    12. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      Are you really that unable to process the words in front of you? The USAF did not say there were flying saucers. Nothing in the document says anything about any investigator concluding anything about flying saucers. Read each word slowly, out loud, so that you can take the time to double-check your understanding of the plain English that's being used.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    13. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 1

      why are you trying so hard to reject a fucking government document ? is it so hard to admit that there are flying saucers ? why ? will your hair drop out ? will other people call 'cuckoo' on you ? will you be discredited ?

      you are trying so hard that it is hysterical. now its about 'understanding plain english'. it says government procured 3 saucers and bodies, in plain english there. it cant be plainer than that.

    14. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      I'm not rejecting a government document, you idiot. I'm rejecting your completely incorrect understanding of what the document is. The document doesn't say that the government got three flying saucers and bodies. It says that an investigator wrote down the rambling BS of someone telling a story along those lines. Just like they write down when someone says that Elvis is still alive and threatening the president, or that they were attacked by a Yeti in suburban Los Angeles.

      Answer this question in one sentence, to show that you're back on your meds: Is the document about the government actually having flying saucers, or is the document about a single guy's hearsay, evidence-less ramblings to an investigator, claiming that's what he thinks is true (or wants someone to think is true)? Careful, if you answer that incorrectly, it will be the actual evidence that you really, truly haven't bothered to read the damn thing.

      Of course you have, and you do understand it, and you're just trolling. Your mastery of sounding like one of the nutcases is pretty convincing, though! You need to polish up the act, and include some references to the Illuminati, Chinese weather control technology causing earthquakes, and perhaps something about the government shutting down research into cars that run on water.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    15. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by unity100 · · Score: 1

      pointless to discuss further. your behavior is no different than a middle age monk. have a nice day.

    16. Re:Its proof enough. dont sweat it. get over it. by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      pointless to discuss further

      Yup! I knew you couldn't bring yourself to actually answer that question. Just like with all UFO True Believers, that pesky reality thing takes all the fun out of your conversations, doesn't it. Well, thanks for living down to my expectations, anyway. It's nice to see that predictable is still predictable.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  62. Wait... by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    (Checks todays date)

    Nope, April 10, not April 1... what gives?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  63. The stealth Blimp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is this on the front page and yet you wont promote any stories on the stealth blimp, which has a LOT more "proof"????
    http://www.thestealthblimp.com/

  64. Very Interesting PDF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now the only question is what the purpose of the stuff it installed is and why the FBI would want to install stuff on conspiracy theorist's PCs.

  65. Pure bullshit by Cryolithic · · Score: 1

    We need to be able to moderate stories. This is the single worst piece of drivel to have ever come across the front page at /.

    1. Re:Pure bullshit by ozbird · · Score: 1

      This is the single worst piece of drivel to have ever come across the front page at /.

      You must be new here; welcome!

    2. Re:Pure bullshit by Cryolithic · · Score: 1

      I was hoping someone would say that ;)

    3. Re:Pure bullshit by coolmadsi · · Score: 1

      We need to be able to moderate stories.

      I think thats what the firehose is for. Although in the new site design it is harder to find (but I've not really look that hard)

  66. dressed in metallic clothing of very fine texture by Swave+An+deBwoner · · Score: 1

    .. dressed in metallic clothing of very fine texture.

    A possible clue ..

    Did the clothing have a tag reading "Designed in California"?

  67. http://www.thestealthblimp.com/ by kraemer · · Score: 1

    Never mind the REAL stuff the government is trying to hide. Lets look at old Roswell bullshit!

  68. The horrible lesson of this story is by unity100 · · Score: 1

    How well the government has been successful in not only hiding this subject despite how they were trading information in between agencies, but also how they have been able to suppress that information and been able to discredit those who stalked the information and made them appear as cuckoos.

    Its a downward spiral actually. once you start suppressing information that public may take as important and create victims through either direct repression or public image assassination, you accrue liability - in case of public learning this, it is inevitable that those who were victimized by this disinformation and repression would start suing the agency, government and those responsible. so you are locked in denial and repression cycle. especially in this case, public would ask whether any advanced technologies were recovered from these craft, and what usaf did with them - if the fact that advanced technology that could help our civilization was recovered, but hid, public will rightfully want to crucify those who hid it.

    one thinks that, considering how well they have hid this information, what else they may be hiding.

    another curious part is, how big and well a maneuver fbi has done by releasing this in an easily accessible manner to the public. even tho this was available in 1970, not having direct access to this info had made it dubious in the eyes of the public. but broadcasting it directly from fbi site basically makes even the hardest skeptic question, and the masses take notice of this, leading to one very important result :

    fbi has basically dropped the bomb in usaf's lap. now, in the case of disclosure happening, noone will lynch fbi, because the document basically says that fbi didnt have any responsibility in that matter - it was usaf's doing. military arm of the government will be taking the heat, totally liberating and saving active and retired fbi personnel.

    a wise move in the light of the fact that last 2-3 years have been the years that major governments of the world has been releasing their secret ufo files, despite u.s. resisting doing the same and even ridiculing existence of such secret files. (leave aside how stupid it is to ridicule existence of those files, after russia, britain, france released theirs).

    it can be expected that we may see other agencies trying to evade any responsibility in the matter by taking precautions.

  69. I only know this... by BudAaron · · Score: 1

    I've debated wasting my time here but will give it a shot. I'm almost 84. I went through Navy electronics school at Treasure Island (San Francisco) in 1946. I was living in military housing in a place called Midway Village on the outskirts of SF near Moffett Field (Navy blimp hangars). One night I went down stairs (second floor apartment) to empty the trash. I glanced toward Moffett field (like a few miles away) because I saw something that could have been a blimp with lights flashing it's entire length like a marque. I was fascinated because blimps I know don't have full length light displays. At that time Navy personnel went through fairly intensive aircraft identification courses so I knew the characteristics of most of the worlds aircraft. As I watched three "objects" appeared to detach themselves from the "object" I was watching and began moving toward me. Needless to say I was now very interested. There "flight path" was taking them directly toward me at what I would estimate at under 5 knots - very slow. As they resolved they appeared about the shape of what you might remember in The Day The Earth Stood Still. The undersides looked to me like the remains of a dying fireplace coal fire. I called up to my wife to come down and look. She came down (they were traveling slowly enough that they were overhead when she looks up). I said "What are those?" and she gasped and said "Flying saucers!' They WERE in directed flight whether controlled by onboard whatever or remotely. I can only report what I saw but the memory remains indellible!

    1. Re:I only know this... by Antisyzygy · · Score: 1

      I would wager it was some US technology, but damn it would be cool to see something like that.

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
  70. Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with you? by hairyfeet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The War Of The Worlds", simple as that. My grandfather brought me one of his flight books to show "military logic" and it said "THERE ARE NO UFOS...but if you see one don't fire unless fired upon". Him and his buddies used to LMAO about that one. How do you "not fire unless fired upon" something that doesn't exist?

    Sadly MiB summed up the military view of the population perfectly "A Person is smart, people are dumb dangerous panicky animals and you KNOW it". Frankly if a saucer landed on the White House lawn to do repairs the MSM would be handed a bulletin telling them to talk about "the new alien movie being filmed today in Washington" and that would be it.

    Do they have alien tech? Don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me. The US military has been to just about every single place on the planet, if anything crashes I have no doubt they would snatch it. will they EVER tell the American people? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  71. Damn Alien Drivers. by billybob_jcv · · Score: 1

    If you are going to come to this planet, at least learn how to drive!!

  72. Why was it classified? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why was it classified and top secret?

    1. Re:Why was it classified? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      Cos it FU'd - thats the most common reason for classsifying anything as top secret.

      Disclosure: I do not work for the mafia (and if I did, I would not say so here).

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  73. Re:dressed in metallic clothing of very fine textu by AragornSonOfArathorn · · Score: 1

    .. dressed in metallic clothing of very fine texture.

    A possible clue ..

    Did the clothing have a tag reading "Designed in California"?

    No, it was mithril. At the end of the Third Age, the hobbits took to outer space.

    --
    sudo eat my shorts
  74. Samzenpus posts story confirming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    he is an idiot!

  75. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by kraemer · · Score: 1

    BULLSH. Most special access programs are solely for the purpose of avoiding oversight. There is NO oversight on the money going into special access programs. Tens of thousand of people have seen the stealth blimp and the only reason to keep it secret at this point is to conceal the monies being spent on the program from public scrutiny. If people have seen it, there is a web page about it, then sure as hell our adversaries know about it. Lets end the top secret bullsh*t.

  76. Pics or it didn't happen! by Lord+Lode · · Score: 1

    A document with some official stamps can be made by anyone. Pictures of the saucerer and aliens with mettalic clothes would be more interesting. Not that those couldn't be photoshopped of course...

    1. Re:Pics or it didn't happen! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut your eyes and the world goes away, does it? Things don't exist unless you personally experience them?

      That's awfully selfish of you. Other people's entire lives mean nothing because they were not recorded in pictures for your personal benefit?

      I don't know about this kind of story either, but honestly? "Pics or it didn't happen?"

      Self-centered child-men are what is wrong with the world. We call them sociopaths.

  77. Jus goes to show... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...Exactly how warped things become after multiple renditions of the original report: You start out with a simple Flying Lasagna, and then you end up with UFOs, ETs, idiots, and silly FBI documents years later. In this case, the lasagna has been greatly exaggerated.

    -Hail Eris.

  78. Nothing to see here by devnull17 · · Score: 1

    What's the big deal? It sounds like a simple security breach at someone's combination midget zoo/aerospace museum.

  79. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you fucking serious? This garbage made the front page of Slashdot?

  80. Roswell explained by sproketboy · · Score: 2

    -Sigh- not again.

    Roswell explained:

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2334857802602777622&ei=DoRESannBJLAqAL5p7z4DA&q=physics

    It will take an hour but it explains the Roswell UFO stuff and why it was classified.
    More fascinating IMO than aliens....

  81. "idle" ? by unity100 · · Score: 1

    Really ? something concerning potential extraterrestrial civilization and technology, is 'idle' ?

    which moron tagged this 'idle' ?

    Or, is it that the reflexive conditioning (like another form of sheeple) that a lot of the 'smart' people have against this ufo subject, justifying the belittlement and despising of the subject as 'idle' ?

    this is fbi's official document finally hitting mainstream attention, despite it existed since 30 years, and has been dismissed easily because it wasnt easy for public to reach it themselves. (thanks internet).

    a better disclosure and admittance from this, would be various usaf, nsa directors, maybe 1-2 deceased ex presidents resurrecting and giving a press release in tears, saying that they are sorry they hid this from public, and braving the crucifixion that would bring up.

    since that wont happen, and those responsible always try to cover their ass, this is as disclosure as it gets.

    despicable is the scorn of the scholastically inclined, to things that are yet unknown or new, despite being taught a lot of things that were previously unknown before in their education.

    there are two kinds of intellectual people in this world ; those who think further than the horizon into the yet unknown, and those who parrot what the previous pioneers from the first group has discovered before.

    most of the academia falls into the second group.

  82. Note: Alien messages by Nichole_knc · · Score: 1

    Read by little ole ladies during TV white noise channeling session: "ACK ACK our secret is out ARK ARK you are our cattle ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ we shall feast BEEP BEEPP

  83. Hummm by Nichole_knc · · Score: 1

    Well alrighty then.... Where is my foil hat?

  84. yes yes by unity100 · · Score: 0

    official usaf investigator TELLING official fbi investigator (washington bureau chief if i remember right) that they procured 3 flying saucers and 3 bodies in roswell, and this being reported to fbi director, definitely something unimportant and irrelevant.

    it has to be.

    it has to be, because, because we are 'smart', we have to be sarcastic, skeptic and conditioned to react and reject against it like a different kind of sheeple. just because endless number of government officials and private think thank and establishment linked academicians ridiculed it, we have to do the same. because, this is what 'respectable' smart people people do, right ? 'smaaart'.

    even if 3 major countries of the world releases ufo files with endless unexplained cases, even if fbi discloses a document that confirms a real ufo case, we have to reject and be sarcastic because some 'respectable' people before our time did that. respectable wordage is in quotes, because it is questionable what the motives of those individuals who had had to be in good relations with the established policy for business and career reasons, had been.

    no. really - this behavior is no different than a high school teenager trying to fit in with the tastes and culture of his/her high school. the very behavior that most of the people here, actually saw the wrongness and irrationality of.

    1. Re:yes yes by PCM2 · · Score: 2

      No, "it has to be" because the story is patently absurd.

      Let's just start with: If the best way to build a craft that can travel through both outer space and all layers of a planetary atmosphere is to make it in the shape of a big disc, why have none of Earth's aerospace engineers ever built a craft using that shape? I guess it must have taken the Roswell incident to convince them it was a bad idea.

      How about: How did aliens travel across countless light years of space to reach our planet in a craft that was just 50' in diameter? Presumably a couple generations of the crew would have grown old and died on the voyage. That's a pretty small space to raise a family in.

      And how did these aliens plan to get back? Or if they weren't planning to get back, and they were just living on our planet in secret, wouldn't it be a lot easier to preserve the secret of their existence if they just drove cars, like regular people? If they look weird they could always have hired a guy to drive them around in the back of a delivery truck.

      All kinds of things happen and the government covers up all kinds of things. But if you honestly think anybody should read into this story more than that some crackpot spread misinformation to someone else, who documented it and promptly stuck it in a file cabinet with all the other crackpot garbage -- then you're a credulous moron.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    2. Re:yes yes by dominious · · Score: 2

      I don't actually believe there are aliens visiting us and so on, but I leave room for doubt. Your logic is based on our technology and our current knowledge (in fact logic can only be based on current knowledge).

      All your questions could have some answer that we don't know yet. Traveling countless light years for example could not be necessary with some other kind of technology. Or why our engineers didn't come up with that shape, because there is some other kind of science behind it.

    3. Re:yes yes by unity100 · · Score: 1

      'story is PATENTLY' absurd, says the random persona on the internet. random person on the internet using strongly expressed and stressed wordage against an actual official government agency's official report stating the nature of an incident.

      and for that, he shows 'how can xxxx, yyyy, zzz' as reasoning. the mindset is 'it cant be'

      this is what i am talking exactly is about -> usage of mind, open mind, and looking over the horizon. 'HOW CAN' is the NEXT question. at this point, situation is 'IT HAS'.

      you are producing reasons against the official admittance of an incident which will bring great problems and pains against not only the government, but also even retired personnel of that or other agencies. it goes way back. the minimum that will happen even if they dont prosecuted and crucified, would be getting subjected to endless number of inquiries in front of senate commissions the minimum. noone in any government would dare risk disclosure of something that would bring great pains to themselves if disclosed.

      yet, it has been disclosed. it had happened.

      your situation is at this point, is of denial -> you are wanting to return to earlier comfortable status quo. that is not the behavior of an open mind -> the open mind would accept the situation, and then start asking questions like 'who', 'why', 'how', 'when', 'what followed' .....

      and really, stop with the pathetic wordage like 'if xxxx yyy, you are a credulous moron' -> dont sweat it. its OFFICIAL fbi document's word against random internet smartie's word .... expecting to discourage others from accepting what you personally despise or cant bring yourself to accept, is much more sad and pathetic.

      it is an official document that declares that 3 flying saucers and 3 apparently nonhuman entities were confiscated in roswell, and then the subject has remained hidden. period.

    4. Re:yes yes by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      If the best way to build a craft that can travel through both outer space and all layers of a planetary atmosphere is to make it in the shape of a big disc, why have none of Earth's aerospace engineers ever built a craft using that shape? I guess it must have taken the Roswell incident to convince them it was a bad idea.

      The shape of the craft in space is irrelevant, and the shape in the atmosphere is only relevant if either A. you are entering in free fall as our ships do (and thus need to dissipate a lot of heat) or B. you are using air to produce lift. If your craft stays aloft in some other way, the shape of the craft doesn't matter nearly as much.

      How about: How did aliens travel across countless light years of space to reach our planet in a craft that was just 50' in diameter? Presumably a couple generations of the crew would have grown old and died on the voyage. That's a pretty small space to raise a family in.

      Assuming, that is, that the aliens grow at the same rate we do. An alien with a 500 year lifespan would not have that problem. Also, there's the possibility of some sort of stasis or hibernation. You're making way too many wrong assumptions, starting with the assumption that any aliens we meet will be in any way like life on Earth.

      And how did these aliens plan to get back?

      Well, presumably in their ship. They probably were not planning to crash it.

      Don't get me wrong, the most plausible explanation for UFOs is a secret experimental U.S. or Russian spy vehicle, and the most plausible explanation for the "aliens" is that they used midgets for weight/size reasons. Occam's Razor suggests that this is significantly more likely than an alien visitation. However, that doesn't mean that the alien explanation is impossible by any stretch of the imagination.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    5. Re:yes yes by unity100 · · Score: 1

      not to mention that he is forgetting that we are already playing with experiments that change the experiment result AFTER the experiment has been concluded in quantum physics, debating the mechanics of wormholes, leave aside existence of, and the means space-time continuum can be warped. and as of this moment, a cyclotron is trying to find the smallest base particle.

      his 'logic' comes from sheer ignorance of what his civilization is ALREADY doing.

    6. Re:yes yes by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      Strange, or non-traditional (read Wright Brothers airfoils) can work. Look at the Stealth Bomber, Rutan's canard design, various flying wedges, and so on.

      The veracity of the doc, the veracity of the observer, all can be called into question.

      What did happen however, is that the FBI got several thousand free IP addresses of obvious slashdot readers. Perfect bait. Perfect.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    7. Re:yes yes by millennial · · Score: 1

      LOL! I love that you think experiments involving subatomic particles TODAY have anything AT ALL to do with something 61 YEARS AGO.

      --
      I am scientifically inaccurate.
    8. Re:yes yes by PCM2 · · Score: 1

      Assuming, that is, that the aliens grow at the same rate we do. An alien with a 500 year lifespan would not have that problem.

      But for an alien with a 500 year lifespan to spend that 500 years in a saucer-shaped vehicle that holds enough fuel to travel many light years' distance in a volume equivalent to a spacious city apartment, I'd say food would be an issue, to say nothing of insanity. That the aliens want to travel across the vastness of space at all implies that the aliens are compelled to move around. As for "some sort of stasis or hibernation," no animal we've ever encountered can hibernate for even one full year.

      You're making way too many wrong assumptions, starting with the assumption that any aliens we meet will be in any way like life on Earth.

      Which is yet another reason to discredit the article. Whomever perpetrated this fraud wasn't even far-sighted enough to postulate aliens that were significantly different from humans. Instead, they were three-foot-tall, humanoid bodies. I guess they could just coincidentally look like humans but actually have various super-powers that none of the life forms we've observed to date have -- such as muscles that never atrophy and cells that require no source of energy. But that sounds more like a '60s sci-fi story than science.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    9. Re:yes yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, "it has to be" because the story is patently absurd.

      Yes, it is. But not for the reasons you mention, there are good explanation for all of it. It's patently absurd because it makes no sense to travel all the way over here and not make contact in the most public way possible. Land in the middle of a very large city. There has to be intelligent life out there (basically because there's a lot of space out there). Whether it's possible for anyone to actually go anywhere to meet anyone else is a lot more doubtful. If it is, you wouldn't waste the trip by buzzing rednecks.

      That said, you'd be a horrible sci-fi writer, you have no imagination :)

      If the best way to build a craft that can travel through both outer space and all layers of a planetary atmosphere is to make it in the shape of a big disc, why have none of Earth's aerospace engineers ever built a craft using that shape?

      The shape of the aircraft that you would choose would change if your propulsion system is different. If you have some sort of anti-gravity propulsion, a circular craft means you don't need to turn to remain aerodynamic. You just move in the other direction.

      How about: How did aliens travel across countless light years of space to reach our planet in a craft that was just 50' in diameter?

      Mothership in orbit, small crafts for atmospheric travel.

      Presumably a couple generations of the crew would have grown old and died on the voyage. That's a pretty small space to raise a family in.

      Fuck that. Either faster-than-light travel is possible, or people don't make the trip. Nobody would go the generational craft route, it's not practical. Too much weight for both food and fuel

    10. Re:yes yes by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      "It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible....from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence." - Feynman

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    11. Re:yes yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh, you are thinking too human.

      Don't assume the disc needs to be an aerodynamic shape. Airplanes do, but doubtless a more advanced mechanism might use another method.

      Don't assume the disc or passengers need to travel for years in interstellar space. Perhaps there is a closer point of origin. A local base. Or perhaps there is a wormhole or dimensional gate system to neatly bypass all that tedious mucking about in subspace.

      Don't assume getting back was part of the mission. We humans tend to have this need to "go home" all the time, even daily, but there is no reason to think another species, if it exists, would have such a need to return to point of origin all the time, or ever. We know that a one-way trip to Mars would be much easier to accomplish for our own space program, however our society probably does not have the moral ability to execute such a mission.

      Don't assume an interstellar civilization will need to be based on a habitable planet. First, our definition of habitable is ridiculously narrow. Second, an advanced civilization might exist and operate from artificial constructs. Remove the need to be based on a habitable planet and you gain immense tactical advantage and operational flexibility.

      Imagine what might be possible if we remove human's self-imposed rules of behavior and assume that the "can't be dones" of physics and space travel have been done.

      Start there.

      But also remember that it is not possible for any of the UFO stories to be true. They are all fake or lies or just not true. Because the alternative, if even one of them is true, is truly too scary and horrifying to think about. It is not acceptable. It cannot happen. In that case, none of the reports can be true.

    12. Re:yes yes by earthforce_1 · · Score: 1

      Maybe it was sort of like the Enterprise shuttlecraft or captain's yacht? The mothership could have stayed safely in orbit.

      --
      My rights don't need management.
    13. Re:yes yes by unity100 · · Score: 1

      i dont know whether youre an idiot or not, but in regard to good manners, i will respond :

      the quantum physics experiments dabbling on the frontiers of TIME, was an example to how far even we already have gone, as a half assed civilization that can only hop its own planet for now. if, this concept does not open your mind to new frontiers, i wont be able to reply you anymore.

    14. Re:yes yes by unity100 · · Score: 1

      yes. quoting opinion of random scholastic academician, at the wake of an actual fbi report SAYING that these extraterrestrials exist and government has procured their remans.

      this is precisely the point i have made with my grandparent - so, i should believe someone's own OPINION at the wake of an actual government report of an actual incident. AFTER and DESPITE the admittance of the incident and its nature ?

      why.

      dont answer. the question is rhetorical. if one looks at science history, there are bigger morons than feynman, ridiculeing and calling impossible to things that we take as granted today. here is an excerpt :

      http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j43

    15. Re:yes yes by millennial · · Score: 1

      You're invoking "allowing enough time and research" as a magical solution to the fact that this is something that ONLY WORKS ON THE SUBATOMIC SCALE, and thus scaling it magically upward to the classical scale.

      --
      I am scientifically inaccurate.
    16. Re:yes yes by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      But for an alien with a 500 year lifespan to spend that 500 years in a saucer-shaped vehicle that holds enough fuel to travel many light years' distance in a volume equivalent to a spacious city apartment, I'd say food would be an issue, to say nothing of insanity.

      Okay, let's say a 10,000 year lifespan, if that makes you happier....

      No animal we've ever encountered can hibernate for even one full year.

      Until last year, no animal we had encountered could produce energy by photosynthesis, either.

      Which is yet another reason to discredit the article. Whomever perpetrated this fraud wasn't even far-sighted enough to postulate aliens that were significantly different from humans.

      I tend to agree with you there, but it's possible that a roughly human form is a fairly optimal structure. Without a few billion examples of extraterrestrial life, it's rather hard to say for certain. And that's not even taking into account the possibility of exogenesis/panspermia.

      Mind you, I'd say there are probably a million to one odds that it was deliberate disinformation, but there's still that long shot. I'd imagine that the odds of aliens existing are pretty close to 100%, but that the odds of aliens having enough in common with us to be interested in meeting us are slim, and that the odds of us ever actually meeting them across the vast expanse of space would make even the odds of them being interested seem huge by comparison. So one in a million is probably a high estimate....

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    17. Re:yes yes by unity100 · · Score: 1

      50 years ago most of the technology you see today wasnt even a rumor. 100 years ago, the technology that was there 50 years ago, was not even ridiculed.

      in 3-4 decades you may see something that WORKS OUT OF THE SUBATOMIC SCALE, based on what is working on subatomic scale, JUST LIKE HOW YOU HAVE NUCLEAR ENERGY NOW. IT ISNT MAGIC - IT HAPPENS. one has to be either exceedingly ignorant, or highly shallow, or a moron to discuss in such a subject, and yet somehow be unable to think what i just have told.

    18. Re:yes yes by narcc · · Score: 1

      If the best way to build a craft that can travel through both outer space and all layers of a planetary atmosphere is to make it in the shape of a big disc, why have none of Earth's aerospace engineers ever built a craft using that shape?

      Umm... They have. Some pictures

      Just google "disk shaped aircraft".

    19. Re:yes yes by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      there are bigger morons than feynman, ridiculeing and calling impossible to things that we take as granted today

      Read the quote again, you seem to be failing at comprehension as well as common sense..

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    20. Re:yes yes by Bongo · · Score: 1

      How did aliens travel across countless light years of space to reach our planet in a craft that was just 50' in diameter? Presumably a couple generations of the crew would have grown old and died on the voyage. That's a pretty small space to raise a family in.

      Is it so hard to imagine their Nimitz is in space and the disks are just the F-16s ?

    21. Re:yes yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Learn how to use your shift key, you fornicating moron. Who do you think you are, e e cummings? (if you do, well, you aren't, not by a long shot.)

    22. Re:yes yes by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      quoting opinion of random scholastic academician, at the wake of an actual fbi report SAYING that these extraterrestrials exist and government has procured their remans.

      Except that's not what is in TFA.

      TFA says that an informant claimed there were aliens. The FBI says nothing other than some guy made this claim to them.

    23. Re:yes yes by millennial · · Score: 1

      You just did even more magical hand-waving. Thanks for proving my point.

      --
      I am scientifically inaccurate.
  85. ***ALERT*** by JohnRoss1968 · · Score: 1

    Isn't this post about 9 days too late.
    **ALERT** The Integrity of the posts on SlashDot has hit bottom, and is now showing signs it is starting to DIG.
    (Actually shouldn't this be on Digg)

  86. Uniforms for sale by whizbang77045 · · Score: 1

    Not only that, but I have a limited number of authentic crew uniforms and unit patches available, while they last. I'm going to put them up on eBay, just as soon as I post this. Sorry the uniforms will only fit someone about 3 feet tall.

  87. I would like to welcome our new alien overlords by fname · · Score: 1

    Someone had to say it.

    1. Re:I would like to welcome our new alien overlords by whizbang77045 · · Score: 1

      Thank you. At ease, we'll be on the planet all day...

  88. Why is a Flash based document viewer being used? by thehodapp · · Score: 1

    Oh the horror! The first link is using a flash based document viewer! It's running like a slug on my browser, and I'm also wondering why any sane programmer would code such a monstrosity over just distributing a PDF? Oh wait, it's the FBI...

  89. The Truth by inkrypted · · Score: 1

    I doubt that we will never know the exact truth about what happened at Roswell considering the amount of time passed and the disinformation that has been injected into the claim. So the truth has now come down to what you believe taking on almost religious overtones. As an armature ufologist I have to approach this from a pure scientific standpoint and leave all objectivity aside. Sad to say just as Webmistress said this is a report taken from an individual and proves nothing.

    --
    Chris Sheppard
  90. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Deep+Esophagus · · Score: 1

    Frankly if a saucer landed on the White House lawn to do repairs the MSM would be handed a bulletin telling them to talk about "the new alien movie being filmed today in Washington" and that would be it.

    Why does everyone assume visiting aliens would want to, much less know to, head for a political power center? If they have some way of identifying intelligent activity and/or warm bodies from a distance they might hover over a major population center, send a shuttle down to NYC or LA or whatever; or they might specifically seek to avoid population centers until they can do some recon and identify potential threats. Otherwise they'd just make a decision based on geographic features and find someplace easy to land and take off from. IF intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe and IF they decide to visit and/or happen upon our planet by chance, it's not going to be a blurry, grainy thing that could be interpreted as swamp gas or weather balloons. You can't miss an intergalactic space vehicle landing on your planet any more than you can miss the Hindenberg hitching up to its mooring mast. That's not to say I think there is any reason to believe these aliens exist. I would never say it's impossible, but I don't buy into "there are so many stars in the universe, odds support at least one of them having intelligent life". There are googillions of grains of sand, too, but large quantities of anything don't automatically force a higher probability of any grain of sand containing intelligent life.

    The US military has been to just about every single place on the planet, if anything crashes I have no doubt they would snatch it. will they EVER tell the American people? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.

    See above. They'd have to beat armies of UFO hunters to the site and destroy every land-based and satellite-based photo in existence. Our world, as dictators are finding out the hard way, is too wired to make suppression of information possible any longer.

  91. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by hairyfeet · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Uhhh...did you miss the "for repairs" part friend? Please feel free to insert NYC, Paris, anyplace where there is a shitload of cameras. I simply used DC as it is a place where there are a ton of tourists with cameras, see the getting your pic made with a cutout of the president for an example.

    I think the "grain of sand part" you focused on misses the bigger question , which would be "How many of those have FTL capability?" which Sagan pointed out in several of his works that even if you had a billion stars with inhabited planets the odds that even one of those has BOTH FTL drives AND would come to what is arguably the "ass end of the galaxy" just to fuck with the hairless monkeys? Pretty damned small. Hell if any of them DID come it would be a "gorillas in the mist" kinda thing where they would take pics of the primitives. it isn't like they would look upon man as any more special than fungus.

    As for your "see above" with UFO hunters and the like? Frankly it doesn't make a damned difference WHAT they see or get it is what the MSM says that is important. See how more than 40% at last count of the American people thought we went into Iraq over 9/11! The population by and large ONLY believes what the TV tells them to, and if the TV says all those films are bullshit and the witnesses crackpots? Well then THAT is what they'll believe! Hell our government has propaganda and misinformation down so pat I'm waiting for a news report to say "Four alarm fire makes way for GLORIOUS new tractor factory!" like they had on Airplane II.

    Again are there aliens out there? I honestly don't know, but as a scientific agnostic I want more than some shaky handycam footage before I believe shit. Would the government be honest to the people if they knew? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL. Hell we refuse to acknowledge Aurora or the stealth blimp or the pulse drive or any of the other new toys we are blowing ass loads of $$$ on, even though the desert rats can tell you when they take off and land! Bullshit and lies are SOP of the government, they sure ain't gonna change that for something as world changing as proof of extraterrestrial life.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  92. what amazes me by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    are those who have no question that this is irreversible proof that aliens landed in new mexico in the 1950s

    and those (in fact, probably a large overlap of the same people between the two populations) who don't trust that barack obama was born in hawaii, despite all of the genuine irreversible proof

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:what amazes me by ozbird · · Score: 1

      If that's what the LGMs call "landing", remind me not to hitch a lift with them.

  93. I love this from the article.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Roswell incident was forgotten by contemporary people but it resurfaced strongly in the 1970s when serious UFO researchers scanned the issue once again.

    Here's some history from Wikipedia: ...

  94. hmmm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    filipinos?

  95. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

    I don't think I buy the alien tech thing. If humans had any alien tech, they probably would have reverse-engineered it and gotten some amazing new technologies from it by now. But that hasn't happened. Most of our most-advanced technology now comes from the silicon transistor, which I'm pretty sure is well-documented enough to show it wasn't of alien origin. We certainly haven't developed any advanced spaceflight technology; the best we've ever done was the WWII-derived Saturn rocket engines, and then we pretty much stopped. The only way we could have any alien technology is if it's so advanced that we can't understand the first thing about it, and it's sitting in a cave somewhere while some scientists are still trying to figure out how to open the hatch.

  96. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

    According to thousands of people here in Phoenix, we had a UFO fly right over the city about 12 years ago. The problem was, it was at night, and the thing was black, except for the lit parts, which were the only parts visible. Google for "Phoenix lights". Believers/eyewitnesses say the lights moved as one, slowly across the city, and if part of a single craft, would mean a craft over a mile long. Now of course, these might have just been military flares as claimed by the military, but IF it was a UFO, they certainly didn't avoid a population center here: this is a pretty big city (about 4 million now).

    As for the grains of sand thing, sorry, but the odds are that there IS intelligent life out there somewhere, and probably quite a lot of it. To make life like ours, you just need a planet within a star's "habitable zone", where it's not too hot or too cold, and there's plenty of the materials needed for life, like oxygen, water, etc. We're just now finding out that there's tons of planets around stars out there (we've identified hundreds of exoplanets so far), and that's just around the stars we can see pretty closely. Our galaxy alone has something like a billion stars, and ours is one of billions of galaxies that we can see (that doesn't count all the ones we can't, with our primitive telescopes). Do the math. The odds that we're the only life in the universe is pathetically low, and the odds we're the only intelligent life is also very low. With numbers that astronomically large, it's a safe assumption that there's ETs out there, somewhere. The big question is if any of them have developed interstellar travel, and if any of those have bothered to visit us in this small, out-of-the-way star system. Since we haven't figured out how to travel to other stars ourselves (although we might be able to if we'd stop wasting our time and resources on stupid crap like unnecessary wars), we're not really in a good position to say what the odds are of anyone else developing such technology. This is like going back to 500 BCE and asking the Ancient Greeks how likely it is that someone in the Americas has developed microprocessors.

    So if you ask me if ETs exist, I say "certainly". If you ask me if any have visited us, my answer is, "I don't know, and I'm doubtful". For all we know, they're all as self-destructive as we are, and destroyed themselves when they figured out how to split the atom. Or, maybe FTL drive really is impossible so none of them have bothered to leave their own star systems. There's no way to know unless we get some real evidence of actual alien visitors here.

  97. Something doesn't add up. by w0mprat · · Score: 1

    If they have the technology to cross interstellar space then one would assume staying hidden from us and not crashing would be trivial technological problems. Indeed we can already build aircraft invisible to radar, therefore any odd radar return cannot be a genuine UFO.

    That said, it's unreasonable to assume an alien race doesn't have it's own problems with reckless individuals, criminals, stupidity and of course, adolesecents.

    Bunch of adolescent ETs steal a beat up old jalopy without cloaking and go for a joy ride ... one too many alien brews behind the flight controls and wham! Straight into a hillside in front of some frightened primates.

    Memo does state the creatures were 3 foot tall.

    --
    After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
    1. Re:Something doesn't add up. by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      you can build an airplane invisible to a radar, not to radars.

      it's a bit of the reason why many countries aren't that interested in getting stealth fighters of their own.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  98. You sound like you work for these boys, lol... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "You will dress only in attire specially sanctioned by M.I.B. special services. You'll conform to the identity we give you. Eat where we tell you. Live where we tell you. From now on, you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You will not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You are a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu, and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist. You were never even born. Anonymity is your name, silence is your native tongue. You are no longer part of the system. You are above the system, over it, beyond it. We're "them." We're "they." We are the Men in Black." - Agent Zed, to Agent J & Agent K from the film "MEN IN BLACK"

    I think that about sums it up... especially to what I responded to from your post I quoted below...

    APK

    P.S.=>

    "The document almost makes it sound like hearsay. It says an investigator stated that, but then goes on to say that it was provided by an informant. Doesn't sound terribly sound, and it says that no further investigation was done, which probably means that the FBI had a good laugh about it and then filed it away." - by DurendalMac (736637) on Sunday April 10, @12:40PM (#35774474)

    (Very good on the "std. disinformation protocol" pravda procedure, lol!)

    However - NOW? Now, you need to look @ this "flashy thing"... apk

  99. Re:dressed in metallic clothing of very fine textu by Skidborg · · Score: 1

    The aliens were all midget clones of Lady GaGa.

    --
    Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
  100. Don't know what to make of it... by John+Pfeiffer · · Score: 1

    It's a week and a half late for April Fools, and it's on the FBI website...

    WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

    For those interested, the PDF metadata indicate it was created 8/18/2004, and modified on 03/31/2011. So... I have no goddamn idea.

    --

    Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
  101. The Truth! by Swift2001 · · Score: 1

    We're the space aliens, they're the locals. Most of us have just forgotten what happened after our birth on epsilon kappa. The earth used to be littered with little green men. We killed them all by installing air conditioners. Now and again, some come back for a visit, and we kill them too. This was one of those visits. That'll teach 'em.

  102. Re:More Research by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5201410/Are-UFOs-real-Famous-people-who-believed.html

  103. The Real Truth! by Swift2001 · · Score: 1

    Of course, there's always been a small supply of the Old Ones to use as actors in Space Alien movies. Kind of like the Indians in John Ford movies. But seriously, space aliens are clearly the first manifestation of the Cold War paranoia.

  104. Aliens exist by dimethylxanthine · · Score: 0

    Hey mom there's something in the backroom I hope it's not the creatures from above You used to read me stories As if my dreams were boring We all know conspiracies are dumb...

  105. Not proof, hearsay. by Narcogen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You fail reading comprehension.

    The document is produced by Guy Hottel and addressed to the director of the FBI.

    In the document, Hottel writes that the information referred to in the document was provided to a special agent whose name is redacted. So we've already got a chain of four links here: the FBI Director, Guy Hottel at Strategic Air Command, the unnamed Special Agent, and the SA's source, whose name is also redacted after the preposition "by" in the first sentence.

    Inside that, we have the contents of the report, which is that an Air Force investigator, also unnamed, stated that three bodies and three objects were recovered. The SA's source may have been the investigator, or an intermediary, the document isn't entirely clear on that. However, the long redacted portion of the first sentence after the word "by" would seem to indicate information beyond a mere name; perhaps a title, organization, or other contextual information. Such such information was redacted in the first paragraph, but the title "investigator" and the organization name "Air Force(s)" would seem to indicate that these two individuals are distinct. So that would give us five individuals: FBI Director, Guy Hottel, the Special Agent, his informant, and the Air Force investigator.

    Everything in the document is essentially preceded by: The FBI acknowledges that SAC reports that a Special Agent says that an informant told him that an Air Force investigator stated... and it's all three years after the alleged events in New Mexico.

    There's a word for this. It's "hearsay". In this case, it's four times removed from the only person who is actually named in the document: Guy Hottel at SAC. Putting hearsay in a document doesn't make the contents official; it's just acknowledgement on the part of FBI that people made statements-- in this case, some people made statements about what other people told them that other people told them that other people told them, with three of the individuals involved unnamed.

    The important part of the document is the last paragraph-- what the Special Agent did as a result of the informant's statement: "no further investigation was attempted". In other words, it wasn't credible enough to even bother looking into.

    The only question here is why Slashdot's editors, more than sixty years later, aren't as astute as that Special Agent.

    1. Re:Not proof, hearsay. by unity100 · · Score: 1

      thankfully another nutso who is so doggedly bent on ignoring reality slapping his face just made a similar comment, and i will save time replying to you.

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2077214&cid=35778430

      here. keep ignoring reality by yourself. conditioned like a middle age peasant to reject what he had been conditioned against.

      'no further investigation was attempted' in secret service jargon means 'we have been told not to interfere'.

      really. why are there so many morons, acting out of conditioning than pure reason on slashdot. this was supposed to be a place where smart people regulared. instead, there is one idiot after another displaying a different kind of conditioning in parallel with religious zealotry, or political zealotry. appallingly, you lot criticize each other too.

      never mind never mind. dont need to answer. i dont have time for conditioned individuals. ill put you in the same basked with right wing ayn randists and religious types. have a nice day.

    2. Re:Not proof, hearsay. by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      "thankfully another nutso who is so doggedly bent on ignoring reality slapping his face"

      It's interesting that you think the "nutsos" are the ones who *don't* believe in wild, unsubstantiated claims. And by "interesting" I mean "hilarious."

      "'no further investigation was attempted' in secret service jargon means 'we have been told not to interfere'. "

      I did not know that. What does it mean in FBI jargon? (To bring the conversation back around to something having anything at all to do with this document that has nothing to do with the Secret Service.)

  106. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by avgjoe62 · · Score: 1

    ...it's sitting in a cave somewhere while some scientists are still trying to figure out how to open the hatch.

    Actually, I heard it's sitting at the bottom of a shaft at Cheyenne Mountain and the scientists are trying to decipher the symbols.

    Besides, if you want proof of alien technology here on Earth, explain Velcro to me. ;-)

    --

    How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

  107. An investigator and an informant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An investigator for the FBI (supposedly trustworthy) states we found 3 saucers and 9 3ft bodies. An informant (presumed reliability?) tells us they were downed because of the radar. It doesn't seem right that you should mix an informant and an investigator's descriptions unless the memo was concerning the informant and the top was included for context (referring to an incident described in another report).

    In any case, either as a report on what was found or as an interview, this seems very light on details. (Unless whole reports were being made for one-off remarks.)

    Why though would you need to refer to anything beyond "the saucers" unless this wasn't the only such incident?

    How did the informant come to the conclusion that radar disrupted UFOs, because it had a legion of people fearing it like cell towers? Did we have an alien among us for consulting? "Ah yes, the Starsailer GH-42 model, they're known for being disabled by strong blasts of radio waves. You're not yet known as an 'advanced' planet, they probably thought it was safe to come here. We'll have to send word back home to reclassify your planet."

  108. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by vivian · · Score: 1

    I would never say it's impossible, but I don't buy into "there are so many stars in the universe, odds support at least one of them having intelligent life". There are googillions of grains of sand, too, but large quantities of anything don't automatically force a higher probability of any grain of sand containing intelligent life.

    If one of those sands of grain was known had evolved intelligent life though, it's a pretty good bet that there would be others as yet unknown grains of sand on that beach that also had intelligent life.

  109. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by vivian · · Score: 1

    Ah - grains of sand, that is.

  110. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Daengbo · · Score: 1

    I remember when I was taking my military classified information class: it went something like --

    • Instructor: "For instance, you're not allowed to talk about REDACTED in public."
    • Me: "But, I knew about REDACTED before I joined the military. Everyone knows about REDACTED."
    • Instructor: "It doesn't officially exist."
    • Me: "But it's in movies and books everywhere."
    • Instructor: "It's classified."
    • Me: O_o
  111. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Daengbo · · Score: 1

    I used to agree with you 100%. After this released memo, though, I have a new theory: the aliens came to take videos for sale back home. The anal probes? Pr0n. The commander's name is !@$%^#&%, which roughly translates to "Cap'n Stabbin'." ;)

  112. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Bongo · · Score: 1

    I see Nature like a big photocopier. It doesn't just create one animal, it creates a multitude of them. Likewise for mountains, rivers, planets, stars. We used to think the sun was it. Then we realised all the other points were stars. Then we thought planets are rare. But as soon as we were able to just about detect them, we see lots of them. Then we thought maybe they aren't distributed in size and distance like in our system. But as our instruments got better we were able to detect similar distributions. So what's next? Detecting similar atmospheres -- nearly there. Then what? The core question is whether Earth is special. If Earth is just average, not too early, not too late, not too smart, not too dumb, then intelligent bipeds are out there, probably very similar. We are probably tracing their evolutionary footsteps, as a culture. Maybe they even gave us some religion, in a dumbed form that could be useful 5000 years ago to stop continual tribal slaughters. Who know what their rules are for interference. I'd guess it is: don't interfere; observe if you like; let them slug it out on their own. Perhaps though they have other rules. Maybe we have more potential but are still a bit too dumb and are trashing our planet (not global warming, that's dumb, I mean mercury in the oceans, and other pernicious chemical pollutants that sadly everyone has forgotten about in the AGW hype and big 'alternative' energy business.) So maybe they'll turn up and give us some extra time to sort out our shit. Yes space is unimaginably big -- maybe they are long lived (like 500 years), or maybe they send self assembling packages, or maybe they bend space. Maybe they reincarnate or download into their own descended bodies. Who knows that's possible. It would be dumb to believe they can't do stuff we can't imagine. Most people alive today on the planet can't imagine how electricity works. We've been around for maybe 200,000 years as tribes, and 10,000 as agriculturalists, and 5000 as empires, and 200 years as scientists, and what if they are just another 10,000 years ahead of us? That's 10,000 years as scientists versus our 200, and see what we've already done in just those 200 years. Of course, blind bad luck may have it that we've popped up in a deserted part of the galaxy. So that's why one can't just bet on it. But people do see stuff, and it only takes one in a thousand to be a real report, be it foo fighters, or some lady who stood with a group of people on a sunny day back in the 30s watching a metallic craft hovering and moving silently to and fro. If they arrived in our lifetime that would be very cool. Try not to run around in a panic, eh?

  113. What would the official release date be ? by dko1625 · · Score: 1

    April 1. would be my guess :-)

  114. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    That explains why they skipped the landing and went straight to blowing it up.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  115. Just realized by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

    I just put 2 and 2 together, if some race was coming to earth to do something, without our knowledge, stopping Hitler during WW2 would have been prime...maybe they came to help the race destroy Hitler , because they knew we needed the help...and we never really saw them, but it almost matches the time the war ended....just a thought....that to me would be a real reason for an alien race to get involved with us

  116. The FOI didn't exist until the 70s by decora · · Score: 1

    And documents are destroyed --all the time-- by the government.

    Example: The torture tapes that the CIA recorded of their 'interrogation' sessions. Through FOIA we don't have the tapes, but we have the internal discussions the CIA had about how to destroy the tapes so as to 'protect' the officers doing the torturing.

    Example2: the Department of Defense Inspector General did an investigation into NSA's failed Trailblazer program boondoggle; vast quantities of documents relating to that investigation have been destroyed. . . this is a problem for the defense team of Thomas Drake, an NSA officer who aided the DoD in it's investigation, because now he is being sued by the government for 'unauthorized retention of national defense information' and they are trying to prove it was part of his job to have this sort of information - but a lot of his internal emails have been erased.

  117. you should see the Silvermaster files by decora · · Score: 1

    the FBI went around spying on people they thought might be communists. the reports read pretty much like this. . . except instead of aliens it is "Subject went to the grocery store at 11pm. Subject came home. Subject met with Ms Z for 30 minutes after which Ms. Z left. Subject went to sleep"

    "Subject is now pregnant and taking care of a small child. No further investigations made"

  118. people with intellectual curiosity by decora · · Score: 1

    usually don't last very long in government jobs

  119. read the comment count carefully by decora · · Score: 1

    slashdot editors put through stuff all the time that has ridiculous headlines. as long as it gets some hits and generates discussion, and is not completely nutso or bigoted, it can be considered worthy.

    in the comment section the problems with wording etc usually get ironed out. in this case for example the vast majority of commenters point out exactly what you are saying.

  120. some ppl want to get rid of child labor laws by decora · · Score: 1

    and i would imagine that these people , who are not by any stretch 'fringe' (you can find their articles in major economics journals), would have some excuse or explanation of why it was OK...

    imagine the US government simply contracted out the work?

    OK, the contractor does some subcontracting as well...

    and they subcontract to some company in Mexico or Bangladesh, which uses children as test pilots.

    Look at hedge fund guy Jeffrey Epstein, he has tons of famous rich buddies and he is deeply into funding science research, he also had a harem of teenage prostitutes he abused. In his words, what he did was no worse than 'stealing a bagel' . This guy has put big money into some big named places, Harvard etc. Would a guy like that think twice about subcontracting a company that put kids in test aircraft?

  121. Ah well by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    At least they got the font right this time.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  122. what if there is another layer of they? by decora · · Score: 1

    what if -they- want you to think that its what -they- want you to think?

    and then, what if -they- want you think that -they- want you to think that it is what -they- want you to think?

    and also, what if -they- want you to think that -they- want you to think that -they- want you to think that this is what -they- want you to think?

    its a good question! Think about it!

  123. Space Age Technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've never understood why the Air Force found aluminum foil to be such a revolutionary technology and proclaimed it to to be the likely product of an alien civilization. The 2 guys in the photo look perplexed and mystified.

  124. The Truth is Out There! by applematt84 · · Score: 1

    Well, looks like Mulder & Scully don't have to worry about sneaking around to reveal the truth any more ...

  125. Is no one here a UFOlogist? by jjohn · · Score: 1

    The "Roswell Incident" (AKA the Crash at Corona) is a well-picked over story that goes something like this:

      1) June 14, 1947, New Mexico rancher Brazel reports unexpected mechanical debris on his property.
              He tells a UFO story to the local paper and police.

      2) The cops call the Army, which sends over Major Marcel to collect the "alien artifacts."

      3) The Army issues a press release about the "UFO."

      4) Later, after more careful inspection, the debris is relabeled "as being a weather balloon and its "kite,""

    The memo in question is from an FBI investigator Guy Hottel, written several years after this event. As wikipedia notes,
    it isn't clear that this memo even refers to the "Roswell incident" at all.

    Also, enjoy the retro-scifi techno-jargon contained in the memo:

    "It is believed the [Army's radar located on the New Mexico base] interferes with the controlling mechanism of
    the saucers."

    At best, this memo is a report on hearsay. It is not direct evidence of a cover-up or even of recovered alien craft.
    It is, in the neologisms of today, some government dude's blog post.

    Don't thank me, Internet. I'm just doing my job.

    1. Re:Is no one here a UFOlogist? by jjohn · · Score: 1

      And a more thoughtful response to this hoax can be found here:

      http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/132868/20110411/fbi-hottel-memo-reveals-ufo-hoax.htm

      Those who forget their UFOlogy are bound to repeat it.

  126. So FBI agents are 100% right about everything !? by basbrun · · Score: 1

    When investigating file sharing, hackers and crackers, FBI agents are first class ignorant morons but when it is about UFOs their vague and ambiguous documents are proving out of any doubts that aliens exist and are visiting us on a regular basis !?

  127. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Come on, guys. April Fools was a week and a half ago.

  128. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you believe the reports, the incidence of UFO visits has gone up significantly since we started exploding fusion and fission devices in the atmosphere.

    Therefor, my bet isthat there is a "warning sign" a few parsecs out from Earth warning travelers to avoid us because we are toddlers with a handgun (fission devices we can't control).

    So, any "visitors" are either scientific observers or joyriding idiots.

    Or asteroids...

  129. Completely Deceptive Summary by harl · · Score: 1

    Wow. Your summary is a flat out lie.

    It clearly states that this is a report of what someone reported. Someone, which is redacted, claimed to see something and the FBI wrote it down. That's what police forces do.

    At no point does the FBI say what your summary said.

    --
    I find being offended by me offensive.
  130. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

    I would never say it's impossible, but I don't buy into "there are so many stars in the universe, odds support at least one of them having intelligent life".

    Well, we know for sure that at least one of them has a life form which most of its members consider intelligent.
    The question is whether there's another one.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  131. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

    Ah, that makes a nice test: Ask someone from the military who should know about it. If he refuses to talk about it, it's real. :-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  132. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by operagost · · Score: 1

    Well, the funny logic actually begins with claiming that there are no UFOs. All flying objects are easily identified?

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  133. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

    "The War Of The Worlds", simple as that. My grandfather brought me one of his flight books to show "military logic" and it said "THERE ARE NO UFOS...but if you see one don't fire unless fired upon". Him and his buddies used to LMAO about that one. How do you "not fire unless fired upon" something that doesn't exist?

    Maybe they wanted to protect their super-secret airplane inventions on test flights to be shot down by some stupid pilot who thinks he met some extraterrestrials?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  134. in that case... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All hail Xenu!!!!

  135. Misleading headline by eyenot · · Score: 1

    The article is actually about "FBI releases disowned curio-artifact report verifying the continued rejection by 'the establishment' of the idea of UFOs at Roswell"

    --
    "Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
  136. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Evtim · · Score: 1

    Well then, if I was in charge of the aliens I would do my research well and finding that both you and the person you respond to are right in certain sense I would announce myself by broadcasting over all available channels of communication - radio, TV, Internet. And I would do it in such way that my original message could not be tampered with by anyone. Being able to FLT (I believe space exploration is meaningless and impossible without FLT) this must be very easy to realize.

  137. Re:Want to know why they'll NEVER be honest with y by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're just now finding out that there's tons of planets around stars out there ....

    Based on that measurement, it could be just one planet the size of a Greyhound bus.

  138. There's a Second Amendment remedy for that. by Benfea · · Score: 1

    Not that I would personally advocate such a thing, but conservatives routinely do, so they won't mind people making helpful suggestions like this. Anyone have mister Beck's private home address? We can suggest that second amendment remedists go there.

  139. So much for geek reading comprehension by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jeez, didn't anybody read through to the end of the article?? Last line: "The 'secret FBI memo' mentioned in this article turned out to be a hoax. Click here for more details about this hoax."

    OK, I admit that that line was an "update" added after the fact, so maybe it didn't initially appear last night when the Slashdot story hit. But what kind of criteria do the Slashdot editors use to select articles? Reports of alien races landing on earth don't trigger an automatic visit to Snopes?

  140. The truth is out there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/132868/20110411/fbi-hottel-memo-reveals-ufo-hoax.htm

  141. Re:dressed in metallic clothing of very fine textu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh you're so funny, goof. Please: Shut up already. You're so stupid, it's not funny, just like your poor attempts at humor here.

  142. Re:dressed in metallic clothing of very fine textu by Skidborg · · Score: 1

    You, on the other hand, are a master of wit and entertainment: I find it vastly amusing that you're going to the trouble of finding so many of my old comments and writing insults under each of them, especially since these topics are so far down the page that nobody but us two are going to bother reading them.

    No, scratch that. Beyond this post, I'm not going to bother reading any of the rest either.

    --
    Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
  143. Re:dressed in metallic clothing of very fine textu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You need to learn to listen. I'll say it again. Shut up you dumb bitch.