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White House Responds to ET/UFO Petitions

An anonymous reader writes "The White House has responded to two more We the People petitions. These new inquiries ask the government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited Earth. The response from Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science and Technology is: 'The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.'" I'm glad that's cleared up. Now our government can get back to important work like developing caffeinated jerky.

36 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. yeah... by dmacleod808 · · Score: 2

    I bet if the government was asked about any other super high security classified information, they would similarly deny it.

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    There Can Be Only One...
    1. Re:yeah... by tysonedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The use of the phrase "no credible information" is going to drive the conspiracy theorists crazy for decades, 'cause aliens are incredible man! We want to see the incredible information!

      --
      Thirty four characters live here.
    2. Re:yeah... by scubamage · · Score: 2

      Yeah, was anyone expecting anything different on this one?

    3. Re:yeah... by Soilworker · · Score: 2

      "Immediately disclose the government's knowledge of and communications with extraterrestrial beings"

      What kind of moron write a petition implying he undoubtedly KNOW THAT THE US GOV. had communication with extraterrestrial beings, no one can take a moron like that seriously.

    4. Re:yeah... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ah, you underestimate the true conspiracy theorist's(don't let yourself be fooled by the plants) capacity for discerning the sinister complexity of the labyrinthine wheels within wheels...

      By craftily wording their inquiry as though it were merely a risible question about aliens, our petitioner has forced Them to reveal that there is "no credible evidence" to suggest that the US Government has communicated with extraterrestrial beings, such as the so-called 'astronauts' who participated in the moon landing hoax, or 'space probes' that allegedly disprove the Hollow Earth theory!

    5. Re:yeah... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nope. What I'd like to see some more signatures on this one, actually - not that I expect any tangible results, but it'd be at least mildly entertaining to see how they respond to it.

    6. Re:yeah... by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More logically the phrase "no evidence" versus the more commonly expected "no knowledge". So perhaps no recovered alien vessels and no captured aliens versus no knowledge of unknown space vessels, presumably not operated by humans.

      Of course one need only look at the reply for marijuana versus say this story http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2008/jul/23/significance_us_govt_cannabinoid which leads you to http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6630507.html. So the US Department of Health has a patent on what the US Government in turn denies is of any value.

      Then of course who could forget wikileaks and embassy cables, basically the US government lying all over the place, again and again and again.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    7. Re:yeah... by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 2

      They also said "outside our planet." That still leaves wide open the whole "ancient astronauts from Earth" camp. Better still, we now have a leading statement that provides additional credibility to the theory. Call us crazies will you? Hah! One day, we'll prove that the last ice age was caused by nuclear winter from our ancient ancestors. These aliens don't keeping telling us nukes are bad for no good reason. They lived through what could happen!

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    8. Re:yeah... by gtall · · Score: 2

      " Then of course who could forget wikileaks and embassy cables, basically the US government lying all over the place, again and again and again."

      Really, take this acid test, write down everything you say about your place of employment for a year and then send it to your boss, your boss's boss, and shove it all the way up the chain of command. Information wants to be free, y'now.

  2. Air Force Caffeine Department by bobsacks · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Kind of off topic - I was buddies with a guy in the air force that worked on the caffeinated stuff. He came to visit one time and brought some caffeine pudding with him. Hell of a drug.

    1. Re:Air Force Caffeine Department by ThurstonMoore · · Score: 2, Insightful

      People start getting nuts when they use any stimulant inplace of rest.

  3. Dear Citizens! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    We warmly welcome any further inquiries concerning matters distant from pressing issues that make the questioner look slightly insane for doubting us!

    In fact, just in the spirit of openness, we voluntarily announce that neither we, nor the British royal family, are Pod People, or Reptoids from Delta Reticulon Minus. If you have any further requests for information or policy change that we can easily dismiss as being outside the window of political consideration, please let us know.

  4. Area 51 Syndrome by k6mfw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is one place government officials do not discuss, do not acknowledge it exists, etc. Yet there is this immense desire by people wanting to know what's going on at this place. This gives opportunity for creative people to say there are space aliens freeze-dried from the Roswell crash. OK, prove them wrong. You can't, only thing that can be done is debate among different groups. Unless US govt declassify the area, permit tours, photos, etc. but until then Area 51 remains a good place for conspiracies, movie plots, whatever.

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    mfwright@batnet.com
    1. Re:Area 51 Syndrome by Soilworker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even if there is no alien in area 51 they still have new technology, missile and stuffs that you don't have to see.

      If I don't want you to come at my house to see inside It must be because I have a trapped alien in it.

    2. Re:Area 51 Syndrome by mister_dave · · Score: 3, Informative

      I watched a (UK TV) documentary by a defence journalist a year or so back, where he suggested that the whole UFO business dating back to Roswell was a dis-information campaign by the USAF to disguise their new product testing - now Area 51. I thought he made his case well.

    3. Re:Area 51 Syndrome by Greystripe · · Score: 3, Funny

      So what exactly are you doing with this trapped alien and did it come in peace?

    4. Re:Area 51 Syndrome by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      I don't know how much you know about Area 51 but my impression is that many top secret military aircraft were and are developed and tested there. Why would the government want to declassify that? I remember some UFO conspiracists saying that UFOs were triangular in shape not round as evidenced by what he saw flying out of there. Years later the government acknowledged the stealth fighter and the stealth bomber. There are rumors that a Mach 5+ spy plane code named Aurora is being developed there. I would favor Occam's razor in that top secret military projects are there instead of wild conspiracy theories about alien technology.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    5. Re:Area 51 Syndrome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      ... and did it come in peace?

      Well, originally, yes.

    6. Re:Area 51 Syndrome by crakbone · · Score: 2

      Does the alien clean and do the yard work? That's what my aliens do.

    7. Re:Area 51 Syndrome by grimmjeeper · · Score: 2

      Pretty much. Area 51 is a government run airport that they use to test various new systems and even new aircraft. I seem to remember something I read about the stealth planes being tested there before the programs were acknowledged. I'm sure they still use Area 51 to test all the new secret whiz bangs and gizmos they put on the planes. Being an airport in a remote area away from prying eyes makes it pretty good for that kind of work.

      I'm pretty sure that if there are alien space craft anywhere here, they're nowhere near Area 51. The government doesn't do anything to dissuade the alien freaks who focus on Area 51. In fact, their insistence on not answering questions may be specifically done to keep the UFO crowd focusing on Area 51. While everyone is focusing on Area 51, all of the research and what not is being done at a nondescript warehouse in Cleveland or St Louis or some other big city with a large warehouse district. Classic redirection and distraction.

  5. According to polls by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    14% of Americans think they've seen a UFO. An additional 20% haven't seen one, but believe they exist.

    Somewhere around 10% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.

    This says something about the United States, although I'm not sure exactly what.

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    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    1. Re:According to polls by chemicaldave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It says two things. 1) People are willing to lie in surveys to feel special, and 2) The rest of America doesn't disapprove of Congress as a whole, just the other party.

    2. Re:According to polls by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Well, it suggests that ancient near-eastern science fiction writers are still holding up pretty well compared to contemporary science fiction writers, since the figure for Americans who believe in angels is 55%, fully 16% higher than UFOs...

    3. Re:According to polls by RazzleFrog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      90% believe in a god, 55% believe they are protected by guardian angels, 54% believe in psychic abilities, 41% believe in demonic/devil possession.

      People believe in a lot of really dumb things.

  6. I wonder how much is snark by AdamJS · · Score: 2

    Because I've certainly seen a UFO. I mean, it was probably just a plane or a helicopter and sometimes just a refraction of insects in the light from my glasses, but I seens thems, I'm sure.

  7. Also, according to polls by gshegosh · · Score: 4, Funny

    78,32% of Americans believe any made up numbers.

  8. Re:Evidence for life by Frenzied+Apathy · · Score: 2

    I think we can assume he was referring to sentient life...

    [rolleyes]

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    The cake is a lie.
  9. Wouldn't that be amazing? by ZouPrime · · Score: 2

    After hand-waiving away the cannabis legalization and the software patent petitions, it would have been amazing to see the White House answers this one candidly. "After seeing such public pressure on the matter over decades, this administration has decided to come clean with the Martians and our contacts with them."

  10. Re:As the world collapses around us... by cdrguru · · Score: 2

    You misunderstand the function of the government. If we wanted an "efficient" government we would have 100x the laws we currently have. The government would be able to pass new funding resolutions, new laws, new regulations on the content of food, etc., etc., etc. and they woudl be able to do this very very quickly. Hundreds of news laws each week.

    Instead, what we have is a system that is designed to provide gridlock, obstructionism and anything but efficiency. The very notion of a bicameral debating society insures that little is going to get done unless it is really, really important and everyone agrees right away. So we have endless periods where they find something that people can agree upon, like naming a post office after some dead person. And every once in a while a new law actually does get passed, usually by the slimmest of margins.

    This is the way it is supposed to work, and if it wasn't working so incredibly inefficiently we would all be in lots of trouble. Dictatorships are efficient. Monarchies can be efficient, until they get bogged down with endless ministers and advisors. Parlimentory systems are never efficient and anytime you have a bicameral system you know it was designed from the beginning with a lack of efficiency in mind.

  11. You want proof there are no ETs on earth? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You want proof there are no ETs on earth?

    Look at the defense budget.
    Now look at NASAs budget.

    NASA's budget is tiny in comparison. Clearly the US sees other countries as much bigger threat than the anal-probers from outta space. Either that or they feel that a little humiliation for the drunk rednecks that spot them is acceptable.

    If we had discovered aliens do you really think we'd be slashing science spending and space exploration costs?

    Do you really think the US would be the only country to know about them and that all 200+ nations on earth are collaborating together to keep us in the dark.

    It is ludicrous. The one way you know that aliens have been found and secretly being kept away from the public is when the government starts putting higher priority on space funding and NASA's budget starts rocketing upwards instead of getting cut further and further each year.

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    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  12. Watching too much TV by Lev13than · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To sum up TFA:

    1. Aliens are almost certainly real. Those who refuse to believe in the likely existence of extraterrestrial life either refuse to acknowledge or cannot comprehend the vastness of space and (especially) the vastness of time.

    2. UFOs are absolutely real. There are lots of instances where people legitimately see objects in the sky that they cannot identify/classify.

    3. UFOs are absolutely not aliens. Those who believe that aliens have visited earth either refuse to acknowledge or cannot comprehend the vastness of space and (especially) the vastness of time.

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    When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
    1. Re:Watching too much TV by Lev13than · · Score: 2

      1. Lots of credible estimates out there. Wikipedia (which is never wrong, of course) provides an estimate for the observable universe of about 3 to 100 × 10^22 stars (30 sextillion to a septillion stars) organized in more than 80 billion galaxies. If you make an assumption on the average number of habitable planets per star (our solar system has one, for example), you have a rough guess.

      2. There is one known planet with life (earth), so the odds for life orbiting any particular star at any point in time over the last 13.75 billion years is going to be better than one in a septillion, or 1:1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000. I like those odds.

      3. Stars are very far apart, and 13.75 billion years is a long time. The odds that another planet close enough to earth has intelligent life which developed inter-stellar travel and visited earth in the same 500-1,000-year period when might we actually be able to notice them is vanishingly small. I don't like those odds at all.

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      When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
  13. Re:As the world collapses around us... by RazzleFrog · · Score: 2

    Total government control is not the problem - Total Corporate control is and that is a much tougher battle to fight. It's hard to say - don't support evil corporations - because unless you plan on living on a farm and growing everything you eat and wear it is almost impossible to not give your money to some evil corporation.

    This is an issue that crosses party lines but our current government is so polarized and dysfunctional that nothing is getting done to fix it. The worst part is I have no chance of winning office as an atheist so the best I can do is try to educate and inform as many people as I can - which as my friends will tell you, I do.

  14. Re:As the world collapses around us... by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful
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    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  15. Re:They're out there man by grimmjeeper · · Score: 2

    Maybe they're the kind of water that works in the 100 MPG carburetor the government is hiding too...

  16. Re:As the world collapses around us... by khallow · · Score: 2

    Except that those "voluntary" activities were encouraged using ad campaigns aimed at children and sold products intentionally designed to enhance addiction.

    They remain voluntary activities despite your "scare quotes". When Phillip Morris sticks a gun to your head and forces you to smoke cigarettes for forty years, then you'll have a case. Until then, you're just blowing smoke.