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CIA on UFO Sightings: 'It Was Us'
mrflash818 sends word that the CIA has taken the blame for a majority of early UFO sightings. In a tweet, the agency said, "It was us," and linked to a document summarizing their use of U-2 spy planes from 1954-1974 (PDF).
"High-altitude testing of the U-2led to an unexpected side effect — a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects," the CIA wrote in the document, which it wrote in 1998. "In the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and [many] military aircraftoperated at altitudes below 40,000 feet. Consequently, once U-2s started flying at altitudes above 60,000 feet, air-traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports." [T]he CIA cross-referenced UFO sightings to U-2 flight logs. "This enabled the investigators to eliminate the majority of the UFO reports," the CIA wrote, "although they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings."
U2 aircraft are responsible for some. F-117 stealth fighters were responsible for quite a few too -- they were operational for over a decade before it was publically acknowledged they existed.
As someone who once worked for Project Senior Trend, the sibling post has it dead-on.
It was much preferable for the USAF to have folks think that ET stopped by, than to let them realize that what they were really seeing were F-117s flying overhead (mind you, nearly all sorties were done at night, but things happen, and dawn/dusk is kind of an awkward time, at least visually.) In profile (side or front/rear), the jet has a saucer-like shape, and definitely something that doesn't look like an ordinary civilian or military aircraft. Funny enough, the Soviets were more than happy to foster and even encourage alien conspiracy theories, if only to keep their own population from thinking that they saw some secret military project flying overhead.
Other notable examples of military aircraft that would cause confusion and optical illusions? The SR-71/A-12 in its early days, the B-47 flying wing, and its grandkid, the B-2 bomber.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Weather Balloons - Swamp Gas - Reflections of the Sun against ice particles in clouds - The planet Venus, Mars, Jupiter - Sputnik II - The Jupiter II - The USS Enterprise - that just about covers it...
"just about covers it" you say.. I wonder what the rest were? Especially the silent ones flying in formation with large panels on their bottoms flashing bright primary colors that I saw go right over my head at night at perhaps 50 feet off the ground in the direction of Mt. Rainier, which about 10 minutes later were followed by two Air Force jets at slow speed but higher up. Then a while later what sounded like helicopters with strong search lights flew around over the forest to the side of the house where I was staying flashing the search beams around in the trees as they also slowly followed the same path towards Rainier.
When one of them was directly above me I felt a deep thrumming vibration throughout my body, strong enough to almost be audible, which then quickly faded as it drifted past me. There were no other sounds coming from them. This was back in the 90's.
* Say what you will, but at the very least there is tech flying/floating around this world that no Government is yet admitting to having.
This is such horseshit. Regardless of what you think of UFOs, of the hundreds of thousands of UFO sightings, many reported by military people, law enforcement and people trained to observe aircraft, hardly any of them resembled anything like a U2 spyplane.
Last time I checked, a U2 spyplane was not really capable of hovering motionless and then accelerating to the horizon in a moment. Nor were they gigantic triangular craft.
I don't think for a second that there are aliens from Ork involved with the UFO sightings that have been common for the last five millennia, but I doubt more than a handful were people who were seeing U2 spyplanes. Who knows fuck-all about what those UFOs really were or whether they were inside or outside the observers heads? But at the moment, I'm not prepared to believe a goddamn thing the CIA says about anything. In my opinion, they're a bigger threat to people's safety and sanity than practically any outside threat, including North Korea, Iran, Russia or Israel (who are all plenty bad),
Now, if you want to tell me that the abductions people have been reporting for the past 40 years are the CIA, I may buy that, because they are some sadistic motherfuckers who love putting things up peoples' asses, as we have learned from recent government leaks. Yeah, anal probes, mutilations, etc, that sounds just like the CIA's speed.
You are welcome on my lawn.
...and don't forget the SR-71...
F-117 and U2 were practically average looking compared to that thing. My father was in the air-force and got to see one land before they were declassified. He said his first reaction was ALIENS! But changed his after it landed like any normal aircraft.
Yes military aircraft probably accounts for the majority of sightings, but not the ones that zip around faster than anything we have even today, stop on a dime and go another direction just as fast..
I've seen objects like this, multiple times, but I've always been able to explain in mundane terms after watching closely -- I'm the kind of guy who keeps binoculars in the car just in case the night skies are clear. I'd *love* to see an alien spaceship, but being a habitual sky watcher things that occasional sky watcher might take as a spacecraft look like ordinary phenomena to me.
And it's not because I only see what I'm told could be real. Decades ago I experienced something which science said was impossible: meteors shooting overhead with a rocket-like sound. The reason this is impossible is that meteors are fifty or a hundred miles up -- sound could not travel fast enough through the atmosphere. But I knew what I saw and heard, and in 2001 scientists actually observed this phenomenon, electrophonic meteors.
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If you look at one of those Internet compilations of Photos you really need to look at to understand, it is very impressive just how confused you can be by chance juxtapositions of visual elements.
#18 is particularly interesting. It's not a precise juxtaposition. The shadow looks like the shadow of a flag; it's not shaped like the rug. You can understand intellectually what's happening in about five seconds. And yet it takes a real effort of will to perceive the rug is lying on the sand. Relax for an instant and it once again looks as if it is levitating.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!