I want the aliens to be real so much. But even if it doesn't turn out to be aliens, these sorts of events present an opportunity to study and explore as-of-yet unexplored or poorly understood phenomenon, which can be equally exciting. In particular, this example seems to be explained as follows:
> In 2020, Justus completed an extensive study of the high-altitude barium release clouds, concluding that what Carter saw was "totally consistent" with what was launched that evening from Eglin AFB.[13] Justus described several physical aspects supporting consistency, and submitted a copy of the report for archival at the Jimmy Carter Library.
And if we look up "Barium Tracer Cloud" on YouTube we can see images of what Jimmy Carter might've seen at the time, which has both a mundane explanation while being exceptionally magical in its own way.
There's also additional images in the report PDF [1].
> I want the aliens to be real so much. But even if it doesn't turn out to be aliens, these sorts of events present an opportunity to study and explore as-of-yet unexplored or poorly understood phenomenon, which can be equally exciting.
One of the main reasons why the UFO crowd discredits itself is the way that the crazies in the community are overrepresented, and look at "this flying object is not identified" and automatically jump to the conclusion that not knowing something somehow means it definitely must support an outlandish mythology.
At the same time, the supposedly rational opponents to this does everyone a disservice by judging all of it based on the loudest fraction of people. And then we can’t have scientific inquiry into anything, because baby/bathwater.
> At the same time, the supposedly rational opponents to this does everyone a disservice by judging all of it based on the loudest fraction of people.
Not really. The UFO community is synonymous with gullible crackpots and conspiracy loons. If the community wants to be take seriously, they themselves need to sort themselves out before they can expect to be taken seriously.
> If the community wants to be take seriously, they themselves need to sort themselves out
How do you propose we collectively do that? Appointing a UFO Pope and excommunicating the heretics?
Yes, there are folks out there who see any dot in the sky doing anything they are vaguely unfamiliar with and jump to the conclusion that it must be a bona fide alien spaceship. However, this doesn't mean the UFO community is uniformly like that. Nor is the available evidence limited to bright dots in the sky, either.
There will never be "scientific" evidence without scientists willing and funded to obtain it. And if we label every person with an interest on the subject as a "gullible crackpot and a conspiracy loon" then how likely is it that we will fund their research, and how unbiased are we to listen to the results of that research unless it fits exactly within the boundaries of our preconceived ideas of what is even possible.
I don't have the answers to the UFO hypothesis. Never seen one, never want to see one either. But I appreciate any systematic effort to collect data of the objects in our skies and identify them. If nothing else, we will at least be protecting our airspace from foreign adversaries.
> The UFO community is synonymous with gullible crackpots and conspiracy loons.
It's worse than that. There's definitely a religious element to their beliefs. The UAP hearings last summer suggest that there's "UFO-believers" in leadership positions in the Department of defense. These people are SPENDING GOVERNMENT MONEY on insane fiascos and have been able to get a lot of attention lately.
"We can't be certain what it is, therefore, we are certain it is aliens."
You're right, and it's funny thinking about it in more abstract terms. Being "unidentified" means we can't match it to any known phenomenon, to then jump to being certain it is aliens is silly.
Although this characterization does not represent a lot of the analyses, and I think it's silly to "homogenize" a group of people and misrepresent them via stereotype.
Isn't that a definition of discrimination? That seems to be
very silly. Haha! :)
Anyway, analysis focuses on "5 unexplainable observables" like : lift without control surfaces, instant acceleration, low observability, hypersonics without signatures, transmedium travel.
> Although this characterization does not represent a lot of the analyses, and I think it's silly to "homogenize" a group of people and misrepresent them via stereotype.
You certainly aren't being serious. The term UFO has been so abused by crackpots and conspiracy loons that it managed to be synonymous with unbelievable reports of aliens.
Oh, I'm being serious. But the point about 'UFO' is different to the point about mischaracterizing people: which you seem to be doing. That seems to be an abusive thing, definitely.
Also, I think the 'UFO' term is good. Detected on radar, probably means object. UAP is too nebulous possibly deliberately so to confuse. UFO's the better term I think. I honestly think the chracterization of people interested in that as 'crazy' or 'crackpot' is not only abusive, and stupid (and not serious), it's not true at all, I don't think it ever was.
I think that idea is some kind of 'propaganda'. There has been an information war about this topic because the existence of a more powerful outside force directly challenges the authority of our Earth governments, so in the face of no other means to contest these things, they've sought to belittle interest in them to empower themselves. Controlling the narrative rather than the nuts and bolts. But the kind of abuse of the public is untrue, and like wartime propaganda against the Japanese as "they will eat your babies and take your women."
The crazy thing is having that view, and the non serious thing is characterizing people like that. That's what I think, and I think that's the right way. I mean, you can't make progress on understanding something if you try to shame anyone who wants to talk about it, get interested in it or study it.
Seriously tho, if you were an invading alien force wouldn't you want people to discount your existence as crazy? What better way to run cover for your infiltration? Hahaha! :) So the whole thing is bizarre but I think it's not profitable to go that way. It's only good to treat people well, and this topic is no exception. Not just for the reality of treating people well, but so we can study it properly. The serious way is to take it seriously. :)
And what is better, seriously, than something that could help bring about a Star Trek future? Fucking cool I think. So I think people who bring a negativity or an abusiveness there are just projecting, either their own shit, or the shit that's been fed to them by propaganda. And if you really want to be a free thinker you just have to get outside of that. I think that's the best way to move forward on this. Positive and fun. open and curious. And lookin to the future and seein what we need to see as risk and opportunity. Yeah! :) Haha
The barium clouds in that video are a cool effect. Can that model explain the movement towards, then away from the group of witnesses? I guess wind, but is it so common for wind to blow clouds 1 way and then stop and then blow the other? Not a metrologist, don't know! Haha :)
It is very common for the atmosphere to have wind blowing in multiple directions between the different layers, called shear. Usually the jet stream will be around 90 degrees offset from the layers above or below it. If you open up https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gfs and click or select any region to get into the model sounding viewer, there will be wind direction barbs off to the right of the map that show the shear vertically.
If there are super advanced aliens out there who can get to us, we are screwed. I for one want any aliens out there to be so far away they we can only maybe talk
- "The AZURE mission is designed to make measurements of the atmospheric density and temperature with instruments on the rockets and deploying visible gas tracers, trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and a barium/strontium mixture, which ionizes when exposed to sunlight. The vapors were released over the Norwegian Sea at 71 through 150 miles altitude."
"... Carter himself later said that, while he had considered the object to be a UFO—on the grounds it was unexplained—his knowledge of physics had meant he had not believed himself to be witnessing an alien spacecraft."
Can you imagine that someone this clear-headed was ever the President of the United States?
The thing which kills me is that I am still mystified (and outraged) by how in my lifetime we went from:
- I am selling my family farm because I don't want there to be a perception of influence.
to:
- I am keeping all of my companies and property and will be charging the Secret Service which has the duty to protect me room and board.
That said, the whole UFO thing is pretty ridiculous --- it's _hard_ to bring an object which is under power and moving at speeds which allow interstellar travel into our solar system at a relative velocity which allows interaction --- witness ʻOumuamua which despite being "just" a dead chunk of rock was detected and photographed.
So many preconceptions. Firstly, what exactly does "speeds with allow interstellar travel" entail? A being that was functionally immortal wouldn't care about travel times. And why assume that interstellar travel is even required? There is no solid reason why extraterrestrials need to huddle around stars. They might live in the void between stars. Heck, there could be millions of truck-sized UFOs dancing around in "our" ort cloud and we wouldn't even notice.
>> truck sized enclosure isn't reasonable for life support and so forth.
Who said anything about life? A machine-intelligence could operate a tiny craft. And even a biological, think brain in a jar, doesn't need that much space. Astronomers cannot find or disprove the existence of Planet X in the ort cloud, an object at least several times the size of earth. An entire civilization could be out there and we wouldn't notice.
Wait, which UFO thing are you referring to? Carter never thought it was anything extraterrestrial, he stated that he assumed it was a natural or man-made event. Are you saying it’s strange that some people believe in aliens?
I think it's strange to believe that a starship could enter the solar system without being noticed due to the requirements of:
- velocity --- it would need to be moving quickly and would have to decelerate (requires energy) to do more than pass through
- life support/technology requirements and attendant heat signature --- interstellar space is _cold_ and not conducive to either, so requires on-going energy output
- size requirements --- basically, an entire ecological system needs to be moved around --- how many trees does one person require to produce sufficient oxygen for them to breathe? (a quick search has an answer from 1--8)
&c. See Kim Stanley Robinson's recent novel _Aurora_ for a well-researched examination of this.
Are you suggesting American humans have reached the pinnacle of understanding how the Universe works?
With our technology, we could easily avoid being seen by a hunter-gatherer society.
Do you imagine that your society does not have similar blind spots?
How much arrogance there is in the modern Euro-centric world. Because the society has explored beyond what our grandparents believed possible, suddenly we are the pinnacle of the Universe.
I'm thinking more about the hard limits of physics.
Consider for example the "one-electron" hypothesis --- a far simpler take on it is that the electron is a fundamental particle and that we are nearing an end-game of understanding sub-atomic physics and realizing Einstein's dream of a grand-unified theory --- the universe doesn't seem to be shaped and formed so as to allow for FTL, so one instead needs to work within the bounds of converting mass to energy.
I think this post has a lot of preconceptions about life. I bet it wouldn't be biological any more, even our society is moving to digital: AIs , drones. Even if it were, why support the whole body, if supporting the brain is enough? I bet future space space ships won't be piloted by humans because we are sensitive to acceleration, temperature, radiation and are pretty short lived. Also we don't have much redundancy and are not very energy efficent. Just look at the trend with mobile phones.At one point in time we used notes to extend our memory, then digital things like PDAs now phones and watches and at some point it will become an implant in our head, extending us as humans. The human of tomorrow will have little in common with human of today, so you can't judge the form of life will take and its requirementfrom a more advanced civilization.
Sure, that’s fine. Easy for me to agree with, IMO, based on the actual science we have today. I might say I think it’s unlikely that starships can get close without being noticed rather than it’s strange what people believe. I mean, people believe lots and lots and lots of strange things for which there’s no evidence, and most are wrong but every once in a blue moon something strange that nobody knew turns out to be true. I just didn’t follow the juxtaposition of the comment about Carter, then a comment about presidents followed by the UFO ‘thing’ being ridiculous. The article suggests that Carter might also think it’s strange to believe a starship could enter the solar system without being noticed - it isn’t clear what you’re responding to.
I think you heavily overestimate our capabilities to detect (even large objects) entering the solar system.
Also, why do you assume there would have to be life present on-board?
It’s also hard to achieve interstellar travel in the first place, so if you grant an alien civilization the ability to harness energy to that degree, it doesn’t seem incomprehensible to grant them the ability to control/harness maneuvering ability to enter our solar system.
(I’m on the side of “we will die out before ever interacting with intelligent alien life”, but I still think it’s non-zero.)
In cutthroat capitalism, integrity goes out of the window. The last Prime Minister of the UK had ties to many dodgy organisations and was backed by oil companies. The current Prime Minister is married to a billionaire.
I know, right? Of course, the American Electorate was quick to rectify its accidental moment of sanity by promptly voting him out after he installed Volcker and hiked rates to the moon (and then rewriting history to say that Carter was a bad president and Reagan tamed inflation).
He was not the president we deserved, but he was the president we needed.
Who knows which single thing lost Carter the election, but the Reagan campaign appears to have back channeled with Iran to delay any hostages being released,
‘The term “October surprise” was originally used by the Reagan camp to describe its fears that Mr. Carter would manipulate the hostage crisis to effect a release just before the election.
To forestall such a scenario, Mr. Casey was alleged to have met with representatives of Iran in July and August 1980 in Madrid leading to a deal supposedly finalized in Paris in October in which a future Reagan administration would ship arms to Tehran through Israel in exchange for the hostages being held until after the election.’
Reagan campaign paid Iran millions to stall the release of the hostages and shortly after winning the election they were released. Pretty shitty, and treasonous imo to be using your own fellow citizens being held hostage as political leverage.
Carter is straight up the best president we’ve had since FDR and yes I will die on that hill, specifically I will die on the hill which says that Carter was way better than JFK.
Carter is straight up the best individual person we have elected in 100+ years. Glad to see at least HN agrees that he was based.
Now that you mention it, Carter onward, it seems like every Republican was wealthy and Democrat fairly middle class. Carter and Clinton were famously not rich during their presidencies. Biden was little known that he was one of the "poorest" in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Reagan was wealthy, the Bushes were oil wealth, Romney was a very wealthy Bain founder and CEO, and Trump obviously.
Funny considering I think FDR was one of the worst presidents we've had. Among the unconstitutional Wagner Act, social security, he also created far too many useless public jobs.
>his knowledge of physics had meant he had not believed himself to be witnessing an alien spacecraft
One of our known scientific facts is that we know our understanding physics is incomplete (namely, QCD and GR are incompatible), so obviously we can never put 100% confidence into Carter's negative claim.
This is just Epistemology 101, and totally uncontroversial.
For all people, our perceptions are influenced by what we expect to see. European explorers attributed "lost white tribes",[0] and native people saw dragons instead of sailing ships. No doubt many of their people said those who saw dragons were the "clear headed" ones!
Maybe (just maybe!) we should remember our history, and think twice before being hasty with confident-sounding "End Of History / End Of Knowledge" style pronouncements.
> One of our known scientific facts is that we know our understanding physics is incomplete (namely, QCD and GR are incompatible), so obviously we can never put 100% confidence into Carter's negative claim.
By this line of thinking we can never put “100% confidence” into anything at all.
But our understanding of physics will never be “complete”, therefore this is just a cheap argument to say we must assign every claim a non-zero chance of being true.
> This is just Epistemology 101, and totally uncontroversial.
You’re mincing claims, jumping from obscure physics to “Epistemology 101” and trying to lump it all together as “totally uncontroversial”, but it’s really just an attempt at moving the goal posts with fancy language and big words.
It doesn’t change the fact that the original claim clearly has some factual inconsistencies, such as the way the date of the encounter doesn’t even match other records of the event or even appear to be in the same season at which the event occurred, or that none of the other people present appear to have come away with similar observations.
Talking about physics and GR and QCD and Epistemology 101 doesn’t change anything. It’s just superfluous jargon.
>But our understanding of physics will never be “complete”
That's not the issue. It's not even consistent.
You (and all others) conflated my argument with the tired old trope that all knowledge 'might' be wrong. Yes I agree: yawn.
However in this case we actually have positive knowledge that our current physics must be incorrect. This is a far far stronger epistemic claim, of course.
Funny how for something so uncontroversial, it can be so controversial to remind people of it!
>fancy language and big words
Sorry for using big words.
>the original claim clearly has some factual inconsistencies, such as...
Finally meat and potatoes. Anyone have a handy source for this debunking content?
The first day of epistemology 101 (it wasn't actually a 100 series course) the initial exercise was to spot the flaws in Descarté's arguments. So yes, we can't even know (know used in the epistemological sense) that we ourselves exist, so everything else is just gradations of levels of justification and belief. Some explanations have more justification than others.
We can't put 100% confidence in the claim that Santa Claus doesn't exist either, yet we say he doesn't because it'd be extraordinary for him to exist and we have no evidence to suggest he does.
That is not an "end of knowledge" style pronouncement, merely shorthand to avoid having to tack an "as far as we know" onto every single statement we make. Because we can known next to nothing with certainty. I don't know I'm speaking to a person and not an automaton for example, nor do I know I'm not a brain in a vat. It'd be very tedious if I had to caveat everything I said, however.
You're just making a long winded argument from ignorance, and strawmanning what Carter said. He said his knowledge influenced his belief. That is different from saying he knew it wasn't possible.
Who made any end of history or knowledge pronouncements? Where did you read any claims that express 100% confidence? Your argument about what native people saw most strongly supports the idea that we should assume UFOs are natural or human-created, and not fantastical beings from another planet. You’ve brought support for what Carter said, not debate. It wasn’t a “claim”, BTW, it was a third-hand account of an opinion that appears to allow for uncertainty.
To blow your mind even further he also wrote an entire book accusing Israel of Apartheid, which is an even more stunningly clear-headed claim for a US president to make.
> accusing Israel of Apartheid, which is an even more stunningly clear-headed claim for a US president to make.
Carter explained that he is not using the word to describe racism, but the desire to acquire, occupy, confiscate and then to colonize Palestinian land.
The problem is that that is not apartheid. Apartheid “separateness” is explicitly a racist ideology and about forcing people to live in separate lands, not about colonizing.
South Africa very much used townships and bantustans as a means of pushing both black South Africans and Namibians off land they wanted for whites. Yes, it is explicitly a racist ideology, but part of that racism is used to justify a treatment of others that enables confiscation and colonization.
The Bantu peoples also pushed the original inhabitants of Southern Africa off of their land (San, Khoi). If we’re going to apply the term apartheid to non-South African contexts[1] then we should also be intellectually rigorous in applying it in the case where the San and Khoi were victims of the Bantu expansion (and later European and Asian).
The crime of apartheid under international law only looks at existing regimes and whether they apply oppression along racial lines. It does not include provisions on historic oppression done by the ancestors of the currently oppressed. That would be ridiculous.
So saying: “But they did it to a different people, dozens of generations ago” is not admissible as a justification for the crime of apartheid for the ICC. In fact the crime of apartheid has no clauses for any justification, at all, under international law.
People are using “apartheid” without the technical, legal meaning and that is what I have a problem with.
Here is a list of countries that have been accused of apartheid:
- China
- India
- Iran
- Israel
- Malaysia
- Myanmar
- North Korea
- Nigeria
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Soviet Union
- Sudan
- United States
I would be interested to know whether any country, other than South Africa, has been found guilty of the crime of apartheid by the ICC and what the repercussions for said regime had been.
No, because it's not used about just pushing people off your land. Either you're being disingenuous, or you're unaware of the characteristics of the apartheid Bantustans.
Apartheid is codified in the Rome Statute Part 2 Article 7 Paragraph 2(h):
> "The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;
So yes it is a racist ideology, but it doesn’t need the perpetrators to be explicitly racist. The fact that the oppressed Palestinians are of a different racial group as the oppressors, and the policy is to maintain a domination of one racial group over the other, that means this counts as apartheid.
“I didn’t mean to be racist” is not an excuse admissible to the ICC
That said, The Rome statute would not become international law until 22 years after Carter was no longer President. And would never be ratified by neither the USA nor Israel. Though interestingly Palestine has ratified it.
...of our contemporary civilization. If you think objectively about it, there is no reason for the technological level of any potential alien visitor to be in a range that we can understand - solely for the act of traveling great distances that are required to reach a distant star, they would need to have discovered physics paradigms far beyond our understanding today.
Us trying to 'interpret and judge' the technological level of such a civilization today would be akin to a never-contacted tribe seeing a helicopter and deducing that it cant be real because 'people cant fly'.
> solely for the act of traveling great distances that are required to reach a distant star, they would need to have discovered physics paradigms far beyond our understanding today.
No, they wouldn't. Modest progress in engineering and cultural adaptation, would produce generation ships large enough to sustain a human colony capable of traversing the galaxy on the scale of thousands of years. On the other hand, we could launch a ChatGPT-enabled* probe to arrive at Proxima Centauri in about a century with today's technology.
If you think objectively about it, "physics paradigms far beyond our understanding today" do not necessarily exist. Or if they do, they will not necessarily contribute significantly to our ability to traverse interstellar distances. While it is hubris to assume that we know everything; it is foolhardy to assume that there is gold at the end of the rainbow.
* note that ChatGPT is rather pathetic compared to intelligent life; but it's what we can ship today
> Modest progress in engineering and cultural adaptation, would produce generation ships large enough to sustain a human colony capable of traversing the galaxy on the scale of thousands of years
This is an excellent example of 'thinking inside the boundaries of our paradigm'. Other civilizations may have discovered paradigms that allow them to traverse the galaxy in days, and even in seconds.
> If you think objectively about it, "physics paradigms far beyond our understanding today" do not necessarily exist.
That's what was said in the mid to late 19th century. Then quantum physics was discovered. It was already 'outside' our understanding then, and it still is. We take some things 'just as they are' and accept them, like quantum entanglement. We think we explain them through some unproven theories to avoid admitting the fact that they upended our earlier paradigm of how things are.
A lot of the things that are observed in the ufo phenomenon can be similar things if they are actual extraterrestrial civilizations 'observing' us. 'Shape changing' ufos, ufos that travel in a speed that no creature can withstand etc.
> This is an excellent example of 'thinking inside the boundaries of our paradigm'.
And by thinking within the boundaries of our paradigm, we can conclude that this particular combination of technology and culture has not spread throughout our galaxy.
> Other civilizations may have discovered paradigms that allow them to traverse the galaxy in days, and even in seconds.
If that is physically possible. Which we have fairly strong evidence against.
> That's what was said in the mid to late 19th century. Then quantum physics was discovered.
Right! Physicists found evidence to support revolutionary findings, and it was believed because other physicists reproduced the evidence for themselves.
Keep your mind open, but not so open that your brain falls out. By all means, there is more physics to discover, but pinning one's hopes on superluminal spacetravel without a shred of evidence is folly.
> A lot of the things that are observed in the ufo phenomenon can be similar things if they are actual extraterrestrial civilizations 'observing' us. 'Shape changing' ufos, ufos that travel in a speed that no creature can withstand etc.
Yeah, I love science fiction, too. It's really fun. But you're so frothy about the possibility that physics is wrong, that you aren't considering that a small number of poorly-instrumented observations are wrong.
> And by thinking within the boundaries of our paradigm, we can conclude that this particular combination of technology and culture has not spread throughout our galaxy.
Yep, its basically what the relevant xkcd comic explains:
> If that is physically possible. Which we have fairly strong evidence against.
We don't. Our science is not all-encompassing.
> superluminal spacetravel without a shred of evidence is folly.
This sentence and your sentences preceding this one contradict. Solely the very concept of quantum entanglement broke all the preexisting notions about how existence worked. Its something that shouldn't have happened according to all the 'hard' evidence we had beforehand.
Apparently, the evidence we had before wasn't so 'hard'. Just like how the evidence we have currently is not.
> But you're so frothy about the possibility that physics is wrong
Leaving your choice of words aside, physics is !regularly! wrong just like all the other sciences.
"I have a great relationship with the aliens. They love me. We’re going to do great things together. The aliens told me they’ve never seen a leader as strong as me. They said that."
Unfortunately some of Carter's contemporaneous head's of state were not so clear headed. In 1977 Eric Gairy, Prime Minister of Grenada, spent 45 minutes discussing his theories about UFOs to the United Nations. He claimed to have seen many and was convinced they were driven by “highly intelligent aliens of extraterrestrial origin." He even met with Carter about it. Two years later Gairy's government was overthrown by revolutionaries and he had to flee his home country - his strange obsession with UFOs is just an historical footnote.
- "I know I saw something that violated my laws of physics, but my knowledge of physics prevented me from believing it (was a physical object/ was real/ was actually behaving in the physics-violating way I saw)." or
- "From my knowledge of physics it was clear that aliens could not get here, so whatever I saw could not have been their craft."
This seems to be over-analyzing. I take it to mean it didn't feel like any kind of physical object to him. You know how in the moment you're either going to react with "oh shit!" or "curious..." because you made an unconscious snap judgement. I don't think he deeply considered how different alien physical objects could behave with far advanced science, then decided how to feel about that.
It's not over analyzing, hahaha! :) We're going to get more by analyzing what it is. I get what you're sayin' but it's important to consider the possible meanings, right?
I think your take is fair, but it's just another interpretation like mine. Otherwise how it's taken or presented could be totally different to how it's intended.
> I don't think he deeply considered how different alien physical objects could behave with far advanced science, then decided how to feel about that.
No but he could have considered more on reflection then provided an answer that was the result of that. Hahaha! :) This discussion between us is like proof of why it's important to consider.
We don't want Jimmy Carter to be a puppet for whatever ideology or theory, we want to know what we thought. Hahah! :)
But I also reflect that maybe these sort of statements where it's ambiguous isn't that important to consider, because you can't really know, ya know what i mean? :) Hahah. So funny you say over analyzing but then we get down into analysis of it hahahaha! :)
Jimmy Carter may have been one of the most decent human beings the US has ever had as a President.
I think the way that the Republican party treated (both then and now) a southern, small family farmer who served in the military and taught Sunday school is one of those ironies that shows what values the Republican party actually believes in. And this has obviously only accelerated massively since Trump.
Sorry buy Reagan was pretty awful during most of his time in office cognitively and reportedly would just turn his hearing aid off during meetings he found boring and zone out. Biden is way more engaged than he was.
I'm not sure where this idea came from, because Biden seems relatively sharp to me. Not a genius, not a rhetorical master, but relatively sharp. He does have a stutter though, and you can see he occasionally stumbles on a word before rewording the sentence he's trying to say.
Biden nailed the state of the union speech so well that republicans accused him of being on stimulants. He was specifically called “over caffeinated” by hannity. He’s literally not sleepy joe, and “Zion don” would best stop throwing stones while they live in glass houses.
Meanwhile we have this fking gem from trump circa 2016 and he’s only gotten less coherent:
“ Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
I keep hearing folks say this in a way that grossly overestimates the capabilities of most modern camera phones. I have to ask, just how clearly does your phone take images of airliners, drones, high-altitude balloons, and satellites? Don't get me wrong, I'm not into claims of extraterrestrial visitations, but I am annoyed by the habits of lazy armchair skeptics, whose snark does more to distance true believers from rationalism than they may realize.
The “lights in the sky” stuff has always had better explanations. I watched a C-5 fly over low at night in the Adirondacks and it was very odd; very UFO-y until just before it passed over us.
It’s the “the spaceship landed next to me in my farm field and aliens came out” claims that have faded away.
> The “lights in the sky” stuff has always had better explanations. I watched a C-5 fly over low at night in the Adirondacks and it was very odd; very UFO-y until just before it passed over us.
I've witnessed quite a few odd lights in the night sky, myself! And an equal or greater number of military aircraft flying overhead, between bases, by day. None of which I've ever managed to get a good photo of, even when it's a bomber passing over low and slow, much to my disappointment.
> It’s the “the spaceship landed next to me in my farm field and aliens came out” claims that have faded away.
I recall quite of lot those stories also included electronics behaving weirdly, which would make for quite a convenient excuse. Though I suppose a phone might preserve some evidence of that. But surely enough of those prone to making more outlandish claims aren't thinking of that?
> It’s the “the spaceship landed next to me in my farm field and aliens came out” claims that have faded away.
I've had one of those experiences.
I was very young - maybe 12 or so - and my memory of those events makes little logical sense. I had a friend with me who saw the same things, so I'm sure it's not a completely false memory... but I was also suffering from sleep paralysis at the time.
I don't even recount the story any more. It's counterproductive - why bother analyzing an old memory like that when I know my experiences at the time weren't reliable and none of it makes sense from a scientific perspective? There's nothing to be gained.
I saw a white and red orb slowly rotating high in the sky above me in broad daylight. I was convinced I was looking at a UFO, right up until I faintly made out the "Virgin" logo on what was likely a hot air balloon seen at a 180 degree angle
Dark, landing lights, engines on idle at low altitude. (Presumably landing at Fort Drum soon.) Could only see the big light seemingly hanging there silently in the sky for much longer than seemed plausible.
It was only when it flew directly over the lake we were staying at that we saw it was a cargo plane.
There are absolutely scads of purported "lights in the sky" style UFO videos taken from mobile phones on the prominent UFO subreddits.
I personally put zero faith in them, because quite a few are obvious fakes, and the rest are just completely unverifiable, so they are not worth thinking about.
But there's no shortage of modern-day pictures and videos...
> There are absolutely scads of purported "lights in the sky" style UFO videos taken from mobile phones on the prominent UFO subreddits.
I don't think you got the point.
Before camera phones were ubiquitous, the bulk of reports were very elaborate and fantastic tales where the so-called witness played a central role in the story.
Once everyone started carrying a camera, all we see is questionable light shows taken from a very long distance.
Is it strange? I'd say it's fair to assume that potential alien visitors would want their existence to be hidden, or at least not known to the broad population[1]. Working under that assumption, isn't that exactly the behavior you'd expect?
It would be incredibly unlikely for humanity to be the first civilization potential aliens make contact with. They'd probably have a lot of knowledge about interactions with lesser developed civilizations, which would inform the risk they can take based on the developments made. A civilization without broadly available personal cameras would logically allow for much closer interactions.
Let me just add that I don't believe the sightings are real, and I don't believe aliens are visiting earth - I just really dislike using faulty logic to "disprove" this stuff.
[1]: If potential alien visitors wanted their existence to be widely known, it would be easy to do so through conventional news mechanisms (e.g. media or politicians). Since that hasn't happened it leaves two options: there are no alien visitors (the incredibly likely solution), or they exist and want to stay hidden, for whatever reason that may be.
> Is it strange? I'd say it's fair to assume that potential alien visitors (...)
Just because you personally can't provide an explanation for a photo or a video, which I might add can very well be fake and often are, that does not mean you can fill in the explanation field with nonsense. That's what nutjobs and conspiracy loons do.
> Sure, but that doesn't mean you should argue with faulty logic.
The faulty logic is undoubtedly jumping to conclusions that just because you personally don't know the origin of something, that automatically means it's a fantastic story. It just means you don't know. That's it.
That's how you get lens flares being described as aliens.
Again, I'm not disagreeing. I thought I repeated "I don't believe aliens are visiting us" in my comment often enough to make that clear.
I am only commenting on your point:
> Before camera phones were ubiquitous, the bulk of reports were very elaborate and fantastic tales where the so-called witness played a central role in the story.
> Once everyone started carrying a camera, all we see is questionable light shows taken from a very long distance.
> Strange, isn't it?
This argument is not based in logic. Don't argue against "aliens" and the like by making points that are not based in logic. Find arguments that are based in logic.
To be clear, I don't believe we're being visited by aliens.
If we are, though, they're obviously extremely advanced. To put it mildly. So clearly they would know that relatively high quality cameras are now ubiquitous, and adapt their behaviors accordingly if they preferred to remain unknown to the general public.
I couldn’t even take a video of an enormous search & rescue flare on a chute less than 1 km away at night and have it show up. If that’s legit, those lights must have been blinding
This shape specifically (black triangle with white lights in each corner and an independent round red ball in the middle) has been reported numerous times over the decades, most prominently presented in the Belgian UFO wave 1989-1991 [1][2], including F-16 chases.
Cameras don't have minds. Mind is not a camera. We do not know the nature of consciousness nor the true dimensionality of our reality. Joshua supposedly made the Sun stop and so do gurus in India (as a matter of routine) per numerous first hand reports, but no camera has ever captured it.
You don’t need a camera to prove the su stopped. The consequences of the sun stopping, or rather the Earth ceasing its rotation, would be detectable by an extraordinary number of sources and means worldwide. And yet, no one seems to have ever noticed such an anomaly.
While the link itself is not political, it seems to be inviting the people who want to turn HN into a place where they can say why their preferred candidate is the best, or more typically why the other candidate is just about the worst person in human history.
HN is better when politics are discussed elsewhere.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.
This was a discussion about historic presidents. It certainly interested me, as a person who is curious about American history of the late 70s and early 80s. If there were any politics in that discussion—I’m sure there were, it is hard to leave politics out of interpretations of history—they didn’t affect the thread in a way that made it less interesting.
Say it really was an alien spacecraft, then the color changes could be blue- and redshift as your technology lets you seemingly alter the order of events of an acceleration and a deceleration at a far away destination. Giving a solution to GR that would create this effect is much beyond me but I would love to investigate the implications of such a universe.
> In 2016, the hosts of episode #561 of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast read a letter forwarded by a member of the Carter family from Carl G. "Jere" Justus, giving his explanation of Carter's UFO sighting:[12]
After recently reading the book Georgia Myths & Legends, by Augusta Chronicle columnist Don Rhodes, specifically Chapter 5, "Jimmy Carter and the UFO", I am virtually certain that I have identified the source of what it was that President Carter saw. In the 1960s and early 70s, I worked on an Air Force sponsored project that studied the upper atmosphere using releases of glowing chemical clouds, produced by rockets launched from Eglin AFB rocket range in Florida. Some of these chemical clouds, notably sodium and barium, were visible by the process of resonance scattering of sunlight. Clouds of this type had to be launched not long after sunset or not long before sunrise. This was due to the fact that the cloud had to be in sunlight at high altitude, while it was still dark enough at ground level for the cloud to be visible against the dark sky. In Carter's official 1973 UFO report, as given in the Rhodes book, he stated that he had seen the phenomenon in October, 1969, at 7:15 pm EST. However, it has been determined from Lions Club records that Carter must have seen the "UFO" when he spoke to their Leary, GA Chapter on January 6, 1969. The report "U.S. Space Science Program Report to COSPAR, 1970" (QB504.U54, Appendix I, page 154) documents that there was a barium cloud launched from Eglin AFB (Rocket Number AG7.626) and released on January 6, 1969 at 7:35 pm EST (January 7, 1969, 0035 UTC) [COSPAR stands for Committee on Space Research]. The reported altitude for this cloud was 152 km. With a distance between Leary, GA and Eglin AFB, FL of about 234 km, this cloud would have appeared in the sky at an elevation of 33 degrees (consistent with Carter's estimate of a 30 degree elevation). Carter's report notes that stars were visible, so the night must have been clear. I can verify from personal experience that under clear skies, a barium cloud such as this would easily have been visible from the distance of Leary, GA. Carter reported the UFO "appeared from West". The direction of Eglin AFB from Leary, GA is approximately WSW. Thus this barium cloud at Eglin is consistent with Carter's reported "UFO" as to time, elevation, and direction. Furthermore, the appearance reported by Carter is totally consistent with a high-altitude barium cloud. His report stated that it was "bluish at first, then reddish, luminous, not solid". A neutral barium cloud would initially glow bluish or greenish, with parts of it taking on a reddish glow as some of the barium becomes ionized in the high altitude sunlight. The size and brightness, reported as being about that of the moon, would also be consistent with a barium cloud at Eglin, as viewed from Leary, GA. Carter has been reported as saying that he never believed that he had seen an alien spacecraft, but that he had no idea exactly what it was. I'm interested in exploring if this information could be relayed to President Carter, so that if he wishes to, he can better understand what it was that he saw back then.
It's crazy to me how this link gets upvoted in HackerNews but not David Grursch's (former NRO/NGA Intel Officer) claims don't. He testified under oath to the Intelligence Community Inspector Generals, both Senate/House Intel Committees, and a public House Oversight Committee under oath that the USG has recovered crashed/landed non-human intelligence craft. The ICIG referred Grusch's claims to the intel committees as being "credible" and "urgent".
David Grusch is not some random whistleblower we should be ignoring. He was a GS-15 intel officer read into over 2000 special access programs. He handled the presidential daily briefing, which they do not give to just anyone. Take a look at his resume to see how highly cleared he was https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO06/20230726/116282/HHRG....
And let me just clarify - this is not just one person's claims. His work in the UAP Task Force had 40 people with direct, first hand knowledge of the programs. Some of whom worked on the NHI craft. He had these people testify to the ICIG, providing documentation, imagery, and other evidence.
Listen, I know this sounds insane to most folks. The meat of his claims, beyond the craft, are that factions of the USG have *not* been properly giving congress(and even some presidents) oversight of these alleged Special Access Programs. The ICIG has most likely referred this case to the justice department, and his claims have started a congressional UAP Caucus in the house.
Take a look at this interview with Marco Rubio, the ranking member of the Senate Intel Committee, as he's talking about the 40 whistleblower's claims https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4hmaflNoKU
If you haven't watched the HOC hearing, or any of his other interviews, I highly recommend you do so. Or at the very least, read his opening statement he was giving to the HOC
I'm not saying the claims are true. I'm just saying, the allegations are worth investigating and should not be dismissed outright.
Edit: One final note. After Grusch's claims released, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced an amendment to the NDAA 2024 titled "UAP Disclosure Act" which would've set up a presidential panel to declassify and release information that the USG has on the subject. It references the terminology "non-human intelligence" 27 times. The amendment was gutted by certain house members and unfortunately did not make it through in its initial form, but it's worth the read. https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/uap_amendment...
At least it's getting discussed now. I think part of the reason could be Grusch is like "the deep end" for many people. Whereas Carter seeing a maybe-UFO is an easier introduction, which is perfectly fine! Everyone is at a different stage at this point :)
ty :) this is definitely a topic that's too taboo for most people to touch, but the allegations of the DoD withholding information from congress is very serious and this should not be overlooked. If his claims are true, our democracy is in peril imo
Ur welcome! :) Totally, it is something which majorly does not look good.
I think people in power should just come clean and say "We have no idea what's going on." But how can people in power admit something more powerful is toying with them?
It's pretty hard, but I think their honesty would build credibility and begin the path not just of healing but of figuring out: what it is, do we need to respond, and how to respond. And getting away from the tired narrative of relying on government for "disclosure", that only recenters their authority in the face of a threat to it, and disempowers people. But I think we need to be empowered to deal with this: whether it's militarily, scientifically or studied in other ways.
I think this is something that we need to deal with together, as a country or even world. I don't think some group of people working in the shadows can handle it. Hasn't it been 100 years already? But their reactions are still some reflection of "run, deny, hide". Not a great look for leaders and systems we are supposed to depend on!! So I think it can be better handled for sure.
Totally agree this is something the world needs to investigate together. That's why Grusch asked DOPSR for clearance to talk about the 1933 Magenta, Italy crash. Him and Elizondo have been working with Italian government officials regarding the official reports of the crash.
But, ultimately, I think one of the major powers has to own up to the reverse engineering programs for this to be taken seriously by the public.
At the bottom of the page you can find a search bar with which you can discover that David Grusch's claims and the UAP phenomenon in general have been done to death here.
There is no real discussion to be had on the topic. People choose to believe Grusch and others because of their own faith in the ET/UFO narrative as a first principle. People doubt Grusch and others because none of them ever present compelling evidence, and their claims in aggregate are ridiculous. The former camp mocks the latter camp, the latter camp mocks the former. Eventually the discussion splinters into talk of Von Neumann probes, generation ships and the Fermi Paradox. Lather, rinse repeat.
But here we all are still waiting for the "catastrophic disclosure" that should have happened by now. And for what it's worth the government's own investigations have consistently come to the conclusion that no extraterrestrial or physics-defying technologies are involved, and the vast majority of what's been presented as undeniable proof via video and photographic evidence turns out to have mundane explanations. But of course one can simply write that conclusion off as part of the conspiracy.
> the government's own investigations have consistently come to the conclusion that no extraterrestrial or physics-defying technologies are involved
I'm not sure if you've looked into the government's self investigations in the 70s regarding claims the CIA was experiment on their own populace where they also found no evidence. But 20 years later the CIA declassified those documents to show the CIA absolutely was dosing cities with LSD in the water supply.
My point being, the Department of Defense investigating itself is like letting a murderer run his own investigation.
Yes, I'm aware of MKULTRA. Everyone is aware of MKULTRA.
But the Department of Defense investigating this phenomenon is the only basis the UFO community has for considering any of the UAP/UFO stuff credible. It's why they trust David Grusch, because, as they claim, no one would just go in front of Congress and tell lies (or in Grusch's case, because he has no actual firsthand knowledge of anything, repeat someone else's lies.)
You can't have it both ways. You can't say this is real because the government is looking into it, and that the government can't be trusted with its findings.
The government/DoD isn't a single entity. Especially when it comes to waived, bigoted special access programs where only a handful of people will even know the programs exist. So just because one person says "oh we don't have any evidence of these programs" doesn't mean they actually know. It just means they haven't been read in.
All of the evidence is classified. If he would've brought out imagery or any evidence to the public, he would've been put in jail.
And it's not "hearsay" He brought 40 people with first hand knowledge to the ICIG. People who worked in the reverse engineering programs - who touched the craft.
Unlike Snowden who just released a bunch of classified information to the public, Grusch went through the proper whistleblower channels and submitted the evidence to the ICIG.
Look at my edit regarding the Senate Majority leader.
There's strict protocols for aircraft flying near the president's aircraft. There's no way in hell the airbase would allow take off while the president is in the air and he wouldn't have been told about it.
> In 2020, Justus completed an extensive study of the high-altitude barium release clouds, concluding that what Carter saw was "totally consistent" with what was launched that evening from Eglin AFB.[13] Justus described several physical aspects supporting consistency, and submitted a copy of the report for archival at the Jimmy Carter Library.
And if we look up "Barium Tracer Cloud" on YouTube we can see images of what Jimmy Carter might've seen at the time, which has both a mundane explanation while being exceptionally magical in its own way.
There's also additional images in the report PDF [1].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUAqsxYJtHc
[1] https://figshare.com/articles/online_resource/What_Jimmy_Car...
One of the main reasons why the UFO crowd discredits itself is the way that the crazies in the community are overrepresented, and look at "this flying object is not identified" and automatically jump to the conclusion that not knowing something somehow means it definitely must support an outlandish mythology.
Not really. The UFO community is synonymous with gullible crackpots and conspiracy loons. If the community wants to be take seriously, they themselves need to sort themselves out before they can expect to be taken seriously.
It's the boy that cried alien.
How do you propose we collectively do that? Appointing a UFO Pope and excommunicating the heretics?
Yes, there are folks out there who see any dot in the sky doing anything they are vaguely unfamiliar with and jump to the conclusion that it must be a bona fide alien spaceship. However, this doesn't mean the UFO community is uniformly like that. Nor is the available evidence limited to bright dots in the sky, either.
There will never be "scientific" evidence without scientists willing and funded to obtain it. And if we label every person with an interest on the subject as a "gullible crackpot and a conspiracy loon" then how likely is it that we will fund their research, and how unbiased are we to listen to the results of that research unless it fits exactly within the boundaries of our preconceived ideas of what is even possible.
I don't have the answers to the UFO hypothesis. Never seen one, never want to see one either. But I appreciate any systematic effort to collect data of the objects in our skies and identify them. If nothing else, we will at least be protecting our airspace from foreign adversaries.
It's worse than that. There's definitely a religious element to their beliefs. The UAP hearings last summer suggest that there's "UFO-believers" in leadership positions in the Department of defense. These people are SPENDING GOVERNMENT MONEY on insane fiascos and have been able to get a lot of attention lately.
The AARO report (https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/37...) goes into detail.
The sad thing is that some politicians have latched on to this and are using it to appease their conspiracy-laden constituencies.
Such as? I haven’t seen this attitude you’re claiming to exist.
You're right, and it's funny thinking about it in more abstract terms. Being "unidentified" means we can't match it to any known phenomenon, to then jump to being certain it is aliens is silly.
Isn't that a definition of discrimination? That seems to be very silly. Haha! :)
Anyway, analysis focuses on "5 unexplainable observables" like : lift without control surfaces, instant acceleration, low observability, hypersonics without signatures, transmedium travel.
For a more serious introduction, see: https://www.uap.guide/
You certainly aren't being serious. The term UFO has been so abused by crackpots and conspiracy loons that it managed to be synonymous with unbelievable reports of aliens.
I think that idea is some kind of 'propaganda'. There has been an information war about this topic because the existence of a more powerful outside force directly challenges the authority of our Earth governments, so in the face of no other means to contest these things, they've sought to belittle interest in them to empower themselves. Controlling the narrative rather than the nuts and bolts. But the kind of abuse of the public is untrue, and like wartime propaganda against the Japanese as "they will eat your babies and take your women."
The crazy thing is having that view, and the non serious thing is characterizing people like that. That's what I think, and I think that's the right way. I mean, you can't make progress on understanding something if you try to shame anyone who wants to talk about it, get interested in it or study it.
Seriously tho, if you were an invading alien force wouldn't you want people to discount your existence as crazy? What better way to run cover for your infiltration? Hahaha! :) So the whole thing is bizarre but I think it's not profitable to go that way. It's only good to treat people well, and this topic is no exception. Not just for the reality of treating people well, but so we can study it properly. The serious way is to take it seriously. :)
And what is better, seriously, than something that could help bring about a Star Trek future? Fucking cool I think. So I think people who bring a negativity or an abusiveness there are just projecting, either their own shit, or the shit that's been fed to them by propaganda. And if you really want to be a free thinker you just have to get outside of that. I think that's the best way to move forward on this. Positive and fun. open and curious. And lookin to the future and seein what we need to see as risk and opportunity. Yeah! :) Haha
Here's the ugly crackpot conspiracy loons angle rearing it's head.
https://eos.org/science-updates/ionospheric-fireworks-illumi...
A good overview of "state of UAP" right now is: https://www.uap.guide/quotes/introduction
In addition, for fun, here's some other political figures (including some famous ones) and their UFO experiences:
- Democrat presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich admits he saw a UFO during the 2007 debate: https://www.cleveland.com/openers/2007/10/kucinich_at_debate...
- 40th US President Ronald Reagan was initially open about having been part of a group of passengers who witnessed a very fast UFO aboard an aircraft in 1974: https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/ronald-r...
- Army Gunner and Canadian parliamentary minister Paul Hellyer said he saw a UFO with his wife and friends: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hellyer#Extraterrestrial_...
- Arizona governor Fife Symington was among witnesses of the Phoenix lights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fife_Symington#Phoenix_Lights
- Kirsan Ilyumzhinov President of Kalmykia and head of World Chess Federation said he was show the inside of a UFO by NHIs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsan_Ilyumzhinov#UFO_experie...
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/90497/colorful-clou... ("Colorful Clouds Glow Over Virginia" (2017))
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasa-launches-two-rockets-... ("NASA Launches Two Rockets Studying Auroras" (2019))
- "The AZURE mission is designed to make measurements of the atmospheric density and temperature with instruments on the rockets and deploying visible gas tracers, trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and a barium/strontium mixture, which ionizes when exposed to sunlight. The vapors were released over the Norwegian Sea at 71 through 150 miles altitude."
Can you imagine that someone this clear-headed was ever the President of the United States?
- I am selling my family farm because I don't want there to be a perception of influence.
to:
- I am keeping all of my companies and property and will be charging the Secret Service which has the duty to protect me room and board.
That said, the whole UFO thing is pretty ridiculous --- it's _hard_ to bring an object which is under power and moving at speeds which allow interstellar travel into our solar system at a relative velocity which allows interaction --- witness ʻOumuamua which despite being "just" a dead chunk of rock was detected and photographed.
Who said anything about life? A machine-intelligence could operate a tiny craft. And even a biological, think brain in a jar, doesn't need that much space. Astronomers cannot find or disprove the existence of Planet X in the ort cloud, an object at least several times the size of earth. An entire civilization could be out there and we wouldn't notice.
1) life may take different forms, some of which we probably haven't even dreamt about
2) life is not necessary for inter-stellar probes to exist. In fact it probably makes more sense to make these things entirely artificial
Wait, which UFO thing are you referring to? Carter never thought it was anything extraterrestrial, he stated that he assumed it was a natural or man-made event. Are you saying it’s strange that some people believe in aliens?
- velocity --- it would need to be moving quickly and would have to decelerate (requires energy) to do more than pass through
- life support/technology requirements and attendant heat signature --- interstellar space is _cold_ and not conducive to either, so requires on-going energy output
- size requirements --- basically, an entire ecological system needs to be moved around --- how many trees does one person require to produce sufficient oxygen for them to breathe? (a quick search has an answer from 1--8)
&c. See Kim Stanley Robinson's recent novel _Aurora_ for a well-researched examination of this.
With our technology, we could easily avoid being seen by a hunter-gatherer society.
Do you imagine that your society does not have similar blind spots?
How much arrogance there is in the modern Euro-centric world. Because the society has explored beyond what our grandparents believed possible, suddenly we are the pinnacle of the Universe.
Consider for example the "one-electron" hypothesis --- a far simpler take on it is that the electron is a fundamental particle and that we are nearing an end-game of understanding sub-atomic physics and realizing Einstein's dream of a grand-unified theory --- the universe doesn't seem to be shaped and formed so as to allow for FTL, so one instead needs to work within the bounds of converting mass to energy.
(I’m on the side of “we will die out before ever interacting with intelligent alien life”, but I still think it’s non-zero.)
I agree.
This isn't anything new, but I suspect it has to do with a much more fractured sense of national identity, and shared core values.
That engenders a "us vs them", "take what is mine" attitude, from top to bottom.
He was not the president we deserved, but he was the president we needed.
‘The term “October surprise” was originally used by the Reagan camp to describe its fears that Mr. Carter would manipulate the hostage crisis to effect a release just before the election.
To forestall such a scenario, Mr. Casey was alleged to have met with representatives of Iran in July and August 1980 in Madrid leading to a deal supposedly finalized in Paris in October in which a future Reagan administration would ship arms to Tehran through Israel in exchange for the hostages being held until after the election.’
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-...
In US politics it really is true with one political party that every accusation in a confession.
Carter is straight up the best individual person we have elected in 100+ years. Glad to see at least HN agrees that he was based.
Meanwhile, Reagan was wealthy, the Bushes were oil wealth, Romney was a very wealthy Bain founder and CEO, and Trump obviously.
One of our known scientific facts is that we know our understanding physics is incomplete (namely, QCD and GR are incompatible), so obviously we can never put 100% confidence into Carter's negative claim.
This is just Epistemology 101, and totally uncontroversial.
For all people, our perceptions are influenced by what we expect to see. European explorers attributed "lost white tribes",[0] and native people saw dragons instead of sailing ships. No doubt many of their people said those who saw dragons were the "clear headed" ones!
Maybe (just maybe!) we should remember our history, and think twice before being hasty with confident-sounding "End Of History / End Of Knowledge" style pronouncements.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn4bvjMh4vc
By this line of thinking we can never put “100% confidence” into anything at all.
But our understanding of physics will never be “complete”, therefore this is just a cheap argument to say we must assign every claim a non-zero chance of being true.
> This is just Epistemology 101, and totally uncontroversial.
You’re mincing claims, jumping from obscure physics to “Epistemology 101” and trying to lump it all together as “totally uncontroversial”, but it’s really just an attempt at moving the goal posts with fancy language and big words.
It doesn’t change the fact that the original claim clearly has some factual inconsistencies, such as the way the date of the encounter doesn’t even match other records of the event or even appear to be in the same season at which the event occurred, or that none of the other people present appear to have come away with similar observations.
Talking about physics and GR and QCD and Epistemology 101 doesn’t change anything. It’s just superfluous jargon.
You (and all others) conflated my argument with the tired old trope that all knowledge 'might' be wrong. Yes I agree: yawn.
However in this case we actually have positive knowledge that our current physics must be incorrect. This is a far far stronger epistemic claim, of course.
Funny how for something so uncontroversial, it can be so controversial to remind people of it!
Sorry for using big words. Finally meat and potatoes. Anyone have a handy source for this debunking content?That is not an "end of knowledge" style pronouncement, merely shorthand to avoid having to tack an "as far as we know" onto every single statement we make. Because we can known next to nothing with certainty. I don't know I'm speaking to a person and not an automaton for example, nor do I know I'm not a brain in a vat. It'd be very tedious if I had to caveat everything I said, however.
Carter explained that he is not using the word to describe racism, but the desire to acquire, occupy, confiscate and then to colonize Palestinian land.
Source: https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2008/january/cartervisit.html
The problem is that that is not apartheid. Apartheid “separateness” is explicitly a racist ideology and about forcing people to live in separate lands, not about colonizing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people
[1] It is worth noting that we also don’t use the word apartheid to describe the actions and regimes of older times that we see all over the world.
So saying: “But they did it to a different people, dozens of generations ago” is not admissible as a justification for the crime of apartheid for the ICC. In fact the crime of apartheid has no clauses for any justification, at all, under international law.
Here is a list of countries that have been accused of apartheid:
- China
- India
- Iran
- Israel
- Malaysia
- Myanmar
- North Korea
- Nigeria
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Soviet Union
- Sudan
- United States
I would be interested to know whether any country, other than South Africa, has been found guilty of the crime of apartheid by the ICC and what the repercussions for said regime had been.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_apartheid_by_co...
> "The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;
So yes it is a racist ideology, but it doesn’t need the perpetrators to be explicitly racist. The fact that the oppressed Palestinians are of a different racial group as the oppressors, and the policy is to maintain a domination of one racial group over the other, that means this counts as apartheid.
“I didn’t mean to be racist” is not an excuse admissible to the ICC
That said, The Rome statute would not become international law until 22 years after Carter was no longer President. And would never be ratified by neither the USA nor Israel. Though interestingly Palestine has ratified it.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/1979-vela-in...
...of our contemporary civilization. If you think objectively about it, there is no reason for the technological level of any potential alien visitor to be in a range that we can understand - solely for the act of traveling great distances that are required to reach a distant star, they would need to have discovered physics paradigms far beyond our understanding today.
Us trying to 'interpret and judge' the technological level of such a civilization today would be akin to a never-contacted tribe seeing a helicopter and deducing that it cant be real because 'people cant fly'.
No, they wouldn't. Modest progress in engineering and cultural adaptation, would produce generation ships large enough to sustain a human colony capable of traversing the galaxy on the scale of thousands of years. On the other hand, we could launch a ChatGPT-enabled* probe to arrive at Proxima Centauri in about a century with today's technology.
If you think objectively about it, "physics paradigms far beyond our understanding today" do not necessarily exist. Or if they do, they will not necessarily contribute significantly to our ability to traverse interstellar distances. While it is hubris to assume that we know everything; it is foolhardy to assume that there is gold at the end of the rainbow.
* note that ChatGPT is rather pathetic compared to intelligent life; but it's what we can ship today
This is an excellent example of 'thinking inside the boundaries of our paradigm'. Other civilizations may have discovered paradigms that allow them to traverse the galaxy in days, and even in seconds.
> If you think objectively about it, "physics paradigms far beyond our understanding today" do not necessarily exist.
That's what was said in the mid to late 19th century. Then quantum physics was discovered. It was already 'outside' our understanding then, and it still is. We take some things 'just as they are' and accept them, like quantum entanglement. We think we explain them through some unproven theories to avoid admitting the fact that they upended our earlier paradigm of how things are.
A lot of the things that are observed in the ufo phenomenon can be similar things if they are actual extraterrestrial civilizations 'observing' us. 'Shape changing' ufos, ufos that travel in a speed that no creature can withstand etc.
And by thinking within the boundaries of our paradigm, we can conclude that this particular combination of technology and culture has not spread throughout our galaxy.
> Other civilizations may have discovered paradigms that allow them to traverse the galaxy in days, and even in seconds.
If that is physically possible. Which we have fairly strong evidence against.
> That's what was said in the mid to late 19th century. Then quantum physics was discovered.
Right! Physicists found evidence to support revolutionary findings, and it was believed because other physicists reproduced the evidence for themselves.
Keep your mind open, but not so open that your brain falls out. By all means, there is more physics to discover, but pinning one's hopes on superluminal spacetravel without a shred of evidence is folly.
> A lot of the things that are observed in the ufo phenomenon can be similar things if they are actual extraterrestrial civilizations 'observing' us. 'Shape changing' ufos, ufos that travel in a speed that no creature can withstand etc.
Yeah, I love science fiction, too. It's really fun. But you're so frothy about the possibility that physics is wrong, that you aren't considering that a small number of poorly-instrumented observations are wrong.
Yep, its basically what the relevant xkcd comic explains:
https://xkcd.com/638/
> If that is physically possible. Which we have fairly strong evidence against.
We don't. Our science is not all-encompassing.
> superluminal spacetravel without a shred of evidence is folly.
This sentence and your sentences preceding this one contradict. Solely the very concept of quantum entanglement broke all the preexisting notions about how existence worked. Its something that shouldn't have happened according to all the 'hard' evidence we had beforehand.
Apparently, the evidence we had before wasn't so 'hard'. Just like how the evidence we have currently is not.
> But you're so frothy about the possibility that physics is wrong
Leaving your choice of words aside, physics is !regularly! wrong just like all the other sciences.
http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html
But overall, a pretty middling presidency in terms of actual accomplishments.
- "I know I saw something that violated my laws of physics, but my knowledge of physics prevented me from believing it (was a physical object/ was real/ was actually behaving in the physics-violating way I saw)." or
- "From my knowledge of physics it was clear that aliens could not get here, so whatever I saw could not have been their craft."
or something else?
I think your take is fair, but it's just another interpretation like mine. Otherwise how it's taken or presented could be totally different to how it's intended.
> I don't think he deeply considered how different alien physical objects could behave with far advanced science, then decided how to feel about that.
No but he could have considered more on reflection then provided an answer that was the result of that. Hahaha! :) This discussion between us is like proof of why it's important to consider.
We don't want Jimmy Carter to be a puppet for whatever ideology or theory, we want to know what we thought. Hahah! :)
But I also reflect that maybe these sort of statements where it's ambiguous isn't that important to consider, because you can't really know, ya know what i mean? :) Hahah. So funny you say over analyzing but then we get down into analysis of it hahahaha! :)
I think the way that the Republican party treated (both then and now) a southern, small family farmer who served in the military and taught Sunday school is one of those ironies that shows what values the Republican party actually believes in. And this has obviously only accelerated massively since Trump.
"I really like Carter's presidency because he was a good person."
"Oh so you must hate Clinton."
"Well, you can't judge a president based on his personal life."
"..."
But maybe I'm old-fashioned like that.
Meanwhile we have this fking gem from trump circa 2016 and he’s only gotten less coherent:
“ Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
If you have something like, right-angle change of direction, or high-res details it gets better.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/13in2...
https://thedebrief.org/pentagon-confirms-leaked-video-showin...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/underwater-ufos-display-capabilit...
As an aside note look into Timothy Gallaudet mentioned in the last link.
Here is one of his most comprehensive interviews, watch the first 10 mins (and then the whole thing) quite mind-blowing.
https://www.youtube.com/live/wGHAs10vMso?si=1z-f85-I0fSrpjOZ
It’s the “the spaceship landed next to me in my farm field and aliens came out” claims that have faded away.
I've witnessed quite a few odd lights in the night sky, myself! And an equal or greater number of military aircraft flying overhead, between bases, by day. None of which I've ever managed to get a good photo of, even when it's a bomber passing over low and slow, much to my disappointment.
> It’s the “the spaceship landed next to me in my farm field and aliens came out” claims that have faded away.
I recall quite of lot those stories also included electronics behaving weirdly, which would make for quite a convenient excuse. Though I suppose a phone might preserve some evidence of that. But surely enough of those prone to making more outlandish claims aren't thinking of that?
I've had one of those experiences.
I was very young - maybe 12 or so - and my memory of those events makes little logical sense. I had a friend with me who saw the same things, so I'm sure it's not a completely false memory... but I was also suffering from sleep paralysis at the time.
I don't even recount the story any more. It's counterproductive - why bother analyzing an old memory like that when I know my experiences at the time weren't reliable and none of it makes sense from a scientific perspective? There's nothing to be gained.
It was only when it flew directly over the lake we were staying at that we saw it was a cargo plane.
I personally put zero faith in them, because quite a few are obvious fakes, and the rest are just completely unverifiable, so they are not worth thinking about.
But there's no shortage of modern-day pictures and videos...
I don't think you got the point.
Before camera phones were ubiquitous, the bulk of reports were very elaborate and fantastic tales where the so-called witness played a central role in the story.
Once everyone started carrying a camera, all we see is questionable light shows taken from a very long distance.
Strange, isn't it?
It would be incredibly unlikely for humanity to be the first civilization potential aliens make contact with. They'd probably have a lot of knowledge about interactions with lesser developed civilizations, which would inform the risk they can take based on the developments made. A civilization without broadly available personal cameras would logically allow for much closer interactions.
Let me just add that I don't believe the sightings are real, and I don't believe aliens are visiting earth - I just really dislike using faulty logic to "disprove" this stuff.
[1]: If potential alien visitors wanted their existence to be widely known, it would be easy to do so through conventional news mechanisms (e.g. media or politicians). Since that hasn't happened it leaves two options: there are no alien visitors (the incredibly likely solution), or they exist and want to stay hidden, for whatever reason that may be.
Just because you personally can't provide an explanation for a photo or a video, which I might add can very well be fake and often are, that does not mean you can fill in the explanation field with nonsense. That's what nutjobs and conspiracy loons do.
The faulty logic is undoubtedly jumping to conclusions that just because you personally don't know the origin of something, that automatically means it's a fantastic story. It just means you don't know. That's it.
That's how you get lens flares being described as aliens.
I am only commenting on your point:
> Before camera phones were ubiquitous, the bulk of reports were very elaborate and fantastic tales where the so-called witness played a central role in the story.
> Once everyone started carrying a camera, all we see is questionable light shows taken from a very long distance.
> Strange, isn't it?
This argument is not based in logic. Don't argue against "aliens" and the like by making points that are not based in logic. Find arguments that are based in logic.
To be clear, I don't believe we're being visited by aliens.
If we are, though, they're obviously extremely advanced. To put it mildly. So clearly they would know that relatively high quality cameras are now ubiquitous, and adapt their behaviors accordingly if they preferred to remain unknown to the general public.
...of things that turn out not to be aliens, which is the OP's point.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moo...
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vague_belge_d%27ovnis [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7psGj4M1ZI
HN is better when politics are discussed elsewhere.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.
But admittedly he was better than the current candidates we have available to us in November.
> In 2016, the hosts of episode #561 of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast read a letter forwarded by a member of the Carter family from Carl G. "Jere" Justus, giving his explanation of Carter's UFO sighting:[12]
David Grusch is not some random whistleblower we should be ignoring. He was a GS-15 intel officer read into over 2000 special access programs. He handled the presidential daily briefing, which they do not give to just anyone. Take a look at his resume to see how highly cleared he was https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO06/20230726/116282/HHRG....
And let me just clarify - this is not just one person's claims. His work in the UAP Task Force had 40 people with direct, first hand knowledge of the programs. Some of whom worked on the NHI craft. He had these people testify to the ICIG, providing documentation, imagery, and other evidence.
Listen, I know this sounds insane to most folks. The meat of his claims, beyond the craft, are that factions of the USG have *not* been properly giving congress(and even some presidents) oversight of these alleged Special Access Programs. The ICIG has most likely referred this case to the justice department, and his claims have started a congressional UAP Caucus in the house.
Take a look at this interview with Marco Rubio, the ranking member of the Senate Intel Committee, as he's talking about the 40 whistleblower's claims https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4hmaflNoKU
Rep Jared Moscowitz, after a SCIF meeting with the ICIG, said "Based on what we heard many of Grusch claims have merit!" https://twitter.com/JaredEMoskowitz/status/17458524006304566...
If you haven't watched the HOC hearing, or any of his other interviews, I highly recommend you do so. Or at the very least, read his opening statement he was giving to the HOC
* HOC opening statement https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Dave_...
* HOC hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSCEWo2yjds
* Initial interview with Ross Coulthart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLZzDhDYMcw
* Initial article https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-re...
* Interview on JRE https://open.spotify.com/episode/6D6otpHwnaAc86SS1M8yHm
* Interview with Tucker Carlson https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1735083523050975277...
I'm not saying the claims are true. I'm just saying, the allegations are worth investigating and should not be dismissed outright.
Edit: One final note. After Grusch's claims released, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced an amendment to the NDAA 2024 titled "UAP Disclosure Act" which would've set up a presidential panel to declassify and release information that the USG has on the subject. It references the terminology "non-human intelligence" 27 times. The amendment was gutted by certain house members and unfortunately did not make it through in its initial form, but it's worth the read. https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/uap_amendment...
BTW this was a really good summary!!! :)
I think people in power should just come clean and say "We have no idea what's going on." But how can people in power admit something more powerful is toying with them?
It's pretty hard, but I think their honesty would build credibility and begin the path not just of healing but of figuring out: what it is, do we need to respond, and how to respond. And getting away from the tired narrative of relying on government for "disclosure", that only recenters their authority in the face of a threat to it, and disempowers people. But I think we need to be empowered to deal with this: whether it's militarily, scientifically or studied in other ways.
I think this is something that we need to deal with together, as a country or even world. I don't think some group of people working in the shadows can handle it. Hasn't it been 100 years already? But their reactions are still some reflection of "run, deny, hide". Not a great look for leaders and systems we are supposed to depend on!! So I think it can be better handled for sure.
But, ultimately, I think one of the major powers has to own up to the reverse engineering programs for this to be taken seriously by the public.
There is no real discussion to be had on the topic. People choose to believe Grusch and others because of their own faith in the ET/UFO narrative as a first principle. People doubt Grusch and others because none of them ever present compelling evidence, and their claims in aggregate are ridiculous. The former camp mocks the latter camp, the latter camp mocks the former. Eventually the discussion splinters into talk of Von Neumann probes, generation ships and the Fermi Paradox. Lather, rinse repeat.
But here we all are still waiting for the "catastrophic disclosure" that should have happened by now. And for what it's worth the government's own investigations have consistently come to the conclusion that no extraterrestrial or physics-defying technologies are involved, and the vast majority of what's been presented as undeniable proof via video and photographic evidence turns out to have mundane explanations. But of course one can simply write that conclusion off as part of the conspiracy.
So yeah. Let us know when there's a there there.
I'm not sure if you've looked into the government's self investigations in the 70s regarding claims the CIA was experiment on their own populace where they also found no evidence. But 20 years later the CIA declassified those documents to show the CIA absolutely was dosing cities with LSD in the water supply.
My point being, the Department of Defense investigating itself is like letting a murderer run his own investigation.
But the Department of Defense investigating this phenomenon is the only basis the UFO community has for considering any of the UAP/UFO stuff credible. It's why they trust David Grusch, because, as they claim, no one would just go in front of Congress and tell lies (or in Grusch's case, because he has no actual firsthand knowledge of anything, repeat someone else's lies.)
You can't have it both ways. You can't say this is real because the government is looking into it, and that the government can't be trusted with its findings.
Here is one good example. The current pentagon DoD UAP office AARO released a report [https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOP...] saying they found no credible evidence of the reverse engineering programs. But when the office of the Director of National Intelligence was asked about it, they said they could not endorse the findings of the report https://www.liberationtimes.com/home/top-intelligence-office...
And it's not "hearsay" He brought 40 people with first hand knowledge to the ICIG. People who worked in the reverse engineering programs - who touched the craft.
Unlike Snowden who just released a bunch of classified information to the public, Grusch went through the proper whistleblower channels and submitted the evidence to the ICIG.
Look at my edit regarding the Senate Majority leader.
https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/episode-105
This was the podcast referenced on the John Oliver show recently, when Oliver talked about Jimmy Carter's UFO incident.
They also had a bit of followup (decades later) on the latest Skeptics Guide episode.
The current thought is that he saw some aircraft from a nearby airbase.