Can't take off my tin foil hat....

[TMA17]

I'm a science, fact driven, open-minded person. I'm fairly moderate on most things. Show me the facts and I'll agree with you. I'm not ideologically driven. With this topic, I sort of violate those qualities. My personal belief is he is telling the truth. Millions of people on this planet already believe in far more outrageous things. I just don't think it's that out of the question....

 

[Buka]

But, but...but...you don't think the Powers that be would hide something from us! Say it ain't so!

 

[Martial D]

I'm a science, fact driven, open-minded person. I'm fairly moderate on most things. Show me the facts and I'll agree with you. I'm not ideologically driven. With this topic, I sort of violate those qualities. My personal belief is he is telling the truth. Millions of people on this planet already believe in far more outrageous things. I just don't think it's that out of the question....

It's the very tendency for people to believe outrageous things, most of them mutually exclusive to each other (lookin at you religion), that makes a skeptical mind add a little extra salt to claims like these. What we do know for certain : people are prone to make BS claims, and others are prone to believe them without any actual evidence. This much can't really be cogently argued against.

So with that said, this particular claim is, as many many others, bereft of any evidence in support of that can be examined. Into the tire fire with it until some is produced as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

My view on things like this is twofold.

First, I simply don't believe our government (nor any other) is competent to keep evidence of a major secret (in this case, it would also be one that is well known) from seeing the light of day for a quarter of a decade. Too many people think it's true, and there would be so much publicity if real evidence got out. By now someone would have wanted that attention.

Second, there are so many explanations that are more plausible for all the bits and pieces involved. These explanations aren't great, but reality is rarely clean and tidy. But it's an extraordinary claim, and I'd need some extraordinary evidence to give it much credence.

 

[pdg]

for a quarter of a decade.

2 1/2 years?

I think most administrations could manage it

 

[Martial D]

2 1/2 years?

I think most administrations could manage it

Do you? Nowadays with cameras everywhere including in almost everyones pocket?

We are talking about thousands and thousands of people keeping silent for a period of time closer to 100 years than 50 (granted, recording devices weren't prevalent for this entire period of time, but cameras sure were).

In my experience if more than 5 people know something, the world knows. 2.5 years might as well be a million.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

2 1/2 years?

I think most administrations could manage it

LOL - yep, they might, at that. Let's try "quarter of a century".

 

[pdg]

Ok then, here we go

To start off with, if it's not a secret it doesn't need keeping really - all it needs is enough of an aura of disbelief that it gets generally ignored.

So, the people who actually work on things like that are pretty well kept (let's say).

A few here and there think they can make their fame, so take pictures or similar.

Someone else who's still loyal takes a few pictures and does a little tweaking, enough so that the internet says "that's photoshopped, I can tell by the pixels" (in the old days, the press says "that's been doctored, look at the shadows").

Enough deliberate fakes swamp any genuine ones to the point of being ignored.

Same with stories - one person saying "I played chess with an alien" is just a random mental, right?

Boom, it's a conspiracy theory. Aliens, Titanic, faked moon landings, dolphins have underwater labs experimenting on paper, flat earth...

Everybody is so wrapped up in how much charge is left on their phone or that there's not enough foam on their coffee it just gets lost in the noise.

Until or unless something explodes, nobody really cares enough - and there's so many conspiracies (all part of the plan) and everyone is so easily distracted by shiny.


Success - everyone knows the secret, just pretend it's still a secret and nobody will believe it anyway.

 

[Martial D]

LOL - yep, they might, at that. Let's try "quarter of a century".

1993?

 

[Anarax]

My view on things like this is twofold.

First, I simply don't believe our government (nor any other) is competent to keep evidence of a major secret (in this case, it would also be one that is well known) from seeing the light of day for a quarter of a decade. Too many people think it's true, and there would be so much publicity if real evidence got out. By now someone would have wanted that attention.

Second, there are so many explanations that are more plausible for all the bits and pieces involved. These explanations aren't great, but reality is rarely clean and tidy. But it's an extraordinary claim, and I'd need some extraordinary evidence to give it much credence.

Dr. Tyson essentially says the same thing in this video

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Ok then, here we go

To start off with, if it's not a secret it doesn't need keeping really - all it needs is enough of an aura of disbelief that it gets generally ignored.

So, the people who actually work on things like that are pretty well kept (let's say).

A few here and there think they can make their fame, so take pictures or similar.

Someone else who's still loyal takes a few pictures and does a little tweaking, enough so that the internet says "that's photoshopped, I can tell by the pixels" (in the old days, the press says "that's been doctored, look at the shadows").

Enough deliberate fakes swamp any genuine ones to the point of being ignored.

Same with stories - one person saying "I played chess with an alien" is just a random mental, right?

Boom, it's a conspiracy theory. Aliens, Titanic, faked moon landings, dolphins have underwater labs experimenting on paper, flat earth...

Everybody is so wrapped up in how much charge is left on their phone or that there's not enough foam on their coffee it just gets lost in the noise.

Until or unless something explodes, nobody really cares enough - and there's so many conspiracies (all part of the plan) and everyone is so easily distracted by shiny.


Success - everyone knows the secret, just pretend it's still a secret and nobody will believe it anyway.

That’s the kind of stuff I was talking about. There are more plausible explanations for photos that look Photoshopped.

 

[Martial D]

That’s the kind of stuff I was talking about. There are more plausible explanations for photos that look Photoshopped.

Exactly. We have a metric sh#t-ton of evidence of people making things up for attention and wealth. Human history is rife with it.

The explanation for photos that look photoshopped is usually that..they have been photoshopped.

To say that the world is just glazed over and ignores the evidence is to not understand how both science and journalism work in practice.

The former means not just photos, but reverse engineered alien tech would also eventually leak..and it hasn't seemed to. The latter means if it existed, we would see a lot more convincing evidence than we have.

 

[pdg]

but reverse engineered alien tech would also eventually leak..and it hasn't seemed to.

How do you know?

Define alien tech?

I'm typing this very sentence on a handheld communicator...

There are star trek doors in supermarkets.

Just because the boffins haven't figured out the warp drives and tachyon amplifiers yet (and they're too big to sneak out).

Historical technological advancement was pretty stable for centuries, until about halfway through last century when it started to really take off.

One explanation is obviously that tech led to tech, the other explanation:

 

[TMA17]

Aerospace CEO Bigelow

This is from Bigelow who is the CEO of a leading Aerospace Engineering company.

Lara Logan: Do you believe in aliens?

Robert Bigelow: I'm absolutely convinced. That's all there is to it.

Lara Logan: Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth?

Robert Bigelow: There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions -- I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.

Lara Logan: Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in UFOs and aliens?

Robert Bigelow: I don't give a damn. I don't care.

Lara Logan: You don't worry that some people will say, "Did you hear that guy, he sounds like he's crazy"?

Robert Bigelow: I don't care.


Lara Logan: Why not?

Robert Bigelow: It's not gonna make a difference. It's not gonna change reality of what I know.

Lara Logan: Do you imagine that in our space travels we will encounter other forms of intelligent life?

Robert Bigelow: You don't have to go anywhere.

Lara Logan: You can find it here? Where exactly?

Robert Bigelow: It's just like right under people's noses. Oh my gosh. Wow.

The FAA confirmed to us that for years, it referred reports of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena to a company Bigelow owns. He told us he's had his own close encounters, but declined to go into detail

 

[TMA17]

Pentagon Program has no idea what these things are.

 

[TMA17]

Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program

I’ve heard all the arguments against it all before and I used to share those. Now I’m not quite so sure. Most people don't bother to go far enough in researching this issue.

Yes it is true that 98% of UFO's are weather related, hoaxes, space debris among other things, however, the 2-5% of unexplained cases are quite remarkable.

I like Neil D. Tyson. I also believe extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If I was a scientist in a professional sense and worked in a University etc. I too would be careful NOT to touch this subject as it will ruin your career. Primarily in the U.S. Not as much in other countries.

I'd also say that any advance intelligence,say even a thousand years ahead of us, could have figured out how to travel the vast distances. And they could be so advanced we wouldn't even know they are here. Like showing an Iphone to someone in the year 1200 would seem like magic, that is how their technology would look to us.

 

[TMA17]

Duplicate post.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

How do you know?

Define alien tech?

I'm typing this very sentence on a handheld communicator...

There are star trek doors in supermarkets.

Just because the boffins haven't figured out the warp drives and tachyon amplifiers yet (and they're too big to sneak out).

Historical technological advancement was pretty stable for centuries, until about halfway through last century when it started to really take off.

One explanation is obviously that tech led to tech, the other explanation:

View attachment 21326

Actually, the pace of acceleration is a pretty smooth curve.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program

I’ve heard all the arguments against it all before and I used to share those. Now I’m not quite so sure. Most people don't bother to go far enough in researching this issue.

Yes it is true that 98% of UFO's are weather related, hoaxes, space debris among other things, however, the 2-5% of unexplained cases are quite remarkable.

I like Neil D. Tyson. I also believe extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If I was a scientist in a professional sense and worked in a University etc. I too would be careful NOT to touch this subject as it will ruin your career. Primarily in the U.S. Not as much in other countries.

I'd also say that any advance intelligence,say even a thousand years ahead of us, could have figured out how to travel the vast distances. And they could be so advanced we wouldn't even know they are here. Like showing an Iphone to someone in the year 1200 would seem like magic, that is how their technology would look to us.

That's a very different argument than Area 51. I consider it quite reasonable (and unsupportable, so not worth arguing either way) that a very advanced civilization may exist and may have technology allowing them to observe us without our being aware. I'm simply not willing to ascribe unexplained things to said civilization simply because there are other possibilities equally beyond our current ken.

 

[pdg]

Actually, the pace of acceleration is a pretty smooth curve.

Shush...

Computers were reverse engineered from a crash landed transformer, everyone knows that.