The existence of UFOs had been "proved beyond reasonable doubt," according the head of the secret Pentagon program that analyzed the mysterious aircrafts.
In an interview with British broadsheet The Telegraph published on Saturday, Luis Elizondo told the newspaper of the sightings, "In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of 'beyond reasonable doubt.'"
"I hate to use the term UFO but that's what we're looking at," he added. "I think it's pretty clear this is not us, and it's not anyone else, so no one has to ask questions where they're from."
Since 2007, Elizondo led the government program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, investigating evidence of UFOs and alien life. It was shuttered in 2012.
Its existence was first reported by The New York Times last week.
Elizondo was not able to discuss specifics of the program, but told The Telegraph that there had been "lots" of UFO sightings and witnesses interviewed during the program's five years.
Investigators pinpointed geographical "hot spots" that were sometimes near nuclear facilities and power plants and observed trends among the aircrafts including lack of flight surfaces on the objects and extreme manoeuvrability, Elizondo told The Telegraph.
Previously: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
Related Stories
Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program
In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find. Which was how the Pentagon wanted it. For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon's C Ring, deep within the building's maze.
The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.
A group linked to Luis Elizondo, the former leader of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, as well as other former military and government officials, has released a video showing a 2015 UFO encounter involving U.S. Navy pilots:
A newly-released video which shows U.S. Navy pilots encountering an unidentified flying object (UFO) in 2015 has garnered calls for more research into what these mysterious objects could be. "What the f--- is that thing?" one pilot can be heard saying in the video. "Wow, what is that, man?" the pilot adds. "Look at that flying!"
The footage was released Friday by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), a private scientific research and media group. It is led by Dr. Hal Puthoff, a NASA and U.S. Department of Defense adviser and James Semivan, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency service member. The clip is said to be "an authentic DoD video that captures the high-speed flight of an unidentified aircraft at low altitude" and "reveals a previously undisclosed Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast in 2015," according to a statement from TTSA.
From my work with To the Stars Academy, which seeks to raise private funds to investigate incidents like the 2004 Nimitz encounter, I know they continue to occur, because we are being approached by military personnel who are concerned about national security and frustrated by how the Defense Department is handling such reports. I am also familiar with the evidence as a former Pentagon intelligence official and a consultant who began researching the issue after the Nimitz incident was brought to my attention. On several occasions, I have met with senior Pentagon officials, and at least one followed up and obtained briefings confirming incidents such as the Nimitz case. But nobody wants to be "the alien guy" in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue. This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.
Also at USA Today and NextBigFuture.
Related: UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study
Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.
As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, "You have absolutely no idea what is out there!" The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves.
I have always been interested in UFOs. Of course, there was the excitement that there could be aliens and other living worlds. But more exciting to me was the possibility that interstellar travel was technologically achievable. In 1988, during my second week of graduate school at Montana State University, several students and I were discussing a recent cattle mutilation that was associated with UFOs. A physics professor joined the conversation and told us that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they were having problems with UFOs shutting down nuclear missiles. At the time I thought this professor was talking nonsense. But 20 years later, I was stunned to see a recording of a press conference featuring several former US Air Force personnel, with a couple from Malmstrom AFB, describing similar occurrences in the 1960s. Clearly there must be something to this.
With July 2 being World UFO Day, it is a good time for society to address the unsettling and refreshing fact we may not be alone. I believe we need to face the possibility that some of the strange flying objects that outperform the best aircraft in our inventory and defy explanation may indeed be visitors from afar – and there's plenty of evidence to support UFO sightings.
See also: Released FAA recording reveals pilot report of a UFO over Long Island
I-Team Exclusive: Nevada senator fought to save secret UFO program
Related: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
The Government's Secret UFO Program Funded Research on Wormholes and Extra Dimensions
The Department of Defense funded research on wormholes, invisibility cloaking, and "the manipulation of extra dimensions" under its shadowy Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, first described in 2017 by the New York Times and the Washington Post.
On Wednesday, the Defense Intelligence Agency released a list of 38 research titles pursued by the program in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.
[...] One such research topic, "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy," was led by Eric W. Davis of EarthTech International Inc, which describes itself as a facility "exploring the forefront reaches of science and engineering," with an interest in theories of spacetime, studies of the quantum vacuum, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Another project called "Invisibility Cloaking" was helmed by German scientist Ulf Leonhardt, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Leonhardt's research pertains to theoretical quantum optics, and in 2006 his work on theoretically creating "an invisible 'hole' in space, inside which objects can be hidden" was cited by Nature.
Yet another title, "Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions," was attributed to theoretical physicist Richard Obousy, director of the nonprofit Icarus Interstellar, which claims to be "researching technologies that will enable breakthroughs in interstellar travel." Obousy was credited by Gizmodo in 2009 for creating "a scientifically accurate warpship design" that could hypothetically be propelled through space by manipulating dark energy.
Also at Teslarati.
Previously: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
Related: Are We Alone? The Question is Worthy of Serious Scientific Study
No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon's U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public (archive)
Despite Pentagon statements that it disbanded a once-covert program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the effort remains underway — renamed and tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, where officials continue to study mystifying encounters between military pilots and unidentified aerial vehicles.
Pentagon officials will not discuss the program, which is not classified but deals with classified matters. Yet it appeared last month in a Senate committee report outlining spending on the nation's intelligence agencies for the coming year. The report said the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was "to standardize collection and reporting" on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, and was to report at least some of its findings to the public within 180 days after passage of the intelligence authorization act.
While retired officials involved with the effort — including Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader — hope the program will seek evidence of vehicles from other worlds, its main focus is on discovering whether another nation, especially any potential adversary, is using breakout aviation technology that could threaten the United States.
The lede has been buried for your protection. Do not RTFA.
Previously: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
The US Navy is Drafting New Rules to Report UFO Sightings
US Navy Spokesman Acknowledges UFO Videos
The Pentagon Releases Official Footage of UFOs. No, Seriously!
You Can Now Easily Download All CIA UFO Documents to Date:
In anticipation of the government’s official UFO report coming in less than six months thanks to the COVID-19 omnibus bill, you can now download all of the publicly available CIA documentation on UFOs.
The Black Vault, a clearinghouse for declassified documents, has released a downloadable document archive filled with PDFs containing CIA files on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), the government's preferred term. . Some of the reports date all the way back to the 1980s, and according to the site's founder, John Greenewald Jr., the spy agency claims this is all of its documents on UAPs.
[...] “Around 20 years ago, I had fought for years to get additional UFO records released from the CIA,” Greenewald said in an email to Motherboard. “It was like pulling teeth! I went around and around with them to try and do so, finally achieving it. I received a large box, of a couple thousand pages, and I had to scan them in one page at a time.”
[...] “Plain and simple, the public has a right to know!” Greenewald said. “When I began researching nearly 25 years ago at the age of 15, I knew there was something to this topic. Not because of viral internet hoaxes. Not because of back door meetings wherein I can’t tell you who, but I promise it was mind-blowing information. No, none of that. It was simply because of the evidence that I got straight from the CIA. And the NSA. And the Air Force. And the DIA. I feel I am achieving what I set out to do. Easy access, to important material, for people to make up their own minds on what is going on.”
Ex-official who revealed UFO project accuses Pentagon of 'disinformation' campaign
The former Pentagon official who went public about reports of UFOs has filed a complaint with the agency's inspector general claiming a coordinated campaign to discredit him for speaking out — including accusing a top official of threatening to tell people he was "crazy," according to documents reviewed by POLITICO.
Lue Elizondo, a career counterintelligence specialist who was assigned in 2008 to work for a Pentagon program that investigated reports of "unmanned aerial phenomena," filed the 64-page complaint to the independent watchdog on May 3 and has met several times with investigators, according to his legal team.
The claim that the government is trying to discredit him comes weeks before the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon are expected to deliver an unclassified report to Congress about UFOs and the government's strategy for investigating such encounters. The report is expected to include a detailed accounting of the agencies, personnel and surveillance systems that gather and analyze the data.
"What he is saying is there are certain individuals in the Defense Department who in fact were attacking him and lying about him publicly, using the color of authority of their offices to disparage him and discredit him and were interfering in his ability to seek and obtain gainful employment out in the world," said Daniel Sheehan, Elizondo's attorney. "And also threatening his security clearance."
Previously:
Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
The US Navy is Drafting New Rules to Report UFO Sightings
US Navy Spokesman Acknowledges UFO Videos
The Pentagon Releases Official Footage of UFOs. No, Seriously!
The Pentagon Has Continued to Investigate UFOs Under Renamed Program
You Can Now Easily Download All CIA UFO Documents to Date
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ataradov on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:58AM (6 children)
I just looked out of the window and saw something, I could not identify - an UFO. Now gimme $$$$ to investigate this.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:04AM (1 child)
... the absurdity of the Courts of Law.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:09AM
Uh, why? Are we litigating UFOs or investigating them?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:49AM (2 children)
Given we are on soylentnews, I bet that your UFO sighting is about that thing called "the sun".
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:35PM
what i thought that giant glowing orb was a light bulb. huh.
are all of them "the sun"? I have a lot down here in the basement; i never changed to flourescent because my mom wouldnt let me
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:10AM
People say the Sun exists, but I'm skeptical.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:56AM
From the source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/23/existence-ufos-proved-beyond-reasonable-doubt-says-former-pentagon/ [telegraph.co.uk]
That's a little different than "UFOs are real!"
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:09AM
At least the eds are not accepting any of that liberal SJW aristarchus's submission, so instead we get truly interesting and scientific stuff like this, that is news for nerds, and the previously abducted. The probed me, all the way through. They said, I was nothing but meat. [youtube.com]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:31AM (1 child)
Your dad has prostate cancer and he's going to die soon.
Sorry, dude.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:56PM
I guess they live among us. Someone here seemed to already know about dad's prostate cancer and found the info -1 redundant. Damn aliens git outta pa's butthole!
(Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:55AM (3 children)
But he's a former head of a Pentagon program. That should make him untrustworthy as part of the conspiracy. So we have to conclude that UFOs don't exist.
No wait, that's what they want us to think by that move, so they actually do exist.
But then, they probably anticipated that conclusion, so this is again evidence that UFOs don't exist.
On the other hand, also this conclusion might have been anticipStack overflow.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:25AM (1 child)
Just a tip: aliens are immune to iocane powder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:37PM
all this time I thought he was talking about illegal aliens and that they needed more funding to build a wall. i mean those things from space dont have citizenship and they might already be H1Bs so you can never be too careful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:29PM
Good idea, we should post the question on StackOverflow!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:09AM (8 children)
The man doesn't seem to address the issue with much authority. He isn't pointing to any incident, and telling us, "We're sure" or "We're certain that this was an alien spacecraft." It seems to be the same kind of "feeling" that many of us laymen have. To put that feeling into words, "There have been so many sightings, in so many places, by so many unrelated people, that it seems there has to be something to the idea of alien visitors." But, Elizondo doesn't go so far as to identify some dozens of sightings, and tell us that he is sure those sightings were real.
If the guy spent all those years researching, and all he has are unsubstantiated suspicions, he looks like a waste. All he's doing is capitalizing on his association with the government.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:07AM (4 children)
Next step, he changes his name to Fox Mulder.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:31AM (3 children)
Does that mean everything he says afterwards is Fox News? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Touché) by turgid on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:21AM (2 children)
Faux News.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:32PM (1 child)
Faux Mulder?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:45AM
Just gimme some Scully!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:13AM (2 children)
The truth is classified.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:26AM (1 child)
Yoda might say, "Classified, is truth."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:55AM
To expand on what I was saying, the guy has seen whatever evidence he claims to have seen from military aircraft videos, radar, etc. The videos that were released (don't forget, in response to a FOIA request rather than voluntarily) were edited down, and the Pentagon gave no location + date for one of the videos. All of the data collected by most military aircraft and drone flights are likely to be classified from the start, no matter if cool alien spacecraft were spotted or not. Maybe Elizondo would have to face a military tribunal if he let actual details slip, even if AATIP's most shocking conclusions boiled down to "they aren't atmospheric phenomena and they do look like they are crafts more technologically advanced than what any military on Earth has".
That doesn't make the hinting much less annoying, and obviously "these are definitely UFOs" is not a great statement compared to "this is technology originating from beyond Earth". But the Telegraph article uses "extra-terrestrial craft" and similar terms rather than "UFOs" so the summary is actually a god damn mess anyway:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/23/existence-ufos-proved-beyond-reasonable-doubt-says-former-pentagon/ [telegraph.co.uk]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:29AM
So if this has been "proved beyond reasonable doubt" then why can't we see the proof? And who, besides Mr Former Government Man, gets to decide that this is enough proof?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:46AM (6 children)
People have already had the "Aliens are real, folks" by some ex KGB in the nineties and no civil wars erupted (why should they).
But there are problems.
UFO sightings badly correlate with the amount of personal recording devices available to people. But that can be rationalized, however I don't get the obsession with nuclear facilities and power plants either.
But most of all, the most solid hint of their lack of existence is that they did not run for president, last time. Rather than HRC and Trump, most people would have voted Ridley Scott's Alien, with no hesitation. Are they really much worse than that?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Funny) by fyngyrz on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:10AM (3 children)
As far as I'm concerned, Trump is Ridley Scott's alien. :/
Clinton might be best likened to Carter J. Burke from the move Aliens. Awful, but at least their spit won't eat through the floor.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:40PM
Clearly you're not the poor sap who has to repair or replace her spittoons on a regular basis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)
Trump is a perfect organism?
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:26PM
Yes, in much the same way that other alligators are (except this is the alpha alligator we're talking about, so he's just that little bit worse than they are.)
Alligators. You know, those things in the swamp. They don't change much (for about the last 8 million years, actually) because there's been no evolutionary pressure powerful enough to defeat their natural ability to put down everything living that comes into their range.
People could actually do it, but you know, no one with any sense really wants to go into the swamp. Full of alligators, y'see. They'll kill your children while smiling. They smile all the time. It's built-in. So are the teeth. And the appetite. And the bad temper. And no, it's not because they don't brush their teeth. It's because... yes... they're very much like Ridley Scott's alien. And Trump. And most congress-critters. Why should they change? People have been re-electing them, so... yep, no need to change. They're perfect!
So, a little bit about perfection:
A perfect fusion weapon is one that delivers the design yield precisely on target. The target might be near you. Perfection is not always something you would ask for. A fizzle might be just the thing to make you grateful. Especially when the weapon in question is being wielded by people with absolutely no qualms about blowing you, and/or your children, up. And it's not too far off to think of some of Trump and Trump's minion's actions as broadly destructive weapons. Such as where they take away healthcare from kids. And adults. Or try to see to it that people in general can't get Amtrack service. Or small airport service. Or when they decide to allow more pollution into everyone's air and water. You know.
TrumpingTrampling all over some of the really good things with their nasty little alligator feet. It's not going too far to say "Trump is da bomb." In the "oh no, death and destruction, it's a bomb" sense of the phrase.Oh well. The next significant election is only a year away. Looks like (some polls make me think this) quite a few of those who voted for Trump and the Republicans have changed their minds in the face of his and their actual performance; perhaps that'll be reflected further in the makeup of congress. And in 3 years... well, we'll see.
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:14PM (1 child)
You think they don't know we have recording devices? For all we know there have been UFOs for thousands of years or more, and they've become less frequent because of the likelihood of producing evidence of their own existence.
As for the focus on nuclear facilities and power plants, isn't it obvious? These are where we amass enough useful energy to reach the stars, before we squander it on war and indoor lighting. About the only thing I find surprising is that they aren't also focused on particle accelerators.
Of course, the concentration of energy in these facilities is also capable of destroying life as we know it, so maybe the UFOs are actually time travelers preventing the apocalypse. If that's true then we should have more sightings as the orange one brings us once again close to our own annihilation. Not that the shadow state is likely to let that happen either.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday December 29 2017, @10:58AM
> You think they don't know we have recording devices? For all we know there have been UFOs for thousands of years or more, and they've become less frequent because of the likelihood of producing evidence of their own existence.
akin to the national geographic filmmakers that try not to disturb the colonies of animals they are examining?
Do your thing, ants!
It's a possibility, in fact it logically defeats fermi's paradox which needs the strong implication: they are around, therefore they are detected.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:28AM (18 children)
I don't buy it. Yes, there are things flying in the sky that are unidentified, but that doesn't automatically make them aliens from outer space.
If they were aliens from outer space that would have huge implications for the laws of physics. Given what we currently know about the laws of Nature, the distances between stars, the amount of energy required to travel those distances and the times involved make such travel prohibitive. Yes, we know that clocks slow down and distances contract when you approach the speed of light, but to accelerate anything to those speeds takes an absolutely enormous amount of energy.
We also know that the aliens can't come from our own Solar System (travel within the Solar System is much easier), so they'd have to be from another star system.
No, these are super secret experimental and/or spy aircraft, maybe even spacecraft. Remember, the SR-71 [wikipedia.org] was designed in the 1950s. I'm sure they can do much better now.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:32PM (7 children)
Indeed, highly unlikely. I'd love to verify the proof he's talking about.
I would sooner believe that they're time travelers from the future, wondering about all the stupid decisions from the current era.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:39PM
Here's a happy thought for the festive period: they're not time travellers from the future because the human race wipes itself out with WW III before it can invent time travel.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:52PM (5 children)
If they have to wonder, then they haven't advanced much.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:24PM (4 children)
After the singularity, all important decisions will be made by one or more AI's, who may want to learn from the past for a change.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:52PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:03PM (1 child)
Indeed. In the last two years, the West has set itself on course for a return to the 19th Century, particularly the UK and USA. I really don't have much hope for the human race.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:38PM
And why suddenly concerned about this regression in the last two years? The far right aren't the only holdovers from the 19th Century. A huge portion of their political opponents also live in that era as well.
My view is let's see how the EU fixes the current immigration crisis (and its many anti-democratic tendencies as well) before deciding whether a return to the 19th Century is the worst of your worries.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday December 29 2017, @11:00AM
Don't worry, Kill All Lawyers is pretty high on the directives' list already.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:51PM (1 child)
No, it doesn't. It just takes a while. You're thinking present day human dudes with present day lifespans in tin cans with some sort of bogus propulsion system required so the dudes can retire on the planets they arrive at in a few decades. Needless to say, none of that needs to be true. Small, self-replicating robots tooling about at 0.001 C (that is, 300 km/s) could cover the entire galaxy in a 100 million years or so. Even humans who live to ten thousand years of age, could do that trick with a reasonable sized spacecraft and still be able to retire at their destination.
Science fiction has already covered the generational ship. Meaning one doesn't even need long life span.
Meanwhile it's not that hard for aliens from elsewhere to be living in the Solar System today, if they're stealthed. Maybe they're headquartered on a small, blackened asteroid in the Kuiper Belt (running fission plants and venting heat to the side opposite the Sun) and run careful, stealthed missions and observations of humans in the present day. It's hard, but far from impossible for a technologically advanced group to play that game. Sure, it's a "God of gaps" type of argument, but huge gaps exist at present.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:33AM
They could also be on a moon around Planet Nine, or on a Mars-sized Planet Ten. Or on any number of Kuiper belt/Oort cloud dwarf planets, the outer solar system centaurs [wikipedia.org], and asteroids, most of which we have shit imagery of. Many gaps to look at.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:18PM (7 children)
You're assuming that there isn't some unknown part of physics that allows you to travel faster-than-light. This isn't even impossible by current physics: Einstein postulated the possibility of wormholes, called Einstein-Rosen bridges, which could be used for FTL transit. You're also assuming that aliens would come from this universe. It's possible they come from a parallel universe.
Don't forget, your understanding of physics comes from a species that hasn't even gotten their shit together enough to build interstellar probes, and haven't really left their own star system, and they themselves haven't done more than traveling to their nearby moon and whacked a few golf balls. You're like a Medieval serf claiming that smartphones are impossible.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:12PM
Very true. It wasn't that long ago people "knew for a fact" that it was impossible to fly to the moon, or fly faster than sound, or achieve heavier than air flight etc. Sufficiently advanced technology = magic.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:01PM (3 children)
I'd really love such a discovery to be made, but there's no evidence so far. Every time they test General Relativity, it keeps on passing. Maybe there will be something discovered when looking for quantum gravity?
Do you know how big a wormhole is, and what the tidal forces are like? Very small and very large respectively.
Not really. How would a Medieval serf even being to imagine telecommunications? Smartphones were an inevitability when the transistor was invented (1947). No new science was required, just refinements in engineering.
You could go to another star (Alpha Centauri) using current Physics with a bit of engineering advancement, but it would be expensive. A sufficiently large solar sail might accelerate you up to a reasonable speed between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Or, if someone could get a fusion reactor on a spacecraft, exhausting out the back.
No one wants to do it, though.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @10:01PM
Do you know how big a wormhole is, and what the tidal forces are like? Very small and very large respectively.
Maybe, but again you don't know what's possible, and considering E-R bridges were thought of perhaps 80 years ago, and we still have never seen a wormhole, there's no telling what's possible for an alien race that's millenia ahead of us technologically. 200 years ago, all this talk would be considered ludicrous, and even airplanes would have been considered ridiculous, and now we have fission, aircraft, space probes, people hitting golf balls on the Moon (briefly, 40 years ago), and smartphones. If we didn't have such stupid priorities (e.g., watching Kardashians and creating Windows 10 and shitty, ugly web apps instead of doing useful stuff), and managed our societies better, and had another 50,000 years to continue technological advancement and scientific research, there's no telling what we'd figure out as far as physics. We're still discovering new fundamental physics: Higgs-Boson, subatomic elementary particles, etc. Parallel universes are also postulated.
You could go to another star (Alpha Centauri) using current Physics with a bit of engineering advancement, but it would be expensive.
It would take a lot more than "a bit" of advancement. We've never built anything that can last, in a powered state, for thousands of years or more, and that's how long it'd take to get there with current propulsion tech.
A sufficiently large solar sail might accelerate you up to a reasonable speed between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
AFAIK, we've never built a solar sail or used one for anything significant.
Or, if someone could get a fusion reactor on a spacecraft, exhausting out the back.
Fusion reactors are just as sci-fi as FTL travel at this point. There's no evidence that fusion can be made to work. All our attempts at fusion so far have required more power to sustain than they created, so they've only been lab experiments. The only examples of successful (energy positive) fusion we have any evidence for are stars, which achieve fusion by sheer mass and gravity, and it isn't feasible to put a star in your spaceship. We could put a fission reactor on a spacecraft, but there again, we've never done such a thing, or ever used fission as a means of propulsion.
No one wants to do it, though.
This is the primary problem; many of things could be tried so we could get experience, and then refine it until it works reliably, but you can't do that if you never even try in the first place. We're not trying, and there's no evidence we ever will.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:32AM (1 child)
The Alcubierre (warp) drive [wikipedia.org] would not violate general/special relativity. Of course, the apparent exotic matter requirement is a big problem.
I would come back to fusion in 10-20 years after we see if any of the small-scale non-Tokamak [nextbigfuture.com] designs from the likes of [nextbigfuture.com] Lockheed Martin, LPP Fusion, General Fusion, Tri-Alpha Energy, and others succeed. Lockheed Martin in particular envisioned a 100 MW system that could fit into a truck/shipping container or airplane. University of Washington [theregister.co.uk] and others are working on fusion rockets [space.com] specifically. Newer launchers like SpaceX's BFR or an ITS-like successor can lift more massive payloads with bigger fusion rockets and less fuel, if needed. Fusion rockets would be tested on missions to Mars or distant solar system objects long before they are considered for interstellar travel.
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(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:44PM
Yes, that's the problem with warp drives, finding the magic stuff to make the stress-engergy tensor negative. Wormholes are even worse. How would you get the "other end" in the right (ie a useful) place?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:30AM
There is a lot of Hubris from scientists who think that they are certain that faster than light travel or anti-gravity are impossible with absolute certainty, given that the theories which say it is impossible come from a limited set of observations of the behaviour of forces under a limited set of arrangement of magnets, matter, etc. Then they extrapolate that behaviour to apply to all other arrangements and configurations. Thus if there were an affect that would allow for anti-gravity that for instance appeared only with very specific configurations of magnetic fields, perhaps rotating ones, temporal and spatial configuration, it would unlikely to be found by these people because it could be unlikely to be found by accident. This is why antigravity or FTL has not really been ruled out.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:42PM
You speak of these things as if they were relevant.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:27PM (1 child)
But little green men, not so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:03PM
They're gray dummy, don't you keep up with the latest canon?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:10PM (3 children)
U means "unidentified". It doesn't mean "space aliens". Lots of people have seen things and can't figure out what they are, and some of those things are up in the sky.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:13PM (1 child)
In this context the "U" actually means "undefunded", which is why this stuff is in the news. It's only received $22 million in the last few years and we all know that you can accomplish anything meaningful with only $22 million. As an example, just look at how much money Mozilla spends on Firefox.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:05AM
In this context the "U" actually means "undefunded", which is why this stuff is in the news. It's only received $22 million in the last few years and we all know that you can accomplish anything meaningful with only $22 million.
Huh?
"Defunded" means that something had funding, and that funding was removed or reduced. "Undefunded" isn't really a word I don't think, but if it were, it would mean to restore full funding to something that was previously defunded.
And yes, you CAN accomplish meaningful things with only $22M: you're right, and I'm agreeing with you, because you just wrote that.
So what exactly is your point here? It makes no sense at all. Unless, of course, you meant to write "undeRfunded", and "...that you can`T accomplish anything...", in which case this post is a prime example of why Soylent needs to stop stupidly aping Slashdot and allow post editing, to avoid all this confusion, from simple typos.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:59AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/23/existence-ufos-proved-beyond-reasonable-doubt-says-former-pentagon/ [telegraph.co.uk]
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(Score: 2) by srobert on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:02PM (3 children)
After I look at them for a few seconds they inevitably become identified flying objects, balloons, insects, aircraft, birds, etc.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @05:59AM (2 children)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:45PM (1 child)
The other side of "reasonable doubt" is that the would-be doubter has to be a reasonable person. I note here a complete absence of evidence for Elizondo's assertions, hence to a reasonable person, who uses evidence rather than vague feelz to determine "proof", this hasn't been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:59PM
Elizondo also has a new job:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html [nytimes.com]
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(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:37PM (3 children)
Why so many disbelievers on SN? I bet you guys don't believe in the flat earth either, although there's so much factual evidence supporting it, somewhere, in the internets
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:53PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:12AM (1 child)
You obviously jest, but I'll bet a fair number of Soylent readers believe in some religion, which has far less factual evidence supporting it, and makes even wilder and more ridiculous and absurd claims.
Evidence for UFOs: poor-quality videos and photographs, plus contemporaneous eyewitness testimony. Some videos actually from military organizations though.
Evidence for religion: millenia-old books written by ancient people who had little technology and were likely frequently under the influence of psychedelic drugs and alcohol from their diets, plus contemporaneous testimony by people who claim that deities talk to them in their heads, although this is the exact symptom of various mental disorders like schizophrenia.
Yeah, crappy videos and such certainly aren't proof of otherworldly visitors, but it's better evidence of something eerie than writing in some old book talking about a burning, talking bush. And while people make fun of people who believe in the former, a majority of the world's population believes in some variation of the latter.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday December 28 2017, @09:54AM
It's a lighthearted television/entertainment show but for professional daylight HD capture of a claimed UFO try to find and watch the "talking about the episode" discussion thing for the the third and final part of the (Travel Channel) Expedition Unknown UFO special where they show HD video of an Unidentified Flying Object recorded by themselves (unattended camera on a tripod) on the Easter Island. One can always say that it's fake (I wasn't there so I can't say) but it is interesting to note that if it isn't fake then it gives some perspective on why so much stuff that is not in HD looks like weird blurry smudges. I would also argue that maybe the footage is indicative of an unknown natural phenomena unless someone slapped a driver over the head... :P
Weird stuff... and drunk UFO-driving? :D
As for other UFOs that are "balls of light" I would point towards "Project Hessdalen", a shoestring scientific investigation which has been going on for decades and which might be a natural plasma phenomena of plasma balls "closing" a huge natural circuit in the Hessdalen valley. Still not nailed down.
For artificial plasma balls I encourage everyone interested to search for and read the "Blue Fire" page(s) on the net which says a lot of interesting stuff about (generating) large plasma balls. Either a perfect explanation or a perfect cover story for the Groom Lake and Area 51 stuff.
Not every UFO looks like a plasma ball though, the most interesting ones (2nd and 3rd degree) don't. Which is a shame since plasma balls can appear like they do all the maneuvering stuff and solves questions such as why there is no sonic booms or visible shockwaves, why there are "impossibly" sharp angles, speed, and "stepping" (seriously read "Blue Fire", I think the new name of the blog with updated annotations is "The other hand" or something like that, too lazy to dig up the link).
Blue Fire is not to be confused with Blue Beam which is about claimed preparations/studies for a faked alien invasion false flag operation for social control.
On the physics of it all I'm not a physicist but from what I understand right now in physics we don't really know what we don't know (because all the testing seems to give valid results) except that quantum mechanics and special and general relativity don't match up (so something is unarguably wrong, even I know that) and all attempts at a grand unified theory have failed. We/they probably need to find "smaller clues" that might be easier to deal with so that we/they can uncover our hidden unconscious assumptions (something akin to the differences between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics). Some of the stuff we call UFOs might be more than a single paradigm shift away from our current understanding so of course we'll not have any idea how that could work.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @12:02PM
https://ufoai.org/ [ufoai.org]
xcom game, GPL + CC