from the I-want-to-believe-marsh-gasses-are-out-there dept.
Pentagon Has Finally Declassified Those Grainy UFO Videos From The US Navy:
After years of speculation, defence officials have now declassified and released three grainy videos from the Navy that have been circulating online for a while now, causing all sorts of speculation.
The mysterious footage was captured using infrared cameras in November 2004 and January 2015, and leaked to the public a few years ago.
[...] "DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos," the US Department of Defence said in a statement.
"The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterised as 'unidentified'."
But that characterisation is not for a lack of trying. For five years, from 2008 through 2011, the Pentagon had a top-secret program investigating UFOs and the potential threats they could pose to aircraft and other aerial activities.
See the linked story for the videos.
Also on the Beeb, The Guardian, even The Daily Beast.
Forbes Amidst The Insanity Of 2020, UFO Footage Feels Forgettable
Now that the month is coming to an end, we're due another world-shaking event, and an alien invasion seems to fit the apocalyptic theme.
Thus, the Pentagon officially released three unclassified videos taken by Navy pilots of UFOs. To clarify, nobody is claiming the footage shows alien spacecraft, but merely clarifying that the footage is legitimate and the subject is unknown.
[...] But the strangest thing about the footage, is that in the context of 2020, it almost seems boring. You'd think the Pentagon officially releasing UFO footage would break the internet (all it used to take was a photo of Kim Kardashian's bottom), but nowadays, the internet has become jaded to all but the most Earth-shattering event.
[...] The footage has inspired a few memes here and there, sure, but otherwise, the unidentified flying object hardly seems to have made a dent in pop culture; a collective shrug seems to be the general response. Although, only the most hardcore alien obsessives and Area 51-invaders seem to believe that the footage shows an actual alien spacecraft.
The Pentagon's decision to officially declassify three 'UFO' videos that have been circulating for years has triggered feverish speculation about what the famously secretive department is trying to distract Americans from.
[...] However, not all of the speculation had to do with the type of 'little green men' that might be piloting the objects. Even as hashtags like #aliensarereal and #ufo2020 dominated social media, many commenters were skeptical as to why the Defense Department had selected this particular moment in history to officially 'release' the videos. With the world in the grips of both a pandemic and an unprecedented economic depression – and with anger rising at government responses to both – the timing raised more than a few eyebrows.
Related Stories
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
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!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @02:52AM
No really - over there. Look over there. Stop looking here.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Lagg on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:01AM (6 children)
Yeah just go ahead and ruin that segment of entertaining hobby too you asshats. The fun of this whole thing went right down the drain when the OG UFO guy - one of like 3 who were actually involved - died. For some reason people think MUFON is worth its dumbass acronym.
Even the notion that UFOs are a cursory description until the object can be identified is just discarded in favor of the flying saucer mental images.
Flying saucers, which are the singularly most boring variant that appears in cases.
You know what's extra cute? You link to RT on this like its tabloid ass has a valid opinion. And it's all the more hilarious because this shit could easily be either a classified US project that failed cause it was a dumb idea, or a russian one that failed for the same reason.
But yeah, spread their distracting hashtag bullshit for them on a site that doesn't even mesh with twitter except the jackasses that use it for efficient rhetoric flinging.
... Oh. So that's why you guys entered a phase of having a hardon for RT a few years back. Is this the first instance in preparation for the upcoming election season? Yay. More brats stomping on the desiccated corpses of my casual interests. Don't even know why I bothered.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:06AM
You need more vodka, comrade.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday April 30 2020, @12:04PM (3 children)
what's RT?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday April 30 2020, @12:14PM (2 children)
Russia Today (rt.com), rebranded as just RT in 2009.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Development_and_expansion [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday April 30 2020, @01:23PM
Thanks
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:18PM
To be fair, that whole thing where companies say "our acronym doesn't stand for anything anymore" is pretty commonplace now.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @11:26AM
If I were to ignore all sources of news that aren't objectively neutral, I'd get no news at all. I decided to just ask questions to everything I read instead, works pretty great. A proof must follow a claim. Any assumptions must be scrubbed. Anything invoking emotions in me, must be heavily scrutinized for motives.
The point in reading different sources is to get all the angles. Why? Because the most important things for a complete understanding are often the information left out by either "side". If you just want to use the news as entertainment and a topic of conversation or flamewar, then that's of course not neccesary and I'll step back.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:30AM (4 children)
Probably a bit of oil, moisture and dirt getting caught between the lenses and moving around as the jet tilts and the focus auto adjusts much like a floater [wikipedia.org].
compiling...
(Score: 4, Informative) by legont on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:50AM
That looks to me like a missile radar lock. The one that makes pilots shit their pants cause they can hear the alert while on the receiving end.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:56AM (2 children)
Not sure if this is some weird joke, but... no, just no.
You're looking at heat signatures that the jet and camera are having to move rapidly to keep up with. And multiple pilots were spotting them simultaneously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @08:31AM (1 child)
It's a reference to a specific in-game XCOM dialog: https://xcom.fandom.com/wiki/Floater [fandom.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:17PM
Sure, link to the new series of X-COM games . . .
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:53AM
No, its a bird! No wait, that is just the resident shit-poster.
Damn, thought we had something worth publishing in the tabloids. Might as well run with the anal probes again, at least it tracks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:45AM (3 children)
How would we know if the infected people who survive aren't aliens taking over a host, and the people who died from the virus aren't failed alien takeovers or something more.... food.
TPTB demand human flesh in order to maintain their human appearance.
3rd crack rock from the ghetto instructed us on how aliens would hide themselves as humans.
(Score: 2) by corey on Thursday April 30 2020, @10:11AM (1 child)
This sounds like one of them cryptic messages from CIA operatives in the field back to the HQ. Busted!
Makes 0 sense, but nice use of punctuation and spelling is good. So AC being off his tits on drugs is not my first conclusion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @11:14AM
You're glowing!
Terry Davis would've loved you. Terry had a car. They had to take him out via train.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @02:44PM
This is misinformation. The red dresses are perfectly capable of synthesizing their own human skin and other tissues.
They're actually vegans.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:54AM (6 children)
Okay, now that the government officially acknowledges UFOs exist, I don't believe there's any way UFOs exist. Clearly this is little more than a recruitment strategy.
Partialy joking, partly not. These videos were 'leaked' back in 2017. That was following announcements of the US military becoming somewhat increasingly desperate [politico.com] for recruitment. For reasons one can only imagine people aren't so interested in enlisting now a days... What better way to try to get the next generation interested in enlisting than teasing [aliens.gif].
That said, I do think these videos are probably real, among many more. Something you also miss on the scale of the videos is that the one ufo skirting the ocean before jetting upwards and then hauling ass off was about 40 feet long. Crazy stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @05:15AM
World wide, people are more connected in the sharing of ideas. One being, why should I enlist in a military, with it's questionable motivations,
money lost and money sent to things like Halliburton? Why should I risk being on a ship with people sick with the coronavirus?
Why would I want to live out the rest of my life with the memories of hurting - or worse - killing another human being? And for what?
Taking up arms to defend your country from an invasion? Probably worthwhile.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by meustrus on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:34PM (4 children)
Kind of ironic, I think, if enlistment trouble has anything to do with Trump.
Just spitballing here, but I personally would feel like the last thing I want to do is put my life in the hands of that crazy person. Who knows what might happen?
Practically speaking, though, he's pretty trigger shy. He might surround himself with hawks, but he doesn't have the stomach for war, and his ideology allows him to think isolationism is good policy.
Compare Trump to any of the previous 4 presidents, and now might be a relatively safe time to join the military. Glorious? Hell no. But safe? Probably.
Even if he presses the big red button, the military is no less safe than everyone else. Probably more so, as your ass would likely be on a stealth transport somewhere to keep safe for the aftermath.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @03:38AM (1 child)
The 'announcements' were back in 2015. But I don't think it has anything to do with any administration or another. I think there are two main factors:
1) The military is increasingly seen as little more than a tool for enforcing somewhat arbitrary political motivations. In particular it's just a tool to keep the military industrial complex churning which, in turn, keeps the economy churning. The soldiers that have sacrificed their lives in the Mideast didn't do it to protect the nation, protect freedom, save lives, or anything - not even to kill some 'bad guys.' They did it so we could keep the dying petrodollar alive for a few more decades. There's not even any glory in that. It's just throwing your life away.
2) People have become soft - figuratively and literally. According to Pentagon data 71% [heritage.org] of Americans aged 17-24 are unfit to serve. The majority of the problem there was because of health or fitness problems. On top of that you now have a society where it's increasingly trendy for men to be feminists, 'toxic masculinity' is something taught in schools, and generally being weak, effeminate, and passive is increasingly encouraged.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday May 01 2020, @07:08PM
1) I'd be very interested to hear more about how traditional recruitment demographics are wising up to what the upper classes have known for half a century. I think it's more likely those demographics have become cynical about the concept of one America, and are worried about the wrong political party being in charge of their deployment. Which could easily mean that they are more worried about another neoliberal winning the presidency than they are about whatever Trump might do. It's all speculation on my part though.
2) Don't let the name 'toxic masculinity' fool you. It's not a statement that masculinity is always toxic. It's a way of expressing masculinity in ways that, it is argued, are toxic to society, but it's not the only way of expressing it. If our young men have learned to stop suppressing emotion, projecting bravado and invulnerability, and establish hierarchical dominance through any allowable means, that's objectively good for their own mental health. Not to mention the stability of society and the safety of the weak, who are systematically victimized by 'toxic masculinity'. The men who go to war come back with PTSD; they may project strength, but they are still human, and their stoicism prevents them from healing. We do our servicemen a disservice when we tell them that aggression and dominance is the path to glory.
--
There's a solution to both of these problems, though: immigration. Immigrants, especially those from central America that are lining up at our borders, are 1) relatively ignorant of American politics, and 2) come from cultures that still prize 'toxic masculinity'. The easiest way to stock our infantry brigades would be to promise a path to citizenship to all immigrants and their families through military service.
Why we aren't doing this is a function of politics. If it was really a priority, we'd stuff our objections and do it. As it is, the left won't because they are politically opposed to the military industrial complex, and the right won't because they are politically opposed to immigration.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @03:54AM (1 child)
"Even as the U.S. military takes on a greater role in the warfare in Iraq and Syria, the Trump administration has stopped disclosing significant information about the size and nature of the U.S. commitment, including the number of U.S. troops deployed in either country."
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-trump-deployment-20170330-story.html [latimes.com]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday May 01 2020, @07:23PM
Isn't that just compared to the Obama years? That article claims Obama was going above and beyond for transparency. I don't remember having all that much information about commitments in the Bush years.
Besides, more transparency does not mean less war. Proof: the Obama years. Heck, Trump might be less transparent because he wants his hawk supporters to think he's doing all these covert ops he just isn't doing.
2017 was still prime ISIS-fighting time, too. There's not a whole lot of risk in fighting a small enemy that already hates you to death. I'm talking about Iran, or Russia, or North Korea. Trump talks a lot of bluster against them, but he has backed down and basically let all three do almost anything they want. Which, to be clear where I stand, is only a bad thing if they end up achieving long-term goals that hurt us. I'm...not convinced the long term goals or Iran or North Korea really have much to do with US beyond getting US out of their business. They're very local countries; the former has lots of regional enemies that aren't really our friends, and the latter has its work cut out for it with its goal of ruling a unified Korea.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 30 2020, @06:14AM (2 children)
Classified, declassified, leaked, or whatever, there is a lot of footage out there, of UFOs that remain unidentified. Starting with the earliest foo fighters, right on up through those bogeys off of California in recent months, there's a lot of stuff we haven't identified.
One of the more amusing explanations for some of them, is the idea that "something" slips through from an alternate universe. That's certainly not my favorite theory, but I saw a couple videos that were "enhanced" to show the shape and size of whale-like creatures, flying through our atmosphere. TBH, I'm surprised the metaphysical types haven't claimed UFOs to be angels, or demons, or lost souls, or some such.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Touché) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday April 30 2020, @08:04AM
Sounds more like politics, not metaphysics...
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:47PM
They have, and have done so for quite some time.
Have a quick look at Jacques Vallée's works, it's been a couple of decades now since I last read any of his stuff, but ISTR his take on it was that basically 'something' is fucking with us, and has been doing so for a very long time (Fort had a similar theory, though he stated it as 'we're property'), so it's an idea that runs through certain schools of though on the subject.
The theory runs something along the following lines..
Whatever they are, they use UFOs/Religion/Apparitions/etc as a 'masque' for their actions, they use whatever cultural trappings are available to hide behind and use the belief in said trappings to manipulate humanity, in Celtic countries they were the fair folk, they are the jinn of Arabic lore, in the middle ages they were daemons, in countries today with a strong Roman Catholic presence in the population they become the Blessed Virgin Mary, they were the angel Moroni, they were Crowley's Aiwass, they may be the root cause of religion in general, they're not Gods per se, but they like being treated as such, both feared and worshipped.
As they're not quite corporeal, as well as manifestations, they can also exert influence on 'sensitive/sensitised-by-ritual' humans, they then either influence or show up in literature, they're the Macrobes of C.S. Lewis's 'That Hideous Strength' and as for Lovecraft and his works...(If you believe in that sort of thing, there's an occultist who makes a good case for whatever entity that was fucking with Crowley's mind also fucking with HPLs as well..) but, when it suits them, they're also 'nuts and bolts devices, they were the Airships of the late 1800s, they were the 'ghost planes' of the early 20th century, they're Saucers of today, etc. etc.
So, it's not so much an outré theory (UFOs themselves are actual entities) as you think..you'd have to expand your reading...and be prepared to wade through so much unmitigated bullshit...admittedly, some of it is entertaining bullshit, but still...
--
Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast....' Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @08:48AM
Is it just me or is the second one just a gif of some choppy water? I can't see anything out of the ordinary. There's a moving white square dot in the upper left quadrant that seems out of place, but that's clearly from the info overlay. Where's the UFO?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday April 30 2020, @09:35AM (1 child)
FYI, The Grauniad [wiktionary.org] is a thing!
When I used it in my original submission [soylentnews.org], it was on porpoiselike this one
If you accept "El Reg" and "the Beeb", you need to accept Grauniad too
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:22PM
Mostly, we're 'Muricans. We don't accept beeb, reg, or gremlins. We're just going to deport the lot of them back to Merry old England. Or, to Mary's Old England.
(Score: 5, Informative) by esperto123 on Thursday April 30 2020, @10:46AM (5 children)
It not because the pentagon did not find an explanation that it is automatically extra-terrestrial, they are the pentagon not captain disillusion.
And there are this three videos that present actually good explanations for the phenomena and were posted at the time these videos were first released:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyEO0jNt6M [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1oTg0kxzDs [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Btns91W5J8 [youtube.com]
Which is more likely, misidentification of objects and lens glare on infrared cameras with resolution of a toaster or little green men?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:23PM (1 child)
They aren't green men. The green ones are female, the purple ones are men.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by esperto123 on Thursday April 30 2020, @07:54PM
wait, so females are the ones with the anal fixation? poor purple ones...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:27PM
Yob! Yob! Where's my Yob?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @06:42PM
Thanks that was very informative.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @03:57AM
Like an increasingly number of 'skeptic' clickbaits, that was highbrow rubbish. The math calculations are nonsensical, the object was not being tracked by radar but by infrared/heat, and the final subject thing was even more absurd. He suggests that because it was classified under "UAV, balloons, and other UAS" somehow it must be a balloon. That is probably the single most stupid thing in the video as that is a category classification which is the more refined version of 'other'.
"Skeptics" and "everything is a conspiracy" types are increasingly becoming two identical ends of a horseshoe.