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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: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:03PM (35 children)
There's been stuff happening that we can't explain.
Some of them are green men, from somewhere? Some of them are top-seekrit tech that no government shares? Some of them really are marsh gas? Weather balloons?
I still like the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Oddysey. We were engineered by extraterrestrials - and they're still watching us. Sure, there's nothing to support that idea, but I still like it, just as much as Arthur C. Clarke liked it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:22PM
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Haydon_article%2C_Aurora%2C_Texas%2C_UFO_incident%2C_1897.jpg [wikimedia.org]
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:31PM (32 children)
> We were engineered by extraterrestrials
Speaking for yourself, how tempting is it to deny evolution has taken place?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:41PM (14 children)
I think the evidence for UCD (universal common descent. Not to be confused with natural selection and mutation.) has been nothing short of a disaster for those proclaiming it to be true.
Just like the evidence that the cosmos formed from naturalistic processes has also been nothing short of a disaster.
The more we research it the more of a disaster it becomes. The evidence seems to really reject a naturalistic cause.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:48PM
err... a better word than 'reject' would be 'resist'.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @06:12PM (9 children)
Is that what the man on the stage told you to believe?
I hate to break it to you, but your invisible sky daddy isn't just invisible, he's imaginary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:21PM (8 children)
Who told you imaginary == doesnt exist?
Big corporate government science daddy?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 26 2020, @08:46PM (6 children)
Are you really arguing that scientific explanations for our origins are wrong, therefore it must be god?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:40PM (5 children)
All scientific theories came from someones imagination. Or do you think they were communicated psychically by god/aliens or something?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:19PM (3 children)
Wow.
That is really dumb.
I mean sometimes on this site people post things that are silly, or poorly thought through but that is some real top level idiocy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:36PM
Thats a theory that came from your imagination. Chill out.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday July 27 2020, @03:26AM (1 child)
so now we need a +0 "huh?' mod..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 27 2020, @03:39AM
That's a theory that came from your imagination.
I like it though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @01:12PM
I know you're trolling, so here's a snack:
If those scientific hypotheses aren't borne out by *evidence*, we reject them as false.
There is no *evidence* that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator exists. In fact, all the evidence we do have points to natural processes for everything around us.
Provide convincing evidence to the contrary and I'll change my mind. Good luck with that.
Savor this little snack under your bridge, as this is all you're getting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @01:08PM
Merriam-Webster [merriam-webster.com]
You could replace dragons with "God" in the quote below and it makes just as much sense. [goodreads.com]:
--Stanislaw Lem
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:13PM (2 children)
Do yourself a tremendous favor: do not, DO not, run arguments from creation.
Why? Because they are possibly the single most powerful source of *mal*theistic arguments in existence. Any creationist/ID (same shit) argument is an argument for a powerful and *deeply* evil super-being.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @10:35AM (1 child)
Evil, to *our* way of thinking, in our terms it might think of itself that it's actually quite a rather pleasant and somewhat jovial powerful super-being...it's not it's fault we don't understand it, nor get the subtle majesty of it's merry japes...
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 27 2020, @01:16PM
Okay, insane then. The Gibbering Blind Idiot God of Lovecraft. Not something that corresponds to any religion is what I mean.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:43PM (16 children)
There was no word for dinosaur until 1842. Try going to a museum and asking to see the *actual* bones, not the artists impressions they put up.
https://www.girlsaskguys.com/social-relationships/q4045265-so-you-believe-dinosaurs-really-existed [girlsaskguys.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:46PM (15 children)
Is it possible dinosaurs existed on Mars but not on Earth? https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2015/02/ancient-dinosaur-skull-found-with-teeth.html [ufosightingsdaily.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 26 2020, @08:50PM (14 children)
No.
No, it is not possible. Also, that site you linked to includes the following:
Etc.
If you posted that for a laugh, well done. If you're serious, grow up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:47PM (12 children)
So how do you explain that almost all dino bones on earth come from the same locations, including by a fake dino bone factory in China? But there is a pic of a dino skull from mars?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:17PM (11 children)
You have never found a fossil? Not even once?
You should get out more. They're all over the place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:28PM (10 children)
If youve found a dino fossil share a pic.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 27 2020, @12:08AM (9 children)
So... dinosaurs weren't real now?
How many conspiracy theories do you believe in? I thought I had heard of most of them, but that's anew one on me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @12:13AM (8 children)
Have you found a dino fossil or not? You said theyre everywhere. Actually theyre only found in like a dozen restricted locations.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 27 2020, @12:50AM (7 children)
Are you serious? Of course. They're not uncommon.
I'd ask for a link proving your "theory" but you'd probably provide a link to dinosaursarenotreal.org.
Is the restricted location thing like the way you flat earthers think Antarctica is restricted by NASA to prevent people seeing the ice wall or something?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @01:02AM (6 children)
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a25395/dinosaur-fossil-map/ [popularmechanics.com]
Filter for dinos, not mammals.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 27 2020, @01:16AM (5 children)
And?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @01:56AM (3 children)
Blows my mind that trolls think getting someone to try and take them seriously and give real feedback is some kind of hilarious win. Good for you for trying, probably slim chance they are srs.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 27 2020, @02:21AM (2 children)
That particular A/C posts the most absurd links to the weirdest backblocks of the Internet and expects me to accept they prove his point.
I can't tell if he is mentally unwell, or just a below average 12 year old.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @03:21AM (1 child)
You love timecube man, just salty hes gone.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 27 2020, @09:19PM
The Timecube guy put some effort in. He didn't just regurgitate whatever bullshit the Fox News arseholes spewed out that morning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @03:12AM
And did you search for T rex?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:50PM
The simplest explanation is there were dinos on mars then some kind of catastrophe so they fled to earth and built like a dozen museums of the martian wildlife that got destroyed in another catastrophe. Thats why the bones are all in the same places but nowhere else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:47PM
"We were engineered by extraterrestrials - and they're still watching us. Sure, there's nothing to support that idea, but I still like it, just as much as Arthur C. Clarke liked it. "
except that they got the idea from our ancient myths/religions. many ancient religions have similar stories about the beginning of man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:25PM (7 children)
there must be a real downside to those anti-gravity engines.
reason why they don't exist:
they're insanely difficult to construct (too little of the craft survived to be reverse engineered and we are just too dumb to do it our-self)?
they use a lot of power (tho one would assume the principle would also allow for a energy generator of sorts)?
they give muchos head-aches when operational (at least for humans)?
they would "make nukes obsolete" (not really but new forms of warfare and tactics sans nuking each other would be possible?)
they would upset world economies that traded gold for oil thus if the money printing wants to go on the oil pumping must never stop (i assume anti-gravity engine would allow many benefits but would require a "retooling of the spreadsheet that holds the world economy "in balance"")?
shit isn't as dire as made out to be and the anti-gravity engine plans will come out of the drawer once shit really starts hitting the fan (rainy day option)?
anti-gravity would open interstellar space and would upset the "power balance" on earth -aka- "get off your fat lazy rich ass and DO something"?
...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:56PM (5 children)
They require the stable isotope of element 115 (184 neutrons). It is only formed in binary star systems so basically you cant get it around here. Perhaps there are other elements that can be used the same way, but the point is that the electron shell is totally inside the nucleus. That is what gives the exotic behavior.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:32PM (1 child)
Bob Lazar, is that you? It's got a name now, Moscovium [wikipedia.org]. It says that Mr Putin is a very nice man.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:42PM
So how are you going to get 184 neutrons and 115 protons from a collider? You need to add up two smaller stable isotopes.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday July 26 2020, @11:18PM (2 children)
Wikipedia says the most stable isotope has a half-life of 0.65 seconds, so calling BS. Interesting comment, though.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @12:06AM (1 child)
Noone has made the stable isotope:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @09:13PM
No one has proven a stable isotope exists???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @06:00PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQeHOKmdiN4 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @06:11PM (9 children)
"its main focus is on discovering whether another nation, especially any potential adversary, is using breakout aviation technology that could threaten the United States."
If this is true then this has been around for a while now.
I've personally witnessed a UFO with incredible flight capabilities around 1999.
I was inside the house and my dad was outside smoking and he calls me outside and says to look up.
This thing was a large egg shaped object about three light polls high at first hovering over my house. My house was under its shadow and its size was so large that the area above me covered part of the street, covered my house and back yard, and reached over into the area over some of the neighbors houses.
The thing pulsated between an unlit or not very light bland almost greenish gray color that didn't really stand out relative to the sky around it to a bland (not that bright) yellowish color and back. The thing made no noise.
Shortly after like five helicopters started chasing it. They were tiny specs compared to this thing. As they approached it the thing sharply ascended for a distance and stopped. As the helicopters continued to ascend to approach it again it would sharply ascend again for a distance and stop. This happened three consecutive times. Finally the thing just flew into the horizon at an incredibly fast speed (it was gone within like a second or two from a total standstill, way faster than any plane or jet) leaving the helicopters in the dust.
Didn't make any noise whatsoever (you can hear the helicopters though).
Later on that night the news had an image of it and mentioned that people reported sightings of it. They said the Airforce(? I can't remember) had no comment but like a day or two later the news said that the Airforce was testing a balloon.
Yeah right. Not even close. What I saw was the most incredible, intelligently guided, craft that I have ever seen. Nothing we have that I know of even comes close.
So did the U.S. government have this technology in 1999? Did other governments? Was it aliens? I have no clue. But I do know this tech existed back then, I've seen it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @06:15PM
Yeah sure. And in Rand-McNally, people wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @06:39PM (2 children)
Here is the thing. Everything you describe makes perfect sense if you assume the object was much, much lighter than its size implied.
So basically, yea it was some type of military balloon, zepplin, blimp craft. You are conditioned to think balloons are boring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:31PM (1 child)
I thought of that possibility. Yeah, if you fill a balloon with air and let it go it can do some wild crazy things.
Two alternative possibilities kinda I thought of is it could really have been a balloon or maybe a hologram of some sort? Maybe the helicopters were somehow projecting a hologram?
The problem is that neither of those possibilities are really good ones or really come close to explaining what I saw. Just that they are possibly the best explanations other than it being some sort of advanced air/space craft. Being the best explanation doesn't make it a good or a probable explanation. At the end of the day I have no clue what it was.
Maybe some kind of advanced U.S. military balloon with a way to guide its path. But nothing I've ever seen before. I don't know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @11:02PM
Exactly my thoughts about a lot of these ufo sightings.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:23PM (1 child)
Enquiring minds want to know:
Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.
--
Remember: If we get caught, you're deaf, and I don't speak English.
(Score: 3, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 26 2020, @08:56PM
I was wondering what his Dad was smoking. He may well have been very high.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @08:13PM (1 child)
Nice Fiction
The Airforce would send jets, it is the Army that operates helicopters
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:20PM
I can't remember exactly what the news said at first had no comment and then later said they were testing a balloon. I was relatively young.
My dad smokes cigarettes ;(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @12:59AM
I know people who I trust not to BS me who saw some odd shit. Perhaps it was mistaken identity, but they were definitely freaked out by it.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday July 26 2020, @06:44PM (11 children)
Any recent news about Extraterrestrial Materialization Entities?
We all know this is a phenomenon the Pentagon feared most of all incomprehensibles.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:56PM (10 children)
"We all" do?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday July 27 2020, @12:38AM (9 children)
You do underestimate us, do you?
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 27 2020, @01:17AM (8 children)
You haven't given me much other than the impression of a serious case of chronic chuunibyou so far...if you'd like me to stop underestimating you, if indeed that is an underestimate of you, prove otherwise?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday July 27 2020, @02:27AM (7 children)
Well, start here. It's not the best collection nor the most correct deduction but you will find there lot of pointers to other resources.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo/comments/doc9g3/important_memo_they_may_try_to_convince_the_world/ [reddit.com]
And, there is always TheBlackVault. I really didn't expected there is someone existing on the net who never reached it.
Everyone I know got all the files long time ago.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 27 2020, @01:04PM (6 children)
It's times like these I really wish the official Unicode character set included the equivalent of SomethingAwful's "jerking-off" emoticon...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday July 27 2020, @01:50PM (5 children)
I affiliate with the dimensional hypothesis of EME, since it is most coherent with the knowledge base of the faction I am a member of.
We have our own original research in Dimension Dynamics since the 80's, based on theoretical work of our predecessors.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 27 2020, @02:33PM (4 children)
Uh-huh. Right. And I actually am a time-jumping immortal schoolgirl with a magical letter opener that turns into a sword when necessary. Pull the other one, chuuni, it's got bells on.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday July 27 2020, @04:52PM (3 children)
You yourself qualified as EME, then. Welcome. And, stay careful, this world is really dangerous.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 28 2020, @01:05PM (2 children)
This is what we, in the world I come from, call sarcasm. That is my avatar's backstory. She is not real. She is ink on paper. Even if I do look and sound a spooky amount like her, she does not exist.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:11PM (1 child)
I see. Disney does that to people for about a century. Just try to read those mkultra papers mentioned above about consciousness fragmentation technique, it is very related to your self-identification situation. She does exist, within you. She even has a backstory! Maybe you'll find even more other interesting avatars in yourself you like.
I call that conceptual affinity in my model of consciousness synthesis. Conceptual affinity is not a fixpoint. It is a tunable.
Sticking to just one outward personality is... boring. That's why my presence in tengu form is limited to just Soylentnews. However, letter opener sword is intriguing. Perfect mental disguise of a weapon. I approve that. I prefer my collection of real swords and daggers, though.
Have you ever tried to obtain a real sword? Not just some harmless plastic or blinkenlights cosplay toy or kitchen tool, but lenghted, weighted, hard, cold, sharp piece of shiny metal able to draw blood?
I tell you what: a challenge. Let's both write a short fiction story featuring some of our favourite characters, putting that in SN journal. No timed deadline. There is no global risk of shame by that, journals are not indexed by webspiders. But it may change the local culture of Soylentnews. When I joined SN a year ago, I did it because of nostalgia on Kuro5hin, defunct and content lost long ago. And its full spectrum culture of posts, including underground, dissent and fiction articles on mainpage.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 29 2020, @01:20AM
If you're really interested in the source material, it's an obscure, vaguely creepy-fanservicey piece of animation (it had to be, it ran at otaku-o'clock and would have been a standard yuri soap opera otherwise...) that I found out was based on an even more obscure, waaaay creepier, outright x-rated choose-your-own adventure thing. The animated version is sort of...imagine one part The L Word crossed with 5 parts Quantum Leap and throw in a few squares of brown blotter acid and you're close. It's terrible, honestly. Pretty, but terrible, and the ending(s?) is a complete wallbanger.
The "real" Hazuki is not a person. She does not exist except as ink on paper and maybe some CGI. There are some seriously probability-defying correspondences between my life and the plot (in other words, a lot of people and events metaphorically match up), but all that means is 1) art mimics life and 2) there are fewer stories out there than people think.
Is there a creepy physical resemblance too? Yes. But there are far more differences than similarities: I grew up poor, have probably 30-40 IQ points on the "real" one, come from NYC and not Tokyo, speak English, have a Caucasian background, etc. If you're wondering about the letter-opener/sword thing, the paper cutter got splashed with the elder sister's blood and then exposed to that odd green aura she gave off before disappearing (like I said...brown blotter acid), so it doesn't keep its normal shape. It's not intentional, and Hazuki doesn't know how to swordfight; the thing seems to act of its own will.
You are not a tengu either, for that matter. For one thing, the "tengu" archetype you have in mind--long nose, flight, storm-causing fans, bad attitude, and love of drink--does *not* match with the source material. Which is Chinese, not Japanese: tian(1) gou(4) = "dog of heaven" more or less. How the Japanese got crows out of that I will never know.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:34PM
Not even a surprise that it was the ONI who became the hub for the investigation, what with the existence of USOs, and UFOs which become USOs and vice versa...coupled with the navy also operating aircraft from land and birdfarms it's a logical choice, and, of course, it also meant that when they said the air force wasn't investigating UFOs, they were telling the truth...
Now, if anyone can ferret out the ONI parallel equivalents of Grudge and Blue Book and their descendants, that would be a pleasant surprise..
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:44PM (8 children)
Back in the day when the Internet was new to ordinary folk, Windows 95 was a thing and dial-up modems got to 56k there were all sorts of websites with animated GIFs and bright colours "explaining" UFOs, extraterrestrials, the Millenium, angles, demons and all sorts. One of my favourites went straight from saying "UFOs don't exist because Jesus" straight into the Lord's Prayer.
A UFO is just an Unidentified Flying Object. Many people put 2 and 2 together and make 5 and say that it must be visitors from outer space. If you look back through the history of aviation, and even if you have a bit of a think yourself about what strange contraptions might fly, you'll see all sorts of things have been tried, and are public knowledge.
After the Second World War technology and science had progressed so far that people were openly proposing designs for sub-orbital hypersonic aircraft, two-stage-to-orbit military spacecraft, saucer-shaped flying machines (some supersonic with multiple gas turbine engines) and even the completely crazy nuclear-powered aeroplane. There was even a plan for a hypersonic nuclear-powered cruise missile which needed no warhead for obvious reasons.
I've had a few completely crazy ideas myself, which I've thought up jokingly for personal amusement, just as thought experiments when very bored. One is a nuclear-powered airship. It could fly for 30 years without refuelling. It would need to be very large. The solid bit with the people and the reactor would probably be of the order of 1000 tonnes, minimum. I think it would be a great platform for launching rockets.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:54PM (2 children)
If you see a bird you dont know the name of it counts as a UFO.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @08:26PM (1 child)
Ok, so apart from Gerald, our front garden Robin, all other birds are UFOs?.
Admittedly, Gerald is what we've named him, someone once remarked 'he looks like a Gerald'...no, we've no idea either, but it was funny and the name stuck..he probably calls himself something along the lines of 'mighty worm hunter, eater of bugs and taunter of bastard cats'.
His predecessor was Rocky the Robin, so named by my niece..
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @09:43PM
Yes. Thats why they switched to UAP instead of UFO.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday July 26 2020, @08:59PM
I miss the Timecube site too. We have a resident conspiracy theory A/C who might whip up something just as mental though.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 27 2020, @02:53PM (3 children)
> a hypersonic nuclear-powered cruise missile which needed no warhead for obvious reasons.
I don't think its obvious at all. Without a warhead all it can do is scatter radioactive exhaust around the countryside (which I believe was the "plan") , or engage in a highly radioactive kinetic impact that would be a highly localized serious mess to clean up.
No warhead = no boom. A nuclear reactor is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a warhead. With sufficient effort you can often make a reactor explode, but the yield will be negligible compared to the the same material in a warhead. And unlike a warhead you won't be able to time the blast to the moment of impact, so you're pretty much limited to an air blast in a very broad general region.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday July 27 2020, @03:00PM (2 children)
A nuclear reactor gives off a lot of neutrons and gamma rays when running. You'd just need to fly it over people to kill them. No explosion necessary.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 27 2020, @09:10PM (1 child)
You'd have to fly it directl* over them at low altitude, at any distance the inverse-square law very rapidly reduces radiation to tolerable levels - not to mention the shielding from all the intervening air.
Figure that the "kill zone" is going to be orders of magnitude smaller than for a nuclear warhead, since the reaction rate is orders of magnitude slower. And the radiation kill zone for a warhead isn't actually much larger than the kill zone for the mechanical blast. Most of that kill zone will be wasted above and to the sides, and you're going to have to be practically skimming the ground for the kill zone beneath it to reach the ground.
Of course you'll give a lot more people mild cases of radiation poisoning, and you can potentially irradiate crops badly enough that people won't ant to eat them - but really it's a weapon of terrorism rather than war.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday July 27 2020, @09:41PM
They never built one, funnily enough.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by progo on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:19PM
The Pentagon is just trying to stay on top of "what are other nations flying that we aren't aware of?" They're not going to tell the public what they find.
(Score: 2, Funny) by wap3com on Sunday July 26 2020, @10:37PM
which may still be the official Air Force answer.
https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/3780232_460s.jpg [9gag.com]
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Sunday July 26 2020, @11:03PM (1 child)
Yes. Yes they are. [bbc.com]. And this program apparently didn't notice or do much to alleviate the threat. But hey, nice that we have a program so we know who dropped the ball.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @12:20AM
The point of the program is to investigate these sightings, whatever they are. And they aren't hypersonic missiles.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday July 27 2020, @08:53PM
Mrs Turgid and I investigated UFO ourselves last year. They were doing 50th anniversary gigs. We saw them in London. They totally ruled. They played all the classics including Light Out London, Doctor Doctor and Rock Bottom.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].