A Thought About Ufos

[SaxonViolence]

The evidence for true "Flying Saucer" UFOs seems very flimsy to me.....

 

But let us examine a common Science Fiction or "Tin-Foil Hat" Meme: That the Government knows about Extra-Terrestrials visiting Earth and is vigorously working to suppress the facts.

 

Were this true, I for one, would find it Infuriating. People would have an absolute right to know about such a thing--regardless how dire the consequences of making it public might prove to be.

 

Well let's not get caught with our pants down.

 

What wording would you use to make it a Capital Crime for any Government Employed person to cover up evidence of Extra-Terrestrials among us.....

 

In such a way that it pre-emps any secret statues--whether written in the past, or written sometime in the future--designed to exempt certain Government Personnel from being bound by the Law?

 

 

Saxon Violence

[Ti@NiS]

Just as an individual has the right to keep a secret. Also both the Governor has the right to store information that is not for the general public without this penalty. People can live a fulfilled life without headaches about UFOs and other arcane topics.

[labelwench]

Originally posted by SaxonViolence

 

People would have an absolute right to know about such a thing--regardless how dire the consequences of making it public might prove to be.

 

Government, or the state, has ever reserved unto itself information that may have consequences for national security. This does not preclude the right of the individual to make private inquiry so long as they do not utilize illegal mechanisms.

 

In this era of rapidly increasing communication technology, it will become increasingly difficult to isolate and contain information from the scrutiny of others, IMO.

[Moontanman]

The evidence for true "Flying Saucer" UFOs seems very flimsy to me.....

 

But let us examine a common Science Fiction or "Tin-Foil Hat" Meme: That the Government knows about Extra-Terrestrials visiting Earth and is vigorously working to suppress the facts.

 

Were this true, I for one, would find it Infuriating. People would have an absolute right to know about such a thing--regardless how dire the consequences of making it public might prove to be.

 

Well let's not get caught with our pants down.

 

What wording would you use to make it a Capital Crime for any Government Employed person to cover up evidence of Extra-Terrestrials among us.....

 

In such a way that it pre-emps any secret statues--whether written in the past, or written sometime in the future--designed to exempt certain Government Personnel from being bound by the Law?

 

 

Saxon Violence

 

 

UFOs are something I've always been intensely interested in, I think it can be asserted that the government has been manipulating the available data since the very beginning of the modern UFO era. There is also no doubt that totally inexplicable sightings have occurred even though there is an embarrassing amount of data on those sightings.

 

The old adage that Unexplained UFOs are the result of insufficient data is misleading in of it's self. However with the advent of things like photo shop and other ways of manipulating the evidence there has become a planet wide contest to see who can fake UFOs the best and this makes any attempt to really study the phenomena almost impossible.

 

A great many extremely qualified observers have seen UFOs from military pilots to astronomers, they have been sighted on radar, even more than one radars at a time and multiple observers. What the phenomena really represents is very difficult to judge...

[Buffy]

Under the strong interpretation of the Unitary Executive Theory pushed by Dick Cheney since the Nixon Administration, first used under Reagan and then expanded dramatically under Bush II, "if the president does it, that means it's not illegal." That pretty much means if the president thinks we should keep a lid on UFO info, sorry, you're not gonna get any. (This is not really just a conservative thing: Obama has done nothing to roll this interpretation back, resulting in probably justified freakouts on the right that Obama's "gonna come take all our guns and make white Christian women have abortions!").

 

Conversely though, when one considers that governments seem to be incapable of keeping a lid on third-rate burglaries, arming our enemies, and Lady Gaga, UFO's seem to be a pretty difficult thing to keep a lid on, when you start to consider the number of people who'd be in on the secret.

 

Consider also that if aliens don't want to be found, then the stories we've heard make them susceptible to the same "government can't keep a secret to save it's soul" problem, and if they DO want to be found, even if they simply don't visit us very often (yes, most--although even I'll admit, not all--"sightings" actually can be explained), the government is going to keep screwing up hiding it, and they'll be discovered eventually.

 

"How do you get funding for something like this?" "You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?" :phones:

Buffy

[Moontanman]

Under the strong interpretation of the Unitary Executive Theory pushed by Dick Cheney since the Nixon Administration, first used under Reagan and then expanded dramatically under Bush II, "if the president does it, that means it's not illegal." That pretty much means if the president thinks we should keep a lid on UFO info, sorry, you're not gonna get any. (This is not really just a conservative thing: Obama has done nothing to roll this interpretation back, resulting in probably justified freakouts on the right that Obama's "gonna come take all our guns and make white Christian women have abortions!").

 

Conversely though, when one considers that governments seem to be incapable of keeping a lid on third-rate burglaries, arming our enemies, and Lady Gaga, UFO's seem to be a pretty difficult thing to keep a lid on, when you start to consider the number of people who'd be in on the secret.

 

Consider also that if aliens don't want to be found, then the stories we've heard make them susceptible to the same "government can't keep a secret to save it's soul" problem, and if they DO want to be found, even if they simply don't visit us very often (yes, most--although even I'll admit, not all--"sightings" actually can be explained), the government is going to keep screwing up hiding it, and they'll be discovered eventually.

 

"How do you get funding for something like this?" "You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?" :phones:

Buffy

 

 

Considering the number of people who have come forward your argument would seem to lack substance. The government's actual strategy is to ridicule anyone who does come forward, disinformation is the best way to prevent secretes from being believed.

 

The US Air force has pursued the strategy of disinformation practically from the beginning. J. Allen Hynek participated in that disinformation program but eventually became a proponent of UFOs as nuts and bolts alien space craft. Of course this does not apply to all UFOs and the vast majority are indeed misidentified aircraft, natural phenomena, or hoaxes.

 

It's interesting that the first study of UFOs concluded they were interplanetary space craft but the man in charge rejected that assessment and turned to disinformation as the go ahead even though this put a great many trained observers in the position of being ridiculed...

[Buffy]

Considering the number of people who have come forward your argument would seem to lack substance. The government's actual strategy is to ridicule anyone who does come forward, disinformation is the best way to prevent secretes from being believed.

 

Well, that's actually kinda my point: while its unquestionable that the government has actively pursued a disinformation campaign, that can be seen as either a conspiracy to keep secrets, or the only solution among bad ones on how to suppress hysteria. As you well know Michael, around here we spend a lot of time explaining to people having trouble with science that you "can't prove a negative." If there ARE no UFOs, and there's no way to prove it, and you're responsible for trying to keep people from freaking out, what do you do?

 

The worst thing is that the government really doesn't have to do much in the way of disinformation. For every Dr. Hynek, there are a thousand Bob Lazar's. Yes I know a few people who claim that Bob is a government stooge, but he's been held up for 20 years by most of the UFO community as proof of government conspiracy.

 

And of course that's the problem with conspiracy theories: the most persistent ones present little direct evidence with lots of hinting at nefarious intent.

 

So really my point is that real government conspiracies are actually a dime a dozen, and they're not held up almost completely by folks that after 20 minutes start to sound a little bit, um, off. Try watching unedited tapes of interviews with Bob Lazar. It gets kinda creepy.

 

It's also important to note that Dr. Hynek never claimed to have definitive proof of UFOs or that the government had them and was hiding them, but what he railed against was the disinformation campaigns as well as the academic and pilot/law enforcement communities' hostility toward UFO research and reporting of incidents, and we have to be very grateful to him for that.

 

But that's a looooooong way from demonstrating an actual coverup of real, tangible evidence of UFO's by the government....

 

And just to prove my UFO-cred, I've logged over 935,000 work units with Seti@Home. Not really a candidate for being a naysayer... :cheer:

 

I saw Hamilton Jordan sniff cocaine, and I had sex with Margaret Thatcher, :phones:

Buffy

[C1ay]

What wording would you use to make it a Capital Crime for any Government Employed person to cover up evidence of Extra-Terrestrials among us.....

This idea is recursively flawed. Only members of government, i.e. our representatives and executives, can make laws that make anything a capital crime, or any crime for that matter. Why do you think the government would write laws to hold itself accountable in such a fashion? They wouldn't!

[Deepwater6]

If ufo's are real I think it would be the military or some secret agency that would have the answers before regular lawmakers. In some sense these agencies seem to work above the law and with impunity.

 

Whenever there is an incident the witnesses always tell of army trucks rolling out with something under a tarp. In this way it also gives the lawmakers plausible deniability so they won't get in trouble if it is a crime. It's the military looking to reverse engineer technology and develope weapons from them.

 

I agree with the OP the government must stop treating us like children if these things are true they should be letting us know about it. I think we can handle it without mass hysteria.

 

My problem is that with all the sighting that no other country has come forward with evidence. So I'm not so sure there is much to show us, I find it hard to believe that it's a global conspiracy.

 

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that we are the most advanced group in the universe? Yes life formed on other planets in the billions of years since the universe was born, but did consciousness come with it? Are there millions of planets out there with dinosours still in control?

[Moontanman]

Well, that's actually kinda my point: while its unquestionable that the government has actively pursued a disinformation campaign, that can be seen as either a conspiracy to keep secrets, or the only solution among bad ones on how to suppress hysteria. As you well know Michael, around here we spend a lot of time explaining to people having trouble with science that you "can't prove a negative." If there ARE no UFOs, and there's no way to prove it, and you're responsible for trying to keep people from freaking out, what do you do?

 

Good point, but absolutely refusing to even consider the possibility no matter how good the evidence is not science.

 

The worst thing is that the government really doesn't have to do much in the way of disinformation. For every Dr. Hynek, there are a thousand Bob Lazar's. Yes I know a few people who claim that Bob is a government stooge, but he's been held up for 20 years by most of the UFO community as proof of government conspiracy.

 

It's interesting that Hynek was part of project SIGN that concluded that UFOs were interplanetary space craft.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Allen_Hynek

 

In response to many "flying saucer" sightings (later unidentified flying objects), the United States Air Force established Project Sign in 1948; this later became Project Grudge, which in turn became Project Blue Book in 1952. Hynek was contacted by Project Sign to act as scientific consultant for their investigation of UFO reports. Hynek would study a UFO report and subsequently decide if its description of the UFO suggested a known astronomical object.

 

A direct quote from Dr. Hynek.

 

"Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and people should not be taught that it is. The steady flow of reports, often made in concert by reliable observers, raises questions of scientific obligation and responsibility. Is there ... any residue that is worthy of scientific attention? Or, if there isn't, does not an obligation exist to say so to the public—not in words of open ridicule but seriously, to keep faith with the trust the public places in science and scientists?" (Emphasis in original)[4]

 

In a 1985 interview, when asked what caused his change of opinion, Hynek responded, "Two things, really. One was the completely negative and unyielding attitude of the Air Force. They wouldn't give UFOs the chance of existing, even if they were flying up and down the street in broad daylight. Everything had to have an explanation. I began to resent that, even though I basically felt the same way, because I still thought they weren't going about it in the right way. You can't assume that everything is black no matter what. Secondly, the caliber of the witnesses began to trouble me. Quite a few instances were reported by military pilots, for example, and I knew them to be fairly well-trained, so this is when I first began to think that, well, maybe there was something to all this."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sign

 

Gen. George Schulgen, Garrett's superior at the Pentagon, ordered a more thorough review of flying saucer data. In response, Lt. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, then-head of Air Material Command's intelligence and engineering divisions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (then Wright Field), compiled and analyzed the data. Twining's memorandum to Schulgen, dated 23 September 1947, stated, in part:[7]

The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.

There are objects probably approximately the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as a man-made aircraft.

There is the possibility that some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena, such as meteors.

The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and action which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, automatically or remotely.

It is possible within the present U.S. knowledge... to construct a piloted aircraft which has the general description ...

Any development in this country along the lines indicated would be extremely expensive...

Due consideration must be given to the following:

The possibility that these objects are of domestic origin - the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this command.

The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects.

The possibility that some foreign nation has a form of propulsion, possibly nuclear, which is outside of our domestic knowledge.

 

Also the number of nut cases has no bearing what so ever if even one sighting is real.

 

And of course that's the problem with conspiracy theories: the most persistent ones present little direct evidence with lots of hinting at nefarious intent.

 

That is a big problem, the noise to signal ratio is quite high and difficult to deal with.

 

So really my point is that real government conspiracies are actually a dime a dozen, and they're not held up almost completely by folks that after 20 minutes start to sound a little bit, um, off. Try watching unedited tapes of interviews with Bob Lazar. It gets kinda creepy.

 

I've watched lazar, he is either an idiot or absolute proof, my BS detector goes off every time i watch him.

 

It's also important to note that Dr. Hynek never claimed to have definitive proof of UFOs or that the government had them and was hiding them, but what he railed against was the disinformation campaigns as well as the academic and pilot/law enforcement communities' hostility toward UFO research and reporting of incidents, and we have to be very grateful to him for that.

 

This is true.

 

But that's a looooooong way from demonstrating an actual coverup of real, tangible evidence of UFO's by the government....

 

But it also means that information was being twisted to show something besides the truth.

 

And just to prove my UFO-cred, I've logged over 935,000 work units with Seti@Home. Not really a candidate for being a naysayer... :cheer:

 

:D

 

I have a hypothesis about the origin of UFOs that is falsifiable, I thought the WISE telescope would do the job but later I found out it wasn't sensitive enough to do the job.

[SaxonViolence]

Just as an individual has the right to keep a secret. Also both the Governor has the right to store information that is not for the general public without this penalty. People can live a fulfilled life without headaches about UFOs and other arcane topics.

 

That point is debatable.

 

In theory, Laws are passed because Citizens lobby for them--sometimes forcing Politicians to vote against their Will and Better Judgement if they want to have any hope of being reelected.

 

Government Officials often Stretch Laws or Operate Completely Outside the Law--for mildly evil reasons like personal profit, reelection and/or self aggrandizement.....

 

Or for the Greatest Evil Rationale Imaginable: "For The Good of The Public".

 

First of all, being deceived or forced to do something against your Will and Better Judgement is--By Definition--Never a Good Thing.

 

And what is "Your Own Good" is highly Subjective.....

 

But I would rate the Politician who forces people to do things that he Mistakenly believes is in their own interest as being marginally Less Evil than the Politician who forces people to actually act for their own Welfare.

 

{i.e. The Politician who bans Vitamin C in all forms, from the American Diet--Forcing large wastes of money to be spent washing Vitamin C out of Natural Foodstuffs--and forcing people to either suffer Scurvy or buy Vitamin C on the Black Market.....

 

Wouldn't be Quite as Evil--by a Razor's Edge--As the Politician who passed a Bill outlawing all Tobacco Products.}

 

Mightn't the Government Still hide "True UFO Evidence"? Sure, but such a Law on the Books would raise the Stakes.

 

No, such a Law will never be passed.....

 

For a number of Reasons.

 

I just wanted to see it discussed.

 

Saxon Violence