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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2062 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Try to set aside the question of aliens for a second and look at it this way.

The Pentagon gave a briefing to NASA on UFOs. This briefing included lots of pictures. They're telling us we're not allowed to see the pictures. So my question is... why? If they're not hiding anything then why not just let us see for ourselves? Yes they might just all turn out to be Chinese weather balloons made of swamp gas, certainly. But I still want to see and judge for myself. Why would anyone not want to?

I don't buy the "national security" excuse. The world's not going to implode just because we got pictures of an advanced spy drone. (Not that I get the impression that that's what this briefing was about in the first place. The fact that these photographs were in a briefing entitled "UFOs" instead of something more pedestrian is pretty odd!)

So my question is... why? If they're not hiding anything then why not just let us see for ourselves?

I don't know the specific briefing or photos you're referring to, but I'd assume it's because footage taken by military aircraft/etc. can reveal military capabilities or activity and is thus classified by default. You don't want to give away information about the capabilities of your cameras, for example. Meanwhile the footage which has been declassified is consistent with alternative explanations such as glare from a distant jet.

I don't know the specific briefing or photos you're referring to

The one I linked in the second bullet point in the OP.

footage taken by military aircraft/etc. can reveal military capabilities or activity and is thus classified by default

They chose to reveal some photos and not others, which leads me to believe that the content of the photos is one of the determining factors.

Okay, the images on page 9 of the briefing are from the declassified Tic Tac video, the ones on page 12 are from the declassified Gimbal video, and the one on page 13 is from the declassified Pyramid video released in 2021. So they censored every image that hasn't been specifically declassified and released previously. Note that 4 videos including Gimbal were leaked before being declassified, so it doesn't seem like they're cherrypicking the least convincing videos to release.

If you follow those links there's plausible non-alien explanations for each of those videos. For example, in the Pyramid one (the only one I hadn't seen before), the shapes are because of the bokeh effect on an out-of-focus light combined with the triangular shape of the aperture (which the Navy already knew when they talked about it in the Congressional hearing). However only one of the triangles was an actual plane/drone, the rest were clearly stars belonging to the constellation Sagitta. The flashing of the non-star also matches the timing of a plane's collision lights, and the USS Russell was directly under a flight path at the time. Which seems like a good reminder for anyone who puts a lot of weight on evidence just because the government is taking it seriously. Their job is to fight wars, not figure out all the weird-looking things that might seem alien-like, and classified information is going to be viewed by a lot less people than information released to the public. Naval Intelligence isn't nessesarily going to be very good at things like "checking if the UFO drone swarm happens to be the exact shape of a constellation plus one actual plane".

So they censored every image that hasn’t been specifically declassified or released previously

But that just moves the question back a step. Why did those specific images make their way to declassification and not others? No way to know until we actually see all the redacted images.

This isn’t an unfalsifiable “we haven’t seen aliens yet, but it could be that they’re out there and we just haven’t found them, so let’s keep looking”. This is, there’s a box right in front of us labeled “UFOs”, and I want to see what’s in the box.

there’s plausible non-alien explanations for each of those

Sure, I don’t disagree. But that has no effect on the fact that I want to see the rest of the unredacted document.

But that just moves the question back a step. Why did those specific images make their way to declassification and not others? No way to know until we actually see all the redacted images.

Well...

Note that 4 videos including Gimbal were leaked before being declassified, so it doesn't seem like they're cherrypicking the least convincing videos to release.

It wasn't clear what the "4 videos" was supposed to be referring to. If all the pics in what I linked were leaked before they were declassified then my bad, I was wrong.

The four leaked ones I was referring to were Gimbal (included in the FOIA release of the briefing), Flir/Tic-tac (included), GoFast (not included) and a fourth one that hasn't been declassified. However checking the Wikipedia page footage of the Pyramid one was actually recorded and leaked by Navy personnel as well, though I think that footage was different from the official footage of the same incident that was later officially released. So it turns out all 3 that are uncensored in that PDF were leaked and then later declassified years later.

My point, even before knowing that all 3 of those were leaked, was that internal pressures like people wanting to declassify the more compelling footage or people outright leaking it makes it pretty difficult for the government to deliberately only declassify unconvincing footage if they have anything dramatically better. So I think the declassified stuff is probably pretty representative, if not the cream of the crop that there was more pressure to declassify and more reason to leak.

So I think the declassified stuff is probably pretty representative, if not the cream of the crop that there was more pressure to declassify and more reason to leak.

I agree that in a vacuum, this is a sound argument. But people who have seen still-classified photos/videos claim they're more impressive than what's been publicly declassified so far.

Here's Matt Gaetz back in July 2023 on the Eglin incident, after he was shown a classified photo:

"The image was of something that I am not able to attach to any human capability, either from the United States or from any of our adversaries. And I'm somewhat informed on the matter, having served on the Armed Services Committee for seven years, having served on the committee that oversees DARPA and advanced technologies for several years."

AARO later released their own public report on the Eglin incident, but Gaetz claimed that AARO's report was incomplete, and that he thought it was important that the classified materials he was shown should be made public.

(Rep. Tim Burchett has made similar statements about classified photos as well, although I don't have the link handy.)

Now, it could be that Gaetz is simply not a very discerning individual. It could be that all he saw was just another blurry point of light, and he mistook this for "something beyond any human capability". Or it could just be a picture of a Chinese spy drone, or it could be that the image was just entirely fake. ...But we won't really know until we get to see it ourselves.

The reason why anyone should be sceptical of secret aliens is that there is no reason for them to be hidden.

If aliens had landed in Nevada in 1950, we would know about them. This is because the explanation that UFO fans have for secrecy (muh Cold War, muh secret ailyun technology) is bullshit, because any plausible theory of secret alien landings almost certainly involves the likelihood of them landing in Russia and probably China too, not to mention plenty of non-aligned countries without highly capable security states, thus rendering any fantasy advantage of speshul technology useless.

There is no evidence of [intelligent] aliens (…having visited earth in living memory).

I mostly agree with your viewpoint, but the alien enthusiasts have a simple explanation for the visitation pattern: nuclear weapons.

This would also explain ongoing secrecy about Aliens. If the Aliens have any degree of control over nuclear arsenals, then part of the illusion of world powers is shattered.

I do think we have had unusually good luck in that nuclear weapons have been used exactly twice in a real conflict and then never again.

I'm not sure, what nuclear weapons are meant to explain?

Why only visit certain countries?

Why only be in contact with certain governments?

Why only now and not earlier?

OK got it but how do they explain it? I mean, ok, they did not contact us because we didn't have nukes, and now they contacted us because we do have nukes. But why? Why nukes are so important? Civilization that can travel interstellar distances should have stuff that is to our nukes like our nukes are to a bronze spear.

They offer quite a few reasons:

  1. If the Aliens are benevolent then nukes are the first time humans really have the chance to extinct ourselves.
  2. If the Aliens care about habitable worlds we could mess up one of their gardens.
  3. Nukes might be more noticeablr to casual observers.
  4. Maybe there are threshold technologies required for joining some galactic community, and nukes is a threshold.

Nukes are unique enough.

  1. is nice I guess, though experience shows me that "fixing" other civilization often results in the death of the one being fixed, or in making it much, much worse.

  2. You imply Earth is their garden? How comes if they never been here before?

  3. Only if you happen to be very close exactly at the time it's tested, and open tests have been banned a while ago, very unlikely

  4. That would be weird. It doesn't allow one to neither physically join any galactic communities nor even communicate with them meaningfully, why would that be a threshold? I'd expect if not FTL transport/communication than at least Expanse-style long range propulsion that makes at least populating the Solar system possible. Without it, the only think nukes allow us is hurt ourselves really badly. That's not a good criteria to join anything but an extreme introvert BSDM club.

I said it up above, but ill have to say it again. I don't believe aliens are actively visiting earth. I guess I'm just around alien enthusiasts often enough that I know many of their arguments.

I originally responded when someone was asking "why don't they have an explanation for X". I then answered ... they do have an explanation for it. If we are going to get into how good the explanation actually is then I just want to stop, because I don't really think they are good explanations. I'm just saying the explanations and the answers are there.

At some point it is closer to a creative writing exercise for them. Making the most elaborate explanation for the presence of aliens while fitting all the available data. Asking them more in depth questions is not a path towards convincing them, its a path towards more fun for them because it adds on an additional challenge to the mass creative writing exercise they are all involved in.

Human secrecy is easy to understand. That just makes sense to me. Panic, lie about it, now you can’t come clean because you’d have to admit you lied, etc.

Explaining why the aliens themselves would keep themselves a secret is a lot harder. Specifically, why would they hover in this grey zone, where it’s just ambiguous enough that people could believe or not believe. If they wanted to fully hide themselves then they could, and if they just didn’t care at all then they could come down and make it obvious, so why hang out in the grey zone? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a good explanation for this one.

But I’m not interested in UFOs because I think it’s all that likely or even all that plausible. I’m interested because it’s really weird that the government has a whole box of papers labeled “UFOS AND WEIRD ALIEN SHIT - DO NOT TOUCH”, and obviously such a collection of files invites suspicion.

Suppose you're a scientist in charge of establishing relatively orderly and constructive contact with a tribe of buttflap-clad cannibal natives, deep in some godforsaken jungle, who have never seen an outsider before. How do you go about it?

Do you hover over their village in a helicopter while they shit themselves, then jump out to say hello on day one? No way, they're either going to start throwing spears at you or bow down and declare you their god.

Maybe instead you start coming and going on the fringes, observing, letting their hunting parties catch sight of you from a distance. You peek down on them from far above, and if you see them burning you in effigy maybe you hold off on trying to introduce yourself for the moment.

Basically I'm imagining a machine intelligence a million years past singularity going "pspsps" at us like we're a cat because, while we're nothing compared to them, we're way more interesting than all the uninhabited space they usually see. Shitty movies about aliens trying to steal our oceans and fuck our women are the equivalent of buttflap natives building mock helicopters out of bamboo and ritually setting them on fire.

So just keep buzzing their little fighter jets and going "pspsps" at them. Don't even think of landing on the White House lawn and saying hello until they can all at least admit to one another that they see you. What's an extra century or so to you at this point?

If you talk about regular Earth scientists, then a reasonable way would be sending a person or two in a single boat to land on the beach, or just walk up to them on foot, let be observed and leave some easily recognizable usable things for them. Then if they pick it up, see what they do, maybe leave some more. Maybe they would bring some of their own to do a trade (even monkeys trade, it's basically built in). Once some trust is established, attempt personal contact. One may wear some analogue of a flack jacket, and in case things go really south have some snipers not too far but out of sight. But usually if initial contact was established the chance it will lead to immediate attack on contact in person is very low - if they were reluctant to contact, they'd just ignore your initial attempts.

Silent trade worked like that between peoples for a long time in history.

They might not care either way. If they only talk to or visit the people with control of the nukes, then the secret is secure that way.

Ok. But I specifically said that there was no need to get into general considerations about whether aliens exist or not. All I said was that I think the government should release certain classified photographs that they have, for some reason, of their own accord, decided to label as “UFOs” (UAP just being the new PC euphemism for UFO). This is a request that is specific, actionable, concrete, and limited in scope.

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