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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2048 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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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.

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