The only book worth reading is Larry Kusche's "The Bermuda Triangle- Solved." Kusche, a research librarian for Arizona State, explained virtually every Bermuda Triangle "disappearance" in a book fifty years old. Kusche died last year.
I have always found the belief that civilizations capable of interstellar travel are also unable to avoid detection or crashing on Earth pretty dubious.
Presumably, though, they are subject to the same absolutes and Laws of Thermodynamics/Physics that we are observing around the universe from our tiny little corner of it. Unless of course, our understanding is a dead end, and they have unlocked some hitherto unknown macro and micro physics, that enables interstellar travel.
I've been saying this for well over a decade: If you're making the best military hardware in the world (or at the very least pretty close to it), where's the best place to test the new stuff you're working on? On the captive audience you already have.
Nevada is largely desolate. Many of the military's special projects are located in Nevada. And Nevada has a lot of whore houses. We need to connect the dots.
Ever hear the story about why there's no prostitution in Reno? During WW II, lots of soldiers at the Reno Army Air base were contracting gonorhea. The commanding officer told the City fathers that he'd put the entire city off limits to troops if they didn't eliminate the girls.
The writer Rod Dreher is terrified of the UFOs. He thinks they are devils if I understand him properly.
I don't believe people as advanced as those who could fly themselves to Earth from another galaxy wouldn't attempt to contact us. Then again, maybe they're like the Metrons in the old Star Trek series, so far advanced than us that they just wish to observe until we reach a certain amount of species maturity. They must be disappointed by now with the decline in civilization on Earth.
Guess a movie where the public sees something odd and the CIA shows up and gives them cash won't put butts in the seats, so the director has the CIA shoot them instead.
I know it doesn't make for good action movies but I would enjoy the story of a special branch of the CIA tasked with covering things up with disinformation. This is one field in which I can imagine great government competence. I would love to have worked in such a department. I think I would have done a good job.
Keeping UFO gossip in the news helps sell the NASA and SpaceX notion of a successful long-term colony on Mars. The hard sell that technocrats can produce a safe, comfortable, well-nourished long-term existence outside Earth's atmosphere ON ANOTHER PLANET is laughable. But the scam does keep certain people in a nice lifestyle here on the blue marble. Getting to the moon is an admirable accomplishment. Good job! Beyond earth's moon, space travel at 25 or 30 thousand mph will be getting nowhere fast out there in Light Years Territory. Eternity is not endless time. Eternity is timelessness.
The problem with conspiracy theories is the requirement of requiring often large numbers of individuals to maintain secrecy. Forgive me if I’m skeptical of human beings to be able to keep their mouths shut.
The two yokels who made the Bigfoot film nearly took it to their graves but for one's deathbed confession. Crop circles stayed mysterious for a couple of decades IIRC. Nobody will ever really know what Christopher Lee and his colleagues were doing in North Africa during WW2.
But yes I agree, the general rule is humans cannot keep their big yaps shut.
Thus, the best conspiracy relies upon the human tendency not to keep our big yaps shut. A few hardcore spooks whisper "UFOs" and 100,000 people will devote their lives trying to prove space aliens and flying saucers and talking to everyone about it.
This always comes up and I always counter with the Ultra decryption program from the Second World War. Thousands of people knew about that and it didn’t come out for twenty years after the war.
The brits took secrets very seriously in WW II. In the 50’s they lost the thread. Ultra was protected even at the cost of lives. Warnings that could have been given weren’t so to protect the great secret. The press used to protect secrets during war as well.
Belief in UFOs is nothing new. It goes back to the late 1940s when there was a rash of sightings and a Kentucky Air Guard P-51 pilot crashed while investigating one. I know this much - I am a retired professional pilot and a former USAF aircrew member and in a half century of flying I never saw ANYTHING that couldn't be explained. (On the other hand, I did have ATC announce that he was seeing something on his radar that was higher and faster than anything imaginable, most likely the sometimes talked about but never publically revealed hypersonic aircraft. This was in the early 90s.) I flew with a major in C-141s who kept seeing UFOs although no one else on the airplane saw them.
"possible bureaucratic pranks and hazing rituals that accidentally made midlevel personnel into U.F.O. believers"
I may have shared this here a time or two, but I've long said, the only reason I would want to be president would be at the end of my term, during the transition, pranking the incoming president by telling him that the space aliens have been running the show since Hiroshima. He has admin power of course, but every so often the aliens will contact him with an order, and if he goes against it, they will likely destroy the planet.
I found the WSJ articles pretty convincing. But a lot of readers didn’t, to go by the comments.
I find it unlikely that life from another planet would come here (from many, many light years away) and make no attempt at contact.
The whole thing is bizarre!
When I was a kid in the 1970s, you could often find entire shelves in bookstores dedicated to books about UFO sightings.
There were also a lot of books on "The Bermuda Triangle" in the 70s.
The Bermuda Triangle phenomenon/obsession, on retrospect, is absolutely hilarious.
The only book worth reading is Larry Kusche's "The Bermuda Triangle- Solved." Kusche, a research librarian for Arizona State, explained virtually every Bermuda Triangle "disappearance" in a book fifty years old. Kusche died last year.
Yep. I remember those, too. And Bigfoot. Lots of books on Bigfoot.
Wasn't Lou Ferrigno Bigfoot on "The Six Million Dollar Man.?" What a ridiculous show.
I have always found the belief that civilizations capable of interstellar travel are also unable to avoid detection or crashing on Earth pretty dubious.
Presumably, though, they are subject to the same absolutes and Laws of Thermodynamics/Physics that we are observing around the universe from our tiny little corner of it. Unless of course, our understanding is a dead end, and they have unlocked some hitherto unknown macro and micro physics, that enables interstellar travel.
I've been saying this for well over a decade: If you're making the best military hardware in the world (or at the very least pretty close to it), where's the best place to test the new stuff you're working on? On the captive audience you already have.
Nevada is largely desolate. Many of the military's special projects are located in Nevada. And Nevada has a lot of whore houses. We need to connect the dots.
Mr. Leaberry, sir, "military"..."whore houses"...where is your mind wandering these days, lol!
Ever hear the story about why there's no prostitution in Reno? During WW II, lots of soldiers at the Reno Army Air base were contracting gonorhea. The commanding officer told the City fathers that he'd put the entire city off limits to troops if they didn't eliminate the girls.
Young men away from young women is a bad recipe. I'd have to guess that social diseases go hand in hand with war.
The writer Rod Dreher is terrified of the UFOs. He thinks they are devils if I understand him properly.
I don't believe people as advanced as those who could fly themselves to Earth from another galaxy wouldn't attempt to contact us. Then again, maybe they're like the Metrons in the old Star Trek series, so far advanced than us that they just wish to observe until we reach a certain amount of species maturity. They must be disappointed by now with the decline in civilization on Earth.
Reason number 1139 to not Regard Rod Dreher as a serious person.
Reason #1 is he's disloyal to family and will stab strangers in the back.
The absence of any smartphone-era smoking gun is pretty telling.
To my mind, the real puzzle re: aliens and UFOs is why a self-replicating AI hasn't colonized the entire galaxy. Maybe we really are alone.
The older I get the more I'm inclined to the Great Filter hypothesis.
Guess a movie where the public sees something odd and the CIA shows up and gives them cash won't put butts in the seats, so the director has the CIA shoot them instead.
I know it doesn't make for good action movies but I would enjoy the story of a special branch of the CIA tasked with covering things up with disinformation. This is one field in which I can imagine great government competence. I would love to have worked in such a department. I think I would have done a good job.
It could also be a good film as a comedy.
absolutely. dark, dark comedy
Keeping UFO gossip in the news helps sell the NASA and SpaceX notion of a successful long-term colony on Mars. The hard sell that technocrats can produce a safe, comfortable, well-nourished long-term existence outside Earth's atmosphere ON ANOTHER PLANET is laughable. But the scam does keep certain people in a nice lifestyle here on the blue marble. Getting to the moon is an admirable accomplishment. Good job! Beyond earth's moon, space travel at 25 or 30 thousand mph will be getting nowhere fast out there in Light Years Territory. Eternity is not endless time. Eternity is timelessness.
The problem with conspiracy theories is the requirement of requiring often large numbers of individuals to maintain secrecy. Forgive me if I’m skeptical of human beings to be able to keep their mouths shut.
The two yokels who made the Bigfoot film nearly took it to their graves but for one's deathbed confession. Crop circles stayed mysterious for a couple of decades IIRC. Nobody will ever really know what Christopher Lee and his colleagues were doing in North Africa during WW2.
But yes I agree, the general rule is humans cannot keep their big yaps shut.
Thus, the best conspiracy relies upon the human tendency not to keep our big yaps shut. A few hardcore spooks whisper "UFOs" and 100,000 people will devote their lives trying to prove space aliens and flying saucers and talking to everyone about it.
This always comes up and I always counter with the Ultra decryption program from the Second World War. Thousands of people knew about that and it didn’t come out for twenty years after the war.
The brits took secrets very seriously in WW II. In the 50’s they lost the thread. Ultra was protected even at the cost of lives. Warnings that could have been given weren’t so to protect the great secret. The press used to protect secrets during war as well.
For this one to work, only the aliens have to keep their mouths shut.
So far so good. Unless all the aliens are in Congress.
Belief in UFOs is nothing new. It goes back to the late 1940s when there was a rash of sightings and a Kentucky Air Guard P-51 pilot crashed while investigating one. I know this much - I am a retired professional pilot and a former USAF aircrew member and in a half century of flying I never saw ANYTHING that couldn't be explained. (On the other hand, I did have ATC announce that he was seeing something on his radar that was higher and faster than anything imaginable, most likely the sometimes talked about but never publically revealed hypersonic aircraft. This was in the early 90s.) I flew with a major in C-141s who kept seeing UFOs although no one else on the airplane saw them.
UFOs, yawn. Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy good science fiction with my favorite genre being “Hard Science” fiction.
Unfortunately, the physics of space travel and size of the universe means we are alone in the universe.
"Unfortunately, the physics of space travel and size of the universe means we are alone in the universe."
On the contrary, it means we have no idea, nor will we, if we are alone in the universe.
If am alone in my room and there is a cool party on the other side of the block, I’m still alone in my room.
"possible bureaucratic pranks and hazing rituals that accidentally made midlevel personnel into U.F.O. believers"
I may have shared this here a time or two, but I've long said, the only reason I would want to be president would be at the end of my term, during the transition, pranking the incoming president by telling him that the space aliens have been running the show since Hiroshima. He has admin power of course, but every so often the aliens will contact him with an order, and if he goes against it, they will likely destroy the planet.