In a shocking twist, it wasn't aliens
March 15, 2024 9:23 PM Subscribe
AARO Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Volume I, February 2024 (PDF): AARO assesses that the inaccurate claim that the USG is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and is hiding it from Congress is, in large part, the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence. AARO notes that although claims that the USG has recovered and hidden spacecraft date back to the 1940s and 1950s, more modern instances of these claims largely stem from a consistent group of individuals who have been involved in various UAP-related endeavors since at least 2009.
In other words, liars.
posted by pthomas745 at 9:51 PM on March 15 [7 favorites]
posted by pthomas745 at 9:51 PM on March 15 [7 favorites]
One thing I have learned after watching the towel apes (BBBY meme stock investors) lose all their money is that people will believe literally anything as long as it makes them feel good.
Anything. They will believe anything, no matter how insane, no matter how pointless, anything that soothes their wounded ego (that they themselves have wounded).
posted by aramaic at 9:54 PM on March 15 [11 favorites]
Anything. They will believe anything, no matter how insane, no matter how pointless, anything that soothes their wounded ego (that they themselves have wounded).
posted by aramaic at 9:54 PM on March 15 [11 favorites]
Ahh, but that's precisely what they want us to believe...
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:06 PM on March 15 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:06 PM on March 15 [2 favorites]
That pdf is interesting. Hardly surprising, but of course, it's unlikely to change the minds of any true believers for any number of reasons.
It's mind boggling how big a sub culture UFOdom have been since WWII, and continues to be. Just a few years ago, before the Trump/Q era, there seemed to be a bit of a lull, and I was curious why, considering there were more difficult to identify flying objects in everyday life than ever. I should have known better.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:19 PM on March 15
It's mind boggling how big a sub culture UFOdom have been since WWII, and continues to be. Just a few years ago, before the Trump/Q era, there seemed to be a bit of a lull, and I was curious why, considering there were more difficult to identify flying objects in everyday life than ever. I should have known better.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:19 PM on March 15
I'm certain the government is hiding something, it's just not aliens. If it were aliens, do you believe that Trump wouldn't have blabbed about it by now?
posted by tommasz at 7:25 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 7:25 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Trump would immediately announce he's met with the space aliens, the space aliens love him, they think he's the smartest human they've ever probed, the space aliens wish he was king of the earth because then they'd bring their space magic to earth but space magic hates communism and illegals, who are also aliens but the bad kind
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:21 AM on March 16 [12 favorites]
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:21 AM on March 16 [12 favorites]
Metafilter: CTRL-F swamp gas
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:32 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:32 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
big alien, strong alien, tears running down his eyestalks, came up to me and said, sir
posted by flabdablet at 10:49 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 10:49 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
I'm certain the government is hiding something, it's just not aliens.
Oooh ooh ooh let me guess let me guess
Petunias?
posted by flabdablet at 10:52 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Oooh ooh ooh let me guess let me guess
Petunias?
posted by flabdablet at 10:52 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
oh no not again
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:02 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:02 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
Mr. Dolby rejects Science and things Scientific and the Doctor gets his come-uppance
posted by flabdablet at 12:51 PM on March 16
posted by flabdablet at 12:51 PM on March 16
"We investigated ourselves and concluded everyone else is wrong" isn't surprising at all, and neither are the semantic games they're playing by going hard on the "no extraterrestrial origin" bit but never mentioning the term non-human intelligence, which is the terminology being discussed in congressional committees. They're so close to saying "not extra-terrestrial. Much closer. No, closer" that they should just say it and get it over with.
That report also concludes that a lot of what people thought were super secret programs were no such thing, which should mean nobody needs to go into a SCIF to talk / hear about them.
posted by emelenjr at 1:55 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
That report also concludes that a lot of what people thought were super secret programs were no such thing, which should mean nobody needs to go into a SCIF to talk / hear about them.
posted by emelenjr at 1:55 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
metafilter: the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence
posted by MonsieurPEB at 2:34 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by MonsieurPEB at 2:34 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
I just watched The War of the Worlds (1953). Special effects have progressed a tad since then, but our knowledge of bug-eyed monsters from Mars has not.
posted by pracowity at 2:58 PM on March 16
posted by pracowity at 2:58 PM on March 16
Just had this discussion with a sibling where the testimony of Navy pilots who swear they saw something flying at unbelievable speeds morphs into aliens and space craft and 'don't you believe in this you read sci fi' and such. Merely quoting rational answers and Occam's Razor doesn't begin to put a dent in this thinking pattern.
posted by diode at 4:42 PM on March 16
posted by diode at 4:42 PM on March 16
If the speed was unbelievable, why so eager to believe it?
Perhaps the Navy needs to include more Father Ted in its training materials.
posted by flabdablet at 6:13 AM on March 17
Perhaps the Navy needs to include more Father Ted in its training materials.
posted by flabdablet at 6:13 AM on March 17
I find it implausible that the paranormal all just so happened to stop showing up in the numbers you'd expect right around the time we all started carrying around sophisticated video cameras in our pockets.
I'm also reminded of a legendary Fark thread* where one poster was convinced that they had a photo of an alien spacecraft, and everyone else insisted it was probably a streetlight, and so they went back and saw it again and smugly brought back to the thread a crystal-clear photo of a streetlight.
I Want To Believe, indeed.
I'm certain the government is hiding something, it's just not aliens.
I think it's safe to say that they're hiding mostly their own incompetence, and secondarily, military testing. The fact that they can't hide their own incompetence well is not surprising; it'd be much more surprising if they were able to competently hide alien activity and not be able to also do the things they're supposed to. The US has, for the entire period, had rival nation-states with access to the sky who'd love to cause the American people to lose faith in their government. (Same problem with the moon landing conspiracy: eventually the only thing you can conclude is that everyone is in on it and the purpose was to diddle moon landing conspiracy theorists specifically.)
* I'd say I was dating myself, but I have a MetaFilter account
posted by Merus at 8:20 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I'm also reminded of a legendary Fark thread* where one poster was convinced that they had a photo of an alien spacecraft, and everyone else insisted it was probably a streetlight, and so they went back and saw it again and smugly brought back to the thread a crystal-clear photo of a streetlight.
I Want To Believe, indeed.
I'm certain the government is hiding something, it's just not aliens.
I think it's safe to say that they're hiding mostly their own incompetence, and secondarily, military testing. The fact that they can't hide their own incompetence well is not surprising; it'd be much more surprising if they were able to competently hide alien activity and not be able to also do the things they're supposed to. The US has, for the entire period, had rival nation-states with access to the sky who'd love to cause the American people to lose faith in their government. (Same problem with the moon landing conspiracy: eventually the only thing you can conclude is that everyone is in on it and the purpose was to diddle moon landing conspiracy theorists specifically.)
* I'd say I was dating myself, but I have a MetaFilter account
posted by Merus at 8:20 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: I'd say I was dating myself, but I have a MetaFilter account
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:34 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:34 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Pod Save America's Sunday show Offline had an interview today with Vox correspondent Dylan Matthews that goes extensively into this whole UFO situation in depth. Interview runs about 45 minutes.
posted by hippybear at 11:14 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 11:14 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
That report also concludes that a lot of what people thought were super secret programs were no such thing, which should mean nobody needs to go into a SCIF to talk / hear about them.
The conclusion specifically states that "AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress" (emphasis mine). Furthermore, this is directly after a pretty extensive list of "super secret programs" from the Manhattan Project through the current military UAVs. While not all were classified or have since been declassified, this list includes the secret testing of projects at Groom Lake that would later become the U-2, SR-71, and F-117, which are not coincidentally the same projects that gets Area 51 obsessives all worked up.
So unless there's a different conclusion elsewhere in the document, it not only covers actual top-secret programs that have previously been misidentified as UAPs, but also does not rule out any programs that are currently classified enough to require SCIF.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:38 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
The conclusion specifically states that "AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress" (emphasis mine). Furthermore, this is directly after a pretty extensive list of "super secret programs" from the Manhattan Project through the current military UAVs. While not all were classified or have since been declassified, this list includes the secret testing of projects at Groom Lake that would later become the U-2, SR-71, and F-117, which are not coincidentally the same projects that gets Area 51 obsessives all worked up.
So unless there's a different conclusion elsewhere in the document, it not only covers actual top-secret programs that have previously been misidentified as UAPs, but also does not rule out any programs that are currently classified enough to require SCIF.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:38 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
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Until they produce the things, there are no things, there are just people talking about things.
Things that probably don't exist.
posted by hippybear at 9:29 PM on March 15 [13 favorites]