Interstellar Atomic Energy Agency
September 27, 2010 1:51 PM   Subscribe

A press conference was held this afternoon at the National Press Club in Washington, where at least a dozen former U.S. Air Force personnel, mostly officers who worked on secret projects connected to sensitive nuclear weapons sites, are admitting that they were privy to UFO and alien-related incidents that occurred during their time of service. In this clip, you will hear from: Retired Air Force Captain Robert Salas, Former Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Dwayne Arneson and Former Air Force Official Bill Jameson. [via NECN]
posted by not_on_display (98 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
I have no idea why these old guys are saying what they are saying, but the American military admitted back in the early 90s that it encouraged speculation about alien technologies and coverups in order to discredit peace activists and other seeking arms reductions. Who knows, maybe they embarked on misinformation campaigns for fun. Timothy Good (author of Above Top Secret) and other conspiracy theorists certainly were able to make a buck from this hysteria.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:58 PM on September 27, 2010


If this is about that The Event thing I will bleed from my knees.
posted by The Whelk at 1:59 PM on September 27, 2010 [12 favorites]


Hang on guys, I'll upload a video of my grandfather talking about how the Masons and the Jews control the government. Don't worry, its all true - he was an officer in the Navy.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 2:02 PM on September 27, 2010 [52 favorites]


The military is so powerful and secretive that it covered up contacts with aliens, but it's also powerless to stop these guys from having a press conference.
posted by r_nebblesworthII at 2:02 PM on September 27, 2010 [42 favorites]


Well, it's a long and somewhat sordid story, but I will explain everything to the best of my ability and your satisfaction. Now, if you'll just hold still about six inches from your monitor screens and focus your gaze at the tip of this handy, dandy neuralyzer....
posted by zarq at 2:03 PM on September 27, 2010 [4 favorites]


I believe in the existence of viral marketers.
posted by naju at 2:03 PM on September 27, 2010 [3 favorites]


Anal probe or it didn't happen.
posted by nomadicink at 2:03 PM on September 27, 2010 [8 favorites]


The military is so powerful and secretive that it covered up contacts with aliens, but it's also powerless to stop these guys from having a press conference.

Apparently the aliens are also powerless to do so.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:05 PM on September 27, 2010


...mostly officers who worked on secret projects connected to sensitive nuclear weapons sites,

Oh great.

They weren't asked about these, too?
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 2:06 PM on September 27, 2010


This is great, my husband and I are rewatching the X-files on Netflix.
posted by desjardins at 2:06 PM on September 27, 2010


Just so you know, pretty much *anyone* can book a room at the National Press Club in Washington. The idea is you have your little announcement and hope to attract a crowd of reporters from the many offices of regional papers housed on the floors below. (These days, of course, most of those corridors and offices have been abandoned.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 2:07 PM on September 27, 2010 [18 favorites]


Apparently the aliens are also powerless to do so.

we're the aliens. They have always been here.
posted by philip-random at 2:08 PM on September 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


I have no idea why these old guys are saying

try watching the video
posted by archivist at 2:08 PM on September 27, 2010 [3 favorites]


i guess the previous commenters saw the video before it was posted here.

I've been waiting for the opportunity to make a smartass remark or five about this for over three hours. :)
posted by zarq at 2:09 PM on September 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


Well either there was a UFO or the people in charge of safeguarding and targeting our nuclear arsenal at the hight of the Cold War were unmedicated schizophrenics.
posted by keratacon at 2:09 PM on September 27, 2010 [7 favorites]


the video is 18:02 long.
it's less than 18 minutes since this was posted.

i guess the previous commenters saw the video before it was posted here.
posted by sio42 at 4:04 PM on September 27


Actually, about 9 minutes into the video there's a handy tutorial on how to do simple little tricks with the time-space continuum.
posted by kingbenny at 2:09 PM on September 27, 2010 [11 favorites]


i guess the previous commenters saw the video before it was posted here.

You don't have to watch a video to know that if you believe there is an Interstellar Atomic Energy Agency, you are either a jackass or a nincompoop.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:09 PM on September 27, 2010 [3 favorites]


i guess the previous commenters saw the video before it was posted here.

If someone posts a two hour video demonstration of perpetual motion machine, you don't need to watch it to know that it's bullshit.
posted by stavrogin at 2:10 PM on September 27, 2010 [9 favorites]


jinx.
posted by stavrogin at 2:10 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


"Hang on guys, I'll upload a video of my grandfather talking about how the Masons and the Jews control the government. Don't worry, its all true - he was an officer in the Navy."

You're Mel Gibson's kid??
posted by stenseng at 2:10 PM on September 27, 2010 [4 favorites]


i guess the previous commenters saw the video before it was posted here.

It only took six for Timothy Good's name to show up.
posted by cmoj at 2:10 PM on September 27, 2010


I'm not quite done with the video yet, but this is just the Same Old Stuff. Red lights, equipment malfunctions, floating objects, etc. And no one is able to link to these 'documents' they received from the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act. Blah. I thought they were going to talk about meeting aliens and traveling through time, or something. Make up a better story!
posted by lholladay at 2:11 PM on September 27, 2010 [4 favorites]


i guess the previous commenters saw the video before it was posted here.
posted by sio42 at 2:04 PM on September 27 [+] [!]


Like when it was posted to slashdot last week?
posted by MikeKD at 2:12 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


I believe in the existence of viral marketers.

If this were viral marketing it would be way, way, WAY less boring.
posted by The Bellman at 2:13 PM on September 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


Anyone interested in UFOs from a debunking, WTF is up with these crazy fuckers talking about lights in the skies perspective, I highly, highly recommend Watch the Skies: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth.

When you start looking at the details, every UFO story you've ever heard is not merely "shaky," but completely, utterly fucked up.

Saying there's not a shred of evidence is an insult to shreds.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:13 PM on September 27, 2010 [10 favorites]


But I WANT TO BELIEVE!
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:16 PM on September 27, 2010 [3 favorites]


Sure.
posted by CarlRossi at 2:18 PM on September 27, 2010


Quick transcript for those who can't watch the video:

[slide showing four triangles, rotating together]

EARTH HAS 4 CORNER
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBE
IN ONLY 24 HOUR ROTATION.
4 CORNER DAYS, CUBES 4 QUAD EARTH- No 1 Day God.

ALL CREATION OCCURS
BETWEEN AND AS OPPOSITES. YOU DUMB-ASS, EARTH, THE UNIVERSE
AND EVERY LIVING THING IN IT
EXISTS BETWEEN A TOP AND BOTTOM, BETWEEN A FRONT AND BACK, BETWEEN OPPOSITE SIDES,
AND INSIDE AND OUTSIDE.

[slide showing many question marks in different fonts]

Questions?
posted by Threeway Handshake at 2:18 PM on September 27, 2010 [13 favorites]


Well either there was a UFO or the people in charge of safeguarding and targeting our nuclear arsenal at the hight of the Cold War were unmedicated schizophrenics.

I'm really not sure which is more likely.

Sure there have been UFOs. I've seen plenty of things that I don't know what they are, but because I can't identify something I don't assume that there are space men folding spacetime to come fuck with or bootstrap a bunch of meatbags whose reach into the universe is only a couple hundred lightyears in diameter. Our highest spacefaring technology is still in the category of throwing things really hard. Big deal.
posted by cmoj at 2:19 PM on September 27, 2010 [3 favorites]


Fellas, this visit's top secret, so no one is to know about it except the senior officers, scientists, and one conspiracy nut no one will believe.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:23 PM on September 27, 2010 [4 favorites]


For the curious: Basically, its three military guys giving evidence about an incident in March 1967 in which a UFO appeared to de-activate nuclear missiles while they were in their bunkers.

Robert Salas
00:24 March 24 1967, he was on duty at 'oscar' flight, guarding nukes
01:02 strange lights in the sky
01:47 red hovering object 30m in diameter
02:32 missiles (that they were guarding) get disabled
03:02 red object leaves silently
03:50 guidance and control system failure had apparently stopped missiles
04:40 superiors say it wasn't an air force exercise, not to talk about it
05:00 mentions 'Above Top Secret' by Timothy Good, p301 mentions similar event
05:55 same thing had happened a week earlier at another site
Dwayne Arneson
08:27 his had very high clearance
08:40 1967, Montana
08:52 message arrived regarding UFO shutting down missile silos in Montana
09:23 1975, hears of UFOs being sited over other nuclear bases
10:30 Working for Boeing, air force tells Boeing to stop investigating missile shut downs
11:20 I've studied UFOs for 60 years - Someone is trying to send us a message
Bill Jameson
12:02 March 1967 Montana, has call about missile shutdowns
12:30 arrives at base to restart missiles, colleagues tell him about UFO shutting down missiles
13:09 all of 'oscar' flight was down. A week before all of 'echo' flight were down
13:50 UFO went into canyon, team sent to investigate, Bill heard reports
15:00 special briefing
15:15 what to do if he saw a ufo: go to launch control facility, or withdraw from site if at nuclear site
16:20 told to hold back until activity ceases
17:00 goes and reboots missiles at oscar, returns to base
17:30 asks about ufo in canyon, it left at daylight
17:48 hears of ufo shutting down missiles at 'india' flight
posted by memebake at 2:27 PM on September 27, 2010 [9 favorites]


but because I can't identify something I don't assume that there are space men...[snip]

The rest of your sentence is unnecessary.
posted by rocket88 at 2:28 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


"Hang on guys, I'll upload a video of my grandfather talking about how the Masons and the Jews control the government. Don't worry, its all true - he was an officer in the Navy."

Lieutenant Herbert Moon?
posted by cereselle at 2:29 PM on September 27, 2010


Given no contradictory testimony, there is no reason not to take what these gentlemen have said at face value.

The speculation that this was alien intelligence at work is simply that - pure speculation. It's reasonable speculation, but speculation nevertheless. Given that it is so poorly understood, it's possible that this was a natural phenomenon. It's also possible that it is pure hoakum.

I think that if it were someone trying to send us a "message", and had the capacity to do what they did, they could have done so much more clearly. I would guess - if it were intelligent action - that it was more likely a data gathering venture, and that missile systems were disabled simply because perhaps they didn't want the things to launch on accident.

The second speaker did himself a disservice by jumping to the conclusion that it was an intelligent action. Sure, everyone is thinking that, but you know, let them think that. Announcing that one has studied UFOs for sixty years does not help to establish one's credibility, except with the UFO nut crowd.

File this under "wait and see".
posted by Xoebe at 2:33 PM on September 27, 2010


For the curious: Basically, its three military guys giving evidence about an incident in March 1967 in which a UFO appeared to de-activate nuclear missiles while they were in their bunkers.

My hypothesis: A bunch of people didn't want to work on Good Friday, and to make up a scenario that never existed before is the only way to halt anything in the military.

So, there were a few of "those" types of guys in the group who weren't told because it was a) funny as hell watching them flip out, b) the only way to ensure certain superiors didn't hear about it.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 2:35 PM on September 27, 2010 [6 favorites]


I bet they're not making as much money at this gig as Nick Pope.
posted by Artw at 2:36 PM on September 27, 2010


"Hang on guys, I'll upload a video of my grandfather talking about how the Masons and the Jews control the government. Don't worry, its all true - he was an officer in the Navy."

Lieutenant Herbert Moon?



Ah, so you're familiar with Sailor Moon then!
posted by Naberius at 2:37 PM on September 27, 2010 [10 favorites]


I bet these guys couldn't construct the interocitor correctly.
posted by wittgenstein at 2:37 PM on September 27, 2010 [14 favorites]


Given no contradictory testimony, there is no reason not to take what these gentlemen have said at face value.

Under that line of reasoning, you have to believe me when I say that I totally banged this girl, Renata, when she was at my house to admire my biceps.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 2:37 PM on September 27, 2010 [8 favorites]


Given no contradictory testimony, there is no reason not to take what these gentlemen have said at face value.

The fact that they jumped so far to the conclusion that this is obviously alien life shows that we should not trust even their most basic observations.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 2:39 PM on September 27, 2010 [4 favorites]


What a crock! I can't believe that in this day and age anyone would think that aliens exist, much less that they've visited Earth. Why, if I had my way [1203-0-5 Fatal Error closing Saturnian to English EZ Translator] skry breeble zork burf don.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:40 PM on September 27, 2010 [6 favorites]


I'm really not sure which is more likely.

Having seen some weird shit in the Southwestern desert skies that I can't logically explain and considering all the weird black ops shit like men staring at goats and MK ULTRA that's now public, and comfortably extrapolating that any actual truth in either domain is probably stranger than fiction - I'm voting for both options simultaneously.

Frankly - even the most remote possibility of extra terrestrials, time or dimension travelers and/or nth dimensional self-transforming DMT machine elves having an interested in preventing a nuclear existential crisis or holocaust is something that helps me sleep just a little better at night.

Feel free to call it a self-delusional cargo cult. I don't care. There's nothing rational about nuclear weapons, either.
posted by loquacious at 2:43 PM on September 27, 2010 [12 favorites]


Oh please. We never messed with these guys. And we still don't want to talk to Stephen Hawking.
posted by Splunge at 2:54 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


The speculation that this was alien intelligence at work is simply that - pure speculation. It's reasonable speculation, but speculation nevertheless. Given that it is so poorly understood, it's possible that this was a natural phenomenon. It's also possible that it is pure hoakum.

It's also possible it was a terrestrial ship. It's also possible that it was a complete coincidence that the G&C experienced a failure around the time that there was a natural phenomenon.

It's also possible that some people got drunk.

Given that this stuff happened over 40 years ago, it's probable that the incident has grown in the retelling. Do they provide any hard documentation? Shipping tickets? Inspection reports? A G&C failure on a missile means it's going to be pulled from service. It's going to be shipped to a base for inspection and repair. This isn't like shipping a package via courier - it involves like 5 different trucks.
posted by muddgirl at 2:55 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


I believe in UFOs, I just don't think they have anything to do with aliens, because that would be silly.

Water towers, on the other hand, are clearly government mind control devices meant to keep us in the dark about the demonic infestation that began back in the mid 1930s. You know, the one that they used World War 2 to cover up...
posted by quin at 2:57 PM on September 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


First of all, I'd just like to say that there's more rational basis to believe in UFOs than there is to believe in Heaven and Hell. These guys aren't crazy, but they may be participating in group think.

The more plausible explanation is that there was some other military operation, above or outside any of their clearances, that was testing some exotic jamming technologies with exotic aircraft. That's why the Air Force would tell them to not worry about it, call off Boeing investigations, and that's why they would let them talk about UFOs as an explanation without comment. If the technology is still effective, they probably want to keep it up their sleeve, just in case.
posted by notion at 3:05 PM on September 27, 2010 [3 favorites]


I think that if it were someone trying to send us a "message", and had the capacity to do what they did, they could have done so much more clearly.

That depends. Or maybe the message is purposefully crafted so that it is only recognizable to a sufficiently advanced species. Beings capable of contacting us, across galaxies, probably don't want to talk to riff-raff.

I'm open minded enough to the possibility of intelligent, extra-terrestrial life. That said, I've yet to be even remotely convinced they've visited and / or communicated with us in any way, shape, or form.

That all said, messages come in many forms. The real problem is that every decoding is another encoding.
posted by Dark Messiah at 3:05 PM on September 27, 2010


Coincidentally, my son (who is in the Air Force and stationed at one of those missile sites) called me while I was reading this thread.

I can assure you that it's all bunk. If there were UFO's he'd have been sure to tell his mother.
;-)

I think Bathtub Bobsled has the right hypothesis. Military folks have a delightfully warped sense of humor.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:07 PM on September 27, 2010


Feel free to call it a self-delusional cargo cult. I don't care. There's nothing rational about nuclear weapons, either.
posted by loquacious at 2:43 PM on September 27 [+] [!]


Sure there is... you split a few atoms and there we aren't. Easy peasy.
posted by basicchannel at 3:07 PM on September 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


Walter Cronkite had a ufo story of his own.
posted by hortense at 3:14 PM on September 27, 2010


Nuclear weapons are perfectly rational. They behave in ways that make perfect sense. Perhaps it was and is irrational to build them, but that does not change the facts of and about them.

There is no rational reason to believe that aliens have visited the Earth. People who see things in the sky and go from that to "aliens" are not making a rational inference but are instead connecting things they don't understand to the stories which have currency in their culture. This is no different from people who heard noises in the night and assumed they were demons from hell, or elves, or whatever else. It is simply the same "I don't understand, therefore [story with nothing supporting it]" nonsense that we have been doing as a species since, probably, as long as we've been sentient.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:15 PM on September 27, 2010 [6 favorites]


Want to know how UFOs are bullshit?

In the 40's and 50's, alien "visitors" said that they were from Mars and Venus. Then we discovered that Mars did not only not have canals and that Venus was a sulfuric hellhole.

In the 60's and 70's, the alien visitors started claiming that they were from the Pleiades and Sirius. Then we worked out that the average age of stars in the Pleiades is 150 million years, and that Sirius was about twice as old, neither anywhere near mature enough to have developed intelligent life.

Today the aliens are from outside the galaxy, or "other dimensions".

UFOs and aliens are the secular religion: mysterious, all-powerful (except when they are not), and unprovable. Any debunking is met with handwaving, and a shift to the next "unexplained event".
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 3:21 PM on September 27, 2010 [18 favorites]


It's funny that they believe that aliens were sending us a message in 1967 by disabling our nukes way back then.

Because the obvious question would be what message are the aliens sending us by *not* disabling our nukes now?

In fact what message are they sending us by not leaving us any credible evidence of their existence?

Yes, indeed.
posted by storybored at 3:22 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


The progression Bora Horza Gobuchul points out is similar to that of homeopathy, where as science showed that homeopaths' claims could not possibly be true, new ideas were invented.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:25 PM on September 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


Yesterday at the beach here in Victoria BC, due north of Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula, my sons and I observed some sort of marine creature feeding. It had a round, black head, and appeared to be eating with its paw (all you could see were the creature's head, its paws, and whatever it was eating). The creature would frequently dive, and whenever it dived it showed off its back and a long, thin tail that quivered and flicked around as the creature descended into the depths.

Now, this was not a harbour seal - harbour seals dive differently. It wasn't a sea otter, because sea otters don't have tails, and they tend to float about on the surface, and it's really easy to see their furry whiskers.

So what was it? It was unidentified, but it sure was no monster. The easiest thing to do is to look through a wildlife handbook.

For the guys being interviewed here, the easiest thing to do would have been to have reviewed their computer code to see if that was responsible for the phenomenon.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:34 PM on September 27, 2010


Want to know how UFOs are bullshit?

In the 40's and 50's, alien "visitors" said that they were from Mars and Venus


This is one of the best parts of the Watch the Skies book I linked above.

Prior to 1977, when people said they met aliens, they described all sorts of things. Nordics, reptiles, men in black, little green men, etc.

After 1977, reports universally switched to the "grey" alien we're all so familiar with.

Guess what happened in 1977?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:42 PM on September 27, 2010 [5 favorites]




It would be great if these guys were just victims of practical jokes.

"On another occasion, I returned to my desk from a lunch break to find that my stapler and pen had somehow become fused to the desktop. I could not lift the pen. When I sat on my chair, the chair suddenly fell to pieces. All of the screws had disappeared into thin air. They have never been found to this day. These events were never explained and command told me to keep them secret."
posted by orme at 3:51 PM on September 27, 2010 [15 favorites]


Let's see, Obama was 4 years 7 months old at the time and based on the 'accepted' speed of interstellar crafts (2.2 times the speed of light), it would definitely make his birthplace not Kenya but Epsilon Eridani. Which fits my Grand Unifying Conspiracy Theory (and if we agree upon Epsilon Eridani as their home base, the aliens who REALLY caused 9/11 should make the round trip back here by ELECTION DAY 2010!)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:14 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


12:30 arrives at base to restart missiles, colleagues tell him about UFO shutting down missiles

"What did you do?"
"I accidentally turned them off."
"Why? Why would you do that?"
"Well, this button is really close to that other button."
"Fuck, I hate you. I really, really fucking hate you."
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, the FIRST thing I'm going to do is kick your ass."
"That's not helping."
"Fuck you, not helping. You're the jackass with the fat finger."
"Wait. What if we said an alien did it?"
"Who the FUCK is going to believe that?"
"Duty roster says there's a new guy coming in today."
"..."
"Sarge?"
"Quiet. I'm thinking."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:16 PM on September 27, 2010 [12 favorites]


Fun, true, story: My dad is a plasma physicist who builds stuff for the Navy. One day he was doing a presentation about the use of plasma sheeting on the bottom of long range bombers' wings to reduce friction and thus reduce fuel costs. Half joking, he said that if you sheathed the bottom of a specially designed spinning disc with plasma, you'd have a pretty nifty flying saucer.

Turns out there were NASA folks in the audience. Coincidence or not, the next day he was told that he needed to apply for a higher level top secret clearance.

I ask him what he's working on, but he just shrugs and says maybe he can say in 19 years.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:18 PM on September 27, 2010 [15 favorites]


This just confirms my belief that we have no actual working numan Human beings are irrational unpredictable and unstable. The possibility of a Dr Strangelove scenario is just too high. It is much safer if the military industrial complex faked the whole thing. A couple of tests to show we were serious and then a lot of bogus expenditures and drills to make people think we had them. Even if we don't have them and our enemies suspected as such they would still act as if we did because the consequences of being wrong would be too high. The reverse situation happened in Iraq.
posted by humanfont at 5:04 PM on September 27, 2010


There's another possibility that I haven't seen mentioned here: UFOs actually came and disabled missiles. Everything these officers say is true.

But why do they immediately jump to the conclusion that it was aliens? It's not like there was a cold war going on between them and another superpower or anything, especially not a nation that probably was capable of creating something UFO-like with missile disabling capabilities.

No, it has to be the aliens.
posted by ymgve at 5:10 PM on September 27, 2010


It's sort of an interesting story. I don't know if it's true or not, and without any outside corroboration that's about as far as we can go. Maybe these guys are hoping that other people will follow their example and come forward. If there is anybody else out there who knows about stuff like this, I hope they tell their stories too (maybe with documents), and then we can judge how likely it all is. But on the other hand, maybe these guys are hoping to make some retirement money with book deals. I don't know, maybe time will tell.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:10 PM on September 27, 2010


Let's see, Obama was 4 years 7 months old at the time and based on the 'accepted' speed of interstellar crafts (2.2 times the speed of light), it would definitely make his birthplace not Kenya but Epsilon Eridani.

Dude, you just ruined next Thursday's 4-hour Glenn Beck Special Report: "President Obama's True Nature Revealed!" for all of us. That's not cool.

Glenn was gonna cry and everything, too.
posted by zarq at 5:12 PM on September 27, 2010


I think it interesting that this comes around the same time that Iranian nuclear sites are being targeted by stuxnet.
Equipment malfuctions? It's not a worm - it's aliens!
posted by burnside at 5:17 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


People who see things in the sky and go from that to "aliens" are not making a rational inference but are instead connecting things they don't understand to the stories which have currency in their culture.

except that after ww2, when the ufo phenomenon took off, aliens didn't have that much currency in our culture - a few cranks and sf fans and that was it

it's a curious change in supernatural narrative that took place here and i wonder why this particular story got so popular - and why it seems to be on the decline - (and no, considering some of the other things people are putting forth these days, i don't think we can say that people are getting smarter about stuff)
posted by pyramid termite at 5:32 PM on September 27, 2010 [3 favorites]


All I know is, if anybody had the technology to remotely deactivate US nuclear weapons in 1967, it would have been brown trouser time for the USAF. There'd have been a complete investigation and a lot of smart people would have worked day and night to make sure it never happened again. Someone else would know about this.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:34 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


it's a curious change in supernatural narrative that took place here and i wonder why this particular story got so popular

Again, that is dealt with specifically in the "Watch the Skies" book I linked above. A very fascinating chapter, which posits that the cultural meme of "things in sky = aliens" and "aliens are concerned with our nuclear technology" was brought to life largely by a single individual -- Donald Keyhoe.

Keyhoe's article "Flying Saucers Are Real" appeared in the January, 1950 issue of True (published December 26, 1949) and caused a sensation.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:49 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


Someone set up us the retired military officers.
posted by rhizome at 5:50 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


"sea otters don't have tails". Well, that doesn't do a lot for your credibility right there.
posted by sneebler at 6:05 PM on September 27, 2010


I can assure you that it's all bunk. If there were UFO's he'd have been sure to tell his mother.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, Alia, but... they've already got him under the mind-control.

When you talked to him, was his voice sort of flat and stilted and did he keep demanding unreasonable subsidies to the Brain Slug planet?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:11 PM on September 27, 2010


Someone set up us the retired military officers.

Major! I accidentally the nuclear arsenal!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:12 PM on September 27, 2010 [6 favorites]


LOLIANS?
posted by nola at 6:38 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


phil: "but the men will see this stuff"

max:{snuffs out smoke} "what will they say phil, 'little green men', they don't know the whole picture, so let them see part of it, besides, they would be labeled nuts and we will be loooong dead by the time they do say something and by then...."

phil: "...it will be to late..."

max: "=========="
posted by clavdivs at 6:47 PM on September 27, 2010


base. yours. us
posted by clavdivs at 6:50 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


Interesting that almost no one sees UFOs anymore now that everyone is carrying cell phones with cameras that would allow them to take pictures and videos and immediately share them with their contacts and the whole internet. Either the aliens coincidentally stopped visiting once this technology became available, or people stopped making this shit up once the "pics or it didn't happen" standard of evidence took hold.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:09 PM on September 27, 2010 [8 favorites]


pretty much *anyone* can book a room at the National Press Club in Washington.

True, but also irrelevant. After all, even if in this particular instance the story deserves to be ignored (I have no opinion either way), given the slef-selecting bias of the mass media, from which we are lied to as a matter of course (routinely, in so many different ways, by corporate agendas and PR spin), it follows that judging a press conference of this sort by whether or not it gains traction (i.e. "newsworthiness") in the mainstream media is all but meaningless.

Indeed, sometimes it's the stories we don't hear much about that are the ones worth pursuing, while the ones that are merely surface noise that get all the attention. We are fools to expect the media to objectively select and pre-digest for us what's ultimately important. If a press conference is ignored at the WPC, it's not because there isn't something of value being revealed: maybe there, maybe there isn't, but certainly we won't know until we investigate it ourselves.
posted by existential hobo at 7:37 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


Oh for god's sake. I meant the exact opposite, that no one should take this seriously because it was at the NPC. The way it was mentioned in the post suggested the venue added credibility.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:42 PM on September 27, 2010


It's a virtual certainty that there's intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But the odds we'll ever detect them, much less communicate with them, is just about zero. Space is vast, and the speed of light sucks.
posted by mhoye at 8:20 PM on September 27, 2010 [1 favorite]


When you start looking at the details, every UFO story you've ever heard is not merely "shaky," but completely, utterly fucked up.

Saying there's not a shred of evidence is an insult to shreds.


Ha ha! Good to see we have an expert here!

However, there are several recent events of interest: take the 2006 O'Hare sighting, where a disk allegedly hovered over the airport and then shot off, punching a hole in the cloud layer. This was seen by many aviation professionals and the FAA claimed only that it was a "weather phenomenon" that they were not investigating further - curious, since weather phenomena have taken planes down before.

Or let us go back in time to an earlier, simpler age, the late 80s, when there was a spate of sightings of black, triangular UFOs by witnesses of various degrees of respectability and mostly in the Southwestern US. Their veracity was completely proven when the US government revealed the existence of the Stealth Bomber whose characteristics were, logically enough, exactly those noted by the observers.

I heard those UFO stories back at the time, and they turned out not to be "completely, utterly fucked up", but actual observations of a physical object.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:45 PM on September 27, 2010 [5 favorites]


That depends. Or maybe the message is purposefully crafted so that it is only recognizable to a sufficiently advanced species. Beings capable of contacting us, across galaxies, probably don't want to talk to riff-raff.

As anyone who has watched Animal House knows, the riff-raff throw the best parties.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:28 PM on September 27, 2010


Oh, but there's so much more to this story.

A few weeks ago, the commander of Echo Flight on March 16, 1967, MAJ (Ret.) Eric D. Carlson, stepped out of the shadows and spoke up about the events. Based on his responses to the interviewer, he's either been neuralized by the MiB or the Salas/Hastings clan are indeed batshit insane and/or trolling for speaking engagements and book sales (hah, imagine!).

"Let me start by stating that, as best as I can recall, my only contact with Salas and Hastings has been on the phone. I did tell Salas that he could release my name to whomever he wished, don't know why he needed my permission. I have talked to a newspaper writer in Great Falls, several years age, and a TV producer from one of those UFO shows. With both these individuals I denied any knowledge of any UFO's at Malmstrom. In addition, I stated that there was no, repeat no, incident at Oscar flight as Salas maintains. The man is either lying or delusional....My only contact with Hastings was a call I received from him regarding his book. I stated that his book sounded interesting and he later sent me a copy which I read and gave away .... At no time did I mention anyone's mental status ... although in retrospect I could comment on Salas."

"My memory is quite good regarding the events at Malmstrom and there is no doubt in my mind that there were no reports of UFO's and no incident at Oscar flight. I will be willing to discuss this with anyone who is truly interested in the facts."


Last week, Major Carlson's son, James, sent a letter to NM Senator Tom Udall in which he called on "members of the national press and Congressional staff...to ask the necessary hard questions to prevent this conference from becoming a pile of otherwise insignificant fluff intended to stoke civil demands for full disclosure of classified materials discussing such incidents." Yeah, nice try. He even offered up his dad to the tens of reporters who still practice investigative journalism:

I can very easily put you in contact with my father, the commander of Echo Flight in March 1967, who was present when all ten missiles were taken off of strategic alert by an electronic noise pulse generated internally at the launch control facility. This pulse interfered with the normal operation of the logic coupler on the guidance and control module for that facility, causing thereby the failure of the missiles, which were, in effect, simply turned off. The incident was very well documented and was thoroughly investigated, and every word that Robert Salas and Robert Hastings have ever said on the subject has been repeatedly discounted or proven outright to be little more than lies and embellishments created for the purpose of making money from the sales of their books, the sales of associated videos, and the speaking fees they charge as a matter of course when retelling their ridiculous little folk tales. Sah-nap.

This isn't the first time that Carlson Jr. has called shenanigans on the troupe. He scribed his counterargument to the UFOlogists claims in a 357-paged account of the events; a book that carries subtle undertones of frustration and disdain toward Salas and Hastings, not that you'd infer such a thing from the title of the book:

Americans, Credulous
or
The Arrogance of Congenital Liars & Other Character Defects:
Establishing the Truth Behind the Echo Flight UFO Incident of March 16, 1967
by James Carlson


It's an entertaining read--I highly recommend skimming the first 20 pages, at the very least. Oh, and check out this forum thread for more insight into Carlson's campaign to call these guys out.
posted by prinado at 10:53 PM on September 27, 2010 [9 favorites]


UFO buff here...

Keyhoe was reacting to the flying saucer meme, which was born aloft by Kenneth Arnold, who like thousands of other readers, was enthralled by the pulp of Ray Palmer. He's the guy who really started it all!

Spielberg did not invent his grey alien in a vacuum....that archetype, as well as the whole abduction narrative, was well in place since 1966 with John G. Fuller's The Interrupted Journey. With his other book that year, Incident at Exeter: The Story of Unidentified Flying Objects, Fuller is the bridge between the flying saucer era of Keyhoe and the close encounter alien abduction scenario of the 70's and 80's....
posted by bonefish at 11:28 PM on September 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


Wow, that certainly fills in the background to this story. Thanks, prinado!
posted by Kevin Street at 11:32 PM on September 27, 2010


Well either there was a UFO or the people in charge of safeguarding and targeting our nuclear arsenal at the hight of the Cold War were unmedicated schizophrenics.

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" is non-fiction. People believed in winnable nuclear wars.

I'm comfortable with "batshit insane".

but because I can't identify something I don't assume that there are space men...[snip]

Plenty of people are comfortable with the God of the Gaps, why not the LGM of them?
posted by rodgerd at 12:12 AM on September 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


Interesting that almost no one sees UFOs anymore now that everyone is carrying cell phones with cameras that would allow them to take pictures and videos and immediately share them with their contacts and the whole internet. Either the aliens coincidentally stopped visiting once this technology became available, or people stopped making this shit up once the "pics or it didn't happen" standard of evidence took hold.

I've made this exact argument about the drop-off in Godly miracles occurring right around the time history started to become semi-reliable.


Keyhoe was reacting to the flying saucer meme, which was born aloft by Kenneth Arnold, who like thousands of other readers, was enthralled by the pulp of Ray Palmer. He's the guy who really started it all!

Is that Ray "Deros" Palmer? *click* Well, whaddya know!
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:31 AM on September 28, 2010


Jacqueline's argument isn't really accurate, though. Lots of people see and photograph UFOs these days, it's just that nobody else pays attention to them. (Just Google "UFO," "photograph" and any year to see results.) The subject is so full of crazy true believers and people looking to make a quick buck that's it's almost all noise, and no signal.
posted by Kevin Street at 12:40 AM on September 28, 2010


Interesting that almost no one sees UFOs anymore now that everyone is carrying cell phones with cameras that would allow them to take pictures and videos and immediately share them with their contacts and the whole internet.

This argument is so weak I can't believe people actually think this. Your typical cell phone camera--either still or video is going to have a fixed, wide angle lens. Not very good for taking pictures of that UFO you see, even a big, clear UFO. Next time you see an airplane passing overhead, take a picture of it with your cell phone. Show it to someone and ask them to point out the plane--it ain't easy. What looks big in the sky would be practically invisible with a cell phone camera.

Some cells have zooms, but those are crappy, useless digital zooms. Most people don't carry around tripods with them, and don't realize just how bad that shake is when you zoom in on something. Plus, night time, when it seems a lot of UFO activity happens, you'd just be zooming in on a blurry, pixelated dot that shakes all over the screen.

What's that again about how decent UFO footage should be ubiquitous?
posted by zardoz at 4:55 AM on September 28, 2010


Zardoz: Then wouldn't that mean that there would be plenty of bad quality UFO pictures around?
posted by Mcable at 6:39 AM on September 28, 2010


Ha ha! Good to see we have an expert here!

Oh, lupus. You scamp. You're so cute. *hugs*

However, there are several recent events of interest: take the 2006 O'Hare sighting

Funny. No camera footage. Huge, modern airport. No cameras. At all. I mean, not any that the History Channel could even buy. Funny.

Their veracity was completely proven when the US government revealed the existence of the Stealth Bomber whose characteristics were, logically enough, exactly those noted by the observers.

Really? A B-2 stealth bomber, based on alien technology that defies the laws of physics? Dude, the damn thing isn't even supersonic.

Lies, mistakes and gross misrepresentations. All of them.

Keyhoe was reacting to the flying saucer meme, which was born aloft by Kenneth Arnold, who like thousands of other readers, was enthralled by the pulp of Ray Palmer

I went back to the book ... yes, Keyhoe was standing atop the shoulders of Ray Palmer.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:58 AM on September 28, 2010 [1 favorite]


It's more than just UFOs. This will explain it. The Eighth Tower.

dum dum DUM!!!!
posted by Splunge at 9:53 AM on September 28, 2010


In related news: The UN is NOT, repeat NOT appointing an alien ambassador.
posted by dirigibleman at 10:28 AM on September 28, 2010


Zardoz: Then wouldn't that mean that there would be plenty of bad quality UFO pictures around?
posted by Mcable


Well, yeah. That's the flip side of the coin. IF there are alien or secret or whatever craft flying around, it's unlikely in the extreme that anyone will get good footage or even a single shot of it. Because the quality is probably not going to be good. And if the quality is good, it can just be dismissed as CGI work. So solid evidence is essentially impossible to bring forth.
posted by zardoz at 6:48 PM on September 28, 2010


Here ya go, earthlings
http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html
posted by warbaby at 3:29 PM on September 30, 2010


I'm not sure what you're arguing for in that "best of" link. it's certainly interesting. There are a remarkable number of photos in there that are pretty clearly conventional aircraft at odd angles, and even more that very well could be. Hell, a handfull of them are straight up pictures of airplanes.

I also see some that are clearly clouds, and some holes in cloud cover. A contrail or two, a handfull of fakes (some that the author points out) , random lights that could be anything, and a few that I have no idea about. What I don't see is even the remotest suggestion of aliens or alien technology, or an increase in the quality or convincingness of the photos as photography becomes more advanced and common. Try again, 140 years of photography.
posted by cmoj at 8:25 PM on September 30, 2010


00:24 March 24 1967

I had my first birthday party that day. There are grainy black and white photographs available with one candle that is lit. (Or so my mom says...)

Thanks for pointing me to this link, been a bit late to this conversation, what with the UN Alien Ambassador then coming across this article that had me scratching my head
posted by The Lady is a designer at 4:24 PM on October 1, 2010


I'm late to the party, but...

Water towers, on the other hand, are clearly government mind control devices meant to keep us in the dark about the demonic infestation that began back in the mid 1930s. You know, the one that they used World War 2 to cover up...

If someone could get that concept to Stephen King, I would totally read the ensuing book.
posted by meese at 5:48 PM on October 3, 2010


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