UFOs etc

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Someone in a tech news site left an interesting link in the comments about UFOs. Googling further I found this:

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/ufo/index.shtml

Note how the site isn't fake, and the documents are supposedly declassified.

The question is, what the heck is in there, cryptography exercises? Standard PR? Your standard conspiracy?

[ivor]

Probably balloons...     That was repeated over and over.  I found that odd, like they were trying to convince themselves or the reader...

[Opsa]

There you are, MB! We were looking for you in Vigils. Good to see you've not been abducted.

[Roland Deschain]

I love speculation of alien civilisations and life beyond this planet, and UFOs in particular have held my rapt attention since I was a child. I remember a radio programme I found online a long time ago, which said that a number of non-terrestrial radio transmissions had been picked up by SETI, but had been subsequently covered-up, and not publicly acknowledged. The problem is that it was a pretty standard conspiracy type programme, so I couldn't really tell whether what they were saying was for real or yet another overdramatisation of a seemingly innocent incident (or outright lies/paranoia).

I had a quick look through the PDF link you posted, and it does indeed appear to be saying that a signal was found. If this is so, and there have been efforts to decrypt the signal (not that it looks like it when reading the PDF, lol), why the hell isn't this more common knowledge? If this were true, it would be a monumental occasion for our species, and proof positive that we are not alone in this universe. It should be shouted from the rooftops! What exactly was received, is it in any way intelligible to us, and what's been done with the information? These are questions that really need answering.

I've briefly glanced at the NSA site itself, but will have to devote some serious time to it later. There appears to be some interesting reading there, despite the obligatory redactions.

The site does appear to be legit. It is a .gov site, which only one organisation has access to. As a further aside, I had to laugh. Not so long ago, the US government were vehemently denying the existence of the NSA, and now they have their own bloody website! :rofl:

Thread necromancy FTW! (sorry)

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I guess the good question would be, is there a real reason to cover up UFO related information? Or, what would be the consequences of acknowledging the existence of non human visitors? Would that really cause a frenzied panic among the population? Is there a legitimate reason to cover up the stuff?

[Griffin NoName]

I guess the good question would be, is there a real reason to cover up UFO related information? Or, what would be the consequences of acknowledging the existence of non human visitors? Would that really cause a frenzied panic among the population? Is there a legitimate reason to cover up the stuff?

It would have an effect on literature and the film industry

[Swatopluk]

I guess a lot of people would not believe the info because it comes from the government (after all, they tried to fool us into believing that human beings reached the moon  ).
Panic can be avoided, just announce the news on Friday evening.
If there was indeed a crash of an alien spacecraft, I'd expect government to keep it a secret because of the opportunity to keep the technology for itself, less because of a fear of public panic.
I assume there would only be widespread panic, if the landing was very public in the first place (and partially depending on how it plays out). I would expect extreme distrust though given our own history. WE were rarely nice to the 'primitives' we 'discovered', although they were of our own species.

[pieces o nine]

After the initial dust settled from alien contact, I would enjoy  --[and be saddened, embarrassed, enraged, horrified, etc. by]--  Pronouncements To The Faithful by various public religious figures.  I'm guessing that the Dalai Lama would respond calmly (whatever the outcome), the Vatican would issue statements that sounded like something but only hedged their bets, the most virulent patriarchs of the Big Three would posture childishly, and US-style televangelists would announce that 'God had put a word on my heart' that He wants all to turn to Him in the Hour of Need, and also to send a substantial Faith Gift to the Ministry of the respective televangelist.

The inevitable Political posturings would provide fodder for comedians for eons, if things went at all well.

[Aggie]

It could be more complicated than that, Pieces...  if humans are any guide, the most likely reason for a more highly developed species to visit our planet would be to evangelize.

[Swatopluk]

Muslims should in principle have no problems with the existence of aliens. Iirc the Koran has nothing to say for or against the idea while the Bible has (in)famously been used to 'disproof' it followed by thermolysis of its carriers.
Btw, some psychologists think that the aliens of today are the witches of the past, i.e. projections of the mind taking the 'appropriate' shape for the time. Always distorted human figures flying through the air, conducting strange rituals in remote places and extremly interested in sex.

[Griffin NoName]

Btw, some psychologists think that the aliens of today are the witches of the past, i.e. projections of the mind taking the 'appropriate' shape for the time. Always distorted human figures flying through the air, conducting strange rituals in remote places and extremly interested in sex.

Freud is probably responsible for that. 

[Swatopluk]

Only the sex part. The rest looks more like C.G.Jung. (CG junk?)
Reich on the other hand would have been highly interested in alien sex life in a practical manner.

[pieces o nine]

It could be more complicated than that, Pieces...  if humans are any guide, the most likely reason for a more highly developed species to visit our planet would be to evangelize.

    ha!  That possibility had never occurred to me!

Muslims should in principle have no problems with the existence of aliens. Iirc the Koran has nothing to say for or against the idea while the Bible has (in)famously been used to 'disproof' it followed by thermolysis of its carriers.

Except that it is unlikely an alien culture would have the remotest interest in acknowledging the superiority of any people with a Book, or in submitting to the scriptural limitations, which would not go down at all well with the most ... uncompromising .. supporters.

[Swatopluk]

I am talking about how humans would react not how the aliens would react to our peculiarities
Christianity (at least the conservative kind) has painted itself a bit into the corner there. the other major faith are a good deal more flexible in that regard. Except of course about the topic, whether the aliens could be eaten without violating the religious food laws.
If aliens are the least bit like us there might not even be an attempt of communication. Sterilizing the planet from afar after maybe collecting enough info would be a real consideration. Why risk infection (Wells-like) or a nuclear welcome, if one is mainly interested in the exploitable wealth (not including credit default swaps)?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Sterilizing would be silly-- if you have a space-faring race?  There are much easier to get at resources out in space, under microgravity.  Minerals galore in the comets and asteroids-- even complex molecules.  And water by the planet-full.  The very silly movie series "V" wherein they wanted water from Earth?   Pointless-- if you can land and take off on a planet?  You have the resources to exploit comets-- at a much cheaper (energy-wise) cost.

So the motive to "get our mineral wealth" is a stupid one-- only Hollywood would think it reasonable.  (and I'm not calling you stupid, Swato-- I expect you are just repeating the silliness of the silly).

Sterilizing because of a deeply ingrained xenophobia?  I could easily see that-- if they are afraid of all non-local (to them) life, then they'd need to do something very dramatic:  multiple strikes from really large asteroids in hope of literally breaking up the planet-- bacteria can exist in the wildest of places, even 1000's of feet down in rocks.

But if they are only afraid of a technological species?  (like us)  Then diverting a couple of moderate asteroids would easily do the trick, and us never catching on that it wasn't accidental.   That would set our civilization back a few hundred (if not 1000) years, and make all many of the religions deeply happy too.

Sending just a few as scouts?  Likely-- watching the results, to see if the asteroid strike(s) are required after all.

If they sent only a single individual?  Who was carefully modified to look exactly like a typical human?   And only armed him(her)(it) with a working human-language vocabulary?   No one on earth would believe the story... would they?   No matter how mundane or wild... the majority of folk would either presume he was a magical-dude (religious) or just a nut-case.

I seriously doubt anyone would buy his alien-origins story at all.

And who can say?  This may well have already happened-- and perhaps the alien was only interested in instilling a message of peace.... but was thought to be only a "holey" man... and perhaps--some of the modern religious ideas came from his/her/it's spreading this idea?



Yes.... Jesus was merely an alien, and did not actually die-- he returned to his ship in the end.  So was Mohammad, and Gandhi, and the Buddha, and even Joseph Smith (his cover-story was from a not very well-thought out version-- it was a rush job).