UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

[C C]

I must say I think this looks increasingly like a Republican strategy of gaslighting the American public, to further weaken their hold on reality, already made shaky by four years of relentless lies from Trump. [...]

It has been both parties, though: "‘Non-human intelligence’: Schumer proposes stunning new UFO legislation"

And is still bipartisan if going by this one after the last hearing: "Democrat backs special committee for UFOs after high-profile hearing"

That's why I jokingly referred to it here as: "After years of bitter feuding, both parties find common ground via UFO dope fest"
_

 

[Magical Realist]

I don't think conspiracy nuts are limited to either side of the political spectrum. I don't know where they would even fit there since it seems they have an agenda all their own. Take this one for example:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1206693056673663

Yes there are really people out there who scrutinize newsclips for reptilians disguised as humans. The range of human lunacy knows no bounds.

 

[C C]

Does anyone know or recall when "enormous sums of money" that are not on the books was brought up and became a fact?

July 30, 2023 - UFO-curious lawmakers brace for a fight over government secrets
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/...rs-brace-for-a-fight-over-government-secrets/

Anna Paulina Luna: “We know that enormous sums of money are being spent on UAP-related activity, whether it’s retrieval/recovery, research and reverse-engineering, or just security for whatever the government is hiding. But none of that is on the books, so from a basic governance perspective, Congress needs to know where money is being misappropriated.”
- - - - - - - - -

Psychology Today even chiming in on the hearings now.

Cognitive biases might blind us to the truth about UFOs
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/...biases-might-blind-us-to-the-truth-about-ufos

EXCERPT: . . . the U.S. Navy itself has developed and is experimenting with Laser Induced Plasma Filaments that can be projected from the back of an aircraft to draw the shape of an aircraft (using steering mirrors) in midair—away from the aircraft itself—in order to form an aerial decoy that will confuse an enemy's heat-seeking missile, and draw it away from the aircraft producing the mid-air laser plasma image.

Although these plasmas, deriving from atmospheric gases, do have very small but finite masses, they don't actually move. When the invisible laser beam creating them moves, the plasma is formed in a new location, creating the illusion that a single object has moved...

Again, if the UFOs described by the Naval aviators were indeed such plasmas, we don't know whether humans or aliens created them. But, just as with light craft, we know they do not violate the laws of physics... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - - - - -

Bizarre, conspiratorial UK film coming out next month. It includes segments with Seth Shostak of SETI and Avi Loeb. I hope Grusch doesn't trail off into "Collins Elite" during the next hearing. Since "demons" would still be "non-human biologics". Not that some would consider it mattering either way, at this point.

The covert intelligence group covering up UFOs:
New documentary lifts lid on 'Collins Elite' -
secret Pentagon group that believe craft buzzing around in our skies are ‘demonic’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...roup-believe-craft-buzzing-skies-demonic.html

EXCERPTS: A film premiering next month will shine a light on a secret U.S. group which UFO researchers claim is helping to cover up the discovery of alien spacecraft.

The film, God versus Aliens, has interviews with two experts about the 'Collins Elite', a supposed secretive group within the U.S. military which has helped to cover up alien abductions and crashed spacecraft since the 1950s.

These people are said to work in a private organization on behalf of the government, because there are no freedom of information requests (FOIA) to private companies.'

[...] Both suggest that the Collins Elite has worked to suppress information about UFOs, claiming UFOs to be demonic or Satanic in origin.

[...] 'The Defense Intelligence Agency were looking at this demonic element, and they labelled these sorts of aliens as 'non human entities'. They believed that there was a demonic component to the UFO phenomenon: they are not invading us, it's Biblical.'

Tony Topping believes that the group's conclusions come from some of its members' origins in right-wing Christian evangelism, and suggests that the group may have access to crashed alien spacecraft...

VIDEO QUOTES: "Are aliens actually sending AI craft, as opposed to biological life? [...] What if extraterrestrials worship a totally different and unrecognizable God? What if their religion, what if their God and their religion, is something that we would just regard as crazy?"

 

[Yazata]

It's just stupid to try to politicize this subject as some kind of conspiracy concocted by evil (of course) Republicans for some unknown nefarious reasons of their own. (It's also a conspiracy theory in its own right.) In fact, most of the remarks from partisan politicians in the UAP Guide that I linked to earlier happen to come from democrats.

https://www.uap.guide/

"There is footage and records of objects in the skies. We don't know exactly what they are. We can't explain how they moved..." Former President Barack Obama

"There are so many of us now on the intel committee and armed services that we're going to stand by the service members who documented this stuff. They have video. They have radar. They have heat sensors. They have everything." Sen Kirsten Gillibrand D-
New York

"The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena. We are not only working to declassify what the government has previously learned about these phenomena but to create a pipeline for future research to be made public." Sen. Chuck Schumer - current Senate Majority Leader D-New York

"There is something there measurable by multiple instruments, yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics or science more broadly. That to me poses questions of tremendous interest - Rep. Adam Schiff - D - Calif

"[Reading the classified UAP report as a Senator], the hair stood up on the back of my neck... [The pilots] know they saw something." - Bill Nelson - NASA Administrator

"Finally my biggest failure of 2014, once again not securing the disclosure of UFO files." John Podesta - Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton

"I did attempt to discover if there were any secret government documents that reveal things, and if there were, they were concealed from me too. I wouldn't be the first president that underlings had lied to or career bureaucrats have waited out. There may be some career person sitting around somewhere hiding these dark secrets even from elected presidents, but if so they successfully eluded me and I am almost embarrassed to tell you I did try to find out." - Former President Bill Clinton

"After looking into this, I came to the conclusion that there were reports --- some were substantive, some not so substantive --- that there were actual [UAP] materials that the government and the private sector had in their possession... It is extremely important that information about the discovery of physical materials or retrieved craft come out." Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - D - Nevada

And of course this:

https://www.democrats.senate.gov/ne...cords-collection-act--as-an-amendment-to-ndaa

 

[C C]

It's just stupid to try to politicize this subject as some kind of conspiracy concocted by evil (of course) Republicans for some unknown nefarious reasons of their own. (It's also a conspiracy theory in its own right.) In fact, most of the remarks from partisan politicians in the UAP Guide that I linked to earlier happen to come from democrats.

https://www.uap.guide/

[...] "]I did attempt to discover if there were any secret government documents that reveal things, and if there were, they were concealed from me too. I wouldn't be the first president that underlings had lied to or career bureaucrats have waited out. There may be some career person sitting around somewhere hiding these dark secrets even from elected presidents, but if so they successfully eluded me and I am almost embarrassed to tell you I did try to find out." - Former President Bill Clinton [...]

The military and CIA have had a bevy of literal black projects and super-covert programs in the past that belong in "Astonishing Tales".

And those are just some of the the SAPs that were finally divulged years or decades later. Any ultra-black projects that went beyond that level will never be known due to eradicated or never-existing documentation, fake delivery destinations on company files, and so-forth.

The show "Stranger Things" was inspired by the CIA's very real MKULtra program.

And this is the same spy organization that went into cahoots with Howard Hughes and built a gigantic grappling hook that pulled up a lost Soviet submarine from the bottom of the ocean. Project Azorina would have cost almost five billion dollars today.

The freaking Stargate Project, for Pete's sake -- pseudoscience and all.

List of secret military programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Secret_military_programs

(2012) "The National Archives has recently published never-before-seen schematics and details of a 1950s military venture, called Project 1794, which aimed to build a supersonic flying saucer."
https://www.wired.com/2012/10/the-airforce/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar

As wild as some of Jack Sarfatti's stories are, the below is actually not that far-fetched given the outrageous exploits of the CIA and military in the past.

Jack Sarfatti: "Sarfatti claims to have been recruited by agents of the CIA and DOD to work on both the physics of consciousness and the propulsion of 'flying saucers' back in the 1970s."
_

 

[exchemist]

It has been both parties, though: "‘Non-human intelligence’: Schumer proposes stunning new UFO legislation"

And is still bipartisan if going by this one after the last hearing: "Democrat backs special committee for UFOs after high-profile hearing"

That's why I jokingly referred to it here as: "After years of bitter feuding, both parties find common ground via UFO dope fest"
_

OK I stand corrected on who is backing this select committee.

But from your link it is the Republican, Burchett, who is feeding hysteria by claiming that has been a "cover up" and that they need to "get to the bottom of it". The Democrat seems to be saying he supports it in rather more moderate terms, consistent with there being nothing to hide and that opposing the move might fuel further accusations of conspiracy.

Of course there's no cover up. There's nothing to cover up and no motive for doing so. All the Defence Dept will have been trying to do is avoid is wasting time on dealing with nutcases, demanding information. So I think I stand by my party-political gaslighting hypothesis. It is plain the US Republican party is marching away from democracy, down the road to deep state conspiracy theories - as they have to if they want to put a criminal in the White House with a mandate to overthrow the institutions of American democracy. So they want the country to distrust the organisations of the state as much as possible, to give der Führer room for the revenge he would wreak on the justice and political systems if he regains power.

This is grist to the mill. I expect they are hoping to be stonewalled on security grounds, as that will feed the conspiracy narrative.

 

[foghorn]

This is grist to the mill. I expect they are hoping to be stonewalled on security grounds, as that will feed the conspiracy narrative.

Exchemist, reading your last few posts here I was reminded of what Carl Sagan said in his book ‘The Demon Haunted World.’ (1995).
Mick West on twitter showed a page from this book a couple of years ago.
Some here will have to, touch iron, spit and turn round three times, because it’s a link to Mick West on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1411024775053418496

 

[exchemist]

Exchemist, reading your last few posts here I was reminded of what Carl Sagan said in his book ‘The Demon Haunted World.’ (1995).
Mick West on twitter showed a page from this book a couple of years ago.
Some here will have to, touch iron, spit and turn round three times, because it’s a link to Mick West on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1411024775053418496
View attachment 5523

Well he wasn't wrong to foresee that.

This whole business reminds me of the 1950s flying saucer craze and the sci-fi movies that came out at that time, some of which can be seen as allegories for a Red takeover.
It may be worth revisiting Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" in this connection. Here is one paper, observing that the paranoid style remains primarily associated with the US Right: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12681

"It is often claimed that conspiracy theories are endorsed with the same level of intensity across the left-right ideological spectrum. But do liberals and conservatives in the United States embrace conspiratorial thinking to an equivalent degree? There are important historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons dating back to Richard Hofstadter's book The Paranoid Style in American Politics to doubt this claim. In four large studies of U.S. adults (total N = 5049)—including national samples—we investigated the relationship between political ideology, measured in both symbolic and operational terms, and conspiratorial thinking in general. Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general......"

We now have this kind of paranoia encouraged on all fronts by the Republican party, whether it be Trump's"witchhunt" , the anti-vax movement, the QAnon conspiracy, the "stolen" election, the alleged "woke" agenda in schools, the hysterically disproportionate fear of Critical Race Theory in universities. Even the science of climate change is seen as some kind of leftist conspiracy against the American Way of Life. (We get it on the far Right in Europe too these days, in the shape of Great Replacement Theory and the demonisation of George Soros.)

A bit more conspiracy, this time about hushing up alien bodies in freezers and so forth, by the Pentagon, is just the ticket to loosen further the precarious hold that many Americans have on reality these days and increase their distrust of "the government" [boo, hiss].

It's just a hypothesis, admittedly, but I'll be observing with interest how this committee's work is handled by the various politicians seconded to serve on it.

 

[Yazata]

The military and CIA have had a bevy of literal black projects and super-covert programs in the past that belong in "Astonishing Tales".

Exactly. So the idea of the government pursuing projects that are never revealed to the public and whose existence is denied when questions are asked isn't outlandish at all. It's well documented. Area 51 specializes in such things, which is probably why it has assumed the position that it has in UFO lore.

I'm still doubtful about the idea of a large scale UFO reverse engineering effort, because (1) we haven't seen any indication of it in other more openly revealed aerospace developments, and (2) because if it grew in size it would be increasingly hard to hide. (My skepticism isn't really due to some preexisting belief in the non-existence of alien UFOs.)

But the fact remains that they did develop the SR-71 and stealth aircraft in dark "black" secrecy, so they do have some ability to keep secrets on a large industrial scale. And we know that sometimes they fund such things by moving Congressional appropriations around like a shell-game, taking money appropriated for one thing and then spending it on another much more secret thing. While classifying the diversion so highly that even the elected representatives who made the original appropriation never know.

Obvious Constitutional questions arise about who in the government has given themselves the authority to authorize such diversions and the projects that they fund, and then classify them so highly that sometimes neither Congress or the President appear to be informed.

 

[DaveC426913]

I'm still a bit doubtful about the idea of a large scale UFO reverse engineering effort, because (1) we haven't seen any indication of it in other more openly revealed aerospace developments, and (2) because if it grew in size it would be increasingly hard to hide. (My skepticism isn't really due to some preexisting belief in the non-existence of alien UFOs.)

And the fact that Kirkpatrick explicitly denied it?


(post 9155)

 

[C C]

And the fact that Kirkpatrick explicitly denied it?

View attachment 5525
(post 9155)

"Also to be clear, none of the whistleblowers from yesterday's hearing ever worked for AARO..."​

Grusch was an NRO representative to the now defunct "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force". Though the two might have had some continuity -- a crossover transition from UAPTF to AARO. At any rate, Grusch's role ended in 2021 (AARO formed in 2022).
_

 

[Yazata]

And the fact that Kirkpatrick explicitly denied it?

I take that as a fairly good data-point, but not as something definitive. (I'm inclined to doubt that there's a UAP reverse-engineering program, though I accept its possibility.)

Imagine simply for the sake of argument that there IS a super-secret UAP reverse engineering project. If so, then one would expect denials of its existence. It's the nature of "black programs" that their existence is denied.

 

[DaveC426913]

I take that as a fairly good data-point, but not as something definitive.

Agreed. Government officials denying stuff is not exactly surprising anyone.

But he didn't have to raise a point that wasn't being asked So it is refreshing to have a break in the silence and take the initiative and explicitly say 'By the way: no'.


Aw shoot! I'm still not speaking to you after your Big Lie. Blew that one I guess...

 

[C C]

Exactly. So the idea of the government pursuing projects that are never revealed to the public and whose existence is denied when questions are asked isn't outlandish at all. It's well documented. Area 51 specializes in such things, which is probably why it has assumed the position that it has in UFO lore.

I'm still doubtful about the idea of a large scale UFO reverse engineering effort, because (1) we haven't seen any indication of it in other more openly revealed aerospace developments, and (2) because if it grew in size it would be increasingly hard to hide. (My skepticism isn't really due to some preexisting belief in the non-existence of alien UFOs.)

But the fact remains that they did develop the SR-71 and stealth aircraft in dark "black" secrecy, so they do have some ability to keep secrets on a large industrial scale. And we know that sometimes they fund such things by moving Congressional appropriations around like a shell-game, taking money appropriated for one thing and then spending it on another much more secret thing. While classifying the diversion so highly that even the elected representatives who made the original appropriation never know.

Obvious Constitutional questions arise about who in the government has given themselves the authority to authorize such diversions and the projects that they fund, and then classify them so highly that sometimes neither Congress or the President appear to be informed.

While I likewise doubt that there is anything to reverse-engineer, patriot billionaires would be among key suspects for helping to provide cover for such programs. Just as Howard Hughes did in Project Azorian. Elon Musk's naturalized and dual or triple citizenship probably rules him out being allotted a recent piece of a secret endeavor.

One could picture the CIA muscling its way past a small, perplexed and temporarily confused military presence at a scene to claim further responsibility for what becomes of _X_. Those people are literally attracted to crazy ideas and goals, and they've enjoyed an immense chunk of the The Black Budget pie for decades. Instead of spaceships, they might be trying to milk advanced technology for surveillance and espionage advantages. (Lying to Congress ... Covert programs hidden from Congress)

I don't expect AARO-type programs of the past to be privy to anything transpiring within even the "ordinary" SAP domain, much less those that transgress beyond that level. It's kind of like a county seat assuring local bystanders that nothing crooked is going on in the state government.

Senator Allen Ellender: "If you knew how much we spend and how much money we waste in this area, it would knock you off your chair. It's criminal!" commenting on United States intelligence activities in 1971
_

 

[exchemist]

While I likewise doubt that there is anything to reverse-engineer, patriot billionaires would be among key suspects for helping to provide cover for such programs. Just as Howard Hughes did in Project Azorian. Elon Musk's naturalized and dual or triple citizenship probably rules him out being allotted a recent piece of a secret endeavor.

One could picture the CIA muscling its way past a small, perplexed and temporarily confused military presence at a scene to claim further responsibility for what becomes of _X_. Those people are literally attracted to crazy ideas and goals, and they've enjoyed an immense chunk of the The Black Budget pie for decades. Instead of spaceships, they might be trying to milk advanced technology for surveillance and espionage advantages. (Lying to Congress ... Covert programs hidden from Congress)

I don't expect AARO-type programs of the past to be privy to anything transpiring within even the "ordinary" SAP domain, much less those that transgress beyond that level. It's kind of like a county seat assuring local bystanders that nothing crooked is going on in the state government.

Senator Allen Ellender: "If you knew how much we spend and how much money we waste in this area, it would knock you off your chair. It's criminal!" commenting on United States intelligence activities in 1971
_

Yes, I would not be surprised if there are some secret programmes on such things as lasers, experimental vehicles and so on, which the Defence establishment does not wish to publicise. That, it is important to note, would not be a "cover up" of anything - just something secret. But the notion of discoveries of alien visitation being "covered up" is nuts.

 

[C C]

Yes, I would not be surprised if there are some secret programmes on such things as lasers, experimental vehicles and so on, which the Defence establishment does not wish to publicise. That, it is important to note, would not be a "cover up" of anything - just something secret. But the notion of discoveries of alien visitation being "covered up" is nuts.

Well, "nuts" as a compact concept arguably is more efficient, as touched upon below (at the very bottom). But in other contexts...

"You know the Uphaven Hawks are going to beat the Podunk Buckets. It's nuts to think otherwise."

IOW, the ball game is decided by playing on the field (or court), not determining the outcome on paper by comparing the stats and injury lists of the two teams. Playing the game in reality (rather than simulating it) is what allows surprising upsets to be possible.

Another analogy would be how science research tests or investigates things rather than doing the philosopher approach of armchair evaluation, calculation, or contemplation. (Rationalist: "Oh, this is clearly nuts, because my reasoning arrives at that conclusion.")

At least the government is probing the validity of something "wild" for once. Instead of -- in comparison, cities that implement unvetted social policies that turn them into shoplifting toilet holes (among other things).

That said, however, I surely still occasionally shout and beat a shoe on the podium about something being "nuts" (actually perhaps many times about many things), but to no avail in terms of intimidating the applicable faction into submission.

"Nuts" needs to be unpackaged as something more substantial than dogma, or a pretentious proclamation of possessing omniscience, or appealing to a popular stigma/taboo, etc.

And even if there is weighty content to unpackage from "nuts", then the endeavor could still be futile.

This is why, despite the above, many of us do economically declare an _X_ to just be "nuts". It's quicker (saves two or threes weeks of elaboration and ineffective arguing) and is not much less impotent than that other lengthy route that usually also fails to dissuade individuals who are truly and deeply entrenched in a view.
_

 

[C C]

Mick West's approval of the hearings and investigations has been posted before. It's win-win a situation even if there's only a Tall Tale subculture in the ranks, as the source. You want the latter uncovered, studied/analyzed, and prevented or at least obstructed from recurring again.

The exception might be if a "folklore club" was deliberately engineered for tactical reasons, and outing it and its disseminations destroys the effectiveness (granting that enemy powers could ever be deterred by such a mythos, or its engendering cautious uncertainties). But even then, those purposes might be of a rogue or illegal nature, or not actually serving national interests. Similar to the pathologies of MKUltra.

Mick West
https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1667946152430559232?s=20

Let me be very clear.

I want Congress to investigate Dave Grusch's (and others') claims that the US has alien craft.

I think it's false, but that indicates a systemic failing, an environment in the Mil/IC that allows these fantasies to mutate and spread.

Clear the air. Fix it.​

_

 

[exchemist]

Mick West's approval of the hearings and investigations has been posted before. It's win-win a situation even if there's only a Tall Tale subculture in the ranks, as the source. You want the latter uncovered, studied/analyzed, and prevented or at least obstructed from recurring again.

The exception might be if a "folklore club" was deliberately engineered for tactical reasons, and outing it and its disseminations destroys the effectiveness (granting that enemy powers could ever be deterred by such a mythos, or its engendering cautious uncertainties). But even then, those purposes might be of a rogue or illegal nature, or not actually serving national interests. Similar to the pathologies of MKUltra.

Mick West
https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1667946152430559232?s=20

Let me be very clear.

I want Congress to investigate Dave Grusch's (and others') claims that the US has alien craft.

I think it's false, but that indicates a systemic failing, an environment in the Mil/IC that allows these fantasies to mutate and spread.

Clear the air. Fix it.​

_

That makes sense to me and is consistent with my previous comment, about the idea of a cover up of alien visitation being nuts.

 

[exchemist]

Well, "nuts" as a compact concept arguably is more efficient, as touched upon below (at the very bottom). But in other contexts...

"You know the Uphaven Hawks are going to beat the Podunk Buckets. It's nuts to think otherwise."

IOW, the ball game is decided by playing on the field (or court), not determining the outcome on paper by comparing the stats and injury lists of the two teams. Playing the game in reality (rather than simulating it) is what allows surprising upsets to be possible.

Another analogy would be how science research tests or investigates things rather than doing the philosopher approach of armchair evaluation, calculation, or contemplation. (Rationalist: "Oh, this is clearly nuts, because my reasoning arrives at that conclusion.")

At least the government is probing the validity of something "wild" for once. Instead of -- in comparison, cities that implement unvetted social policies that turn them into shoplifting toilet holes (among other things).

That said, however, I surely still occasionally shout and beat a shoe on the podium about something being "nuts" (actually perhaps many times about many things), but to no avail in terms of intimidating the applicable faction into submission.

"Nuts" needs to be unpackaged as something more substantial than dogma, or a pretentious proclamation of possessing omniscience, or appealing to a popular stigma/taboo, etc.

And even if there is weighty content to unpackage from "nuts", then the endeavor could still be futile.

This is why, despite the above, many of us do economically declare an _X_ to just be "nuts". It's quicker (saves two or threes weeks of elaboration and ineffective arguing) and is not much less impotent than that other lengthy route that usually also fails to dissuade individuals who are truly and deeply entrenched in a view.
_

I think everyone understands what I mean by nuts and I've already in previous posts indicated why that is my view. But for the avoidance of doubt I can enumerate my reasons:

1) The likelihood of alien visitation is extremely low, given the rarity of environments for complex chemistry to arise, the enormous distances involved in space travel and the maximum speed it is possible for any object with mass to reach. So any alien civilisation would be most unlikely to send physical spacecraft to reach us. Their efforts would almost certainly be directly toward use of the EM radiation spectrum, which can at least travel at c, rather than anything involving physical objects.

2) The likelihood of any organisation keeping secret, supposedly for half a century or more, a programme involving contact with aliens, is very low. It would be at the cutting edge of science and would require the involvement of numerous experts in a variety of fields, spanning generations. It would leak. Furthermore it is hard to see why only one country's government would be singled out for contact. If there were alien contact, it would be apparent in more than one country. They would not all want to, or be able to, keep it secret.

3) There is no credible motive I have ever heard of for any government to want to keep such alien contact secret. What could conceivably be the point of doing that? Given it would be, as I say, at the cutting edge of our science and technology, it is far more likely that assistance from the international science community would be sought, in open fashion.

The low probabilities of (1) and (2) are of course multiplicative, lowering the likelihood even more.

Whereas:

4) There is a well-recognised psychology of conspiracy theories, notably in the USA, involving mistrust of "the government". Examples abound. The present time, given the rise of the internet and of Trumpy politics, is particularly fertile for such conspiracy theories, as we are all painfully aware ("deep state", "stolen election", vaccine paranoia, QAnon, and so forth.) It may not be going too far to say that the USA is undergoing a collective nervous breakdown at the moment, in which all kinds of wild, unevidenced ideas are taken seriously, by alarmingly large segments of the population.

It is in this climate of borderline madness that we now have this UAP investigation going on - in the course of which a Republican, i.e. Trumpy, senator now makes an allegation of a cover up.

That is why I label the notion of a cover up of alien contact as nuts. I hope that clarifies it sufficiently.

 

[Yazata]

Well, "nuts" as a compact concept arguably is more efficient, as touched upon below (at the very bottom).

Generally speaking, "nuts" is just an expression of contempt. If the person using the word hopes to convince intelligent people to share that contempt, then he or she needs to be persuasive and explain the reasons for the emotion. In which case use of the word ceases being efficient and compact as it is expanded upon. Otherwise, the person using the word is just being lazy and insulting.

Worse, it's counterproductive. Insulting one's opponents is almost guaranteed to make them less likely to come around to agreement. Insulting opponents just turns agreement into a humiliation and hardens people against anything one has to say.

"Nuts" needs to be unpackaged as something more substantial than dogma, or a pretentious proclamation of possessing omniscience, or appealing to a popular stigma/taboo, etc.

Exactly. At least if we intend the conversation to be intelligent.

This is why, despite the above, many of us do economically declare an _X_ to just be "nuts". It's quicker (saves two or threes weeks of elaboration and ineffective arguing) and is not much less impotent than that other lengthy route that usually also fails to dissuade individuals who are truly and deeply entrenched in a view.

And that raises an important issue. When people call an idea "nuts", they aren't just saying that personally they haven't yet been persuaded. They are going far beyond that and announcing that nobody else should entertain even the possibility of the idea being true, for fear of some kind of social rejection. It isn't just expression of one's own personal doubts, it's an attempt to rule out consideration of particular unwelcome possibilities by everyone else in a social group.

And that, simply by its nature, is a much higher rhetorical hurdle to clear. There's a crypto-authoritarian aspect to it that I just viscerally dislike. I much prefer to keep possibilities alive even if the vast majority of those open possibilities haven't yet convinced me of their truth.