UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?

[DaveC426913]

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.

While I agree that "nuts" is a little hyperbolic, I think such specific objections are an attempt to shift the burden of proof and the burden of credibility.

Note, you say: [the person using the word "nuts"] "needs to be persuasive and explain the reasons for the emotion".

No. First the claimant needs to be persuasive and explain the justification for the claim. And it's insulting to everyone if they do not.


So consider "nuts" to be a contraction of "You've made a claim without an expected, obligatory degree of evidence to back it up. That is insulting to this debate. After all, this is not the first rodeo for you or us, so you're nuts if you somehow thought your claim would pass muster without proactively justifying it. We all know this. Be better."

 

[exchemist]

While I agree that "nuts" is a little hyperbolic, I think those specific objections are an attempt to shift the burden of proof and the burden of credibility.

Note, you say: [the person using the word "nuts"] "needs to be persuasive and explain the reasons for the emotion".

No. First the claimant needs to be persuasive and explain the justification for the claim. And it's insulting to everyone if they do not.


So consider "nuts" to be a contraction of "You've made a claim without an expected, obligatory degree of evidence to back it up. That is insulting to this debate. After all, this is not the first rodeo for you or us, so you're nuts if you somehow thought your claim would pass muster without proactively justifying it. We all know this. Be better."

Yes. The claimant in this case being one Senator Tim Burchett (R). According to his Wiki entry he claims as follows:

Following a report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on January 12, 2023, Burchett expressed his views about an alleged government coverup of the nature of UFOs, saying, "we've been covering this up since the '40s" and that he doesn't "trust [the] government, [and] there's an arrogance about it, and I think the American public can handle it."[36]

On March 7, 2023, Burchett expanded on these claims, saying that UFO technology is possibly "being reverse-engineered right now" but we "don't understand" how it functions. He maintains that the U.S. has "recovered a craft at some point, and possible beings".[37]

(As for the demand that I explain the reasoning for why I conclude the above is "nuts", it's in my post 9199 of course.)

 

[foghorn]

As for the demand that I explain the reasoning for why I conclude the above is "nuts", it's in my post 9199 of course.

Since this thread is on waffle mode, because no physical evidence was given in the hearing, meanings of words becomes the game here now.
So, the use of nuts is to be discussed at length.
I offer demand the use of ''nuts'' in exhibits A,B,C and D below be justified, for a good waffle about too.

To this very day religious nuts blame gay people for natural disasters.

I'm pretty sure the religious nuts, as well as the science geeks, would both go crazy and jump off bridges if a higher species made its existence known.

Religious nuts caught on tape:

The only ones lobbying congress to force their views on kids are religious nuts who want

 

[Magical Realist]

By Tim Gallaudet

"Last week, I had a front-row seat at the hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs. The three witnesses provided extraordinary testimony on their observations of aerial craft with performance characteristics far beyond those of modern aircraft, as well as knowledge of a hidden U.S. government crash retrieval program of such vehicles and their nonhuman operators.

The witnesses were former officers in the U.S. military with stellar service records. Their message to Congress was that we are not alone, we possess technology unlike anything available in the public or private sectors, and the U.S. government has covered up this earth-shattering information for decades.

The assessment in Forbes, “the internet shrugged.” After some brief reporting by the major news networks, they returned their attention to nearly full-time coverage of the dismal legal landscapes surrounding Hunter Biden and Donald Trump.

Perhaps the era of fake news has desensitized the public to remarkable revelations like these, so I feel compelled to share my perspective to shed light on their validity and implications.

As a retired U.S. Navy flag officer, I can attest to the integrity and authenticity of the two pilots who testified: retired Commander David Fravor and Ryan Graves. I have served on three aircraft carriers and count many Naval aviators as close friends. These two witnesses are the real deal.

So is David Grusch. As a Navy information warfare officer, I worked closely with the intelligence community and Grusch’s former command, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. I too have been read into special access programs, and I understand how Department of Defense classification systems and authorities work. His testimony is 100 percent credible.

It may take time for society to come to grips with this historic hearing, but we will be best served by immediately responding as follows:"

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4131211-ufos-are-the-story-of-the-century-wake-up-america/

Rear Admiral (ret.) Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC , a research affiliate with Harvard University’s Galileo Project, and a member of the advisory board of Americans for Safe Aerospace. He is a former acting and deputy administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), acting undersecretary and assistant secretary of Commerce, and oceanographer in the Navy.

 

[exchemist]

Since this thread is on waffle mode, because no physical evidence was given in the hearing, meanings of words becomes the game here now.
So, the use of nuts is to be discussed at length.
I offer demand the use of ''nuts'' in exhibits A,B,C and D below be justified, for a good waffle about too.

 

[C C]

By Tim Gallaudet...

[...] As a retired U.S. Navy flag officer, I can attest to the integrity and authenticity of the two pilots who testified: retired Commander David Fravor and Ryan Graves. I have served on three aircraft carriers and count many Naval aviators as close friends. These two witnesses are the real deal.

So is David Grusch. As a Navy information warfare officer, I worked closely with the intelligence community and Grusch’s former command, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. I too have been read into special access programs, and I understand how Department of Defense classification systems and authorities work. His testimony is 100 percent credible.

I probably wouldn't even doubt the integrity of a Sentilese tribal person testifying that the world is flat. But there could be more to discern about the raw data of the perception which might reveal that it's not exactly what it seems to be.

Imprecisely akin to NASA hiring an ex-Nazi to make its space program a success, I regretfully have to admit that sometimes it's better to apprehend a lying, evasive insider holding a real and valuable gemstone than to have an outsider saint offer an ersatz one that he/she truly believed was legit.

But we still need to move forward to the supposed hostile "inner circle" witnesses themselves, before patting the potentially gullible saint or boy scout on the head for a good "report the sin" effort that came up short on evidence.

[...] 1) The U.S. Congress should continue to demand the Department of Defense and intelligence community disclose UAP information, data, and materials to the public.

[...] 2) The U.S. government should show leadership in international scientific studies of UAP.

[...] 3) The U.S. research community should significantly expand the scientific study of UAP.

[...] Our tiny planet orbits a relatively medium-sized star, in a galaxy of over 100 billion stars, among a distribution of several hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. How arrogant to believe we are the only species that has developed a means for travel between celestial bodies. Now that we are finding out otherwise, we must demand disclosure of what the government knows. Instead of staying asleep at the wheel, we should wake up as a society for the safety, security, and scientific advantages that can be gained.​

If elsewhere there was intelligent life a million or more years ago with advanced technology, that turned its gaze toward outer space, then it's possible that their slowly migrating Von Neumann probes could be all over the place by now. But I don't think the original, biological descendants will ever be part of interstellar space travel (there's surely a limit to fantastically lengthy hibernation success). At best these nomadic robot inheritors and envoys might carry blueprint instructions for building their first creators from scratch. (But why bother with the inferior bodies that preceded those of artificial life?)
_

 

[Yazata]

If elsewhere there was intelligent life a million or more years ago with advanced technology, that turned its gaze toward outer space, then it's possible that their slowly migrating Von Neumann probes could be all over the place by now.

Yes. There's that whole "Fermi paradox" thing.

And I agree that if interstellar visitors come calling, it might be most likely that they are AIs, robots.

When Grusch mentioned what he called "biologicals", that caught my attention.

I'd still guess that if (big if, entirely hypothetical) some of these UAPs are products of extraterrestrial intelligence, then they probably are machines, not ships piloted by biological organisms. (Or whatever passes for biology around other stars, which might bear little chemical resemblance to us.)

Of course if aliens discover the secret of super-luminal travel (assuming there is a secret) then all bets might be off.

I still expect that life is fairly rare in the universe. Intelligent life is probably a lot rarer than that. So I can imagine aliens sending out thousands of (perhaps self-reproducing exponentially-multiplying) robot probes to investigate potentially millions of worlds. If the probes discover something interesting, like Earth presumably is, then the probes could inform the home planet quickly (by superluminal communication) and their creators could be here quickly if the travel time between there and here is short.

I guess that I have less confidence in today's physics than a lot of people. I see physics as our contemporary understanding of how things seem to work. But physics isn't metaphysics, it probably isn't the last word any more than 19th century physics or medieval physics were. I'm not convinced that ways won't be found (and maybe already have been found somewhere) to exceed what we today believe is the cosmic speed-limit.

 

[Magical Realist]

I'm not convinced that ways won't be found (and maybe already have been found somewhere) to exceed what we today believe is the cosmic speed-limit.

I wouldn't put it past them. I mean we could be talking here about beings who have circumvented the limits of spacetime in their one million year evolutionary history. Perhaps they have even undergone their own AI singularity already, the distinction between biology and technology long past gone. I hardly think we should be measuring them by our own meager physics yardstick.

 

[James R]

Thanks for the link Yazata! Good authorative source for UAP information. I would probably get banned by James if I posted it.

Don't be ridiculous. You should stop trolling.

 

[James R]

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.

This is a truly bizarre line of argument.

Essentially, you are saying that because there's no available evidence of a "super-secret UAP reverse engineering project", that's the precise reason people ought to believe there is one. Because, you know, if there was one, then there would be no evidence of it. We'd expect a cover-up.

The same argument could be (and, in conspiracy theory circles, often is) used to justify the belief in just about anything at all.

The government has had a long-running top-secret experimental facility to genetically engineer magical unicorns. This is a super-secret "black op", and that's why there's no good evidence for it. It's a huge conspiracy cover-up. Of course, everyone will deny the existence of Project Unicorn. They would do that, wouldn't they? The fact that they keep denying it just gives us even more reason to believe it exists.

You really don't see any flaw in this kind of argument?

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Do you want extra terrestrial overlords?

How sexy can it be?

 

[foghorn]

How sexy can it be?

MR's summer wardrobe this year includes this little sexy sunhat.

 

[exchemist]

This is a truly bizarre line of argument.

Essentially, you are saying that because there's no available evidence of a "super-secret UAP reverse engineering project", that's the precise reason people ought to believe there is one. Because, you know, if there was one, then there would be no evidence of it. We'd expect a cover-up.

The same argument could be (and, in conspiracy theory circles, often is) used to justify the belief in just about anything at all.

The government has had a long-running top-secret experimental facility to genetically engineer magical unicorns. This is a super-secret "black op", and that's why there's no good evidence for it. It's a huge conspiracy cover-up. Of course, everyone will deny the existence of Project Unicorn. They would do that, wouldn't they? The fact that they keep denying it just gives us even more reason to believe it exists.

You really don't see any flaw in this kind of argument?

Well yes. Since the existence of any secret programme would probably be denied, the issuing of a denial quite obviously cannot be evidence, either for or against its existence. It simply is not relevant to deciding the issue.

That is why my rationale for dismissing the notion of a cover up of alien contact as nuts, in post 9199, makes no reference to any such denials.

 

[Yazata]

This is a truly bizarre line of argument.

Essentially, you are saying that because there's no available evidence of a "super-secret UAP reverse engineering project", that's the precise reason people ought to believe there is one. Because, you know, if there was one, then there would be no evidence of it. We'd expect a cover-up.

My point was merely that a denial from a government figure that a "super-secret UAP reverse engineering project" exists doesn't tell us a whole lot if we would expect them to deny its existence whether it existed or not.

My "doesn't tell us a whole lot" does not equate to your "ought to believe". It's closer to the opposite of that.

My position is that the possibility remains open (if unlikely in my opinion) and Kirkpatrick's denial isn't tremendously informative for the reason given.

That being said, one shouldn't leap to a particular conclusion (the hypothetical project's existence/nonexistence) without better information than we presently have. That's why further investigation is justified. That's the position that the US Congress is taking. It's the position that Mick (to his credit) seems to have taken as well. It's the position that I'm taking.

 

[C C]

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.

Yes, by definition or its very nature that would be a predictable or not at all surprising response from those affiliated with or protecting an SAP in the US. This is just stating a fact or reasonable expectation, like "Odesa is located in Ukraine".

It could be evaluated as a trivial thing to say (i.e., "we all know that"). But who among us has never pointed out the obvious to ensure that it really is on the table?

It could be (mis?)construed as hovering around Kafkatrap territory -- wherein denial is treated as an admission of guilt (an informal fallacy). But from whence could this interpretation (of such a motive pertaining) be derived from the actual content of the post?

The statement "I'm inclined to doubt that there's a UAP reverse-engineering program, though I accept its possibility" is an espousal of minimum "agnosticism", where the large percentage part is not on the side of it being true. So a Kafkatrap intent surely does not apply.

The ill reputation of a Kafkatrap is not universal, however. It can be a perfectly legit way "to confirm _X_ is real or to support _X_ is the case" in social justice circles. Just not anywhere else. For instance:

Spoiler

1. If one denies being a racist, such indicates one is a racist.
   
2. If one denies ubiquitous structural/systemic racism or suggests it is a potential conspiracy theory that needs to be vetted, such indicates one is a racist.
   
3. If one is not vigorously participating in an anti-racism social movement, such indicates one is a racist.

The latter two are arguably just an unpackaging of items subsumed under the first concept.

Ibram X. Kendi: "The heartbeat of racism is denial. And too often, the more powerful the racism, the more powerful the denial."
https://twitter.com/ibramxk/status/1367473187131449350?s=20

Ibram X. Kendi : Actually what I’m saying is we should eliminate the term “not racist” from the human vocabulary. We are either being racist or antiracist. Is that clear for you? There’s no such thing as “not racist.”
-- a deleted September 20, 2020 tweet, but still preserved elsewhere and advocated beforehand in mainstream venues (below).

(NPR) 'Not racist' is not enough: Putting in the work to be anti-racist
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/9055...-enough-putting-in-the-work-to-be-anti-racist

EXCERPT: . . . for people dedicated to fighting racism, simply saying you're "not racist" doesn't feel like quite enough. To effectively defeat systemic racism — racism embedded as normal practice in institutions like education and law enforcement [and other oppressive hierarchies of the West]— you've got to be continually working towards equality for all races, striving to undo racism in your mind, your personal environment and the wider world.​

In other words, one needs to be a spirited anti-racist [to not be a racist].

FURTHER ELABORATION: That's "anti-racist" in the activist movement sense. Marching in the streets, voting for social democrats, making up for ancestral sins of the past, and seeking redemption for the injustice of one's white privilege status. And not just passively being "non-racist" according to one's own idea of that.

So here we see that "denial" of an _X_ , and even criticism of the accuser's ideology, or suggesting that they have ulterior motives, can be taken to be a validation of that _X_. As long as it is crouched in a noble medium (social justice, leftangelicalism, etc) that is devoid of recruiting such virtuous aspirations for opportunistic reasons.

 

[DaveC426913]

Just stumbled across this:

I mean, technically, it's perfectly on-topic with the thread subject line.

 

[Magical Realist]

Just stumbled across this:

I mean, technically, it's perfectly on-topic with the thread subject line.

 

[DaveC426913]

When we hypothesize UFOs to be time travelers, why do we always assume they're from the future?

(Also perfectly on-topic with the thread subject line.)

 

[Yazata]

When we hypothesize UFOs to be time travelers, why do we always assume they're from the future?

Mainly because no past human civilization appears to have had the ability to time-travel.

Which suggests some issues:

1. Must time travelers from Earth's past be human? It's possible to imagine that dinosaurs achieved intelligence and perhaps even science and technology late in their history, only to have it wiped out by some stray asteroid or something. (That idea has appeared repeatedly in science fiction.)

2. Would a technological civilization tens of millions of years ago have left traces for us to discover today? I'm not sure, but I'm inclined to think 'yes', which is my main reason for doubting this speculation.

3. Assuming that it's possible at all, must time-travel require science and technology?. Could it be accomplished some other way? So would it really have required an industrial civilization to accomplish?

 

[parmalee]

When we hypothesize UFOs to be time travelers, why do we always assume they're from the future?

(Also perfectly on-topic with the thread subject line.)

Is this a subtle nod to the various alternative theories pertaining to the Land of the Lost, or am I misreading you? For the purpose of entertaining myself, I shall assume that you respond in the affirmative.

The Sleestak are assumed to be indigenous to the Land of the Lost, but we do not know whether the Land of the Lost is, in fact, Earth, or another planet in another galaxy entirely. There's also the alternate universe hypothesis. Moreover, while the Sleestak were (are?) time travelers--by virtue of the Time Pylon, there is no evidence that they had mastered space travel.

The Altrusians, on the other hand, were in fact an alien race. However, it says here that they created the Land of the Lost. Wait...what? So, I guess it's not earth? In that case, please disregard everything I have said previously.