
Japan to Draw Up UFO Encounter Protocols After U.S. Footage - wslh
https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2020042900453/
======
MarcScott
I thought this was a pretty good explanation of the 3 sightings:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7jcBGLIpus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7jcBGLIpus)

~~~
lend000
Mick West's explanation of "Go Fast" seems highly plausible (the video could
be reproduced by a weather balloon, with parallax producing the difficulty of
getting a radar lock and the appearance of fast movement). But for the other
two, even ignoring witness testimony, it seems like grasping at straws to fit
a narrative to a predetermined conclusion.

~~~
beaner
The parallax explanation for the gofast video seems less believable when you
view the video and consider the beginning of the footage, when the camera
seems near-fixed and the object is flying quickly by it, and the operator has
to actively track and lock-on to the moving object.

~~~
autokad
i dont understand how the background behind the 'balloon' could be moving so
fast. I dont think it was a ufo, but I definitely do not think it was a
balloon.

~~~
Johnjonjoan
Imagine the balloon is 2km up and the plane is 8km up. The balloon is
stationary and the plane moving fast. The plane centres a camera on the
balloon and maintains the centre.

As the plane flies over the balloon it is going to need to move the camera to
keep it centred. When it does this the balloon remains centered (stationary)
whilst the ground appears to move under it. However its just that the angle
the camera is at had to change to keep the balloon centered giving the
allusion that the ground is moving relative to the balloon.

~~~
beaner
But in the moments when the camera is at rest while the operator is trying to
focus, the ocean is moving slowly in the opposite direction as the object,
meaning that the jet is flying in the same direction as the object. If the
object were static, then upon lock-on, the ocean in the background would slow
down or reverse direction. What we see instead is that the ocean background
speeds up, meaning the object is traveling faster than the jet in the
direction the jet is going.

------
tofof
It occurs to me that, should extraterrestrial life exist - we might be more
likely to be visited first by rules-flouting rogue individuals than by an
official mission.

This also neatly explains problems like the "aliens have interstellar travel,
but not spectroscopy and can be stopped by wooden doors" mentioned elsewhere
in the comments --

A couple of good ol' boys off to deface a nature preserve (Earth to our
aliens, the Nazca lines to our GOB's) by driving circles in it could do so
today in a truck with active-torque differentials, wireless radiofrequency
entry and activation, catalytic conversion of exhausts, an on-board diagnostic
computer, turbocharging engine, liquid crystal display and a cmos camera,
radar-based cruise control, lidar detector, GPS navigation relying on atomic-
clock level timing precision..... without needing to know a thing about how
even a single one of those components actually worked, and could be stopped by
simple stone bollards.

~~~
elliekelly
I haven’t stopped thinking about this since the American missionary was killed
by the uncontacted Sentinelese people. What if Earth is the uncontacted &
protected community of the galaxy?

~~~
rtsil
That supposes Earth is special and deserves a particular treatment.

It seems likelier that we are too far from interstellar civilisations to be
visited by them, or that there's no interstellar civilisations because of a
Great Filter, or even simply that earth is not interesting enough for them to
visit. Or worse, they do visit, but the human race is not interesting enough
for them to make their presence known to it.

~~~
astrofinch
Most planets don't have life.

~~~
jadell
True. We haven't confirmed a single other one yet, which is why actually
finding one will be probably the most significant discovery humans ever make.

But I would imagine that an interstellar civilization that has discovered
thousands of life-bearing planets would start to develop some criteria about
what type of life is _interesting_ or not. It could just be that nothing on
Earth meets the criteria to be interesting.

------
ComputerGuru
It’s hard to believe that every nation with an airforce doesn’t already have
_some_ sort of protocol in place about what to do if you see a flying object
not flying any known colors that you cannot hail on radio.

Edit: unless they all do dating back to the Cold War, and it’s “shoot first,
ask questions later.”

~~~
ryanmarsh
The Cold War was anything but “shoot first, ask questions later”... hence the
“cold”.

~~~
DuskStar
There's a few airliners that would disagree with you there. KAL007, for
starters.

Not to mention legitimate targets like Gary Powers.

------
nocube
Perhaps these are truly unidentified objects but you can’t ignore the
sophistication of the scams associated with UFOs. There are elaborate hoaxes
that require a serious amount of work, sometimes allegedly leaking classified
information to mix into it.

For example, Project Serpo, some conspiracy theory about a secret space
mission in the 1960-1970s. Somehow decades later this convinced a well known
former CIA employee. Who later claimed he was naive to be associated with
them.

This led to an unusual case of a current CIA employee leaking emails denying
that the former DDI and Chairman of the NIC was involved with the Serpo hoax
or the other CIA employee.

That employee quit the CIA in 1982 but was later affiliated with the DDI
through medical research.

In the emails, described a meeting at CIA that occurred after the 1988 NBC
broadcast of UFO: Cover-Up Live. Mentioned with two Colonels and the dubious
AFOSI character who allegedly ran the original Serpo hoax for the Air Force.
This person is the focus of the documentary Mirage Men. He also worked for
Robert Bigelow and employed the chief scientist to Tom DeLonge’s company.

That scientist was introduced to DeLonge by the former CIA employee who fell
for the later Serpo hoax.

The story is confusing but who would spend all this time on this? If you look
closely, all the scientists involved even the Stanford guy, are kind of true
believers. The rest are con-artists or deceived by a quest to uncover a great
secret or technology.

Here is the 1988 broadcast, Falcon and Condor are around 1h10m. Falcon is the
Serpo hoaxer AFOSI agent and Condor is a retired Air Force captain. There’s no
covert conspiracy here, just a bunch of weird people who claims fantastic
things. There’s no prime mover just human nature (ie disinformation,
intelligence traps and scams)-

[https://youtu.be/5CzZyrGolAg](https://youtu.be/5CzZyrGolAg)

~~~
jml7c5
Do you know of any good resources (documentaries, books, etc) on this sort of
thing? (Particularly anything about government spending on pseudoscience.)

After those Navy UFO videos were released and I learned that the crank Harold
Puthoff was involved, it became a much more interesting story. I'm surprised
there isn't a book about the whole weird saga.

~~~
3131s
Definitely check out the documentary "Mirage Men" mentioned by the parent
comment.

------
spacefearing
If there are aliens flying around, it would be nice if at least one country
made high quality evidence public.

The U.S. Navy videos are intriguing but very far from conclusive. And yet they
are likely withholding a ton more data that citizens should have access to.

If it's all a cover story for top secret stuff, then it's likely an
unnecessary deception. I doubt any U.S. military project is actually safe from
Chinese and Russian spies. So all they're doing is increasing the sense of
distrust between U.S. citizens and their own government.

Modern people don't want to live in the Cold War secrecy paranoia of the last
century. The U.S. military should focus on what really matters and leave that
toxic cold war culture behind.

~~~
compartment
> I doubt any U.S. military project is actually safe from Chinese and Russian
> spies.

Your doubt is reasonable, based on the string of mishaps this past decade, but
likely not the case given the nature of compartmentalization. Also, appearing
weak when actually strong is a strategy. It’s quite possible the USG has
amassed futuristic tech in secret, while playing the fool.

------
Zenst
Given
[https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm)
\- nothing surprises me, though I would of thought this would of been
something all country air forces would have - procedures in encountering
unknown flying craft! Certainly would have a friend or foe identification
procedure and with that, the ability to also identify neutral/civilian/.....
and other avenues grown into that procedure over time.

~~~
jfengel
The zombie page is an educational tool, not a serious plan for dealing with
the living dead. It sets up a scary (but clearly fictional) threat to teach
people to make plans, have supplies, and prepare evac bags that would also
apply to actual threats.

~~~
Zenst
Yip and a good one as certainly engaged with the tv culture of the time.

Though best read then watch Canadian response
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XZ9R2TUq94](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XZ9R2TUq94)

Always makes me chuckle.

------
everyone
It is 1999 and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have started appearing with
disturbing regularity in the night skies. Reports of violent human abductions
and horrific experimentation struck terror into the hearts of millions. The
mass public hysteria has only served to expose Earth's impotence against a
vastly superior technology.

Many countries initially attempted to deal independently with the aliens. In
August 1998, Japan established an anti-alien combat force; the Kiryu-Kai.
Equipped with Japanese-made fighter aircraft, the Kiryu-Kai certainly looked
like a powerful force. However, after 5 months of expensive operations they
had yet to intercept their first UFO. The lesson was clear: this was a
worldwide problem which could not be dealt with by individual countries.

On December 11, 1998, representatives from the worlds most economically
powerful countries gathered secretly in Geneva. After much debate, the
decision was made to establish a covert independent body to combat,
investigate and defeat the alien threat. This organization would be equipped
with the world's finest pilots, soldiers, scientists and engineers, working
together as one multi-national force. This organization was named the
Extraterrestrial Combat Unit."

~~~
YarickR2
Feeling myself old on getting the reference. Heavy lasers for the win

------
m3kw9
I find it curious that all unclassified UFO videos are blurry and very hard to
decipher

~~~
jiggawatts
Currently, the human race has several _billion_ cameras readily available to
take footage of rare occurrences. Not just mobile phones, but think also of
CCTV security cameras, dash cams, etc...

The simple logical conclusion is that footage of rare but real events ought to
be more readily available.

And in fact, that's exactly what's observed! There is now a wide variety of
high quality videos to choose from, if what you want to see is things like
bright meteors. They're real, in the sky, fleeting, and rare. We now have
hundreds, maybe even thousands, of full colour, high resolution, in-focus
videos of them.

Flying saucers? Not one.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=meteor+dash+cam&tbm=vid](https://www.google.com/search?q=meteor+dash+cam&tbm=vid)

~~~
joan_kode
On the contrary, there are rare but real phenomena that have no good videos.
Meteors aren't that rare, try ball lightning instead. The only videos we have
are blurry unclear blobs of pixels, totally unconvincing. Here's the "highest
quality" video ever made of one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXm3zDM_v80](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXm3zDM_v80)

~~~
ramphastidae
[https://youtu.be/4XRzD-2iuGU](https://youtu.be/4XRzD-2iuGU)

------
drapred7
Informative and entertaining:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfhAC2YiYHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfhAC2YiYHs)

------
boznz
Rule 1 - Dont shoot them Rule 2 - See Rule 1

------
ngcc_hk
We are ready for first contact.

------
HenryKissinger
1) Bow respectfully to our visitors

2) Serve them tea

~~~
HenryKissinger
Hacker News can't take a joke, can it?

~~~
andrewflnr
Hacker News is fine with jokes that are actually clever. Cheap plays on
stereotypes, not so much. HN has problems, but this is generally not one of
them.

