
How to Investigate a Flying Saucer - jackgavigan
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2016-featured-story-archive/how-to-investigate-a-flying-saucer.html
======
jonmrodriguez
I feel like part of the cultural fascination with flying saucers is that we
intuitively feel like it _should_ be possible for someone with advanced
technology to levitate without expending power.

We are starting to get there, with quantum locking, which can levitate a type-
II superconductor relative to a supporting magnetic field.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning)

I wonder if it would be physically possible to utilize the Earth's extremely
weak magnetic field to support any meaningful mass?

~~~
outworlder
> I wonder if it would be physically possible to utilize the Earth's extremely
> weak magnetic field to support any meaningful mass?

I bet that THERE IS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

Have we even figured out what magnetic fields _actually_ are? Magnetism, and
magnetic fields, are always defined in terms of what we observe. Usually
called a "force".

For instance: Magnetism, n: "a physical phenomenon produced by the motion of
electric charge, resulting in attractive and repulsive forces between objects"

Ok, fine. What is a "force"? That is also defined in terms of things we
observe. Which is fine. But what we observe, and what something actually is,
are two different things.

I know that Feynman said something along the lines that "we question what
magnetism is, but we never question the fact that your hand cannot go through
a solid object". Well, I do. And that will boil down to other "forces" in the
atoms.

How far have we followed that rabbit hole? I can't find much. If you start
from magnetism, you'll be led to electromagnetism, then eventually to quantum
electrodynamics. Which, from a layman perspective, just shifts which part of
the phenomena we choose to handwave away. So you change from "forces" to
"interactions".

In the unlikely chance that there are theoretical physicists on Hacker News
reading a thread about UFOs, I'd really like to get an idea how much we
actually know about all this. My uneducated hunch is that there is a lot of
undiscovered fundamental physics waiting for us.

~~~
dogma1138
There is sufficient data about it, electromagnetism is probably the best
studied field in physics to date. Magnetism is in it's base not generated due
to the modulation of an electric charge but due to a much more basic attribute
of charged particles, their magnetic moment which is a result of their spin.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_magnetic_moment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_magnetic_moment)
So until you find a zero spin charged particle with a magnetic moment (which
will contradict everything we understand about magnetism) I'll bet on that we
understand it quite well.

As far as UFO's using the Earths magnetic field we can pretty much rule that
out because we know just how weak it is on average it is about 30 Tesla, and
16 Tesla's is about the force required to levitate a frog.
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15420771.600-frog-
def...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15420771.600-frog-defies-
gravity/)

So unless flying saucers weight just about as 2 mid sized frogs I'll take the
bet that if they do exist they use something else to keep them from crashing
in the backyards of hillbillies.

~~~
nonbel
"Earths magnetic field...is on average it is about 30 Tesla, and 16 Tesla's is
about the force required to levitate a frog...So unless flying saucers weight
just about as 2 mid sized frogs I'll take the bet that if they do exist they
use something else to keep them from crashing"

Something about this doesn't make sense. Probably has to do with the answer to
this question: Why don't frogs normally float due to the Earth's magnetic
field?

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sandworm101
Give how tightly wound UFOs, flying saucers and conspiracy theories are,
perhaps it would have been beneficial if they were investigated by anyone
other than the CIA.

The CIA's culture is not one of openness, nor should it be. So anything they
do will be regarded as suspect, any conclusion about UFOs seen as potential
misdirection. The public does not expect the CIA to tell the truth. The NSF,
even NASA, would probably have been a better point person.

As for whether we are being visited, I see no evidence to the contrary. No
practical amount of evidence can ever prove such as thing isn't happening.
From a purely scientific standpoint I'm all for investigations. If NASA wanted
to deliberately hunt for something like Bracewell probes in the outer solar
system, I'd support that effort.

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mchahn
I'm going to get downvoted, but ...

I can't believe that a technically savvy group like HN readers would even
entertain the ridiculous idea of levitation or flying saucers. There is
nothing mysterious about magnetic forces. They have been understood for a
century. And obviously flying saucers are a myth or we'd have evidence.

~~~
jlgaddis
Us humans are a pretty arrogant bunch, always believing we are the smartest
creatures in existence.

What if there are other species or life forms out there that are orders of
magnitude smarter than us and we simply aren't intelligent enough to recognize
signs of them when we see 'em?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

~~~
aftbit
Well, to be fair, absence of evidence _is_ evidence of absence. It's certainly
not _proof_ , but it is evidence. Every observation you make that _does not_
show a phenomena occurring allows you to be more certain that the phenomena
does not occur.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_o...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/)
[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbsenceOfEvidenceIsNotEvidenceOfAbsen...](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbsenceOfEvidenceIsNotEvidenceOfAbsence)

------
bootload
_" The case was considered significant because of the “excellent documentary
evidence in the form of Kodachrome motion picture films (about 1600
frames).”"_

Is there any copy of the the Tremonton film online? [0] Anyone seen it? Not
much from the CIA. [1]

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggeM_JEJtE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggeM_JEJtE)

[1]
[http://www.foia.cia.gov/search/site/Tremonton](http://www.foia.cia.gov/search/site/Tremonton)

~~~
sciguy77
Did some searching and here it is (I think):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of3m8_LvUWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of3m8_LvUWs)

~~~
bootload
here's a good overview by Dr J Allen Hynenk with a better reproduction ~
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn4strYhWok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn4strYhWok)

------
anotheryou
This scene from the movie "kaspar hauser"

[https://youtu.be/ITq02n7y2fI?t=12](https://youtu.be/ITq02n7y2fI?t=12)

is clearly an homage to this picture on the right:

[https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-
archive/...](https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-
archive/2016-featured-story-archive/images/ufo-slider.jpg/image.jpg)

------
wturner
For those interested in a peice of signifigant ( and less known ) history from
the world of flying saucers here is a little gem:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Weygers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Weygers)
and his invention: [http://www.discopter.com/](http://www.discopter.com/)

------
aftbit
So what did (most likely) happen in the Zamora case?

~~~
rangibaby
Another _darn_ weather balloon!

[http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/roswell/](http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/roswell/)

------
emiliobumachar
Relevant xkcd:

[https://xkcd.com/1235/](https://xkcd.com/1235/)

