I did a bit of first-hand UFO account investigation for a while. Lots of people wanted to share their experiences as a narrative that they could control. Unfortunately when I started with a set of questions I had been working on to help me gather info, many of those same people would refuse to discuss further or wouldn't complete the questions.
Eventually I had to conclude that, among other things, a lot of folks are unconsciously concerned about the magic of the experience being taken away. (But maybe they don't realize it unless someone brings up that specific question, and until then they are pretty fiercely protective about what they saw.)
And one time I myself was out for a walk in the middle of the day, and saw what appeared to be a totally legit UFO in the distance. Well that's pretty wild, I thought. A real shape-shifter! A nearby contractor shouted, "am I the only one seeing this sh*t" and I was like "nope" and got out my 25x zoom camera to gather direct evidence!
Result: At high zoom it was obviously wedding-style white balloons in a bundle, resembling a morphing UFO.
I told the other guy what it was, and BOOM the magic in the air was gone. He looked SO disappointed, and I had to admit I felt that way too. By the time I got home I had half convinced myself never to do that again!
While I still leave room for there to be UAPs from wherever, IMO there are just tons and tons of different experiences with so many different phenomena. And most discussions are unfortunately going to hover around this real-vs-made-up dichotomy that's also just super unhelpful.
There were a bunch, including objective descriptions, day of the week, time of day, and also subjective things like how had life changed recently. Plus things like how long had you been living in the area / driving the vehicle you saw it from if applicable.
Even leaving aside arguments for the viability of extraterrestrials coming to our planet and then accidentally being detected by us, I rarely see anyone discuss the boring human aspect of stories like this–namely that there is simply no way that information about a close encounter wouldn't leak.
Even the largest successful government coverups (MKULTRA, Iran-Contra, etc.) required far fewer people to be "in the know" than would be required for something like a crashed or observed alien spacecraft. In addition to this, the people who would have to be in the know would not be a community of high-ranking intelligence officers who are dedicated to their mission. It would be janitors, construction workers, commercial radar operators, and the like. There is no way that people like this could be motivated to keep an existential threat like this under wraps.
Isn't this why it's claimed that people employed by the government were told to intentionally spread some really wild stories? So that it seems like everybody's got a leak to share, reducing the impact of any other legitimate leaks of that nature?
we are living in a post-secret world. any actual secret will just drown in the noise. and if not it will be labeled a conspiracy theory. snowden and assange released secrets - the majority neither knows nor cares. mkultra stuff - tell this on a party and 90% will immediately label you a nut case. then you say - well, just read about it on wikipedia. nobody will care about that, they won't bother checking. but you'll be greated next time with "seen any ufos lately? lol"
well I care buddy! Got any of the weirder stuff to share? I only really know about the extended warrant-less tracking and spying on US citizen. Ya know... the totally normal not-weird-at-all nothing-to-see-here stuff :P
So I got to the bottom of this recent alien hype. It's that Avi Loeb is the department head of astronomy at Harvard and he has turned to be some kind of insincere scientist and grifter and his latest grift is aliens. This has caused all kind of horrible downstream effects and emboldened every alien grifter and delusional ones to step forward with their theories reaching critical mass that the legislature has to acknowledge this army of alien enthusiasts.
>Rubio, a longtime advocate for transparency on the alien issue (...)
Person who already believes in aliens and flying saucers finds stories of aliens and flying saucers credible. Film at 11.
Show me some evidence. Show me wreckage. Show me autopsies and photos of alien bodies. Something that can't be walked back from. You say we've reverse engineered alien tech? Publish the research. Tell us how anti-gravity and warp drives work. Give us the science and a replicable model. I don't care that Marco Rubio heard a thing from a guy, I want the smoking gun.
It's only shocking if you weren't open to seeing the larger picture. There's clear scientific evidence that there's something unexplainable. What that is remains to be seen IMHO.
But I think more than that it's important to be aware that many contractors and govts. conduct tests that aren't public or even inter-agency knowledge. Projects are need to know, even for people with the highest clearances.
It appears that something is happening. It could be a disclosure or a psychological operation (PSYOP) to divert people's attention away from something.
A UFO could be a drone, or small aircraft. There have been a lot of UFO encounters by our armed forces, including those with novel capabilities, and capabilities we do not understand. It is beyond unlikely that any of these are alien to Earth.
"And remember Carol, the last card is the alien card. We’re going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens’, and all of it, he said, is a lie.” -Werner von Braun to Carol Rosin [0]
Some years ago, a psychologist named Bem approached the field of parapsychology (the study of psi, psychic phenomenon) and performed several studies that demonstrated statistically significant effects. Much was made of just how thoroughly rigorous these studies were. They had pre-registration, large n, no p-hacking, you name it - truly unassailable papers whose results are antithetical to common sense and reality.
In the discussions following those papers, one comment stuck with me, though I forget where I read it. It goes like this:
“Coverage of these papers often has titles like ‘Rigorous Scientific Studies Prove Psi is Real’, but I would instead say ‘Psi Proves Rigorous Scientific Studies are False’”
This comes to mind with this UFO stuff because I find myself having a similar reaction. We are being presented with the highest quality of what we might call “media evidence”: reputable and named sources from real and major organizations, on the record, quotes that stand alone (no need to editorialize and distort what they’re saying etc), the whole nine yards. They are scrupulously doing everything right, you could not possibly demand a higher standard of reporting - and yet the contention is antithetical to reality. UFO reporting is basically convincing me that even unbiased honest reporting free from any agenda can’t be relied upon.
(Am I refusing to entertain the possibility that UFOs are real only because I know that if I did entertain the possibility, the evidence would be overwhelming, and that would result in me being forced to believe in UFOs, which I don’t want to do? Not quite. I am partial to Steve Sailer’s ‘Shoebill’ argument: “there is a giant bird that looks like a dinosaur and sounds like a machine gun” is a wild claim I would refuse to believe, but there are now countless hours of high quality video footage of such things existing; where is the good video evidence for UFOs?)
I noticed Josh Hawley shoring up the Grusch allegations recently[1], and now Rubio (TFA links his name to Why Are Florida Republicans Paying a White Supremacist Goon? The saga of Marco Rubio and the Proud Boys[2], BTW)
Is UFO credence starting to split along party lines?
Well, ok, but she isn't coming out of the UFO closet in quite the same way; where Rubio directly bolsters, Gillibrand has "no idea" of the veracity of Grusch's claims[1] and seems to be more focused on getting oversight on "rogue Special Access Programs":
> “We need to just look into whether there are rogue SAP programs that no one is providing oversight for,” says Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who led the Senate’s April UAP hearing. “The goal for me will be to have a hearing on that at some point so that we can assess if these SAP’s actually exist.”
This has quite a different thrust to the statements of Hawley and Rubio, IMO.
Her actions seem exactly consonant with what she was quoted as saying in the article I linked. She seems more interested in the existence of rogue human Special Access Programs than that of space aliens.
> The new UAP language (found in Section 1104 of the bill) would require "any person currently or formerly under contract with the Federal Government that has in their possession material or information provided by or derived from the Federal Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena that formerly or currently is protected by any form of special access or restricted access" to notify the director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) within 60 days of enactment, and to provide within 180 days (six months) "a comprehensive list of all non-earth origin or exotic unidentified anomalous phenomena material" possessed and to make it available to the AARO director for "assessment, analysis, and inspection."
There's no aliens anywhere near earth. There really aren't.
Given the staggering, likely impossible task of traveling between the stars, it's essentially impossible that they'd turn up on a planet with this many people and be so in tune with our technology and media that they manage to stay out of sight entirely, except for some government secret Area 53 base or whatever.
If you think that traveling between the stars is even remotely practical then maybe watch this video that illustrates the distance only to the closest star, let alone any further away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCSIXLIzhzk
The hypothetical aliens don't need to be mortal biological creatures. An advanced probe "crewed" by artificial intelligence could take thousands of years to send copies of itself from one star to the next using propulsion concepts from the 1960s:
They could have have arrived in the solar system 100 million years ago, just running maintenance routines and sending observations back home ever since. They don't need to know anything about human culture to stay largely unobserved, any more than human bird watchers need to know bird culture.
I don't think that this is particularly likely but known physics permits alien visitors if you assume that they are stealthy (not acquisitive) and very patient.
To be honest, the hardest thing for me to believe with this hypothesis is the possibility of a society that can not only survive for 100 million years, but maintain an interest in a subject for that long.
Well, people will continue to wonder if any other places in the universe have sentient beings. Not sure why the question will go away when what caused the question is still around.
I wonder if this stuff comes in cycles. I remember there seemed to be a lot of interest in UFOs in the 90s then it kind of died down. Here we go again, I guess.
David Grusch, A former NGA intelligence officer has recently come forward with allegations that there are waived, unacknowledged Special Access Programs that are reverse engineering non-human technology, and that these programs have not had proper congressional oversight.
Why should we give him the time of day? Well, he was one of the highest intelligence officials in our nation. He was read in to over 2000 special access programs, and he gave Biden the presidential daily briefing for the NGA on a daily basis. He's given 11 hours of testimony under oath to the congressional intelligence committees; giving program names, locations, and people working on those "rogue" programs.
These allegations are incredibly serious. There are only two outcomes from here: either he is lying and this is some big government psy-op, or he is telling the truth. Either way, congress should investigate and get to the bottom of this.
Marco Rubio amplifying Grusch's allegations by confirming that other whistleblowers who have first hand knowledge of the programs have also testified to the fact.
The whistleblower's actual bio, from the Debrief article:
"At the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Grusch served as a Senior Intelligence Capabilities Integration Officer, cleared at the Top Secret/Secret Compartmented Information level, and was the agency’s Senior Technical Advisor for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena analysis/Trans-Medium Issues. From 2016 to 2021, he served with the National Reconnaissance Office as Senior Intelligence Officer and led the production of the NRO director’s daily briefing. Grusch was a GS-15 civilian, the military equivalent of a Colonel."
He was not even close to "one of the highest intelligence officials in our nation". He was almost certainly not "read into over 2000 special access programs" and there's no credible claim that he ever briefed the President, let alone did it daily. He was a mid-level analyst who specialized in UAPs. He testified to Congress about what he heard and what he believes, and both of those could very easily be wrong without there being a "big government psy-op".
Explain this to me: Why would the senate intelligence committee pass an amendment to the NDAA 2024 just 3 weeks after Grusch's allegations went public that include the following:
> "a comprehensive list of all non-earth origin or exotic unidentified anomalous phenomena material" possessed and to make it available to the AARO director for "assessment, analysis, and inspection."
> Rubio told NewsNation that there are others in the intelligence community who have come forward with “firsthand” accounts of UFO hardware. Rubio, a longtime advocate for transparency on the alien issue, claims there are several more intelligence whistleblowers with “high clearances” who have shared similar allegations with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
They might be possibilities. But, the senate intelligence committee recently passed an amendment to the NDAA 2024 just 3 weeks after Grusch went public to include the following:
> The new UAP language (found in Section 1104 of the bill) would require "any person currently or formerly under contract with the Federal Government that has in their possession material or information provided by or derived from the Federal Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena that formerly or currently is protected by any form of special access or restricted access" to notify the director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) within 60 days of enactment, and to provide within 180 days (six months) "a comprehensive list of all non-earth origin or exotic unidentified anomalous phenomena material" possessed and to make it available to the AARO director for "assessment, analysis, and inspection."
The United States government also took accusations of satanic sex cults in the US very seriously, funding protection programs, conferences, and research. Turns out that was all the product of flawed investigation, but representatives knew their constituents were concerned and wanted to be seen doing something (or at least wanted to avoid accusations of doing nothing).
Do you have a source on that? Did very highly credentialed and trusted intelligence officers come out and testify under oath that there were satanic sex cults?
There is a big difference here. Grusch has given specific locations and names of people that congress can subpoena. Marco Rubio has confirmed that other highly credentialed whistleblowers with first hand knowledge are confirming Grusch’s claims. I believe we will know soon enough whether this is real or not.
In the case of the satanic panic, people (including well-credentialed physiologists, sociologists, and criminal investigators) also testified under oath that the abuses had occurred. People also testified and made specific accusations before congress.
And Rubio has said (intentionally or not) very demonstrably false things in the past. I wouldn’t trust him to always be accurate.
Let’s just look at the facts here. Grusch has given congressmen locations of where these alleged craft are held, program names that the SAPs are hiding under, and names of people involved. Congress could very easily get to the bottom of this by appointing a special envoy with a full top secret SCI clearance to go investigate these locations, and they could subpoena the people that Grusch has pointed out who are involved with the programs. This could be resolved in a week if they would just do that, so why not let them investigate this really quickly?
> These allegations are incredibly serious. There are only two outcomes from here: either he is lying and this is some big government psy-op, or he is telling the truth. Either way, congress should investigate and get to the bottom of this.
This is what is so frustrating about everyone dismissing this so off hand. Don't you at least want to get to the bottom of how large numbers of high ranking government officials have been convinced - or convinced to lie to us about - the US government being in possession of craft.
_Something_ is happening. Why don't we find out what?
Was _something_ happening with "Havana Syndrome"? In the end, doesn't seem so.
In both cases Occam's Razor points to a bunch of people simply being fooled by their senses and doubling down on that time and time again. Meanwhile we'll waste a whole bunch of money chasing phantoms.
That's the problem with the Havana Syndrome -- it's all "from what I've heard", AKA hearsay.
There is simply no scientifically credible evidence of any malfeasance. The fact that the government agencies have not come out outright and said as much, can be easily explained by the fact that they have nothing to gain by debunking it.
You can rest assured that there are no longer any CIA agents assigned to investigating the Havana events, because they have long ago concluded that there is no substance to the story. They'll never make a press release about such a non-event.
Professor Gary Nolan of Stanford doesn’t seem to think Havana syndrome is a “non event” considering he was contacted by the CIA to do brain scans of the victims.
I agree it’s frustrating because the entire situation is classified, but this is how the intelligence community works. We can’t show our hands by making reports to the public. I hope one day we can.
There is a discussion in congress about trying to change the classification system since the default is to over-classify everything, but we will see if that happens.
You can find discrepancies in anything if you want to enough.
I can’t convince you of anything because all of the data is classified or under HIPPA. All we can do is trust the highly credentialed people about their general findings. Gary Nolan is a world renowned pathologist that has started several NASDAQ companies. The CIA sought him out to investigate Havana syndrome because he created a new MRI machine (I think? Some kind of brain scanning device) that is world class.
I don’t follow Havana syndrome closely enough specifically because we are less likely to see that data than we are the upcoming revelations from congress of some non-human technology.
Would you mind emailing Gary (gnolan@drowlab.com) with your concerns? I’ve gotten a response from him on some concerns I had with an interview he did. He’s a very nice fellow and he tries to respond to every inquiry from w what I understand. If you send a respectful letter asking detailing your thoughts on the public discussion of Havana syndrome and ask him some general questions about the work he did with patients experiencing it, I am certain he will respond (albeit probably not in a timely manner).
> Analysis has determined that the objects retrieved are “of exotic origin (non-human intelligence, whether extraterrestrial or unknown origin) based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures,” he said.
Doesn't this seem like science-fiction driven psyops? I am not a physicist or material scientist, so I would love to be corrected. Per my understanding, molecules from one end of the universe are the same as molecules from another end of the universe. I guess maybe they're doing some kind of element-wise dating or mass spectrometry, but again I am unsure how such an analysis would indicate non-Earth origins. What exactly is meant by "vehicle morphologies"? There are plenty of sci-fi designers who can dream up awesome, ridiculous vehicles that would seem like they're meant to be used by non-humans. I guess I am inclined to assume that these artifacts were placed by adversaries precisely for distracting with psyops.
> Doesn't this seem like science-fiction driven psyops?
This whole thing is *way* weirder than anything else I’ve ever experienced in my life.
This certainly could be one giant psy-op, but then we have to wonder why it would go so deep as to have people testify under oath to congress about it and convince the senators to unanimously pass legislation to force disclosure of “non-earth origin” technology to them. What’s the reason to go this deep just to confuse an adversary?
Then again, what if there is something way weirder going on here?
Regardless of what the outcome is, I think everyone should be in support of congress trying to get to the bottom of it.
> "There are only two outcomes from here: either he is lying and this is some big government psy-op, or he is telling the truth."
Nah there are other outcomes: they might be lying and it's not a big government psy-op, or they might be misinformed or deluded or caught up in a hysteria about things that are neither psy-ops nor the things that they say they are.
> "a comprehensive list of all non-earth origin or exotic unidentified anomalous phenomena material" possessed and to make it available to the AARO director for "assessment, analysis, and inspection."
> Why would he lie to congress under oath? He would go to jail.
This one had me rolling on the floor laughing. Remember when James Clapper lied to Congress about PRISM[1] and there were zero consequences? I'm pretty sure that, in practice, the consequences of lying to Congress are slightly less severe than those for parking illegally. Especially if you have friends in politics.
I would argue the situation here is different. Clapper used politically adept language to avoid saying what surveillance capabilities the NSA possessed. Here, David Grusch has given specific program names, locations, and people involved with these programs and is alleging these programs have not been properly disclosed to congress for over 80 years. His claims were found credible and urgent by the ICIG which is why he was referred to the congressional intelligence committees. All of that, combined with Rubio saying other whistleblowers have corroborated Grusch's claims make this all the more serious.
I'm not trying to explain why he would lie to congress or why senators do things. I was just giving other options that I think are more likely than the dichotomy that you laid out.
If I'm honest your dichotomy reminds me of some evangelists who are like 'either this guy was literally God or so many clergy have been misinformed or lying to an absurdly implausible degree for centuries or millennia, checkmate atheists' I'm not saying you are making that exact argument, but that's how your dichotomy sounds to me.
I understand, and I'm trying to explain how your options don't make sense in the context of the senators' recent actions.
I take offense to your edit. I'm not being a religious zealot saying God has to exist. If you understood anything about the US security clearance system, you would know that everyone has to undergo a rigorous psychological evaluation every 5 years to keep their Top Secret SCI clearance. You can not be unwell and be an intelligence officer at the level of Grusch. The likelihood of him being mentally unfit for that job and lying under oath to congress about these claims is extremely low. Also, If he is intentionally lying, he will go to jail.
All of that plus what the senators have recently done, we have a limited set of options for what could be the case.
> "I take offense to your edit. I'm not being a religious zealot saying God has to exist. "
I take offense to your edit that takes offense to my edit. I'm not accusing you of being a religious zealot saying God has to exist. I had even gone out of my way in my post to clarify that, in case you had a hard time understanding analogies. At this point I have to imagine that you understand my point and you are just pretending to think that I am calling you a religious zealot as an excuse to get more offended.
No, I just don’t like being compared to someone believing something blind. If Grusch was alleging that there are undisclosed programs reverse engineering other country technology, it would be taken seriously. But the subject brings stigma and that’s what needs to change. We shouldn’t be afraid to investigate these claims just because they seem incredibly outlandish.
> everyone has to undergo a rigorous psychological evaluation every 5 years to keep their Top Secret SCI clearance. You can not be unwell and be an intelligence officer at the level of Grusch.
You can, for up to five years.
Assuming that the evaluation actually catches whatever illness you might have.
I’m not saying anyone is unwell. I was commenting on the two sentences I quoted. They are not consistent with each other: the second does not follow from the first.
You’re not directly saying Grusch is unwell, but you’re certainly insinuating it. And you’re dodging the other facts, like the ICIG deeming the claims as credible and [urgent (50 U.S.C. § 3033(k)(5)(G))](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3033)
I'm not surprised that congress told someone to make a list or that someone might give misinformed testimony to congress. I think those are more likely than aliens or psyop.
Why are you ignoring the fact that the senators have been convinced to add provisions regarding "non-earth origin" technology. That's a significant claim
> You can not be unwell and be an intelligence officer at the level of Grusch.
My man, any number of unwell ppl have occupied high level positions. Michael Flynn is nuttier than squirrel shit. F’in lunatic Trump held the very highest office. Point to any of the crazies that are associated with either of those raging assholes and it’s nothing but mental illnesses and outright crazy goals and ideas.
This situation may be a bit different. Trump was president and the clearance system begins and ends with his authority. He dictated Flynn and Kushner receipt Top Secret SCI clearances despite them not being able to pass the background checks.
My interpretation is that the reports he's heard were first-hand, i.e. the person providing the report to Rubio had the experience being reported.
The quotes are to emphasize the word as a way to distinguish his assertion from deeper hearsay; what Rubio means by first-hand is emphasized with some discussion in the originating interview [0, video].
Yeah, I hate imprecise wording like this too, but I think the title is technically correct.
The title says that Rubio heard [someone else's] first-hand account of the situation. That would make it a second-hand account for Rubio, yeah. But it is still correct to say that Rubio was told by someone their first-hand account.
It's first hand when Rubio's contact told him, second hand when Rubio told the media. Rubio received a first hand account of what his contact believed they saw, and spread it as a second hand account of what someone told him they saw.
I really think we need to distinguish between UFOs and Aliens.
UFOs you would expect to be increasingly commonplace as drone and similar technology improves allowing hobbyists as well as domestic and foreign governments to test new form factors.
Aliens however is a different story as surely the conspiracy needed to cover something like that up over decades would be impossible.
Eventually I had to conclude that, among other things, a lot of folks are unconsciously concerned about the magic of the experience being taken away. (But maybe they don't realize it unless someone brings up that specific question, and until then they are pretty fiercely protective about what they saw.)
And one time I myself was out for a walk in the middle of the day, and saw what appeared to be a totally legit UFO in the distance. Well that's pretty wild, I thought. A real shape-shifter! A nearby contractor shouted, "am I the only one seeing this sh*t" and I was like "nope" and got out my 25x zoom camera to gather direct evidence!
Result: At high zoom it was obviously wedding-style white balloons in a bundle, resembling a morphing UFO.
I told the other guy what it was, and BOOM the magic in the air was gone. He looked SO disappointed, and I had to admit I felt that way too. By the time I got home I had half convinced myself never to do that again!
While I still leave room for there to be UAPs from wherever, IMO there are just tons and tons of different experiences with so many different phenomena. And most discussions are unfortunately going to hover around this real-vs-made-up dichotomy that's also just super unhelpful.