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United States News

Latest US Defense-Intelligence Report on UFOs To Be Made Public Soon (reuters.com) 58

A declassified version of the latest U.S. defense-intelligence report on UFOs -- rebranded in official government parlance as "unidentified aerial phenomena" -- is expected to be made public in the coming days. From a report: But UFO enthusiasts hoping for the government to judge any of the hundreds of U.S. military sightings under scrutiny as visits by extraterrestrial spacecraft are likely to be disappointed. The most recent incidents under review are attributed to a mix of foreign surveillance, including relatively ordinary drone flights, and airborne clutter such as weather balloons, The New York Times reported last week, citing U.S. officials familiar with a classified analysis that was due for delivery to Congress on Monday, Oct. 31.

Many of an older set of unexplained aerial phenomena, or UAPs, are still officially categorized as unexplained, with too little data analysis to draw conclusions, the Times said. "There is no single explanation that addresses the majority of UAP reports," U.S. Defense Department spokesperson Sue Gough said in a statement this week. "We are collecting as much data as we can, following the data where it leads, and will share our findings whenever possible."

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Latest US Defense-Intelligence Report on UFOs To Be Made Public Soon

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  • by splutty ( 43475 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @09:46AM (#63024217)

    They're not aliens.

    • Re:Spoiler. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TheReaperD ( 937405 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @09:59AM (#63024259)

      Yeah, if aliens from an advanced civilization had come to our planet, they would have made damn sure were didn't see them either until it's too late (if hostile) or not at all (if peaceful). This whole idea that there have been human observable alien spacecraft on Earth is beyond absurd and only believed by the most unhinged of people. Of course, it's fun to fantasize, but let's be real here. First off any radio signals we sent out haven't even reached very many other solar systems (I think I can count them on one hand) so the only reason an alien spacecraft would be watching us is anthropological research (the idea that we're any form of a threat is laughable) and if that was the case, they would NOT interfere with us as that would defeat the point of the research. The reality is, we don't want an advanced alien world to find us until we're ready and we're, at least, a few centuries off from that, if not a few millennia!

      • > This whole idea that there have been human observable alien spacecraft on Earth is beyond absurd and only believed by the most unhinged of people.

        Do you hide from ants or address their queen directly?

      • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Yeah, if aliens from an advanced civilization had come to our planet, they would have made damn sure were didn't see them either until it's too late (if hostile) or not at all (if peaceful).

        The trouble with attributing human concepts to aliens, is that well, they are aliens .. in every sense of the word.

        First off any radio signals we sent out haven't even reached very many other solar systems (I think I can count them on one hand)

        We have been generating radio signals for more than 100 years. According to this site [lovethenightsky.com]

        there are 59,722 stars visible with a telescope within 100 light-years of our solar system. Of these, 471 shine at magnitude 6.0 or brighter, making them visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.

        So if you can count them on one hand, then either you are delusional, or have very weird (by human standards) hands.

        • The trouble with attributing human concepts to aliens, is that well, they are aliens .. in every sense of the word.

          Not really. For them to build spacecraft and take interest in our human civilization, there would have to be a lot of similarities that spark said interest. Sure, they're likely to have different values, but you don't let an enemy prepare before an attack, no matter how powerless they are against you, if for no other reason than not giving you a head start to run and hide. If you're doing anthropological research, typically you do not want to interfere as your interference causes changes that make the da

          • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

            If you're doing anthropological research, typically you do not want to interfere as your interference causes changes that make the data useless.

            Again you are assigning human attributes to aliens.

            We didn't start intentionally sending out signals into space until around 1974, though some of our earlier signals to satellites and spacecraft might make it to an alien world intact, but we can't be certain. Now, how many habitable worlds are there in that range?

            According to this site [atlasoftheuniverse.com] there are roughly 1400 star systems within 50 light years.

            And "habitable" worlds is a straw man, because 1) we have no clue what alien life looks like and 2) we haven't yet even found any exoplanets that could support human life.

            Also because any aliens are alien, we have no clue about their technology, so the assumption of where *our* radio signals have to go in order to be detected by aliens is itself an arrogant assumption. For all

          • but you don't let an enemy prepare before an attack, no matter how powerless they are against you, if for no other reason than not giving you a head start to run and hide.

            That's not even true in the context of human history - for example, ancient Romans used a category of priests/ambassadors named fetials [wikipedia.org] to declare war. The declaration of war was formalized, and gave the enemy plenty of time to prepare, if they didn't want to do or pay pay whatever Rome asked for.

            a radio broadcast is not going to survive a trip into interstellar space intact in any form and will look like background radiation by the time it reaches an alien world

            That's much too categorical an affirmation - are you saying that all the SETI efforts over the years were pointless from the beginning? Don't you think the scientists and engineers involved had some idea about both

        • First off any radio signals we sent out haven't even reached very many other solar systems (I think I can count them on one hand)

          We have been generating radio signals for more than 100 years. According to this site [lovethenightsky.com]

          there are 59,722 stars visible with a telescope within 100 light-years of our solar system. Of these, 471 shine at magnitude 6.0 or brighter, making them visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.

          So if you can count them on one hand, then either you are delusional, or have very weird (by human standards) hands.

          Or we found the alien that's trying to hide.

      • >Yeah, if aliens from an advanced civilization had come to our planet...

        Why do you assume the aliens are from an advanced civilization? If you look at the UFO reports, what we see the things do is flock (i.e. fly in formation), dart away suddenly and hang out near large concentrations of metal and radiation.

        For my money, these things may have evolved in space, but they don't show any signs of being smarter than the average guppy.

      • > Yeah, if aliens from an advanced civilization had come to our planet, they would have made damn sure were didn't see them

        Not necessarily. They may be too lazy or distracted to enforce their Prime Directive. Just because you are grey, have a large cranium, and futuristic looking doesn't mean you are efficient or above office politics.

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        A brief comment, you cannot get here from there, space is mind boggling big. Ah, but they may have "advanced" technology. That's nice, I have a pink unicorn in the backyard.

      • What makes you think the aliens aren't complete fuck-ups? They came here, after all...

      • by jythie ( 914043 )
        Why would it be absurd? Just because they are alien does not mean they are magic.
        • There's a quote somewhere about advanced technologies and magic that would imply otherwise... It's actually exemplified by cargo cults in New Guinea, which apparently thought the radios and airplanes of WWII GIs really were magic.

      • "anthropological research": There was a SciFi short story ("The Hole Man", by Larry Niven) in which humans found an abandoned alien outpost on Mars. The aliens had been doing an anthropological study of the Neandertals (not clear why they were on Mars, but it was necessary for the plot line).

    • They're not aliens.

      On the contrary, if you were an alien visiting this planet, how would you configure your cloaking device?

      The obvious choice would be set it to impersonate a weather balloon!

      Therefore, the inescapable conclusion is that it must be aliens.

    • They're not aliens.

      Not aliens. They're "Undocumented Guests" from outer space.

    • by jwhyche ( 6192 )
      but that is not what the man on the History channel keeps telling me.
    • The Christian God is an Alien (extra terristial how ever you would like to describe it) and a lot of people beleive hes real.

  • during daylight Just looked like your typical UFO report frankly. After about 30 seconds however it resolved into an airliner probably at 10K (perhaps with an unusual or no paint job) that was just in the right place for the low winter down sun to reflect off its very shiny fuselage direct into my eye for quite a while at a brightest that hid every other aspect of the plane.

  • Disinformation and misinformation experts, the US Government, cannot be trusted. However, call me an idiot, but I'm still interested to see what they will say.
    • You're probably an idiot: there is no useful information to be gained here, the only reason to be interested is as in "I'm curious about the new scifi drama coming out soon"
    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Government, cannot be trusted...but I'm still interested to see what they will say.

      I'd bet a paycheck it will be "Venus, weather balloons, and swamp-gas reflections." It's got them off the hook for 6 decades, might as well make it 7 (whether true or not).

      • David Fravor made me believe something is happening. I wanna know what, damnit. Sucks being an ignorant pleb.
    • I take it you don't trust any other government in the world either?

      • I trust some more, others less. Generally, I'm most trusting of those who respect individual rights. I want them to show me, not tell me. Besides, why should we trust them? They have an incredibly bad track record. If governments were individuals they'd be diagnosed as pathological liars.
  • https://www.livescience.com/uf... [livescience.com]

    So, despite the theft of our designs and secrets, the Chinese are still using conventional tech and weapons when they have vastly superior tech of their own?

    Drone swarms around ships? Yeah, I can see that as a possibility given how swarms can fly now. But, the other stuff going back pre-1990? Nope.

  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @10:25AM (#63024339) Journal

    Something moving at normal speeds or hovering can easily be explained as balloons and spy drones. It's those that appear to violate physics by changing direction really fast or zipping away faster than (known) human technology that are the real curiosity. Maybe it's mistaken identity or radar glitches, but that's still important to find out, for we don't want glitchy radar or to find out too late China has Mach 6 drones.

    • Your concern presumes that only America has access to the 22 year old 2nd lieutenant who barely understands how to interpret the blinky lights on his screen. And that such advances in incompetence are beyond the wildest dreams of the PLA.

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        I'm assuming nothing. If pilots are making dumb mistakes, we want to know that fact. We should find out either way if "zippers" turn out to be aliens or poorly-trained pilots reading screens wrong. Both are "concerning". It's not "aliens or bust".

        (What's with slashdot's delayed "working" prompt? Give us old-fashioned HTML please, not Ajerx shit. Did they get "working" from original Trek?)"

        • Give us old-fashioned HTML please, not Ajerx shit.

          Switch to Classic, it is as old-fashioned as it gets.

    • Right. The new NDAA language has Congress telling DoD to stop bothering them with obvious knowns and report back with analysis of the unknowns.

      Each year DoD interprets the new language in the most obstructionist possible manner.

  • The problem is they have the motive to lie to keep the secrets secret. Even if it's a plausible lie like "Weather Balloon" for their eventually reviled "Spy Balloon." How is anyone supposed to believe any of it when the "truth" could be another lie to hide the "real" truth? Best to say nothing.
  • Anyone remember just a coupe of years ago, when articles like this, would be completely ignored. UFO phenomenon was not even given the status of a conspiracy theory and was thought to be mostly fictional. But now that the US & other governments have more or less confirmed the existence of UFOs, the deniers have started come out of the woodwork.

    Either I am very glad to see all this come to light. Maybe we can get back on the space-faring path that was abandoned in the 1970s. It would be so cool to be
    • no one ever denied UFO's exist, they're just flying objects not identified.

      Zero evidence we've been visited by beings from another planet, sorry.

    • No, I don't remember that. What I remember is that any mention of UFOs created a great deal of interest, both from deniers (like myself) and from True Believers.

  • Haha. If Aliens wanted to invade us from outer space, they would go to Mexico first, then come across the border.

  • The only reason this stuff is kept secret is because the intelligence agencies don't want people to know just how incompetent they are -- lots of stuff that has been seen, but they can't identify it. It's not little green men, it's just little men in the intelligence agency.

  • that I just started rereading Footfall for the first time in 20 years...
  • Just mentioning this on record again for posterity, since most of the stupid braindead counter-arguments posted here about the possibility of sentient non-human entities is based on the assumption that they'd have had to travel by foot from the nearest galaxy or some shit...

    THEY WERE ALREADY HERE.
    Also, portals are real.

    That is all.

    • ALSO: they're not like hyper-intelligent. They're dumber than a sack of hammers, they just inherited very ancient technology and so far have been (barely) smart enough to keep it hidden, but there's literally thousands of Satanists who go to "parties" 4x a year where this technology is exhibited and abused for both amusement and profit, largely touted as "magic" but really mostly just used to abduct people for slave labor/sex trafficking. In this country alone, tens of thousands of people go missing every y

      • Sorry, one more thing, I guess that was not all; I'm just adding this reply to predict that these posts will be modded down by the same Satanists, only because occasionally when I predict that in advance they don't, just to prove me wrong.

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