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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026

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The Dept of War has released a new batch of UAP documents at https://war.gov/ufo/

This is supposedly the first in a series of releases that will come out in the coming months. Trump has made repeated comments that he intends to declassify what the government has in UAP and that the public can make up its own mind.

There are many pages of documentation being sifted through this morning. The initial reaction seems to be that this is largely more of the same grainy video that we’ve previously had - with a few key exceptions. The big on being reporting by Peter Doocey is NASA records (picture and communications logs) from the Apollo missions. NASA astronauts reporting and confirming observations of very bright luminescent angular objects tumbling in the moons atmosphere. Also appearing formation in some videos. The NASA comms logs seem significant. Trained military and science professionals of the highest order. Reporting that they see a bogey out the window. Ground control asks “is that the booster?”. Astronaut says “it’s a bogey”.

From a culture war perspective, it’s going to be interesting to see how politics impacts this. Already the /ufo/ subreddit is completely fixated on the fact that Trump is behind this and that it’s a bit distraction from the Epstein files. While there is no smoking gun here, it’s obviously an escalation of the disclosure trend that started nearly 10 years ago. There are reports that subsequent release will include the infamous 46 HD videos that congress has seen. Also reports of potential anomalous (ET?) bodies.

We’re also in a very unfortunate position where conspiracy, uap, and other paranormal phenomena have been politicized. It’s impossible for me to believe that ScienceTM will take any real interest in this. I wonder when that dam will break. They are so invested in the pre-disclosure narrative that they will not update without something truly shocking being released.

It’s understandable that people remain skeptical. That being said, there is now an overwhelming amount of evidence out there that something is going on outside of what mainstream science will recognize. There are countless government insiders that have told their stories.

I personally don’t claim to know what to make of all of this. But I continue to update my priors on the following:

  1. There are NHI entities or technology regularly interacting with earth.

  2. There are one or more ET civilizations that are currently on earth and have formal relationships with various states.

  3. There are public and private organizations that have advanced technologies beyond conventional energy and aerospace tech.

  4. There are terrestrial breakaway civilizations from the deep past or present with otherwise unknown technology.

  5. There are paranormal phenomena and metaphysical entities that are the source of all of these events.

How about you all? Anyone else adjusting lately?

Edit. Link to nasa logs.

https://x.com/the_astral_/status/2052729234435481632?s=46

There are countless government insiders that have told their stories.

I do not doubt it. The problem is, I did not trust the USG's scientific rigor even before it loudly announced that paracetamol causes autism.

The fact that there are credible reports (I think) of the spooks investigating extrasensory perception in the cold war does not imply that ESP exists, the better explanation is that the USG wasted a few millions investigating a dead end (possibly well aware of the odds, just covering their base in case the Soviets got their first, but possibly also because they had true believers advocating for it, it would not have been the first time the USG wasted money).

NASA astronauts reporting and confirming observations of very bright luminescent angular objects tumbling in the moons atmosphere.

For anything observed during the Apollo missions, if I believed unexplained a bunch of people saw, I would have a lot of believing to do. Space in mind-boggling big. The surface area of the Moon is larger than the area of the USSR was. If Apollo astronauts just saw an alien spacecraft by looking out of the window, then either the spacecraft was attracted by them or the Moon is abuzz with alien spacecrafts.

(Also, the Moon's atmosphere is famously even thinner than the evidence for aliens.)

I am skeptical on priors. The aliens would have to have some basic competence at staying hidden (otherwise we would have seen CNN reports of them landing their UFO in Paris and going on a sightseeing tour. But also not too much competence, because the USG caught wind of them. Unless the aliens are big fans of God's own country, this implies that other countries also have evidence. And yet they all formed conspiracies to keep the knowledge secret, but were not successful enough to destroy the belief in aliens.

Aliens who have interstellar travel probably also have to teach one or two other things to mankind -- think Keltham in Cheliax. You might argue that it is impossible to know which technologies are actually alien origin -- perhaps they literally gifted control of fire to mankind, or taught them to build pyramids -- but none of the recent stuff feels likely. LLMs are mostly a consequence of the advances in semiconductors which have been going on for 50 years. If the USG (or any other government) has controlled fusion, or room temperature superconductors, or material with the tensile strength required for space elevators, they surely spend a lot of time keeping their mouth shut. But if there is no technological advantage to be had, then why not tell the world? Actually, with the current US president, I doubt he could keep his mouth shut even if there was an advantage to keep the aliens secret. He would bask in the attention of showing off an alien origin room temperature superconductor as a lizard basks in the midday sun.

The real question is if this is supposed to distract the voters from the Epstein files, or from how the Iran war is going.

but possibly also because they had true believers advocating for it, it would not have been the first time the USG wasted money).

This phenomenon isn't unique to either the USG or even the supernatural.

In China, a lot of the insurance system covers Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is pretty much just bullshit. Here in the US, I know people who have gotten chiropractic coverage under their own insurance. Acupuncture is also something apparently covered by many private insurance companies, despite also being highly suspect. Some apparently are even covering Reiki now.

Point here being that interest groups who believe they're effective push hard for their inclusion and treatment as "real medicine" and there's not really a strong lobby against it. It's not like you'll gonna be able to convince the TCM/Chiropractic/Acupuncture/Reiki/etc believers otherwise that easily after all, they're passionate and committed in a way that opposition isn't. If you have a bunch of people who really think that crystals or halo therapy or whatever are better than normal mainstream medicine, then you have a lobby pushing for their inclusion.

Because there's a bunch of very very passionate people in support, I don't expect spending and focus on ESP, or "super foods" or ghost hunting or whatever other nonsense to end anytime soon in the same way that coverage of (what I consider to be bullshit) "traditional medicine" and other beliefs is being actively expanded by insurances. It's just part of living in society, sometimes you have to accommodate what you personally think is bullshit because large numbers of people believe it.

You might think "well just ban things that are stupid and bad" but the monkey paw curls and all of a sudden the vaccines are banned. Whoops, turns out other people have different views on what is stupid and bad.

In China, a lot of the insurance system covers Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is pretty much just bullshit. Here in the US, I know people who have gotten chiropractic coverage under their own insurance. Acupuncture is also something apparently covered by many private insurance companies, despite also being highly suspect. Some apparently are even covering Reiki now.

None of this is bullshit, these techniques obviously work and I have benefited from them as well as millions of other people. If they didn't work, people wouldn't use them or pay for them, obviously.

Even if it's just 'placebo', whatever that actually means, the techniques work.

If they didn't work, people wouldn't use them or pay for them, obviously.

This is not obvious. You can sell something that does not work at all, not even as a placebo, as long as your buyers are uninformed enough.

Suppose I know that a certail illness passes on its own in about a week in most cases, but my target audience doesn't. I could sell them a treatment that doesn't hasten or lighten the course of the illness in any way, then claim credit when after a week, the illness does indeed pass.

Being a valid placebo requires that there is a measurable benefit from the sugar pill compared to no treatment.