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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2141 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 21, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why does the bulk of the evidence of extraterrestrial life that people focus on recently seem to come from the government rather than from scientists? It seems that every time you listen to the latest news on the topic, the government is providing wild claims while mainstream scientists seem to accept or provide nearly nothing as evidence of ET life.

I usually like Ross Douthat but I recently watched his video with Diana Pasulka regarding UFOs and ETs. I am not predisposed to making accusations of government plants everywhere but the interview was so bizarre that it felt like she was just a plant to sow chaos and confusion in the space to me. I have always felt that the term "UAP" was suspicious as it is exactly the sort of SEO hashtag you would create if an entity wanted to track and analyze a certain specific narrative or conversation around a topic that already exists but within a specific context (like government-synthesized data.)

I have always had nightmares about UFOs and found aliens very scary. Have any of you ever seen a UFO or encountered an alien?

It's fairly straightforward. If a normal guy goes for a walk and sees something unusual he either writes it off as nothing to worry about or tells someone about it, in which case he's just some guy who saw something and probably didn't know what he was looking at. If a scientist sees something unusual and it has nothing to do with what they're studying they write it off and ignore it. If a Navy pilot sees something he can't identify he has to file an official report because it might be enemy aircraft or something and it gets put in a file that's invariably classified for obvious reasons. The result is is that there's a small trove of documents that play right into the hands of people who are convinced that aliens exist and there's a huge government conspiracy to cover it up.

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