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What does the Motte think about UFOs/UAPs? I ask because there was a relatively big instance of "disclosure" today within the UFO community. A former senior US intelligence figure (who allegedly had enough high level classifications to report directly to the president) has apparently stated to Congress and journalists that the US has recovered "non-human technology."
From the article:
I figure that most people in this community are good rationalists and dismiss UFOs/UAPs/"non-human intelligences" out of hand. Does this kind of evidence change your mind at all? What would?
For those who, like me, think this (in conjunction with the massive amount of other evidence for UFOs/UAPs/etc.) is fairly good evidence that this phenomenon is real, what might be the social and political implications of this? It's kind of hard for me to imagine anything changing our current political stalemate and trajectory, and I can definitely imagine a situation where the US completely admits to the existence of "non-human intelligences" only for the story to be overtaken the next day when Trump says something allegedly racist, or whatever. And unless reverse-engineered non-human technology starts seeping into consumer electronics or something, it's hard to see it affecting people that much on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine news that could be more important.
Calling it now: half a coconut a tool-using octopus swam in from one island to another.
I am always amused and puzzled when American spooks begin this stuff. It's one of the great mysteries of life why they do it at all and yet always end it as a nothingburger. I used to have a conspiratorial theory about psyop overcapacity, but at this point I'm allowing that it's some running gag, a nostalgic tradition born of ancient superstition nobody seriously believes in. Maybe we should create a holiday.
I think there's probably a huge amount of UFO folklore going around in aerospace and intelligence communities.
One of the things about UFO debates that has surprised me is to many Americans seem to give absolute credence to intelligence officials, pilots etc. about this stuff; simply the fact that some pilot says that he saw a craft making impossible maneuvers and zooming at ludicrous speeds is sufficient evidence about alien activity, since this is an AMERICAN HERO PILOT, he couldn't possibly be making stuff up or misinterpreting what he saw, can he?
I would assume that aerospace and intelligence communities would be expectionally likely to be true believers about UFO matters and have a very light standard for accepting evidence on this field, simply because these fields would draw in the types that specifically want to become an astronaut and/or a spy to "learn the truth" about aliens, and even the others would be affected by the general culture and folklore created by these types, especially since intelligence types, in particular, already sort of live in a paranoid X-files world and are probably privy to the idea that the intelligence community possesses secret info that normies can't be allowed to know/wouldn't understand.
One of the pilots who has claimed to see UFOs is David "Sex" Fravor. (Who, incidentally, was already a bit famous from being in a documentary aboard an aircraft carrier in the 2000's.)
On the Joe Rogan podcast not too long ago, he admitted to pranking people into thinking they had seen UFOs. He said he would spot campers by their campfires, put his fighter jet's engines to idle and glide in quietly and invisibly until he was over top of them. Then he would pull up sharply, kick in the afterburners and climb vertically away from them. So, the campers would see lights appear in the sky out of nowhere and then shoot straight up and disappear. I don't recall if he was able to verify that it worked and people actually reported UFOs or not.
So, he had admitted to deliberately trying to trick people into thinking they had seen aliens, as a joke, but for some reason people still believe him when he tells other UFO stories.
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