Pentagon study finds no sign of alien life

[Orphia Nay]

“WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon study released Friday that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the last century found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence, a conclusion consistent with past U.S. government efforts to assess the accuracy of claims that have captivated public attention for decades.

“The study from the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office analyzed U.S. government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more popularly known as UFOs. It found no evidence that any of them involved signs of alien life, or that the U.S. government and private companies had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and had conspired to hide it from the public.

“It dispelled claims, for instance, that a former CIA official had been involved in managing the movement of and experimentation on extraterrestrial technology and said a purported 1961 intelligence community document about the supposed extraterrestrial nature of UFOs was actually inauthentic.”

https://apnews.com/article/9a32aba88eb610cf16b2e9f0908704b3

And the likelihood of that settling the matter for ufo believers is about as likely as aliens existing.

 

[jt512]

“WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon study released Friday that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the last century found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence...

A damn fine use of our tax dollars.

 

[PitPat]

First thing's first.

Your abductors being fairly humanoid, sucked up under a middle glow light, l really thought and maybe some butt stuff.

You'd think that if they mastered speed faster than light that they probably know how humans' butts work.

 

[Pixel42]

The Guardian article goes into the report in some depth.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/08/pentagon-ufo-report-hiding-aliens

The Kona Blue project in particular was news to me:

Despite its conclusions, the report nevertheless revealed that the government did at one point consider a program to reverse-engineer alien technology. The program, titled Kona Blue, was proposed to the Department of Homeland Security and was supported by people who believed the US government was concealing alien technology.

“This proposal gained some initial traction at DHS to the point where a 35 Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP) was officially requested to stand up this program, but it was eventually rejected by DHS leadership for lacking merit,” the report said, adding that the program’s supporters never provided empirical evidence to support their claims.

The report said that AARO investigators found no evidence that US companies “ever possessed off-world technology” and that a claim by an interviewee who named a former military officer as having allegedly touched an extraterrestrial spacecraft “is inaccurate”.

“The claim was denied on the record by the named former officer who recounted a story of when he touched an F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter that could have been misconstrued by the interviewee, though the named former officer does not recall having this conversation with the interviewee,” the report said.

 

[Darat]

I don't think they've looked very hard.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

No FTL travel essentially means quarantine for biologicals. The only travel that makes any sense is an attempt to leave a dying home world using generation ships, though in-system planet forming or the use of large and modular orbiting constructs for aggregation and disaggregation of space habitats may often make more sense than interstellar travel.

Bottom line, biological aliens visiting Earth makes no sense whatsoever. What does make sense is to note that there is yet much detail to be learned about nearby space and about how fast-moving objects may behave when glancing through the atmosphere.

 

[SpitfireIX]

They're obviously covering up because they know the American public can't handle the truth.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

This is a follow up to the thread:

US Navy Acknowledges Unidentified Aerial Phenomena/DoD confirms leaked video is real

and is "what we all have been waiting for" (we = rationalists).

But, of course, it will not end the ravings of the UFO/UAP promoters. No more than Condon Report, did in 1968.

From Arnold's pelicans to triangular airplane Bokeh, there is no "there" "there".

 

[Spektator]

First thing's first.

Your abductors being fairly humanoid, sucked up under a middle glow light, l really thought and maybe some butt stuff.

You'd think that if they mastered speed faster than light that they probably know how humans' butts work.

That was the goal of "Assignment: Earth."

 

[Steve]

This was only in the USA! What about all the aliens in other countries? Huh!?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

This was only in the USA! What about all the aliens in other countries? Huh!?

Ok. Chiming in for Canada.
Canadian government's top science advisor provides update on official UFO study

Oh. Goody!

"I can tell you that we're taking this seriously," Nemer told members of Parliament on Tuesday. "We're taking a very thorough approach to this and making sure that our recommendations will be based on the best evidence and interactions that we've had."

More details on the project here: Sky Canada Project

I'm sure the results will be positive. (Whatever that means.)

 

[Darat]

No FTL travel essentially means quarantine for biologicals. The only travel that makes any sense is an attempt to leave a dying home world using generation ships, though in-system planet forming or the use of large and modular orbiting constructs for aggregation and disaggregation of space habitats may often make more sense than interstellar travel.
Bottom line, biological aliens visiting Earth makes no sense whatsoever. What does make sense is to note that there is yet much detail to be learned about nearby space and about how fast-moving objects may behave when glancing through the atmosphere.

I'd say by the time you can engineer feasible and functional generation starships you'll simply build them as in-system habitations.

 

[Steve]

Ok. Chiming in for Canada.
Canadian government's top science advisor provides update on official UFO study

Oh. Goody!



More details on the project here: Sky Canada Project

I'm sure the results will be positive. (Whatever that means.)

Researching objects in Canadian skies that are difficult to identify seems like a worthwhile endeavor. It does seem to differ from the USA study in that:

"Furthermore, it is not meant to prove or disprove the existence of extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial visitors."

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I'd say by the time you can engineer feasible and functional generation starships you'll simply build them as in-system habitations.

True. Without atmospheres, unless you are underground, no protection on planets or planetoids. Linkable modules can move out of the way of incoming ballistic impacts as well as move throughout the system for mining purposes. Wouldn't be surprised if that is how mining eventually evolves, into stable habitats.

 

[catsmate]

They're obviously covering up because they know the American public can't handle the truth.

They're right. The USAian public is unable to handle much.

 

[Steve]

They're right. The USAian public is unable to handle much.

I dunno. They seem to embrace a fair number of things that require belief without evidence.

 

[Checkmite]

The Guardian article goes into the report in some depth.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/08/pentagon-ufo-report-hiding-aliens

The Kona Blue project in particular was news to me:

The name "Kona Blue" itself is new (to me as well), but the effort behind it and the backstory is not.

From the report itself:

AARO assesses that the inaccurate claim that the USG is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and is hiding it from Congress is, in large part, the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence. AARO notes that although claims that the USG has recovered and hidden spacecraft date back to the 1940s and 1950s, more modern instances of these claims largely stem from a consistent group of individuals who have been involved in various UAP-related endeavors since at least 2009.

* Many of these individuals were involved in or supportive of a cancelled DIA program and the subsequent but failed attempt to reestablish this program under DHS, called KONA BLUE.

They're talking about the Skinwalker Ranch folks - Luis Elizondo, Hal Puthoff, Chris Melon, et al.

I've posted at length in other threads about the Skinwalker Ranch affair and its part in the recent UFO hype. Here's a summary timeline for those who are new to the situation: In 2017, a former Air Force intelligence official named Luis Elizondo gave public interviews claiming that the Pentagon has secretly been studying UFOs since 2007, and that he himself had been the director of the program. At the same time, contrarily, he asserted that he had just resigned from his job because the Pentagon was "not taking UFOs seriously". A ten-year-long secret program sounds pretty serious to me, but..okay, I guess.

Elizondo and a bunch of fellow UFO-believers, some of whom were also former military officers, have pushed hard for Congress to investigate and force the Pentagon to start taking UFOs "seriously". What you see today are the results of that superficially-successful effort, with a law since passed requiring the DoD to stand up a UFO investigation department, and a handful of highly invested members of Congress grilling military leaders every few months about why they haven't announced to the world yet that aliens are real.

It later emerged that Luis Elizondo had grossly misrepresented both the program he mentioned and his role in it. The long story shortened is, the original program was in fact a sweetheart contract for a Vegas billionaire to study ghosts and monsters at a haunted ranch in Utah (since yclept "Skinwalker Ranch") and Elizondo himself wasn't originally involved in it at all, only usurping the program's name for a separate, personal UFO-hunting effort he undertook after the original program was shut down. If you want to know all about that situation, I can't recommend this video enough; it contains a lot of crucial information:



There is also a much longer playlist that goes into further detail about the ranch, the claims around it, and the persisting effort to "investigate" it (and persistent inability by anyone to come up with evidence of anything) which is entertaining and enlightening but not strictly necessary for this particular discussion.

Anyway, Elizondo has since been largely pushed to the background thanks to his claims being revealed as suspect; the newest face of the pro-UFO effort is David Grusch, a different defense intelligence official and self-styled "whistleblower" who has also claimed that he has been told "by highly placed intelligence officials" - whom he will not name - that it is a matter of fact the US military has been recovering crashed UFOs and reverse-engineering the technology for many decades.

Grusch's claims are framed to make it sound as if his unnamed sources are hitherto-unknown, deeply-placed officials who are in a position to have first-hand knowledge of the incidents and programs they have "revealed" to him; but actually they're just Elizondo, Mellon, and others in that exact same orbit of UFO-nuts. It's the same people, going around and around and around. That is what this recent Pentagon report means when it says "circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe" in the UFO-retrieval nonsense. And they don't believe it because their jobs put them in positions where they had to be personally involved with any of these supposed "programs" and "retrievals"; they believe it because they all read it in various UFO paperbacks in the 80's and 90's that originally made all these claims and have accepted it as fact ever since.

 

[Puppycow]

Anyway, Elizondo has since been largely pushed to the background thanks to his claims being revealed as suspect; the newest face of the pro-UFO effort is David Grusch, a different defense intelligence official and self-styled "whistleblower" who has also claimed that he has been told "by highly placed intelligence officials" - whom he will not name - that it is a matter of fact the US military has been recovering crashed UFOs and reverse-engineering the technology for many decades.

Grusch's claims are framed to make it sound as if his unnamed sources are hitherto-unknown, deeply-placed officials who are in a position to have first-hand knowledge of the incidents and programs they have "revealed" to him; but actually they're just Elizondo, Mellon, and others in that exact same orbit of UFO-nuts. It's the same people, going around and around and around. That is what this recent Pentagon report means when it says "circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe" in the UFO-retrieval nonsense. And they don't believe it because their jobs put them in positions where they had to be personally involved with any of these supposed "programs" and "retrievals"; they believe it because they all read it in various UFO paperbacks in the 80's and 90's that originally made all these claims and have accepted it as fact ever since.

I think this is it:

https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/AARO_Historical_Record_Report_Vol_1_2024.pdf

Does not appear to mention David Grusch at all. Although the conclusions of this report contradict his claims.

The only thing about this report that is a little bit disappointing is that it doesn't name any names but simply refers to people as "a group of individuals" even though many of these people have gone public and their identities are not state secrets.

 

[Checkmite]

I think this is it:

https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/AARO_Historical_Record_Report_Vol_1_2024.pdf

Does not appear to mention David Grusch at all. Although the conclusions of this report contradict his claims.

That is indeed the report. And no, I am the one who's mentioning David Grusch, and Luis Elizondo and the lot, because that's who the report IS talking about even if it doesn't mention them by name. The contextual clues given - specifically referencing claims of "reverse-engineering" alien technology (which is the bulk of Grusch's claim), describing a consistent group of individuals that has been involved with UAP-related endeavors "since at least 2009" (which is when the AAWSAP/AATIP program Elizondo claimed to be the director of was initiated), and the mention of a "canceled DIA program" (again, AAWSAP) - make it pretty clear the report can't be talking about anyone else.

 

[arthwollipot]

A damn fine use of our tax dollars.

Investigating unknown aerial contacts in controlled airspace is not a waste of time or money.

Doing so because you think they might be aliens is tremendously misguided. Look how quickly the Chinese balloons were investigated and identified. Genuine foreign incursions would likely be identified in a similar timeframe and at similar cost.

 

[Puppycow]

To me, the key part of the sentence is: "the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence".

So you have a group of believers, who lack "any evidence" telling stories to each other, and this has become something that justifies all sorts of activity from congress, investigations, and so on. Any chance this could be the final word? (Of course not, but it should be.)

I recently came across a video on YouTube from none other than National Geographic (I have no idea who owns that brand name these days. According to Wikipedia it no longer is what it once was.



ETA: I'm not endorsing the above. It's just another example of the ubiquity of UFOs in pop culture these days.

 

[Puppycow]

That is indeed the report. And no, I am the one who's mentioning David Grusch, and Luis Elizondo and the lot, because that's who the report IS talking about even if it doesn't mention them by name. The contextual clues given - specifically referencing claims of "reverse-engineering" alien technology (which is the bulk of Grusch's claim), describing a consistent group of individuals that has been involved with UAP-related endeavors "since at least 2009" (which is when the AAWSAP/AATIP program Elizondo claimed to be the director of was initiated), and the mention of a "canceled DIA program" (again, AAWSAP) - make it pretty clear the report can't be talking about anyone else.

I agree with you. That is certainly who they are talking about. I only wish that they had gone a step further and called them out by name instead of obliquely referring to them as "a group of individuals".

 

[Delvo]

Annoyingly non-specific. It should include a picture of each one the public has seen, with the adjacent text explaining "this is several balloons tied together with other decorations such as flowers or streamers", "this is an infra-red, straight-up-the-nozzle view of another jet engine at a distance, when it just happens to be pointed straight away from the sensor, which is on a gimbal, with software image rotation counteracting the gimbal's rotations", or "this is a duck or goose, from too far away to resolve in detail, but moving at an expected speed and flapping its wings at an expected frequency, causing the image to subtly shift in its appearance at the wing-flapping frequency".

With anything less than that, you're pretty much asking the believers that it's aliens to say "well, they didn't answer this particular case, or that particular case, or that particular case, so they're still just hiding the truth".

 

[Axxman300]

Something not mentioned in the article is that the Pentagon limited access to the briefing of these findings to a handful of selected reporters. This shows just how tone-deaf the Pentagon is on this subject since this action immediately set off the tin-foil hat brigade, asking why not open the briefing up to the full Pentagon Press Corps? Even while releasing a rational, well-written report the Pentagon still managed to throw gasoline on the fire, just as they've done in the past.

This whole thing is dumb. And I say this as a former UFO nut who keeps an open mind on the subject. Kona Blue would have gone much like the House Committee on Assassinations did back in the 1970s. They would have dug through decades of classified projects, talked to "witnesses" who offer no physical evidence (photo, video, or documents), and then come to the conclusion that they believe it is likely the US recovered alien spacecraft, but we can't prove it, nor produce those ships.
It's 2024, we've had Wikileaks, Bradley/Chelsea Manning, Snowden, Reality Winner, some guy in the USAF National Guard, and other leak all kinds of classified sensitive US government documents AND videos. We've even had classified footage leaked on UAPs leaked to the public. So where the hell are the videos, photos, and documents that MUST EXIST regarding our captured alien spaceships, if they truly exist? Not even a suspected location has been mentioned. The idiots just assume Groom Lake in Nevada, but that's not where the USAF would put them had they actually recovered something.

And you can't keep this kind of thing secret since 1947.

Example, in 2011 we crashed one of two stealth Blackhawk helicopters during the raid on Osama bin Laden. The SEALs destroyed the downed bird, but we still saw the tail section. But in 13 years we have never seen a picture of this aircraft. The Pentagon and US Army have said nothing about it since 2011, and yet we know at least one surviving stealth Blackhawk is sitting in a hangar somewhere. There are only so many places this helicopter can be stored, if still operational. And just like our alleged recovered ET spacecraft, the UAP/UFO gang should be able name the location where the US is hiding and testing these craft. And yet they cannot. This is the problem. Anyone familiar with UH-60s, military helicopters, and USASOC units can lay out a short list of where stealth helos would be based, or stored. Why can't the UAP goober do this?

Believing in UFOs/UAPs is one thing. Believing the US Government is in possession of alien craft is another. The government documents everything. At the very least there should be paperwork, and since this goes back 77 years, there should be a library of documents sitting somewhere about the program or programs related to these captured ET machines.

Here's the CIA's UFO files:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/collection/ufos-fact-or-fiction

There are many interesting things to read. Spoiler alert: The CIA reached the same conclusion the Pentagon did.

If you want to have fun learning how the branches of government fail to communicate on a functional level, read the GAO's report on the Roswell Crash, and then compare it to the USAF's report issued a few years later:

GAO: https://www.gao.gov/products/nsiad-95-187

USAF: Roswell Report - Case Closed: https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/27/2001330219/-1/-1/0/AFD-101027-030.pdf

The GAO states that it was like pulling teeth to get access to files from 1947 (this was 1995), and they found key documents had been "lost". Still, they never found anything about aliens crashing in New Mexico. The USAF report just threw a handful of options about what may have crashed in New Mexico, citing documents they'd claimed had been lost when the GAO had requisitioned them.

I get it. 1947 New Mexico was crawling with advanced weapons and nuclear weapons projects. And the USAF and Pentagon keep their advanced aviation projects on a short leash. Right now they have a new UAV undergoing testing in Nevada, and thanks to a growing population around Las Vegas, and southern Nevada there will be an uptick in UFO sightings. But intrepid secret aircraft stalkers should be getting blurry photos of this thing eventually.

Why can't the UAP "insiders" leak those photos, if they actually exist?

 

[Susheel]

I dunno. They seem to embrace a fair number of things that require belief without evidence.

How dare you...look at how traumatized they are by "teh gay invasion..." you think they will be able to handle lizards from space?

 

[catsmate]

(since yclept "Skinwalker Ranch")

Bonus points for using 'yclept', haven't seen that since Mitchell.

 

[catsmate]

That is indeed the report. And no, I am the one who's mentioning David Grusch, and Luis Elizondo and the lot, because that's who the report IS talking about even if it doesn't mention them by name. The contextual clues given - specifically referencing claims of "reverse-engineering" alien technology (which is the bulk of Grusch's claim), describing a consistent group of individuals that has been involved with UAP-related endeavors "since at least 2009" (which is when the AAWSAP/AATIP program Elizondo claimed to be the director of was initiated), and the mention of a "canceled DIA program" (again, AAWSAP) - make it pretty clear the report can't be talking about anyone else.

The big problem with the loons claims of "reverse-engineering alien technology" is, that's it's obvious to anyone with any science or engineering background or knowledge that's it's utter bollocks.

 

[Puppycow]

The big problem with the loons claims of "reverse-engineering alien technology" is, that's it's obvious to anyone with any science or engineering background or knowledge that's it's utter bollocks.

Sure. Of course, it would presuppose that we have an actual alien artifact to reverse-engineer.

 

[dudalb]

I dunno. They seem to embrace a fair number of things that require belief without evidence.

You can say that about every country on earth.

 

[mikegriffith1]

“WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon study released Friday that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the last century found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence, a conclusion consistent with past U.S. government efforts to assess the accuracy of claims that have captivated public attention for decades.

“The study from the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office analyzed U.S. government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more popularly known as UFOs. It found no evidence that any of them involved signs of alien life, or that the U.S. government and private companies had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and had conspired to hide it from the public.

“It dispelled claims, for instance, that a former CIA official had been involved in managing the movement of and experimentation on extraterrestrial technology and said a purported 1961 intelligence community document about the supposed extraterrestrial nature of UFOs was actually inauthentic.”

https://apnews.com/article/9a32aba88eb610cf16b2e9f0908704b3

And the likelihood of that settling the matter for ufo believers is about as likely as aliens existing.

Oh, yes, and several Pentagon "studies" declared that all the alleged health problems from Agent Orange in Vietnam were due to other causes. Another Pentagon "study" claimed that no U.S. troops who served in the Gulf War were exposed to chemical weapons, that every single one of the chemical weapons detections was a false alarm, and that the sharp rise in health problems among veterans who said they were exposed to chemical weapons was attributable to other causes. You bet.

The argument that most of the UFO sightings were cases of "misidentification" is laughable when you read the accounts of those sightings or when you view the authenticated videos that support some of those sightings.

I've never bothered to write about the UFO issue, but I find the government's repeated denials and explanations vacuous and specious.

My wife saw a UFO in the mid-1990s, and she, living with me on many military bases, had seen just about every kind of U.S. military aircraft in existence, and she said the object looked nothing like any of them and moved in ways that no human-made aircraft could move.

 

[Steve]

Oh, yes, and several Pentagon "studies" declared that all the alleged health problems from Agent Orange in Vietnam were due to other causes. Another Pentagon "study" claimed that no U.S. troops who served in the Gulf War were exposed to chemical weapons, that every single one of the chemical weapons detections was a false alarm, and that the sharp rise in health problems among veterans who said they were exposed to chemical weapons was attributable to other causes. You bet.

The argument that most of the UFO sightings were cases of "misidentification" is laughable when you read the accounts of those sightings or when you view the authenticated videos that support some of those sightings.

I've never bothered to write about the UFO issue, but I find the government's repeated denials and explanations vacuous and specious.

My wife saw a UFO in the mid-1990s, and she, living with me on many military bases, had seen just about every kind of U.S. military aircraft in existence, and she said the object looked nothing like any of them and moved in ways that no human-made aircraft could move.

Your wife saw something she could not identify? Fascinating. And of course if the Pentagon says there is no evidence of aliens cruising the skies that is proof positive that they are actually there.

 

[Checkmite]

Oh, yes, and several Pentagon "studies" declared that all the alleged health problems from Agent Orange in Vietnam were due to other causes. Another Pentagon "study" claimed that no U.S. troops who served in the Gulf War were exposed to chemical weapons, that every single one of the chemical weapons detections was a false alarm, and that the sharp rise in health problems among veterans who said they were exposed to chemical weapons was attributable to other causes. You bet.

The argument that most of the UFO sightings were cases of "misidentification" is laughable when you read the accounts of those sightings or when you view the authenticated videos that support some of those sightings.

I've never bothered to write about the UFO issue, but I find the government's repeated denials and explanations vacuous and specious.

Which just goes to show that this whole circus in Congress is a complete waste of time even if you are a hardcore UFO believer. They'll cheer on populist congressmembers for demanding "investigations" into UFOs, but any report that doesn't tell them exactly what they want to hear will be dismissed as "well of course, it's the government, obviously they're lying". So what is even the point?

 

[theprestige]

My wife saw a UFO in the mid-1990s, and she, living with me on many military bases, had seen just about every kind of U.S. military aircraft in existence, and she said the object looked nothing like any of them and moved in ways that no human-made aircraft could move.

It turns out that humans are notoriously crap at identifying flying objects by sight. There is zero corroborating evidence to support the claim of aircraft that can violate conservation laws and the speed of light. No such aircraft have been shown to exist, whether terrestrial or extra.

On the other hand, there is plenty of corroborating evidence to support the claim that your wife either misunderstood, misremembered, or misrepresented her sighting - most likely some combination.

Flocks of birds exist. Mundane aircraft in unexpected or unfamiliar orientations exist. The human inability to accurately estimate size and distance without reliable reference points is well documented. Nobody has ever shown a teleporting mystery shape aircraft to exist. Therefore it's extremely unlikely that your wife saw one.

 

[Delvo]

My favorite thing about descriptions & videos of flying objects is that the "pulling maneuvers that nothing we've ever built could pull" thing keeps getting put in the verbal descriptions but is never part of the video.

 

[theprestige]

At this point I'm almost convinced its just a hackneyed cliche that every UFO sighter feels they have to include in their description, whether they actually saw anything like that or not. I'm sure it's to the point where some sighters actually believe they did see something like that, because it's such a cliche. And also because humans are so crap at actually understanding what they're seeing in typical sighting conditions.

---

Tangentially, I note that mikegriffith has deployed the classic "friend of a friend" trope. Mike says that someone else says they saw an exotic aircraft with seemingly impossible flight patterns. Mike didn't see it, so there's no use trying to challenge his account. And how dare you try to impeach the credibility of his wife, who is a wonderful person with impeccable credentials, and she's not even here to defend herself!

Sorry, mike. I'm not throwing shade at your wife. As far as I know, she doesn't even exist, except as a narrative device. She's not here. You are. To me, that makes it your UFO story. And your UFO story is crap. Second-hand narratives from alleged and unimpeachable narrators are never the play.

 

[Pixel42]

Whenever I see a claim in a UFO report of "impossible maneuvers" I want to know what assumptions the observer was making about the size and distance of the object they were observing (and they must be assumptions, because it's impossible to estimate either if you don't know either).

To use an example that was discussed on a previous thread: that aircraft-sized object you thought was doing impossible maneuvers over a lake a couple of miles away was almost certainly a firefly doing its mating flight a few feet away.

 

[arthwollipot]

The one thing we do know about UAPs is that they cannot break the laws of physics. So if one appears to be doing so, we know that it's not what it appears to be.

 

[PitPat]

That's what they'd like you to believe.

 

[Explorer]

To me, the key part of the sentence is: "the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence".

So you have a group of believers, who lack "any evidence" telling stories to each other, and this has become something that justifies all sorts of activity from congress, investigations, and so on. Any chance this could be the final word? (Of course not, but it should be.)

I recently came across a video on YouTube from none other than National Geographic (I have no idea who owns that brand name these days. According to Wikipedia it no longer is what it once was.



ETA: I'm not endorsing the above. It's just another example of the ubiquity of UFOs in pop culture these days.

Whether a person is someone who is a skeptic or otherwise, thoughts about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe is a fairly common human musing, perhaps since Galileo. These thoughts are probably the motivation for the establishment themselves for funding the analysing of reports, ever since Condon. There is a natural curiosity, and also as has been suggested, a political and security need for these reports to be investigated, however doubtful the evidence.

 

[Roboramma]

The one thing we do know about UAPs is that they cannot break the laws of physics. So if one appears to be doing so, we know that it's not what it appears to be.

The implicit assumption of such claims is that the actual laws of physics are different from the laws of physics as we understand them, and the the aliens use their better understanding/technology to do things that comport with the actual laws of physics but are impossible according to our (flawed) understanding.

Also, "impossible maneuvers" isn't necessarily "physically impossible" but "impossible given the type of mechanism modern aircraft use for flight", some other class of vehicle that achieves flight through some other mechanism.

Of course, there's no actual case of such impossible maneuvers either in the "laws of physics" or just the weaker "modern technology" sense.