What's NASA Hiding?

[Hawg73]

Hawg- yes, "Out of the Blue" is excellent, I watched it about a year ago.

Another one I like is this short video testimony from Brig Gen Thomas DuBose about how they were instructed by the Pentagon to use the balloon story as the cover up for the Roswell incident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4yVEEff8Gw

Yeah, they really porked Jesse Martell, who was the guy that was forced into doing the "whoops! is my face red!" press conference. They threw him under the bus and have done the same thing to hundreds of folks since. With tin foil. He admitted to mistaking tin foil for a UFO because they threatened him and he felt he had to do it.

Oh, I'm a big fan of cover stories and disinformation stuff. The famous "swamp gas" explanation was credited to Dr. J. Allen Hynek who was a PHD in astrophysics that the government hired as an expert debunker. A case in Michigan involving about 100 student nurse witnesses who saw a metallic disc at close range in broad daylight was explained as "swamp gas" and the witnesses were furious. They knew what they saw and it sure as hell wasn't swamp gas, but that's what the public went with.

It seems like whatever explanation they offer up, no matter how implausible, seems to be accepted because, I believe, many people just don't want to consider the possibility that UFOs are real and are eager to get their worldview straight in any way they can. Hynek ended up switching sides and is now a major voice in favor of serious scientific study of the UFO phenomenon.

I love seeing professional debunkers cook up complete baloney to make cases that should get serious consideration go away as quickly as possible. It's a skill that I find hilarious. I particularly liked the "flares" explanation that was used for the Phoenix Lights incident. It insulted the hell out of thousands of witnesses who saw the giant triangular craft or crafts that blocked out the stars that night, but across the country people said "gee, I guess it was flares" and it went away.

That would be a fun and creative job, but I couldn't live with myself lying for a living.

 

[O_P_T]

Gordon Cooper:

http://www.openminds.tv/gordon-cooper-ufo-080210/

Buzz Aldrin:

http://www.openminds.tv/nasa-astronauts-disclose-ufo-encounters/

Edgar Mitchell:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc507.htm

Story Musgrave:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Confirmed-Top-NASA-astron-by-Terrence-Aym-101028-932.html

Neil Armstrong:

http://drgreersblog.disclosureproject.org/?p=202

Note that this was a quick and dirty link search. Curiosity about any of these events will easily lead to other sites and the videos of the same people speaking out on Youtube, various documentaries, books and multiple printed interviews.

The topic is so massive and explosive in its scope that it boggles the mind. The only thing I'm sure of is that these men (and many other of their colleagues) didn't suddenly lose their marbles and get together to cook up a bunch of pranks for personal amusement. In my opinion there could not be a more qualified class of observer to comment on the topic and comment they have.

Edgar Mitchell is probably the most candid, articulate and widely quoted guy out of the bunch and there are pages and pages of his views to be found on Youtube. He says whats on his mind.

The two best books I've read on the topic are The Day After Roswell by Lt. Col. Philip J. Corso, which blew my mind, and UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Speak Out by Leslie Kean, which is an impressive recent piece of serious journalism on the topic.

As I said before, thanks for the links.

However, I'm not impressed by the information presented.

Regarding Gordo Cooper, James Olberg (who I met at Adult Space Camp in the '80's) has a page discussing many of the incidents cited in your link here

He has interviews with multiple members of Gordo's squadron in Germany who don't remember the incident described. It doesn't prove Gordo wrong, or a liar, but it does raise a reasonable question to wonder if Gordo's recollection of the incidents is completely accurate.

He also has an interview with the guys who actually took the photographs at the Edwards AFB incident and cites where the photographs ended up. Again what is reported on your citation doesn't seem to agree.

Regarding Storey Musgrave, there is this page who claims to have a quote from him who says “Life is everywhere in this universe, there is no evidence that it has visited earth.”

Regarding Buzz and Neil, they reported seeing an object on the way to the moon which was probably one of the panels that covered the LEM and was ejected before they docked and pulled it off of the third stage.

As far as the claims that the 2 minutes of silence was to cover up them reporting aliens watching them, this page does a pretty good job of questioning that.

I think their best argument is the claim that NASA is supposed to have said " Mission Control calling Apollo 11". They're right, no one used the term "mission control" they said "Houston"

What did Apollo 13 say?

Did they say "Mission Control, we have a problem?"

No, everyone knows they said "Houston, we have a problem"

Regarding Edgar Mitchell? Well, he's claimed that "a teenage remote healer who lives in Vancouver and uses the pseudonym Adam Dreamhealer, helped heal him of kidney cancer at a distance".

So you'll forgive me if I wonder just how credible he is.

Now to be clear. I accept that there is life someplace else in the universe. I accept that there is almost certainly a technologically advanced civilization someplace else in the universe.

Why do I think that?

Because the universe is so big and has so many star systems that the odds that we are the only ones is asymptotically approaching zero.

Do I think that any of them have come here?

:shrug:

I'd say the odds are just as good against it.

Why?

For the very same reason. Because the universe is so damn big. Where ever those ET's come from, they'd have to find our solar system. The odds of that are pretty damn low.

Second, why would they want to come here?

After all, if they have the ability to travel over interstellar or even intergalactic distances, why come to this particular place? That would be like a jet-setter traveling to the Jersey Shore to watch the Guido's and Guidettes.

Why bother? Or more importantly, why bother to go back?

And if they do come here all the time, why is the government keeping it a secret? Why do the ET's accommodate the governments desires to help keep it a secret?

Why don't the ET's just hover in plain view over a major city where everyone can see them?

How come if they visit all the time, and everyone has a camera in their cell phone, are there not hundreds of absolutely indisputable images?

 

[O_P_T]

Yeah, they really porked Jesse Martell, who was the guy that was forced into doing the "whoops! is my face red!" press conference. They threw him under the bus and have done the same thing to hundreds of folks since. With tin foil. He admitted to mistaking tin foil for a UFO because they threatened him and he felt he had to do it.

So you don't accept the suggestion that Roswell was a Project Mogul balloon?

Setting aside for a moment, if the Project Mogul is another "explanation" let's assume for the sake of argument that it is what crashed.

If someone in the military had found part of a top secret program and announced to the world that they had found something, and shown photos of it, what do you suppose the government reaction would be?

Do you think they'd say "sure show the world, no big whoop" Or would they want the story to disappear and hope the other side didn't figure out just what had been revealed?

I'm guessing the latter.

Oh, I'm a big fan of cover stories and disinformation stuff. The famous "swamp gas" explanation was credited to Dr. J. Allen Hynek who was a PHD in astrophysics that the government hired as an expert debunker. A case in Michigan involving about 100 student nurse witnesses who saw a metallic disc at close range in broad daylight was explained as "swamp gas" and the witnesses were furious. They knew what they saw and it sure as hell wasn't swamp gas, but that's what the public went with.

How did they "know what they saw"?

I'm not suggesting that these people lied or didn't believe that what they said they saw they thought they saw, I'm simply pointing out that what someone sees, and what someone reports they saw are not the same thing.

There is a well know experiment done in psychology, where the teacher has someone rush into the class, do something shocking and unexpected, then run out of the room. The teacher then asks the students to write down what they saw. They are told do give a description of the person, what they did, what they were wearing, etc.

What the students write down doesn't agree with all the other students and often doesn't agree with the person who entered the class.

For example, there can be disagreement on the persons hair color, their clothing, their height, etc.

How can this be?

Didn't the people "know what they saw"?

The fact of the matter, is that the way people convert what the senses input to what the mind perceives is that they only use some of the sensory input and hang the rest on a mental construct that is "made up" in the consciousness.

If you think about it, there is an evolutionary advantage to such an approach.

Way back in the before time, the critter who spotted the lion, tiger, or bear hiding in the weeds faster, would have a better chance to escape and breed more little critters.

If you have to process 100% of sensory input, it takes more "CPU time" and won't be as fast. If you can leave much of the construct of your environment to be "made up" and only add in the things that are different, well you may not have a perfect perception of every blade of grass, but that grass isn't going to eat you.

We've inherited this sensory processing method and we're stuck with it.

So when a witness says they saw "X", what they really mean is that they processed some small percentage of their vision, and hung that on a preconceived mental model that is based on their normal experience.

So by definition, they will characterize things as consisting of things they already are familiar with.

Take one specific example.

Someone describes seeing a "metallic object". What does that really mean?

Did they do chemical analysis to show that the material was metal?

No.

Did they touch it to see if it felt like metal?

No.

So how did they come up with this description?

Almost certainly what it means is that they saw light and it appeared similar to light reflected off a metallic object.

Does that make it "metallic"?

No. Think a bout light reflected off water. Doesn't it appear very similar to light reflected off of metal?

Would someone claim that their pool, lake, or ocean was "metallic"?

No, of course not.

Why?

Because they are familiar with how light reflects off of water and they know that a pool, lake or ocean is made up of water.

The context makes them interpret the light as being reflected off of water.

OK, so what about something in the air?

Are there pools, lakes or oceans in the air?

No, so no one assumes that such a light is reflected off of water.

Are there metallic objects in the air?

Sure, they're called airplanes.

So if you see light that looks like it is reflected off of metal or water, and it is in the air, the context tells you that it's "metallic".

You don't know that it is, you're assuming it is because that's the context you've framed for the light that you saw.

It seems like whatever explanation they offer up, no matter how implausible, seems to be accepted because, I believe, many people just don't want to consider the possibility that UFOs are real and are eager to get their worldview straight in any way they can. Hynek ended up switching sides and is now a major voice in favor of serious scientific study of the UFO phenomenon.

I love seeing professional debunkers cook up complete baloney to make cases that should get serious consideration go away as quickly as possible. It's a skill that I find hilarious. I particularly liked the "flares" explanation that was used for the Phoenix Lights incident. It insulted the hell out of thousands of witnesses who saw the giant triangular craft or crafts that blocked out the stars that night, but across the country people said "gee, I guess it was flares" and it went away.

That would be a fun and creative job, but I couldn't live with myself lying for a living.

Triangular craft huh.

Tell me Hawg, is there an actual solid white triangle, with the apex pointing down, in this image?

No, there isn't. This is another example of the context processing that our minds do.

We "create" the triangle, because that explanation matches our model about how things are. If there was a solid white triangle above the other objects, it would mask them exactly the way it appears to have done.

But it isn't actually there.

Tell me, if someone claimed they saw a "white triangular item that blocked out the other objects" and someone else pointed out how it was an optical illusion, would you describe the latter as "professional debunkers cooking up complete baloney"?

How do you know that what the witnesses saw, and reported as a triangular craft, wasn't something just like this optical illusion?

 

[Hawg73]

As I said before, thanks for the links.

However, I'm not impressed by the information presented.

Regarding Gordo Cooper, James Olberg (who I met at Adult Space Camp in the '80's) has a page discussing many of the incidents cited in your link here

He has interviews with multiple members of Gordo's squadron in Germany who don't remember the incident described. It doesn't prove Gordo wrong, or a liar, but it does raise a reasonable question to wonder if Gordo's recollection of the incidents is completely accurate.

He also has an interview with the guys who actually took the photographs at the Edwards AFB incident and cites where the photographs ended up. Again what is reported on your citation doesn't seem to agree.

So, you're saying that if somebody like him took pics and/or movies of a landed UFO on US soil, then it could concievably slip their mind? Like every detail of that experience wouldn't etch themselves into the mind? Isn't the point that it was a UFO and it was captured on film by an pilot/astronaut sufficient unto itself? I've seen him recount the story on film two different times. It's not like somebody got creative with a story.

But, whatever. You don't buy it and that's cool. I guess if you met James Olberg at adult space camp and vouch for him then I guess he must be an unimpeachable source of truth and Cooper's veracity is to be doubted.

Regarding Storey Musgrave, there is this page who claims to have a quote from him who says “Life is everywhere in this universe, there is no evidence that it has visited earth.”

Storey says a lot of stuff and is extremely circumspect with his statements. Not a great example, but I was in a rush as I said. He also claims that he's photographed "space eels" twice, so put him on the whacky list.

Regarding Buzz and Neil, they reported seeing an object on the way to the moon which was probably one of the panels that covered the LEM and was ejected before they docked and pulled it off of the third stage.

Really? "probably it was a panel" where'd you get that? Buzz explains the first incident here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkV1ybBnHI

about 3:40 long, but its pretty clear that they weren't looking at a routine piece of space junk. Sure didn't sound like that, but Buzz is now talking about monoliths on Mars, so apparently all the old astronauts are going crackers.

Neil certainly seemed to. Right after he got back from the moon he started having issues, but he was always a very intense, sensitive guy.

Of course, there is more to the story than that, but nothing came from Neil's lips that indicated what happened on the moon. Maybe someday more will be known, but it sure seems like some folks want to involve astronauts in all these UFO stories.

Regarding Edgar Mitchell? Well, he's claimed that "a teenage remote healer who lives in Vancouver and uses the pseudonym Adam Dreamhealer, helped heal him of kidney cancer at a distance".

So you'll forgive me if I wonder just how credible he is.

Now that is just cherry picking right there. Maybe he was kidding?.......Seriously, how did all these whackos get in a space capsule in the first place?

Now to be clear. I accept that there is life someplace else in the universe. I accept that there is almost certainly a technologically advanced civilization someplace else in the universe.

Why do I think that?

Because the universe is so big and has so many star systems that the odds that we are the only ones is asymptotically approaching zero.

Do I think that any of them have come here?

:shrug:

I'd say the odds are just as good against it.

Why?

For the very same reason. Because the universe is so damn big. Where ever those ET's come from, they'd have to find our solar system. The odds of that are pretty damn low.

Second, why would they want to come here?

After all, if they have the ability to travel over interstellar or even intergalactic distances, why come to this particular place? That would be like a jet-setter traveling to the Jersey Shore to watch the Guido's and Guidettes.

Some math professor at Brandeis recently crunched the numbers and says it's a slam dunk that we aren't alone. Even more likely than the well known Drake equation that preceded it. You happen to be fairly great at winning print debates, but you have no idea what kind of propulsion system a potentially superior technology might have. Your "odds" were also pulled out of your ass. If not, then please feel free to share your formula. Maybe it's just a hunch.

I was about half kidding about the Moose tour thing earlier. Maybe just observing alien life forms (i.e. us) is wildly popular with ETs with plenty of time on their hands, like a safari. The Jersey Shore could be the best venue for anthropology study in the universe for all we know.

All for now. Tired.

 

[Hawg73]

So you don't accept the suggestion that Roswell was a Project Mogul balloon?

Setting aside for a moment, if the Project Mogul is another "explanation" let's assume for the sake of argument that it is what crashed.

If someone in the military had found part of a top secret program and announced to the world that they had found something, and shown photos of it, what do you suppose the government reaction would be?

Do you think they'd say "sure show the world, no big whoop" Or would they want the story to disappear and hope the other side didn't figure out just what had been revealed?

I'm guessing the latter.



How did they "know what they saw"?

I'm not suggesting that these people lied or didn't believe that what they said they saw they thought they saw, I'm simply pointing out that what someone sees, and what someone reports they saw are not the same thing.

There is a well know experiment done in psychology, where the teacher has someone rush into the class, do something shocking and unexpected, then run out of the room. The teacher then asks the students to write down what they saw. They are told do give a description of the person, what they did, what they were wearing, etc.

What the students write down doesn't agree with all the other students and often doesn't agree with the person who entered the class.

For example, there can be disagreement on the persons hair color, their clothing, their height, etc.

How can this be?

Didn't the people "know what they saw"?

The fact of the matter, is that the way people convert what the senses input to what the mind perceives is that they only use some of the sensory input and hang the rest on a mental construct that is "made up" in the consciousness.

If you think about it, there is an evolutionary advantage to such an approach.

Way back in the before time, the critter who spotted the lion, tiger, or bear hiding in the weeds faster, would have a better chance to escape and breed more little critters.

If you have to process 100% of sensory input, it takes more "CPU time" and won't be as fast. If you can leave much of the construct of your environment to be "made up" and only add in the things that are different, well you may not have a perfect perception of every blade of grass, but that grass isn't going to eat you.

We've inherited this sensory processing method and we're stuck with it.

So when a witness says they saw "X", what they really mean is that they processed some small percentage of their vision, and hung that on a preconceived mental model that is based on their normal experience.

So by definition, they will characterize things as consisting of things they already are familiar with.

Take one specific example.

Someone describes seeing a "metallic object". What does that really mean?

Did they do chemical analysis to show that the material was metal?

No.

Did they touch it to see if it felt like metal?

No.

So how did they come up with this description?

Almost certainly what it means is that they saw light and it appeared similar to light reflected off a metallic object.

Does that make it "metallic"?

No. Think a bout light reflected off water. Doesn't it appear very similar to light reflected off of metal?

Would someone claim that their pool, lake, or ocean was "metallic"?

No, of course not.

Why?

Because they are familiar with how light reflects off of water and they know that a pool, lake or ocean is made up of water.

The context makes them interpret the light as being reflected off of water.

OK, so what about something in the air?

Are there pools, lakes or oceans in the air?

No, so no one assumes that such a light is reflected off of water.

Are there metallic objects in the air?

Sure, they're called airplanes.

So if you see light that looks like it is reflected off of metal or water, and it is in the air, the context tells you that it's "metallic".

You don't know that it is, you're assuming it is because that's the context you've framed for the light that you saw.



Triangular craft huh.

Tell me Hawg, is there an actual solid white triangle, with the apex pointing down, in this image?

No, there isn't. This is another example of the context processing that our minds do.

We "create" the triangle, because that explanation matches our model about how things are. If there was a solid white triangle above the other objects, it would mask them exactly the way it appears to have done.

But it isn't actually there.

Tell me, if someone claimed they saw a "white triangular item that blocked out the other objects" and someone else pointed out how it was an optical illusion, would you describe the latter as "professional debunkers cooking up complete baloney"?

How do you know that what the witnesses saw, and reported as a triangular craft, wasn't something just like this optical illusion?

I'll refute this at some point when I have more energy.

What do you do for a living again?

 

[Hawg73]

Why bother? Or more importantly, why bother to go back?

I don't have any idea. Great question. I've heard some bombshell theories, but they are so easy to refute and based on pure speculation then it's a waste of time to go over it. I use the "tourism" example just to keep it lighter, but if we could engage in some wild fantasy for a moment-- what if you had the ability to travel to other worlds safely? Wouldn't you want to do that? Did you ever have an ant farm as a kid? Didn't you like to watch what they did? Studying the diversity of life that exists in the universe might be reason enough.

And if they do come here all the time, why is the government keeping it a secret?

That's easy. Because the government(s) know that there isn't a damn thing they can do to stop them from doing whatever they feel like doing and don't care to appear utterly impotent to the public that they theoretically protect.

Why do the ET's accommodate the governments desires to help keep it a secret?

I don't know. No idea. If you buy the "tourism" theory then maybe they have a policy of complete non-interference. Great question.

Why don't the ET's just hover in plain view over a major city where everyone can see them?

Examples of that have supposedly happened, notably Washington D.C. in 1952but without empirical proof......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington_D.C._UFO_incident

Since nobody knows what they're doing here then it would take some major speculation to guess why they would or would not want to do such a thing, but based on many serious cases that have been studied around the globe then it's pretty clear they could do it anytime they felt like doing so and there wouldn't be a damn thing anybody could do about it. Leslie Kean's book has a number of well-documented cases of military/UFO encounters involving shots being fired, evasive manuevers......all kinds of serious shit that is too voluminous to get into here, but a skeptic might have their eyes opened a bit if they checked that book out.

How come if they visit all the time, and everyone has a camera in their cell phone, are there not hundreds of absolutely indisputable images?

Key is the word "indisputable". There are thousands of images that have been taken since the phenomena was noted and possibly hundreds of "good" ones, but images are not proof. The current proliferation of cell phones with quality cameras could be a game changer, but, to cite a common problem, taking a photo or video of a light at a distance in the night sky isn't something that generally works great no matter what camera you are using. If I felt like wasting some time I could post up any number of examples of compelling daylight objects that run the gamut in size, configuration, color, lights, metallic appearance etc. etc., but trying to use them as bulletproof, indisputable, verifiable proof is another matter entirely. There are lots of fakes nowadays and lots of poor quality stuff, but a small percentage of it is clear enough to defy conventional explanation and passes my bullshit detector. That's all I'm saying.

To quote Bill Parcells: "I don't need to get whacked in the face with a skunk before I can smell it."

 

[cka203]

Saw this just now..

http://news.yahoo.com/video/strange-lights-appear-over-sf-233018377.html

 

[O_P_T]

So, you're saying that if somebody like him took pics and/or movies of a landed UFO on US soil, then it could concievably slip their mind? Like every detail of that experience wouldn't etch themselves into the mind? Isn't the point that it was a UFO and it was captured on film by an pilot/astronaut sufficient unto itself? I've seen him recount the story on film two different times. It's not like somebody got creative with a story.

But, whatever. You don't buy it and that's cool. I guess if you met James Olberg at adult space camp and vouch for him then I guess he must be an unimpeachable source of truth and Cooper's veracity is to be doubted.

Except Gordo wasn't there at the incident at Edwards.

From your link.

Another UFO incident Cooper was involved in while in the Air Force took place at Edwards Air Force base in California in 1957. There he was a test pilot and project manager. On May 3rd he had a crew setting up a camera system on a dry lake bed for filming rocket launches. Cooper was not present during the incident; however two of his crew members described seeing a saucer like craft hover over them and land 50 yards away. The craft extended three landing gears from its underside and settled on the lake bed in complete silence. As the men approached the craft it took off, again emitting no noise.

Here's what Oberg has to say about it.

When I called John ("Jack") Gettys, one of the witnesses, he sent me a file of material on the sighting, which had occurred on May 3, 1957. He had never even realized that future astronaut Gordon Cooper had keen at the base at that time (he had no connection with the incident). He also proudly recalled that the case had been extensively investigated by a UFO researcher named Dr. James McDonald -- who had been one of the leading ufologists in the world in the 1960s. The "coverup" story seemed to be unraveling..

In fact, McDonald had described his findings on July 29,1968, during his testimony on UFOs to a congressional committee. This is the way he described it: "James D. Bittick and John R. Gettys... were at the time Askania cameramen on the test range, and spotted the domed-disk UFO just as they reached Askania #4 site at Edwards, a bit before 8:00 AM that day [JEO: Compare this with Beckley's account of "after lunch" -- evidently pure dramatization]. They immediately got into communication with the range director, Frank E. Baker, and asked if anyone else was manning an Askania that could be used to get triangulation shots. Since no other camera operators were on duty at other sites, Baker told them to fire manually, and they got a number of shots before the object moved off into the distance. Bittick estimated that the object lay about a mile away when they got off the first shot, though when first seen he put it at no more than 500 yards off. He and Gettys both said it had a golden color, looked somewhat like an inverted plate with a dome on top, and had square holes or panels around the dome. Gettys thought that the holes were circular, not square. It was moving away from them, seemed to glow with its own luminosity, and had a hazy, indistinct halo around its rim, both mentioned. The number of shots taken is uncertain: Gettys thought perhaps thirty. The object was lost from sight by the time it moved out to about five miles or so, and they did not see it again.... The photos were shortly taken by base military authorities and were never seen again by the men. In a session later that day, Bittick [was] informed that they had seen a weather balloon distorted by the desert atmospheric effects.".

So the guys who were actually there didn't report a space ship hovering, landing, and having legs stick out.

Oberg then quote Gordo in the Omni magazine interview.

There is no evidence that Cooper ever heard this explanation, but he evidently had same misgivings about the case. In 1978, in his second interview with Spiegel (this time for OMNI), he evaded any discussion of the Edwards case by saying, "I'd just as soon not get into the Edwards incident. I didn't get to see anything personally, it was all second hand evidence really." That it was, and Cooper's caution was commendable -- if perhaps a bit tardy. His name had already been interwoven with the incident, and probably permanently.

So I don't know how the story cited in your link came about, but it doesn't seem to be supported by other witnesses or even Gordo himself.

Storey says a lot of stuff and is extremely circumspect with his statements. Not a great example, but I was in a rush as I said. He also claims that he's photographed "space eels" twice, so put him on the whacky list.

His "space eels" are not critters but something that flexes and wriggles like an eel does.

Here's a link that Storey repeats his comment that he hasn't seen anything that he thinks is ET.

Nothing that I ever witnessed or observed in any situation leads me to think or belief that an extraterrestrial vehicle or being was in my presence. I prayed for them to come and get me, but they have not, yet. No evidence presented to me by other astronauts or others has lead me to think or believe that we have been visited here on earth. That is also true of all my observations taken during STS-80. I will present all my observational methodologies, particularly aviation and space at MUFON. I will present the observations that I made and MY INTERPRETATION of these findings. No stretch of the imagination could lead ME to interpret the events of STS-80 as being a visitation from out there. Unfortunately most of the STS-80 videos on youtube.com are not the ones that I photographed. I don't know how someone created them, but it was neither me nor mine.

Bottom line: My personal interpretation of the cosmic goings-on is that there are trillions of life forms out there and millions or many more of them are so advanced as to be travelling outside their home solar system. My personal immersion in the cosmos and all of the empirical evidence brought to me by others leads me to think that we have not been visited by extraterrestrial vehicles or beings here on earth.

Story Musgrave​

Really? "probably it was a panel" where'd you get that? Buzz explains the first incident here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkV1ybBnHI

about 3:40 long, but its pretty clear that they weren't looking at a routine piece of space junk. Sure didn't sound like that, but Buzz is now talking about monoliths on Mars, so apparently all the old astronauts are going crackers.

Neil certainly seemed to. Right after he got back from the moon he started having issues, but he was always a very intense, sensitive guy.

Of course, there is more to the story than that, but nothing came from Neil's lips that indicated what happened on the moon. Maybe someday more will be known, but it sure seems like some folks want to involve astronauts in all these UFO stories.

What made Buzz's comments show that "they weren't looking at a routine piece of space junk"?

Recall what the Apollo 3rd stage looked like.

You have the Apollo CSM sitting on top of a shroud. The shroud covers the LEM and they both are sitting on top of the S-IVB (the third stage).

It is in this configuration that they start their voyage to the moon from earth orbit.

The S-IVB engine fires and that's what givers them escape velocity.

Once they are on their way, the CSM undocks from the shroud, the shroud breaks off in four pieces, the CSM turns around and docks with the LEM and the CSM pulls it away from the S-IVB.

So everything you see in that picture is on it's way to the moon.

What Buzz describes in the video is that they saw something that changed shape. Well is one of those shroud panels was tumbling, which it would be, then it would appear to change shape.

They asked where the S-IVB was because their first assumption was that it might be that.

It wasn't, but the shroud panels could be closer.

Now that is just cherry picking right there. Maybe he was kidding?.......Seriously, how did all these whackos get in a space capsule in the first place?

Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences. That's not cherry picking.

As far as the astronauts being "whacko's" many of the Apollo astronauts were "changed" by their experience.


James Irwin and Charles Duke became very religious.

Some math professor at Brandeis recently crunched the numbers and says it's a slam dunk that we aren't alone. Even more likely than the well known Drake equation that preceded it. You happen to be fairly great at winning print debates, but you have no idea what kind of propulsion system a potentially superior technology might have. Your "odds" were also pulled out of your ass. If not, then please feel free to share your formula. Maybe it's just a hunch.

How were my "odds pulled out of my ass"? It is simply the inversion of the odds that there is life elsewhere.

For the numbers to be crunched so it is a "slam dunk we are not alone", it means there are so many star systems, with so many planets, then statistically there must be someone else.

As I said I accept that.

However, we are just one planet, around one star in all those countless other star systems that make that calculation a "slam dunk". That other species would have to come to this particular planet, out of all those other planets.

For example, I'll use made up numbers to illustrate my point.

Suppose there are a trillion star systems and so we conclude that the odds are such that one of them would have life as well.

The odds are 1 in a trillion that they come to our star system.

 

[Pyxis]

Well.....they could have taken a wrong turn at Uranus and stumbled upon us. :shrug:
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[RoadNasty]

I figure governments have plenty of reasons to lie and cover things up, but normal and sane individuals have no reason to engage in such behavior.

Here's another highly credible ex military officer detailing his experiences back in 1967 at the missle site he was in command of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8diJLo3mM_M

 

[mikiemo83]

I think there may have been some good halucinent floating around in the late 60's

 

[O_P_T]

I'll refute this at some point when I have more energy.

What do you do for a living again?

I'm a Principal Engineer for a company that makes Non Destructive Test equipment.

In my 30+ years I've seen and worked on a lot of different things. Granted, I haven't seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion or C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.

I've been on off shore oil platforms in the Gulf and the North Sea and seen all sorts of weird looking stuff in the water.

I've been to Prudhoe Bay and been able to read by the illumination of the Northern Lights.

I've been at both Vandenberg AFB and the Cape when satellites were launched, after working on their solid rocket boosters.

I routinely provide remote support for our customers and have to try and diagnose a problem based on their reports of what's wrong, so I have first hand experience with the differences I described regarding what they "see" and what they report. It takes some careful questioning to separate what they "think they know" from what they "know they know".

I have no doubt that plenty of people have seen something that they don't know what it is. That it has behaved in a fashion that doesn't match the things they are used to seeing in their day to day experience.

So they try to make sense of what they are seeing, and try to assign a meaning that matches their experience.

That doesn't mean that the conclusion they reached is actually what they saw.

There are still things in nature that we don't understand or know for sure exist. For example, ball lightning.

If someone was to spot ball lightning, wouldn't their description match many of the unexplainable UFO reports?

Does that prove those reports are ball lightning?

No. But by the same token, it also means that these reports are not "proof" of ET's in some sort of craft.

 

[Pyxis]

We have ball lightning out near a place called Marfa, Texas. Well known for about 30 years. Everyone just ignores it now.
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[O_P_T]

I don't have any idea. Great question. I've heard some bombshell theories, but they are so easy to refute and based on pure speculation then it's a waste of time to go over it. I use the "tourism" example just to keep it lighter, but if we could engage in some wild fantasy for a moment-- what if you had the ability to travel to other worlds safely? Wouldn't you want to do that? Did you ever have an ant farm as a kid? Didn't you like to watch what they did? Studying the diversity of life that exists in the universe might be reason enough.




That's easy. Because the government(s) know that there isn't a damn thing they can do to stop them from doing whatever they feel like doing and don't care to appear utterly impotent to the public that they theoretically protect.

So you're saying the government has had hard data for over 60 odd years, that multiple people know about, and they've been able to keep it all under wraps?

Color me skeptical.

If the various scandals that have come to light over the years are any indication, its that nothing stays a secret in the government. The fact that the only stuff presented is hearsay and speculation is pretty compelling evidence, IMHO, that there isn't anything to leak.

I don't know. No idea. If you buy the "tourism" theory then maybe they have a policy of complete non-interference. Great question.



Examples of that have supposedly happened, notably Washington D.C. in 1952but without empirical proof......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington_D.C._UFO_incident

Since nobody knows what they're doing here then it would take some major speculation to guess why they would or would not want to do such a thing, but based on many serious cases that have been studied around the globe then it's pretty clear they could do it anytime they felt like doing so and there wouldn't be a damn thing anybody could do about it. Leslie Kean's book has a number of well-documented cases of military/UFO encounters involving shots being fired, evasive manuevers......all kinds of serious shit that is too voluminous to get into here, but a skeptic might have their eyes opened a bit if they checked that book out.

OK, let's talk about the DC incident.

What actually happened?

There were a series of unexplained radar returns. There were a handful of unexplained visual sightings. These visual sightings were of lights that didn't appear the same.

That's an ET hovering in plain view over a city where everyone can see them?

Key is the word "indisputable". There are thousands of images that have been taken since the phenomena was noted and possibly hundreds of "good" ones, but images are not proof. The current proliferation of cell phones with quality cameras could be a game changer, but, to cite a common problem, taking a photo or video of a light at a distance in the night sky isn't something that generally works great no matter what camera you are using. If I felt like wasting some time I could post up any number of examples of compelling daylight objects that run the gamut in size, configuration, color, lights, metallic appearance etc. etc., but trying to use them as bulletproof, indisputable, verifiable proof is another matter entirely. There are lots of fakes nowadays and lots of poor quality stuff, but a small percentage of it is clear enough to defy conventional explanation and passes my bullshit detector. That's all I'm saying.

To quote Bill Parcells: "I don't need to get whacked in the face with a skunk before I can smell it."

That's why I used the word "indisputable".

The vast majority of those images are either frauds or they require that someone add an interpretation to the image to conclude it's ET.

As I've said before, people do the latter all the time, it's in our nature to try and put context and an explanation to anything our senses tells us.

Before one cites anything as evidence for Item A, you have to ask yourself how much of that is actually present in the evidence and how much involves interpretation of the evidence.

That's what I'm saying.

From my perspective the vast majority of the "evidence" involves more interpretation than actual hard data.

As the old adage says: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"

So far I've seen nothing that meets that threshold, and certainly nothing to indicate there is some sort of vast cover up of the subject.

 

[O_P_T]

Saw this just now..

http://news.yahoo.com/video/strange-lights-appear-over-sf-233018377.html

OK, let's assume for a moment that these really were ET floating over those cities.

Where are the other reports about that?

How come only one guy in each city noticed this?

Why didn't other people notice it and snap a photo or video?

Hell, YouTube is full of cell phone video's of so many other mundane things that happen in our cities, why aren't there multiple versions of these ET's?

Maybe because they didn't look that mysterious to everyone else?

 

[O_P_T]

I figure governments have plenty of reasons to lie and cover things up, but normal and sane individuals have no reason to engage in such behavior.

Here's another highly credible ex military officer detailing his experiences back in 1967 at the missle site he was in command of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8diJLo3mM_M

OK, again, let's look at what he actually said.

He didn't see anything, He noticed that his missiles "shut down" at the same approximate time that a guard reported the UFO.

What do we conclude from this?

That ET decided to mess with our ICBM's?

Well that rules out the non interference idea.

How do we conclude that a red light must be an ET?
\
Because of what happened to the missiles?

So the only possible way a Minuteman can "shut down" is if ET stops by?

This is a perfect example of the "interpretation" being most of the evidence.

We only know for certain two things: A red light was seen and the missiles "shut down".

The interpretation is that an ET did this.

Why do we jump to that conclusion? Where's the evidence that only an ET could shut down the missile?

How have we ruled out any other possible set of explanations?

I can think of one right off the top of my head.

Assume for a moment that the red light was ball lightning. Ball lightning will have an electromagnetic field associated with it.

This E-M field could have an effect similar to an electromagnetic pulse and an EMP could easily be the cause of the missiles "shutting down".

Now, I freely admit I have no evidence that ball lightning is actually what happened. However, me suggesting it is what happened is absolutely the exact same thing as saying ET was responsible.

We have two pieces of data that we actually know: There was a red light and the missiles shut down. Everything else is what we think we know.

So the ET explanation is but one possible explanation for that incident and so you cannot claim that the incident actually is evidence for ET's in craft.

 

[O_P_T]

We have ball lightning out near a place called Marfa, Texas. Well known for about 30 years. Everyone just ignores it now.
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What about the people who see it for the first time, what is their reaction?

Are they as blase as the "veterans"?

I doubt it.

The fact that many people ignore it now is further evidence that people frame what they see based on their experience. You guys are familiar with ball lightning, so when you see it, you can pigeonhole it in your set of experiences and it's no big whoop.

Someone who doesn't have that experience will not be able to do that. They will have a very hard time trying to categorize what they saw and will very likely consider it a UFO (the original definition)

 

[mikiemo83]

OK, again, let's look at what he actually said.

He didn't see anything, He noticed that his missiles "shut down" at the same approximate time that a guard reported the UFO.

What do we conclude from this?

That ET decided to mess with our ICBM's?

Well that rules out the non interference idea.

maybe they are smarter than us, we are their Porteus Maze Test and the interference was to keep the peace. maybe they are showing up suddenly because of the Mayan prediction and the middle east drama to save our ass again.

as good a reason as any other

 

[RoadNasty]

OK, again, let's look at what he actually said.

He didn't see anything, He noticed that his missiles "shut down" at the same approximate time that a guard reported the UFO.

What do we conclude from this?

That ET decided to mess with our ICBM's?

Well that rules out the non interference idea.

How do we conclude that a red light must be an ET?
\
Because of what happened to the missiles?

So the only possible way a Minuteman can "shut down" is if ET stops by?

This is a perfect example of the "interpretation" being most of the evidence.

We only know for certain two things: A red light was seen and the missiles "shut down".

The interpretation is that an ET did this.

Why do we jump to that conclusion? Where's the evidence that only an ET could shut down the missile?

How have we ruled out any other possible set of explanations?

I can think of one right off the top of my head.

Assume for a moment that the red light was ball lightning. Ball lightning will have an electromagnetic field associated with it.

This E-M field could have an effect similar to an electromagnetic pulse and an EMP could easily be the cause of the missiles "shutting down".

Now, I freely admit I have no evidence that ball lightning is actually what happened. However, me suggesting it is what happened is absolutely the exact same thing as saying ET was responsible.

We have two pieces of data that we actually know: There was a red light and the missiles shut down. Everything else is what we think we know.

So the ET explanation is but one possible explanation for that incident and so you cannot claim that the incident actually is evidence for ET's in craft.

I've seen other videos and read reports of the incident - his security police saw the objects over the facility - something was there.

 

[Pyxis]

What about the people who see it for the first time, what is their reaction?

Are they as blase as the "veterans"?

I doubt it.

The fact that many people ignore it now is further evidence that people frame what they see based on their experience. You guys are familiar with ball lightning, so when you see it, you can pigeonhole it in your set of experiences and it's no big whoop.

Someone who doesn't have that experience will not be able to do that. They will have a very hard time trying to categorize what they saw and will very likely consider it a UFO (the original definition)

If you happen to visit or are new to the area, you are schooled quickly before you have a heart attack reporting the "UFO." My former father in law made sure I knew in 1984, right after I married his son.
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