Vladius said:

Superweapon VII said:

*yawn*

Our concept of hell doesn’t have biblical origins

yawn yeah it does

Can you elaborate?

I honestly prefer either the chronological order or the machete order. I just can’t bring myself to watch the Original Trilogy first and then the Prequels. For me, you’ve always got to end with Return of the Jedi, because that ending is the most satisfying. If you finish on Revenge of the Sith, the Saga ends on a really depressing note. But if you end with Return of the Jedi, you close things out on a happy, uplifting note. That’s why I stick with chronological or machete order: both let you watch Revenge of the Sith before Return of the Jedi instead of after, and that just feels like it makes way more sense.

Personally, I believe that they should have the courage to touch the Old Republic, either with a series of films or with a TV show. As long as the stories are well-written and the characters are relatable, I think that fans would not despise them, even if they are not an exact copy and are not faithful to the original Old Republic stories.

Mocata said:

Yeah but everyone is two decades years older they need to mature and develop critical faculties by now.

Why should “maturing” and “developing critical faculties” coincide with having the same opinions as you on the Prequels? It seems like a rather biased reasoning on your part.

Channel72 said:

In contrast, the popularity of the OT can’t be as easily explained as entirely the result of nostalgia, because the OT films have many devoted fans among the younger generations as well, I assume.

As someone who has had the opportunity to speak with many people who were Star Wars fans during the 1980s and 1990s, I feel compelled to express my disagreement with this statement. After the release of Return of the Jedi, the Original Trilogy practically faded into obscurity. Yes, they were considered very good films, but Star Wars was essentially dead between 1983 and the release of the Special Editions in 1997. Without the Special Editions and the Prequels, Star Wars would have remained nothing more than an old trilogy of 1980s movies. Sure, many people would certainly still love it, but it would never have become the massive franchise it is today. Star Wars would have ended up like Back to the Future — a well-loved series, but not a cultural phenomenon. So yes, objectively speaking, the almost blind devotion to the Original Trilogy that many people exhibit today is primarily a product of the older generation’s nostalgia, because again, between 1983 and 1997, nobody really cared about either the Original Trilogy or Star Wars in general. Had it not been for the Special Editions and the Prequels, Star Wars would be dead right now.

NeverarGreat said:

Perhaps the prequels are uniquely suited to appealing to kids, which is why they are getting more love these days from people who grew up with them, as well as kids today who are seeing them for the first time. If that’s true, then perhaps the only cohort who can’t widely appreciate them are those who were already too old when the films premiered.

I genuinely do not understand where this reasoning comes from. I know many people who watched the Prequels as adults and still appreciated them. Sure, many people consider them inferior to the Original Trilogy, but they certainly do not dismiss them entirely, as many users on this forum tend to do. I, too, watched the Prequels for the first time when I was 18, and I had absolutely no idea that Prequel hate even existed until my sister mentioned it a couple of years later — after I had already seen the films. Even on YouTube, there are countless reaction videos of adults watching the Prequels for the first time and still being able to appreciate them. So I truly do not understand where the idea that “only children who grew up with the Prequels can appreciate them” comes from.

Personally, I do not think The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith are bad movies. I think they are fine, but I also believe they could be improved through fan editing.

I genuinely agree with about 99% of the lore and concepts introduced in the Prequels, and very little actually bothers me on a conceptual level. However, there are undeniably some scenes that feel excessively over the top, and a few others that do not really serve any meaningful purpose and could easily be removed. In my opinion, these films are fine, but they have the potential to become much better with careful and thoughtful editing. This is why I have always wanted to create my own fan edits of the Prequels. Unfortunately, although I did manage to somewhat complete a fan edit of Attack of the Clones with the help of Hal9000, I have never been able to work on edits for the other two films because I have never found anyone else willing to help me with the project.

Furthermore, I am convinced that many of the people who dislike the Prequels are influenced by a specific type of bias. A lot of fans who grew up with the Original Trilogy were disappointed simply because the Prequels did not reflect the backstory they had imagined for Darth Vader. And honestly, that is a very human and understandable reaction. I do not blame anyone for feeling that way. I have experienced the same kind of disappointment myself with other franchises, watching a film I loved and then later seeing a prequel that did not match the version of the past I had built in my head. So in the end, I think that kind of response is entirely valid on an emotional level. But I also believe it is still a form of bias, even if it is a natural and forgivable one.

There is also a similar kind of bias when it comes to specific plot points. I have seen many fans criticize elements such as the creation of the clone army, Anakin’s willingness to believe Palpatine’s lies about cheating death, or the romantic subplot between Anakin and Padmé, claiming that these things do not make sense or feel unrealistic. But personally, I have always been able to rationalize them and find a coherent logic behind those choices. Yes, some scenes are over the top, and the execution of some plot points can definitely be improved through fan-editing. But that does not mean the core ideas behind them are flawed. Many viewers, like myself, are able to accept and even appreciate these plot elements when they are not actively looking for flaws. I think some fans reject these story choices not because they truly make no sense, but because they conflict with the expectations they had developed over the years. Again, that is a very human reaction, and I do not condemn it, but it is still a bias.

In the end, I do not think the Prequels are perfect, but I do believe they are deeply misunderstood. With the right editorial touch, they can be transformed into truly great Star Wars films.

If, when we finally manage to build the first interstellar spaceship, they do not name it Enterprise, I swear I will rise from the grave and slaughter whoever decided for another name.

darklordoftech said:

Spartacus01 said:

darklordoftech said:

The BBY/ABY calendar existing in-universe.

Why do you hate it? I do not mind it.

Why would the New Republic establish a new year 0? Isn’t that something totalitarian regimes do? Why not use whatever year 0 the Valorum-era Republic used?

The New Republic did not see itself as just a continuation of the Old Republic; it saw itself as a major improvement, something new and better. The Old Republic, especially in its final years, was bloated, bureaucratic, and too weak to prevent the rise of Palpatine. So from the New Republic’s point of view, there was no reason to go back to that exact model. Therefore, creating a new calendar, with a new Year 0, was a symbolic way of saying, “This is a fresh start.” It helped to draw a clear line between what came before — the corruption of the late Republic, the dark times of the Empire — and what they hoped to build. And if you think about it, choosing their Year 0 around the time of the first real victory against the Empire makes emotional sense too. That moment was not just a military victory; it was the first time in years that people across the galaxy had real hope. From the New Republic’s perspective, that hope was the foundation of everything they were trying to build. So starting a new calendar from that moment sends a message: “This is when things began to change.”

darklordoftech said:

The BBY/ABY calendar existing in-universe.

Why do you hate it? I do not mind it.

I was permanently banned from a subreddit and temporarily banned from Reddit for 7 days. And I am pissed off.

So, what happened? Let me break it down for you as simply as possible.

Basically, I posted some comments in a subreddit. Those comments got me banned from that subreddit for seven days. Now, just to be clear, my comments were not hateful, not racist, and not the kind of offensive nonsense that could justifiably get me banned from Reddit altogether. They were just a bit snarky, a little sharp — let’s say they had a bit of an edge to them. And apparently, that was enough to get me banned for “toxicity.”

Fine. I accepted it. No problem.

Now, here is where things took a turn.

Today, while going through my notifications, I noticed one I had not replied to. I clicked on it, and it turned out to be a comment someone had left for me in that same subreddit where I was banned. But this comment was in an entirely different thread, totally unrelated to the discussion that got me banned in the first place.

And then I had a lapsus. For a moment, I completely forgot I had been banned. So I tried to reply to the comment, but the system would not let me. I kept clicking “send,” but my response would not go through.

Now, because of this lapsus, my brain did not make the connection: “Oh, I cannot reply because I am banned.” Instead, I assumed there was some kind of system glitch preventing me from responding.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I thought, “Screw it, I will just make another account and reply from there.” That way, I figured, I could get my response through despite what I assumed was just a Reddit bug.

Well, bad idea.

Shortly after, I got a notification saying: “You attempted to evade a ban, so now you are permanently banned from this subreddit.” And then, about thirty minutes later, I got another notification: “You have been temporarily suspended from Reddit for seven days.”

That is when it hit me: “What the hell did I just do?”

Because I had not actually intended to break the rules. I had not tried to get around the ban on purpose; I had just had a lapsus and completely forgotten I was banned in the first place! When I made that second account, it was not to dodge the ban, but because I genuinely thought there was a technical issue stopping me from replying.

But, well… here we are.

Now I am permanently banned from that subreddit and suspended from Reddit for a week.

The End of MJ-12?

by Kevin Randle, published on October 17, 2010

Original Source: https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/10/end-of-mj-12.html?m=1

My plan had been to hold off on this until later, but with some suggesting there is still life in MJ-12, I thought I would attempt to drive a nail into this particular coffin. It is clear, based on some early research, that MJ-12 is a hoax created in the early 1980s, probably by Bill Moore and Richard Doty.

Here’s what we all seem to know. The information contained in the Eisenhower Briefing Document (EBD) reflects the state of UFO crash research in the early 1980s. Bill Moore told a number of people, and you can find their names on the Internet, that he was thinking of creating a “Roswell-style document,” in an attempt to smoke out additional witnesses. Moore had said that he had taken the investigation as far as he could.

By this time, it was clear to many that the Barney Barnett (who died in 1969, long before he could be interviewed) connection to Roswell was weak at best. Barnett, who told his tale of seeing a crashed UFO on the Plains of San Agustin, did not have a date associated with it. Barnett was important to the earliest Roswell investigations because he mentioned seeing alien bodies, and that was the only mention of bodies [at the time]. That made it clear the event was extraterrestrial in nature. The connection was drawn by J. F. “Fleck” Danley, who had been Barnett’s boss in 1947, and Danley said that he had heard the tale directly from Barnett. Pushed by Moore, Danley thought the date of this story might have been 1947, and, based on the sighting in Roswell on July 2, Moore and others assumed the crash to have happened on July 2. This sighting, by Dan Wilmot, has little relevance to the Roswell case, other than Wilmot lived in Roswell, and it happened on July 2, 1947. There is no reason to connect the sighting to the crash. When I talked to Danley, it was clear that he had no real idea of when Barnett had mentioned the UFO crash. It could have been 1947, but, if I pushed, I could have gotten him to come up with another date. Moore knew of the shaky nature of the Danley date.

To make it worse, I learned, in the 1990s, from Alice Knight, that Ruth Barnett [Barney’s wife] had kept a diary for 1947. It is clear from that document that the crash could not have taken place on July 2, if Barnett was there. In fact, there is nothing in the diary to suggest he had seen anything extraordinary or had been involved in anything that would have been upsetting. In other words, the only document about Barney Barnett that we could find suggested that, if he had seen a UFO crash, it didn’t happen in 1947. Of course, in the early 1980s, Moore wouldn’t have known about the diary, but he did know how he had gotten Danley to give him the 1947 date. He would have known that it wasn’t true, and that the Barnett story had nothing to do with the Roswell UFO crash. This is important, because it explains why there was no mention of the Plains crash in the Eisenhower Briefing Document. Moore knew that those on the inside would know that the Barnett story did not fit into the scenario. Moore left it out, because it would expose the MJ-12 hoax for what it was to those who knew the truth.

And now we come to the other crash mentioned in the EBD. This is the Del Rio crash, that was dated in the EBD as 1950. This is the story being told by Robert B. Willingham, who, it was claimed, was a retired Air Force colonel who had seen the crash. Because he was a retired colonel, his story had credibility with those in the UFO community. I believed it for that very reason. A retired Air Force colonel would not be making up something like this.

W. Todd Zechel, a UFO researcher of limited ability, in pawing through the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena files, found a newspaper clipping about Willingham and his alleged UFO crash. Back in the mid-1970s, when Zechel found the clipping, no one was taking much notice of such stories. They were considered, at best, to be mistakes, and, at worst, to be hoaxes. But Zechel believed the tale, and tracked down Willingham. At Zechel’s insistence, Willingham signed an affidavit about the crash, proving to many that this was a solid case. Even the Center for UFO Studies included the Willingham story on the LP (vinyl) record they produced of interesting UFO sightings. Moore knew of this story, because Zechel had told him. In Moore’s book, The Roswell Incident, he devotes a brief mention to the case, which establishes the link between Zechel, Willingham, and Moore. More to the point, Moore believed the story for the same reason that the rest of us did. Willingham was a retired colonel.

The thinking is easy to follow. Del Rio is a real crash, but Moore didn’t have all the details. Those belonged to Zechel and what he had learned from Willingham. But Moore believed this to be real, and, if those on the inside were going to believe MJ-12, he had to mention this crash. Without the details, he simply added a single paragraph to the EBD that suggested the craft had been nearly incinerated upon impact, which, in reality, wasn’t that far from what Willingham originally said. So, the MJ-12 document, using the information developed by Zechel and supplied by Willingham, said, “On 06 December, 1950, (sic) a second object, probably of similar origin, impacted the earth at high speed in the El-Indio-Guerrero area of the Texas-Mexican border after following a long trajectory through the atmosphere. By the time a search team arrived, what remained of the object had been almost totally incinerated. Such material as could be recovered was transported to the A.E.C. facility at Sandia, New Mexico, for study.”

The situation, then, in the early 1980s, was that Roswell was a real crash, the Plains might be but the date was wrong, Aztec was a hoax, as proven in repeated investigations, and Del Rio was real because there was an Air Force officer who said so. Which, of course, explains why both the Plains and Aztec were left out, and Del Rio was included.

I learned, as I was working on Crash – When UFOs Fall from the Sky, that no one had checked on Willingham’s credentials. I became suspicious when the date of the crash shifted from 1950 to 1955. I asked, but no one had ever looked into Willingham’s background. Apparently, everyone thought someone else had done it, most believing that Zechel had conducted that research. The whole case hinged on the credibility of Willingham. But Willingham had not been an officer, had not been in the Air Force, had not been a fighter pilot, and had not been in a position to see a UFO crash. In fact, though I didn’t find the newspaper clipping, I did find a one-paragraph report in the February/March 1968 issue of Skylook that gave the crash date as 1948, and suggested that there had been three objects. Nearly everything about that original case had changed, sometimes more than once. It was clear that Willingham had invented his Air Force career, was not a retired colonel, and had served just 13 or 14 months, from December 1945 to January 1948, as a low-ranking enlisted soldier.

If Willingham, as the sole witness to the crash, had invented the tale, then there was no Del Rio crash, and the MJ-12 documents, or rather the EBD, was a fake. But, in the early 1980s, Moore didn’t know this, most of the UFO community didn’t know this, and Willingham was still talking about the 1950 date.

Yes, I know what the answer to this will be. What relevance does Willingham have to MJ-12? Two separate issues. Except, they aren’t. There is no other witness, document, indication, suggestion, or mention of the Del Rio case without Willingham. If not for his discussion about the case in 1968, if not for Zechel’s interview of him in the 1970s, there would be no mention of a Del Rio UFO crash anywhere. That it is mentioned in the MJ-12 EBD, and we can draw a line from Willingham to Zechel to Moore, that suggests all we need to know about this. There was no Del Rio UFO crash, and, if there was none, then it shouldn’t have been mentioned in the Eisenhower Briefing Document.

If we look at the state of UFO research today, we realize that much of what was said in the EBD about Roswell was not quite right, and the information about Del Rio completely wrong. The more we learn about the events in Roswell, and the more we learn about the lack of detail for Del Rio, the better the case against MJ-12 becomes.

Couple the other problems to this — the lack of provenance, the typographical errors, the incorrect dating format, and the anachronistic information — then the only conclusion possible is that there is no MJ-12. There never was, except for a 1980 unpublished novel written by the late Bob Pratt, with the assistance of Bill Moore and Richard Doty. The only question left is: how long are we going to have to listen to the nonsense that is MJ-12?

Majestic Twelve: One of the Greatest Hoaxes in the History of UFOlogy

As evidence that the Roswell incident was the result of the crash of an alien craft, many UFO enthusiasts and Roswell believers often cite the so-called “Majestic Twelve” documents. The history of these documents is complex and multifaceted. Since no one has ever attempted to write a single, unified post containing all the available information about them, I thought that it would have been worthwhile to do so myself. In my opinion, it is important for people who are new to this topic to have a comprehensive reference. Therefore, I will write a single essay, explaining how the documents came into the hands of UFO researchers, what is their content, and why I believe they should be regarded as a hoax.

There are many documents associated with Majestic Twelve. Some of these documents were allegedly leaked in the early 1980s, while others were supposedly leaked in the 1990s. This essay will focus exclusively on the original Majestic Twelve documents that surfaced in the early 1980s. These early documents are the only ones worth discussing in detail, because they were the first to introduce the concept of Majestic Twelve and the entire lore surrounding it. Proving that the first documents to reference Majestic Twelve are forgeries would mean proving that the very name “Majestic Twelve” itself is a fabrication. And that, in turn, would automatically demonstrate that all subsequent documents referencing Majestic Twelve are fraudulent as well.

Furthermore, it is important to note that the later documents have never been considered authentic by UFO researchers, with the sole exception of Robert and Ryan Wood. Even Stanton Friedman, one of the most vocal advocates of the authenticity of the original 1980s documents, firmly rejected the later documents. In fact, in his pro-Majestic Twelve book Top Secret/Magic, Friedman devoted several chapters to systematically debunking the 1990s documents. For this reason, not only is it unnecessary to examine the 1990s documents in detail, but it is also reasonable to assert that their fate is inextricably tied to that of the original documents. If the 1980s documents are discredited, then the entire narrative built upon them inevitably falls apart.

THE HISTORY OF THE DOCUMENTS

The Majestic Twelve documents first appeared in December 1984, when a package with no return address and a postmark from Albuquerque, New Mexico, arrived at the residence of television producer Jamie Shandera in North Hollywood, California. The package contained a roll of 35mm film. When developed, the film revealed a classified memo dated September 24, 1947, in which President Harry S. Truman authorized the creation of “Operation Majestic Twelve.” It also contained a document dated November 18, 1952, which purported to be a briefing document written by Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter and destined to President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower. The document outlined the nature and purpose of Operation Majestic Twelve, describing the Roswell crash and other related events. The text of the Eisenhower Briefing Document is reported below:

Operation Majestic-12 is a top-secret research and development/intelligence operation responsible directly and only to the President of the United States. Operations of the project are carried out under the control of the Majestic-12 (Majic-12) Group, which was established by a special classified executive order of President Truman on 24 September 1947, upon the recommendation of Dr. Vannevar Bush and Secretary James Forrestal.

Members of the Majestic-12 Group were designated as follows:

• Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter
• Dr. Vannevar Bush
• Secy. James V. Forrestal
• Gen. Nathan P. Twining
• Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg
• Dr. Detlev Bronk
• Dr. Jerome Hunsaker
• Mr. Sidney W. Souers
• Mr. Gordon Gray
• Dr. Donald Menzel
• Gen. Robert M. Montague
• Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner

The death of Secretary Forrestal on 22 May, 1949, created a vacancy which remained unfilled until 01 August, 1950, upon which date Gen. Walter B. Smith was designated as permanent replacement.

On 24 June, 1947, a civilian pilot flying over the Cascade Mountains in the State of Washington observed nine flying disc-shaped aircraft traveling in formation at a high rate of speed. Although this was not the first known sighting of such objects, it was the first to gain widespread attention in the public media. Hundreds of reports of sightings of similar objects followed. Many of these came from highly credible military and civilian sources. These reports resulted in independent efforts by several different elements of the military to ascertain the nature and purpose of these objects in the interests of national defense.

A number of witnesses were interviewed and there were several unsuccessful attempts to utilize aircraft in efforts to pursue reported discs in flight. Public reaction bordered on near hysteria at times. In spite of these efforts, little of substance was learned about the objects until a local rancher reported that one had crashed in a remote region of New Mexico located approximately seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell Army Air Base (now Walker Field).

On 07 July, 1947, a secret operation was begun to assure recovery of the wreckage of this object for scientific study. During the course of this operation, aerial reconnaissance discovered that four small human-like beings had apparently ejected from the craft at some point before it exploded. These had fallen to Earth about two miles east of the wreckage site. All four were dead and badly decomposed due to action by predators and exposure to the elements during the approximately one week time period which had elapsed before their discovery. A special scientific team took charge of removing these bodies for study. The wreckage of the craft was also removed to several different locations. Civilian and military witnesses in the area were debriefed, and news reporters were given the effective cover story that the object had been a misguided weather research balloon.

A covert analytical effort organized by Gen. Twining and Dr. Bush acting on the direct orders of the President, resulted in a preliminary consensus (19 September, 1947) that the disc was most likely a short range reconnaissance craft. This conclusion was based for the most part on the craft’s size and the apparent lack of any identifiable provisioning.

A similar analysis of the four dead occupants was arranged by Dr. Bronk. It was the tentative conclusions of this group (30 November, 1947) that although these creatures are human-like in appearance, the biological and evolutionary processes responsible for their development has apparently been quite different from those observed or postulated in homo-sapiens. Dr. Bronk’s team has suggested the term “Extraterrestrial Biological Entities”, or “EBE’s”, be adopted as the standard term of reference for these creatures until such time as a more definitive designation can be agreed upon.

Since it is virtually certain that these craft do not originate in any country on earth, considerable speculation has centered around what their point of origin might be and how they get here. Mars was and remains a possibility, although some scientists, most notably Dr. Menzel, consider it more likely that we are dealing with beings from another solar system entirely.

Numerous examples of what appear to be a form of writing were found in the wreckage. Efforts to decipher these have remained largely unsuccessful.

Equally unsuccessful have been efforts to determine the method of propulsion or the nature or method of transmission of the power source involved. Research along these lines has been complicated by the complete absence of identifiable wings, propellers, jets, or other conventional methods of propulsion and guidance, as well as a total lack of metallic wiring, vacuum tubes, or similar recognizable electronic components. It is assumed that the propulsion unit was completely destroyed by the explosion which caused the crash.

A need for as much additional information as possible about these craft, their performance characteristics and their purpose led to the undertaking known as U.S. Air Force Project Sign in December, 1947. In order to preserve security, liaison between Sign and Majestic-12 was limited to two individuals within the Intelligence Division of Air Material Command whose role was to pass along certain types of information through channels. Sign evolved into Project Grudge in December, 1948. The operation is currently being conducted under the code name Blue Book, with liaison maintained through the Air Force officer who is head of the project.

On 06 December, 1950, a second object, probably of similar origin, impacted the earth at high speed in the El Indio-Guerrero area of the Texas-Mexican border after following a long trajectory through the atmosphere. By the time a search team arrived, what remained of the object had been almost totally incinerated. Such material as could be recovered was transported to the A.E.C. facility at Sandia, New Mexico, for study.

Implications for the National Security are of continuing importance in that the motives and ultimate intentions of these visitors remain completely unknown. In addition, a significant upsurge in the surveillance activity of these craft beginning in May and continuing through the autumn of this year has caused considerable concern that new developments may be imminent. It is for these reasons, as well as the obvious international and technological considerations and the ultimate need to avoid a public panic at all costs, that the Majestic-12 Group remains of the unanimous opinion that imposition of the strictest security precautions should continue without interruption into the new administration. At the same time, contingency plan MJ-1949-04P/78 (Top Secret - Eyes Only) should be held in continued readiness should the need to make a public announcement present itself.

Although the envelope bore no name or identifying marks, Shandera presumed that the package had been delivered by his friend William Moore, a prominent UFO researcher and the co-author of the very first book about the Roswell crash, titled The Roswell Incident. However, when Shandera showed him the envelope, Moore denied having seen it before. Nevertheless, when Moore had the opportunity to read the Eisenhower Briefing Document, he quickly discerned a connection between the document and his own Roswell research. After receiving both the Truman-Forrestal Memo and the Eisenhower Briefing Document, Moore and Shandera, together with Stanton Friedman, embarked on a meticulous effort to determine the authenticity of the documents and validate their content. This endeavor involved extensive research and fact-checking, which led them to spend significant time at the National Archives, combing through government records and declassified materials. Their goal was to uncover any circumstantial evidence or corroborating details that could indicate the authenticity of both documents.

In March 1985, Stanton Friedman visited the National Archives during a trip to Washington, D.C. While there, Friedman was informed that Air Force intelligence files were undergoing a classification review, which might yield information related to UFO phenomena. This promising lead prompted a return visit in July 1985 by Moore and Shandera, who meticulously searched through the records identified as Entry 267 of Air Force Record Group 341. After painstakingly reviewing over 120 boxes of documents, Shandera stumbled upon a peculiar memo dated July 14, 1954, addressed to General Nathan Twining and signed by Robert Cutler, then Special Assistant to President Eisenhower. This memo, known as the “Cutler-Twining Memo,” stated:

"The President has decided that the MJ-12 SSP briefing should take place during the already scheduled White House meeting of July 16, rather than following it as previously intended.”

The document was an administrative note, devoid of substantive details, but its reference to "MJ-12 " was groundbreaking. The memo was typed on onionskin paper with a watermark and bore a red pencil mark through its security classification, consistent with archival practices for declassified materials. The discovery provided the first tangible link to the existence of Majestic Twelve.

Following this significant find, Moore, Shandera, and Friedman undertook further efforts to authenticate the Cutler-Twining Memo. By 1987, Moore, Shandera, and Friedman had gathered enough evidence to confidently present their findings, and decided to officially and publicly release the documents in a press conference. The release ignited intense debate within the UFO research community and the broader public. Some researchers hailed the documents as conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, while others questioned their authenticity, claiming that Moore and Shandera were the perpetrators of a hoax.

THE AQUARIUS TELEX AND “MJ-TWELVE”

Contrary to what one might be led to believe, the first mention of an organization called Majestic Twelve does not appear in the Eisenhower Briefing Document or the Truman-Forrestal Memo sent to Jamie Shandera in 1984. Instead, it can be traced back to a document delivered in March 1981 to a man named Paul Bennewitz. However, to fully understand the significance of this document, we first need to know who Paul Bennewitz was and what he went through.

Paul Bennewitz was a physicist and electrical engineer who, in the mid-1960s, founded a company called Thunder Scientific in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which specialized in manufacturing temperature and humidity instruments for NASA and the Air Force. His house overlooked both Kirtland Air Force Base and the nearby Manzano Weapons Storage Area, which was a secretive nuclear weapons depot. From his rooftop, he had an unobstructed view of both sites, and his laboratory was so close to Kirtland that he often said he could practically shake hands with the guards on the base.

In December 1979, Bennewitz observed strange disc-shaped objects flying over and around the Manzano complex. Some of these craft appeared to be resting on or near the ground within the Weapons Storage Area, occasionally gathering in groups of up to four. Being a physicist who habitually documented everything meticulously, he photographed and filmed the objects, and took detailed notes on their appearance and behavior. According to his notes, the objects emitted a glowing, pulsing light, and just before rising into the air, a bright flash would appear beneath them, followed by a bluish halo as they silently ascended. Since Bennewitz was very patriotic, he believed that his findings should be reported to the authorities. Therefore, in January 1980 he contacted the Air Force personnel working at Kirtland to relay what he had seen.

Since UFO sightings over nuclear installations were regarded as a serious national security concern, the Air Force decided to launch an operation with the goal of discrediting Bennewitz entirely. To do that, they began feeding him false, exaggerated, and misleading information, hoping that he would spread it as widely as possible. They believed that if he started spreading stories that were obviously absurd, the media and the more rational segments of the UFO research community would stop taking him seriously, and the authentic UFO sightings he had witnessed in December 1979, along with his genuine photos and videos, would be dismissed by association.

After reporting his findings to the Air Force, Bennewitz began to think that if there was some kind of alien presence in the area, he might be able to detect the electromagnetic signals emitted by the extraterrestrials. Therefore, he built a device specifically designed for this purpose and informed the Air Force about his plan. Not long after, in March/April 1980, Bennewitz started picking up strange electromagnetic signals and managed to decode some of them. The signals contained messages that conveyed claims such as “the number of our crashed saucers is eight,” “our race is dying on home planet,” and “women of Earth are needed.” He thought these transmissions were authentic, and came to believe that the aliens who piloted the UFOs he had sighted in December 1979 were now attempting to contact him directly. In reality, those signals were generated and sent by the Air Force as part of their operation. That was the start of the disinformation campaign.

A few months later, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) assigned special agent Richard C. Doty to the case. Doty quickly established contact with Bennewitz and began acting as a “yes man,” reinforcing Bennewitz’s convictions and telling him he was on the right track. Furthermore, in 1981 Doty approached William Moore and recruited him to participate in the operation. According to Moore’s later admissions, the Air Force, acting through Doty, promised him access to classified UFO documents if he collaborated in managing the Bennewitz affair, spied on other UFO researchers, and helped spread disinformation within the community.

Over the following years, the “aliens,” meaning the Air Force, continued sending Bennewitz signals that contained increasingly elaborate messages and “revelations.” Through these communications, they managed to convince him that:

1. The aliens had established an underground base beneath the Archuleta Mesa, near the small town of Dulce, New Mexico.
2. Inside the Dulce facility, they were conducting horrifying experiments on human prisoners, subjecting them to genetic manipulation and surgical procedures.
3. The U.S. government had established a secret treaty with the aliens, granting them permission to abduct humans in exchange for advanced technology.
4. The aliens were abducting millions of people and implanting them with devices that allowed them to control their bodies.
5. They were ultimately preparing to break the treaty, invade the planet, and completely enslave humanity.

Doty, of course, validated Bennewitz’s opinions by assuring him that the signals he was receiving were genuine extraterrestrial transmissions and that the information they contained was true.

Since Bennewitz was a licensed pilot, he occasionally flew over the Archuleta Mesa to look for signs of the supposed underground base. To reinforce his belief, the Air Force deliberately placed fake ventilation shafts, phony guard towers, and other staged “evidence” on the mesa, making sure he would notice them from the air and take them as confirmation that some kind of underground installation was really hidden below. On some of these flights, Doty even accompanied him, pointing out the planted structures and saying, “You’re right, there really is a base down there.” In addition, Moore, acting under Doty’s instructions, provided Bennewitz with forged documents to further manipulate him.

Eventually, Bennewitz’s paranoia spiraled so badly that it started taking a serious toll on his health. According to the people who knew him personally, at one point he was barely eating at all and was smoking a pack of cigarettes every hour. He had completely barricaded his home and filled it with knives and guns to defend himself from the aliens, who he believed were breaking into his house at night to abduct him and inject substances into his body. He also became convinced that the aliens had implanted a device into his wife’s brain, and that they were using it to control her and spy on him. Things got so bad that, in 1988, his family decided to have him committed to a psychiatric hospital for a few months.

For a comprehensive overview of the Bennewitz case, I highly recommend reading Project Beta by Greg Bishop and X Descending by Christian Lambright. These books provide an in-depth analysis of the events, how they unfolded, and their implications.

Now, you might wonder: what does Paul Bennewitz have to do with Majestic Twelve? The answer is that in March 1981, Richard Doty arranged for a document to be delivered to Bennewitz through William Moore. The document is commonly known as the Aquarius Telex, and includes what is believed to be the very first mention of an organization called Majestic Twelve, highlighted in a small line near the end:

Results of Project Aquarius are still classified Top Secret with no dissemination outside official Intelligence channels, and with restricted access to MJ-Twelve.

The Aquarius Telex was delivered to Bennewitz three years before the Eisenhower Briefing Document and the Truman-Forrestal Memo arrived at Shandera’s house. Therefore, the line is particularly significant. It effectively resets the timeline for these events and indicates that Moore had already seen a reference to an organization called Majestic Twelve in 1981, a detail that has largely disappeared from the later discussion of the Majestic Twelve documents.

LINDA HOWE AND MAJESTIC TWELVE

In early 1983, Linda Howe, hot off the success of her regional Emmy Award-winning documentary on cattle mutilations, A Strange Harvest, had been tapped to produce an HBO special with the proposed title of UFOs: The E.T. Factor. On April 9, 1983, Howe met with Richard Doty at Kirtland Air Force Base, an incident that seems lifted straight out of a spy novel. As Howe recounted in An Alien Harvest:

I sat down with my back to the windows. [Doty] sat behind the desk. “You know you upset some people in Washington with your film, A Strange Harvest. It came too close to something we don’t want the public to know about.” That began a brief discussion about my documentary. I asked him why extraterrestrials were mutilating animals. Richard Doty said that the subject was classified beyond his need to know. He told me I had been monitored while I was making the film. […]
[Doty] reached with his left hand to a drawer on the left side of the desk and opened it. He pulled from the drawer a brown envelope. He opened it and took out several standard letter sized sheets of white paper. "My superiors have asked me to show this to you,“ he said, handing me the pages. “You can read these and you can ask me questions, but you can’t take any notes.” I took the papers and I read the top page. It was entitled “Briefing Paper for the President of the United States of America” on the subject of unidentified aerial craft or vehicles.
Richard Doty then stood up and said, “I want you to move from there.” He motioned me toward the large chair in the middle of the room. “Eyes can see through windows.” I got up and moved to the big chair, confused. I didn’t know what was happening. As I looked at the pages in my lap a second time, I wondered why he was showing them to me. I was very uncomfortable, but I wanted to read and remember every word…

The documents given to Linda Howe detailed four distinct saucer crashes that were said to have occurred in Roswell, Aztec, Kingman, and Mexico. The Roswell incident reportedly involved a lone survivor referred to as “EBE,” an acronym for Extraterrestrial Biological Entity. EBE was described as being four feet tall, with gray skin and no hair, possessing a large head and prominent eyes that were likened to those of a child, though he was said to have the intellect of “a thousand men.” EBE was allegedly held captive at the Los Alamos Laboratories until his death in 1952.

According to Howe, the documents stated that Project Blue Book was a public relations operation that was supposed to divert attention from the real investigative projects. In his conversations with Howe, Doty mentioned MJ-Twelve, but suggested “MJ” stood for “Majority” rather than “Majestic.” Whatever the real name, it was a committee of twelve high ranking government officials, scientists, and military officers who set the policy for the cover-up and the dissemination of disinformation about UFOs and government interest in them.

One of the documents claimed that the aliens had created a being who was placed on Earth to teach humanity about peace and love approximately two thousands years ago, a reference that strongly implied a connection to Jesus Christ. Furthermore, they claimed that after EBE’s death, other extraterrestrials, identified as EBE-2 and EBE-3, arrived on Earth as part of an exchange program. Doty informed Howe that EBE-3 was still alive and indicated that she might have an opportunity to interview him. Doty also said that high-level intelligence officers were in possession of classified materials, including film footage of a UFO landing at a military base and other photographs, which he suggested could be used for Howe’s documentary. He assured her that he would contact her in the future using the code name “Falcon.”

Several months later, however, Doty told Howe that he had been removed from the case and referred her to other intelligence contacts. These individuals also delayed providing the promised materials, continuing to string her along for many more months. Ultimately, the prolonged delays led HBO to withdraw from the project, leaving Howe without the necessary resources to proceed with her documentary.

This information is extremely important, as it strongly suggests that Doty had a deep and deliberate involvement in the creation of what would later become the Eisenhower Briefing Document. In fact, the documents that were shown to Linda Howe contained a great deal of the same content that would eventually appear in the Eisenhower Document. For example, the acronym “EBE” can be found in both documents. Similarly, the documents shown to Linda Howe referenced a UFO crash that allegedly happened in Mexico. This crash is a clear allusion to the so-called “Del Rio crash,” which the Eisenhower Document places near the border between Mexico and Texas, in the El Indio-Guerrero region. Therefore, just like with the Aquarius Telex, we are faced with a situation where information that would later appear in the Eisenhower Document had already surfaced before that document was ever sent to Shandera.

75 MILES? NO, 62 MILES

In both Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood’s paper, The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12, and later in an article adapted from the paper and published in the MUFON Journal under the by-line of Brad Sparks, there is a discussion of what they regard as a fatal error in the Eisenhower Briefing Document.

To explain what they mean by a “fatal error,” they quote Stanton Friedman, who had stated that one way to determine whether “the document is a phony is on the basis of any mistaken information in it.” Both William Moore and Jaime Shandera echoed this concern at various times by suggesting the same principle. Erroneous information in a document strongly indicates that it has been forged. All of them, including Sparks and Greenwood, argue that such fatal errors would demonstrate that the Eisenhower Document, at best, constituted disinformation and, at worst, was a hoax designed to divert attention from more significant areas of research.

The error identified by Sparks and Greenwood in the Eisenhower Briefing Document pertains to the distance to the debris field near Corona, New Mexico, which is so significantly inaccurate that they consider it a major flaw. Brad Sparks asserted that “the Eisenhower Document wrongly claimed that the Roswell crash site, which refers to the Mack Brazel debris field, was approximately 75 miles from the Roswell base, when in fact it was only 62 miles away.” He has been highlighting this error since 1987. Sparks calculated the actual distance to be 62 air miles, while the distance by road exceeds 100 miles, further emphasizing that the 75-mile figure mentioned in the Eisenhower Document is incorrect. Such an error, even over something as minor as the distances involved, should throw the entire document into question, because those creating such a report for review by a president would not commit an error of this nature.

Sparks suggested that the 75 mile figure originates from The Roswell Incident, published by William Moore and Charles Berlitz in 1980. It is, at best, an estimate that is not based on the facts that should have been available to an aviation unit. Their navigation needed to be precise, and even a miniscule error made at the beginning of a flight could result in missing the destination by dozens of miles. The staff of Roswell Army Air Field would have known the precise distance to the Brazel debris field, and this information should have been reflected in the Eisenhower Document.

A MAJOR FLAW

As previously stated, the Eisenhower Briefing Document mentions two UFO crashes: the Roswell incident and another crash that allegedly occurred on December 6, 1950, in the El Indio-Guerrero area near the Texas-Mexico border. This second crash is relatively obscure, but its inclusion in the document is significant, as it serves as additional evidence that the document is not genuine.

In fact, the story can be traced back to W. Todd Zechel, a researcher of limited talent, who at some point claimed to have discovered a 1968 newspaper article that mentioned the supposed crash of an unidentified object in 1948 near the Texas-Mexican border. The article included statements attributed to a man named Robert B. Willingham, who identified himself as a former Air Force officer and claimed to have witnessed the incident. Building upon this vague lead, Zechel contacted Willingham directly. In 1977, Willingham signed an affidavit in which he recounted visiting the crash site, observing unusual debris, and even recovering a piece of metal that he described as having a honeycomb-like structure and being resistant to extremely high temperatures.

However, as the years passed, Willingham’s account underwent several changes regarding the date of the alleged crash. At first, he stated that the event had occurred in 1948, which coincides with the date mentioned in the 1968 newspaper article originally discovered by Zechel. He later claimed that the crash had taken place on December 6, 1950, which is the date given for the incident in the Eisenhower Document. In subsequent versions, he moved the date once again, first to 1954 and finally to 1955. The supposed crash site also moved over the years, from the El Indio-Guerrero area to a location near Del Rio, Texas, and eventually to a region south of Lantry, Texas.

Willingham’s credibility was definitively undermined when Kevin Randle, a respected UFO researcher, stated looking into his background. Despite presenting himself as a retired Air Force colonel, Randle discovered that Willingham had never served in the Air Force at all. Instead, he had been a member of the Civil Air Patrol, a civilian auxiliary of the Air Force, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. Furthermore, his military records showed that he enlisted in the Army in December 1945, achieved the rank of E4, and was discharged in January 1947, long before any of the alleged events took place. Finally, no evidence has ever surfaced to corroborate his claims, and no additional witnesses have come forward to support his account.

Since the story of the Del Rio UFO crash relies entirely on Willingham’s testimony, and since Willingham has proven to be an unreliable witness, it is clear that there was never any UFO crash in Del Rio. This, in turn, means that the inclusion of this alleged UFO crash in the Eisenhower Document represents a significant flaw. An authentic presidential briefing document written in 1952 cannot, by definition, include a demonstrably false story that was created in the 1970s. Therefore, the inclusion of the Del Rio UFO crash in the Eisenhower Document proves that the document was not created in 1952.

THE SMOKING GUN

A significant controversy surrounding the Majestic Twelve documents concerns the unusual date formatting they exhibit, which appears inconsistent with the standard practices employed by the United States government during the late 1940s and early 1950s. During that period, government documents typically used a specific date style: the day written as a number, followed by the fully spelled-out name of the month, and concluded by the complete year written numerically (e.g., “2 March 1948”). Although, on rare occasions, a comma might appear after the month, this was exceedingly uncommon. In one examined sample of 600 pages, only three instances of this anomaly were identified, all originating from a single individual in Air Force Intelligence.

Philip Klass, a well-known UFO skeptic, drew attention to the fact that the Eisenhower Briefing Document deviated from this conventional style. He highlighted that it not only included an additional, uncommon comma after the month but also added a leading zero before single-digit dates (e.g., “07 July, 1947”). Klass noted that such formatting was absent from authentic government documents of the time, but was present in the personal writings of William Moore. Consequently, critics raised the question of whether Moore had been involved in the creation of the Majestic Twelve documents.

In 1990, Barry Greenwood received a letter from Jun-Ichi Takanashi, a respected UFO researcher who has since passed away. In this letter, Takanashi claimed to have discovered five government documents concerning Green Fireballs that exhibited the same peculiar date formatting as the Majestic Twelve documents. Green Fireballs were mysterious luminous objects reported in the late 1940s and early 1950s, often seen streaking across the skies near sensitive military installations, particularly in New Mexico. Some researchers speculated that these phenomena might have been related to classified military projects, while others suggested a possible extraterrestrial origin.

Initially, Greenwood considered the possibility that the dating style in the Majestic Twelve documents might have genuinely been used by the government. However, Takanashi made an important observation. He noted that out of the five documents he had examined, only one appeared to be a direct copy of an original government document. The other four had been retyped, presumably for better readability, and all of these retyped documents were included in William Moore’s 1983 publication, The Mystery of the Green Fireballs. Recognizing the need to verify the authenticity of these documents, Greenwood embarked on a thorough investigation. He located the original versions of the retyped documents in the Project Blue Book microfilms stored at the National Archives, specifically in Roll 88, which contained the OSI Chronological Files. Upon comparison, Greenwood discovered that Moore had modified the date formatting during the retyping process. Moore consistently added the uncommon comma after the month and, in one instance, inserted a leading zero before a single-digit date that had not existed in the original document (e.g., “9 February 1949” became “09 February, 1949”).

It became evident that Moore had a habit of retyping government documents to improve their legibility. However, in doing so, he inadvertently introduced his distinctive style of date formatting into these reproductions. Moore referred to these retyped documents as "faithful reproductions” in his publication, but the alterations in date formatting created a strong resemblance between these documents and the Majestic Twelve documents. And that, in my opinion, proves beyond reasonable doubt that the Eisenhower Briefing Document, the Truman-Forrestal Memo, and the Cutler-Twining Memo were fabricated by Richard Doty with the assistance of William Moore, whose consistent use of this unusual date formatting across his personal writings implicated him in the creation of the documents.

WHY CREATE THE DOCUMENTS?

After thoroughly examining all available evidence, I believe the case against the authenticity of the Majestic Twelve documents is overwhelming. The internal inconsistencies, factual errors, and peculiar stylistic choices, together with their suspicious origin and their connection to known disinformation agents, leave little room for doubt. These documents are not genuine. Everything points to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations as the most likely source. They had the means, the motive, and the right people to create something like this. The way they handled the Bennewitz affair shows that this kind of operation was completely within their playbook and perfectly aligned with their methods.

However, it is legitimate to wonder why anyone would go to such lengths to create false documents about UFO crashes and secret reverse-engineering programs. To understand that, it is necessary to look at how the very notion of crashed flying saucers and recovered alien bodies first entered the public imagination and took root in the UFO discourse.

The origins of this narrative can be traced back to Frank Scully’s 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers, which describes the crash of a flying saucer near Aztec, New Mexico, in 1948 and its recovery by the U.S. military. According to the book, the disc contained the corpses of sixteen small humanoid extraterrestrials, which, along with the craft itself, were transported to a secret military base in order to study, analyze, and reverse-engineer the recovered alien technology. Behind the Flying Saucers quickly became a best-seller, capturing the imagination of the public and introducing the concept of crashed alien craft to a wide audience. But despite its popularity, the book’s foundations began to crumble two years later, when investigative journalist J.P. Cahn started an investigation to determine whether the story presented in the book was true or not.

Cahn’s inquiry revealed that the entire story originated with two con men, Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer, who had fabricated the tale for one specific purpose: to sell a bogus device known as the “DoodleBug.” The DoodleBug was advertised as a revolutionary instrument capable of detecting oil, gas, gold, or any other valuable resource that a customer might be interested in. Newton and GeBauer claimed it outperformed all similar devices because it was allegedly built with alien technology salvaged from the Aztec saucer. They concocted the story precisely to lend credibility to their scam and then relayed it to Scully, who accepted it as genuine and presented it as factual in his book. Cahn exposed the hoax in a series of detailed articles published in True Magazine in 1952. In the aftermath of his investigation, several victims of the scheme came forward, including Denver millionaire Herman Glader, who had both the means and determination to press charges. The following year, both Newton and GeBauer were convicted of fraud.

The exposure of the Aztec hoax deeply embarrassed the UFO community and cast a shadow over crash-retrieval tales. For more than thirty years, serious researchers avoided the subject entirely. The notion of recovered alien craft was seen as hopelessly contaminated by fraud, and most UFOlogists steered clear of it to preserve their credibility and protect their work from ridicule.

This situation only changed in 1980 with the publication of The Roswell Incident by William Moore and Charles Berlitz. Unlike Scully, Moore and Berlitz did not rely on con men for their sources. Rather, they pieced together a narrative that connected an actual historical event (the crash of some kind of object in the vicinity of Roswell and its recovery by the U.S. military) with more elaborate rumors of alien bodies, secret recovery teams, and government cover-ups. Their book essentially revived the idea of crashed flying saucers and transformed Roswell, which until that point was considered to be the crash of an ordinary weather balloon even by most UFOlogists, into the iconic alien crash story that dominates public imagination today. By framing Roswell as a deliberate cover-up involving the crash of an extraterrestrial craft, Moore and Berlitz provided the UFO community with a compelling narrative that was easily digestible, essentially reviving the idea of crashed flying saucers thirty years after the Aztec debacle.

So, ultimately, why create the documents? Considering everything outlined so far, there are several reasons that could have led the Air Force to revive and legitimize the myth of crashed flying saucers.

From a counter-intelligence standpoint, promoting or legitimizing stories about crashed alien craft and secret recovery programs might have been an effective way to influence how the public and UFO researchers perceived the phenomenon. By circulating false but spectacular narratives, the Air Force could have sought to push UFOlogy away from its more disciplined and scientific roots. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, UFO researchers were methodical, focusing on sighting data, flight behavior, and physical evidence in an attempt to understand the true nature of UFOs. From the 1980s onward, following the renewed popularity of Roswell and the appearance of the documents, the field gradually became dominated by sensationalist stories about alien autopsies, reverse-engineering programs, and super-secret government UFO committees. For the Air Force, such a shift was extremely convenient. Encouraging these narratives helped redirect researchers toward fiction-like material that consumed their time, divided their community, and eroded their credibility in the eyes of the public and the media.

At the same time, there might have been another motivation. By producing documents that appeared to describe the recovery of alien craft, the Air Force could have aimed to mislead foreign intelligence services. During the Cold War, convincing America’s adversaries that the United States might have access to technology beyond the known limits of human science could have carried significant strategic value. The possibility that the U.S. military possessed revolutionary aerospace technology might have been enough to sow uncertainty and reinforce the perception of American superiority. Through such deception, the Air Force could have projected an image of overwhelming technological advancement without disclosing anything real about its actual capabilities.

In other words, the creation of the MJ-Twelve documents might have served two complementary purposes. On one hand, it may have been intended to discredit UFOlogy by fostering sensationalism and confusion within the field. On the other, it could have functioned as a tool of strategic deception designed to mislead foreign powers about the level of American technological development. Together, these two objectives might explain why such elaborate forgeries were produced and why they were allowed to circulate for so long.

Whatever the reason behind their creation, the documents cannot be separated from Richard Doty, William Moore, Paul Bennewitz, and the Air Force, whose actions shaped the myth. Understanding these connections is essential for anyone trying to make sense of UFO research and the patterns of disinformation that have influenced the field for decades. Recognizing how these forces operated allows us to see how narratives can be manipulated, attention diverted, and inquiry misdirected. By keeping these connections in mind, we can ensure that the documents are viewed for what they truly represent, rather than for the illusion they try to project.

MY SOURCES

• Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic-12 and the United States Government’s UFO Cover-Up by Stanton Friedman
• Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth by Greg Bishop
• X Descending: Two Extraordinary Films Reveal Lies, Deception, and Truth About Unidentified Flying Objects by Christian Lambright
• Important New Revelations About the Paul Bennewitz Affair by Robert Hastings
• Crash — When UFOs Fall From The Sky by Kevin Randle
• The Myth of MJ-12 by Kevin Randle
• Case MJ-12: The True Story Behind the Government’s UFO Conspiracies by Kevin Randle
• The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12 by Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood

Drones: My Estimate of the Situation

by Kevin Randle, published on December 14, 2024

Source: https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/12/drones-my-estimate-of-situation.html?m=1

For the last several days, we have been talking about drones. At this point, it seems that we are relying more on rumor, speculation, and misinformation. There have been several people interviewed, and official spokespeople have been saying things, sometimes in direct contradiction of each other.

For some perspective on this, I will note that dozens, if not hundreds, of drones have been seen over New Jersey, and now those sightings have slipped into Pennsylvania and New York. There are several military installations in that general area. There are many videos of the drones seen in both daylight and at night. There are descriptions of drones that are relatively small; some are described as six feet in diameter, while others are said to be the size of SUVs.

You might say this began with the incursions around Langley Air Force Base recently and has now migrated into other areas of the United States. The Pentagon just reported that the drones, whatever they are, do not come from any of our adversaries in today’s world, and they are not part of the US military.

After the incursions around Langley in December 2023, Christopher Mellon wrote an article wondering who was operating those mysterious drones that have been seen over Navy military exercises, around nuclear plants, and other critical operations. He mentioned that these intrusions by drones got so bad around Langley AFB that, in response to the drones, aircraft at the base were moved to other, more secure locations. Mellon wrote, “Our government has had no success in determining where they are coming from or who is operating them. It is also surprising that not a single one has malfunctioned and been recovered despite extensive operations by large numbers of them over extended periods of time.”

Air Force General Mark Kelly told reporters for the Wall Street Journal that one drone was “roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet.” Other drones followed, one by one, sounding in the distance like a parade of lawnmowers.

Adding to this, U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot told The War Zone that the Langley AFB incursions were just some of the more than 600 incursions reported over military installations in 2022. He also said two other interesting things. One was that he didn’t know if the drones had been tracked back to their recovery point or whether they could have been launched by a vessel off the coast. And two, he saw that NORAD’s responsibility for countering UAS was very limited to something that would be an attack of national consequence. He added that NORTHCOM had no responsibility or authority to take action, meaning they wouldn’t be intercepting them or trying to down one. He was saying that it was somebody else’s responsibility.

Surprisingly, he told The War Zone that all this activity led to the creation of a counter-drone experiment this week called Falcon Peak 2025, in which several companies will offer their solutions to counter these incursions. Which I found interesting because, according to Mellon, these incursions had something of a history beginning in late February to early March 2019. He mentioned, specifically, drones displaying bright spotlights that were seen repeatedly over Anderson Air Force Base on Guam. It seemed these drones were interested in a newly installed anti-ballistic missile system.

There is some indication that the Chinese might have been interested in learning about this system, but there is no direct evidence of them deploying drones. The real problem with that is that none of the drones were brought down by American defensive systems. In other words, they operated with impunity.

There is, of course, proof of Chinese interest in what is happening in Canada and the United States. In February 2023, there was the great balloon flight that crossed parts of Alaska, Canada, and the US. It was finally intercepted over the Atlantic Ocean and brought down. I often wondered why it wasn’t intercepted over some of the wide-open spaces in Canada or in the western and central parts of the US. It was apparently allowed to complete its mission, whatever that mission was, before it was destroyed.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, these drone incursions have been going on since, at least, 2019, and now, they have come up with a program that, apparently, will begin in 2025. Nothing like jumping on the problem and solving it in a timely manner.

But Guam and Anderson AFB were not the only targets in 2019. In September, swarms of these drones were around the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant. The drones had flashing red and white lights. Again, these drones flew without hindrance or restriction, and no identification was made. Robert Hastings, in his book UFOs and Nukes, made a study of these sorts of incursions in which security forces were unable to identify or down the objects flying over both military bases where atomic weapons were stored and the power plants that used atomic power.

In the latest go-around, we learned there is a report of a large drone, flying above 8,000 feet, in violation of FAA rules and regulations. Drones have also been reported at altitudes between 24,000 and 28,000 feet. An orb was chased by an F-16 over a sensitive military base in New Jersey. That object vanished at an estimated Mach 3, and I will note that it was an estimate of its speed. These reports certainly are a threat to aerial navigation and to national security, but all we are hearing is talk about what they can do.

In fact, there seem to be laws or regulations that prevent any attempt to bring one down unless there is a threat. I’m not sure why there is talk of that. I would think that the drones operating above 400 feet would be a fair target since it is in violation of FAA regulations and is, therefore, a threat to aerial navigation.

I’ll note here that the US military has drones that can operate at tens of thousands of feet above the ground. The Predator drone can hover high over the battlefield for hours and is virtually invisible from the ground. It is large enough to carry Hellfire Missiles and can be controlled from bases inside the United States while flying over targets on other continents. It is so quiet that it can’t be heard on the ground. In other words, we have the technology to do some of the things that the drones over New Jersey are reported to have done.

Given the growing concern over the drone flights that are now reported in New York, as well as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, members of Congress were given a classified briefing on the ongoing problem with UAP, once widely known as UFOs. These drones are classified as UAP. Following that meeting, Congresswoman Nancy Mace said: "We talked about several different UAPs that have been in the press or leaked. Most of those have been explained, but there are ones that we discussed that are unexplained, and they have a plan, they say, to disclose and declassify how they came to that conclusion and why they’re still objects that are unanswered. There are certain shapes that are unexplained, that are in the air. I’m in a classified setting. I don’t wanna cross over and disclose classified information, but there are certain shapes consistently that are unexplained. Which is fascinating.”

The Pentagon was pushing back on the idea that some of the reports relate to off-world technology. Sabrina Singh, the DoD Deputy Press Secretary, said, “To date, the department has discovered no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activities, or technology.” This is, of course, the same song and dance that we have heard since 1947, when flying saucers entered the public consciousness. There were classified investigations and a near-constant claim about the lack of crash-recovered debris, which would answer some of the questions.

In contrast to that bleak statement, AARO’s director, Dr. Jon Kosloski, has said, “There are interesting cases that I, with my physics and engineering background and time in the intelligence community, do not understand, and I don’t know anybody else who understands.”

There have been more statements by officials that tell us nothing, other than to suggest that there is no reason for concern. One Pentagon spokesman said that many of the drone sightings were actually commercial and private aircraft that have been misidentified as drones. Of course, there are videos and photographs that prove that many of the reports of drones are actually drones, and many are flying in violation of the FAA regulations about drones. And we have the report of 600 sightings made over several months.

We now learn that California and Oregon have had their own troubles with these incursions. You can listen to one pilot’s report of seeing something strange here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UppitJ6E9tM&t=21s

I could go on, but I think the point is made. These sorts of activities have been going on for years, with no real governmental or official response. There has been little in the way of investigation or interception of them. I’m not sure why the Pentagon has been unable to bring down some samples of these drones. All they do is tell us that these flights are not controlled by our adversaries in the world, they have suggested that they can’t jam the radio frequencies being used by the drones, and they seem to be able to evade our attempts to get our hands on one. This strikes me as another indication of our inability to properly respond to what is an obvious threat to our national security. We talk, we worry, but we do nothing other than provide weak statements suggesting there is nothing to worry about.

Given the response of the government, it is possible to believe that they do know what is going on. They tell us that it is of no importance to national security, which makes no sense, unless they understand what is happening and actually do know the source of the drones. Their response screams that they do have the answers. It’s just that they can’t do anything about it, or maybe that they don’t want to. Getting a drone would generate more questions, and it is clear to me, they simply don’t want to answer any of them.

My username is Spartacus because, being a radical socialist and a Marxist, I see Spartacus (the historical character) as “A great general, noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat,” as Marx called him. The 01 in my nickname comes from the fact that I was born in 2001.

I have the habit of changing my Avatar very often. But whatever, if I had to explain the avatar I have right now, I put it simply because I like astronomy, I like space, and I like cool wallpapers that have astronomy and space as a theme.

G&G-Fan said:

There is a difference between those examples and a whole 5 minute stretch of time where we’re supposed to feel nervous for the droids because they’re in a dangerous wasteland.

The Jedi are mentioned quite a bit in the Original Trilogy, and they come across as mysterious because you have no real sense of how their Order was structured, what their rules were, or what their temple looked like. Watching those films, you are left with a sense of mystery surrounding the Jedi simply because you know so little about them. If you watch the Prequels first, they take that mystery away.

The same applies to the Empire. It is not mysterious in the sense that we do not know what it is, but rather in the sense that we do not know how it came to be. How was the Empire established? Who is this Emperor we see in the films? What connection did he have to the Old Republic? These are all unanswered questions when watching the Original Trilogy, and the Prequels take away that mystery by giving us all the answers upfront.

So, if we were to follow your logic and remove everything in the Prequels that diminishes the sense of mystery in the Original Trilogy, there would not be much of the Prequels left at all.

As for Tatooine, the Prequels do not ruin it. They only show a very small part of the planet, just like the Original Trilogy does. The Prequels never take us deep into the desert, nor do they explore its dangers. The story stays within a relatively civilized area where you have a clear idea of what to expect — exactly like in A New Hope. When the droids wander into the desert in A New Hope, the tension remains, even if you have seen the Prequels, because the desert is still an unknown. The Prequels only show the parts of Tatooine that are full of people, places where there are no real surprises. The desert, on the other hand, remains an unpredictable and dangerous place, no matter how much you have already seen in the Prequels.

G&G-Fan said:

When watching A New Hope, and the droids are trekking Tatooine, there’s meant to be an air of mystery. You don’t know what you’re gonna find.
The Prequels ruin that.

Not if you watch the movies in release order, like almost everyone does. Don’t take this as a personal attack, but by following your logic, the Prequels should not exist in the first place, because almost every single element of the Original Trilogy feels like that. The Jedi, the Dark Side, the Empire, Alderaan, and so on. You need to remove some of the mystery surrounding these things if you want to watch the Prequels first, that’s just inevitable.

A RESPONSE TO THE “WHY EARTH?” ARGUMENT AGAINST EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION

by Spartacus 01

A lot of UFO skeptics say it’s extremely unlikely that aliens would ever visit Earth. After all, there are billions of planets in the galaxy, so what are the chances they’d show up right here? It sounds logical at first, but when you think about it, that argument doesn’t really hold up. It assumes that alien civilizations would have to find us by pure chance. But that’s not how exploration or technology work.

Even with our limited technology, humans can already detect planets orbiting other stars and study their atmospheres. We can spot gases like methane or carbon dioxide that might suggest biological activity. In the near future, our instruments will be able to detect much subtler signs of life and maybe even direct evidence of technology, such as artificial lights or industrial pollutants on distant planets.

If we can do that now, as a young civilization just beginning to explore space, imagine what a civilization a thousand years ahead of us could achieve. If we’re already close to finding biosignatures and technosignatures, then a far older civilization would’ve perfected those methods long ago and could be able to scan vast regions of the galaxy to search for potentially interesting worlds to explore.

In other words, aliens might have detected Earth hundreds of years ago, realized that it harbored life, and therefore decided to explore it. There’s no reason to believe they’d have to “stumble upon” our planet by luck.

Some people might say, “That’s a fair point. But even if they can detect habitable planets, why pick Earth specifically?” However, that objection assumes that aliens would be limited to exploring only one world at a time. Why would that be true? If a species has mastered interstellar travel and can detect habitable planets across light years, it’s reasonable to think they could explore many planets simultaneously.

We already do that ourselves. Right now, we have robotic probes exploring Mars, the Moon, the Sun, and other places all at once. A civilization that’s thousands or millions of years ahead of us could do the same thing, but on a much larger scale. They could coordinate enormous fleets of ships, sending them to dozens or even hundreds of life-bearing planets at the same time.

So Earth wouldn’t need to be “special” or “chosen.” It could simply be one of many planets they’re studying, observing, or cataloging. Maybe they’re running a massive galactic survey, and our planet is just a small part of it.

The common skeptical claim that it’s “too unlikely” for aliens to visit Earth only makes sense if we imagine them as being like us, limited by our current technology and perspective. But if we consider what an advanced spacefaring civilization could actually do, the idea of them finding and visiting us doesn’t look far-fetched at all.

Except for the first couple of seasons, Family Guy is extremely bad. I have never understood why people like it so much. Honestly, I never liked that kind of humor, and the more the show went on, the worst it got. I am sorry, but watching Peter fart in Meg’s face, Stewie killing people, Chris acting like a creep, and Quagmire literally raping women is not funny. The episode where Meg snaps and tells everyone to go to hell is the most realistic one. And I am not one of those overly sensitive people who gets offended by everything. I enjoy black humor, I enjoy action movies where characters kill each other, and I am the first to laugh at my own disability. But Family Guy jokes about things I have absolutely no desire to laugh about.

Why I strongly disagree with the interdimensional hypothesis of the UFO phenomenon

by Spartacus01

According to Jacques Vallée and the late John Keel, UFOs aren’t spacecraft from other planets, but manifestations of entities from other dimensions or realities that coexist with our own. These entities, they argue, have interacted with human beings throughout history. Rather than showing their true form, assuming such a thing even exists, they supposedly adjust their appearance and behavior to match the cultural beliefs and expectations of each period. In other words, they appear in ways that reflect what people expect to see, based on the dominant worldview of the time.

For example, in ancient times and the Middle Ages, when society was deeply influenced by religion and mythology, people were inclined to interpret strange encounters as experiences involving angels, demons, spirits, or fairies, so the entities presented themselves in those forms because that was what people could understand. In the modern era, shaped by science fiction and technological progress, the same entities supposedly appear as extraterrestrial beings piloting advanced craft. From this perspective, the phenomenon is real but not extraterrestrial. Instead, it’s a timeless, shape-shifting presence that influences human perception according to the beliefs and expectations of each historical period.

Many people find this hypothesis intriguing, and I get why it appeals to those who like symbolic or mythological explanations. However, I don’t share that view. I believe the theory collapses under close examination for several important reasons, and I want to explain why.

The fundamental difference between ancient folklore and modern UFO sightings is the presence of evidence. Old stories about angels, spirits, demons, and fairies are simply that: stories. There’s no concrete or verifiable evidence that any of those encounters actually occurred, let alone that the described entities were real. In contrast, modern UFO cases provide physical and measurable data. We have radar-visual cases where unidentified objects were both tracked on radar and seen by witnesses. We have ground traces left at alleged landing sites, such as scorched soil, flattened vegetation, and sometimes chemical or molecular alterations of the environment. We also have pilot reports, military documentation, cases of electromagnetic interference, and sightings confirmed by multiple independent witnesses. So it makes no sense to lump modern, well-documented cases together with ancient myths and legends that have no supporting evidence.

Furthermore, just because ancient people described unusual objects moving in the sky doesn’t mean they were seeing the same things we call UFOs today. In ancient and medieval times, people had little to no understanding of celestial phenomena such as meteorites, bolides, shooting stars, sundogs, ball lightning, and so on. So it was natural that whenever they saw something unusual in the sky, they interpreted it as something mystical or divine, often describing it in vivid, highly imaginative ways that didn’t necessarily reflect what they actually saw. Moreover, many stories about sky gods, fiery chariots, winged creatures, or flying wooden ships can simply be traced back to humanity’s fascination with flight. From the moment people first observed birds and insects soaring through the air, they dreamed of doing the same. Humans have always been interested in flight, so it’s natural that ancient civilizations developed myths that revolved around that concept. These tales shouldn’t be read as real encounters with non-human entities, but as expressions of human imagination. Interpreting them as literal accounts of real experiences ignores decades of anthropological research and completely overlooks the cultural context in which they were created. Not every pre-1947 account that mentions something flying should be assumed to describe something real.

Therefore, I believe there’s no valid reason to assume that ancient folkloric accounts and modern UFO reports originate from the same source. Arguing that a few superficial similarities between old legends and modern UFO encounters prove a common origin isn’t logic supported by evidence; it’s simply an unfounded leap of imagination.

Finally, a major problem with the interdimensional hypothesis is the way Vallée and Keel approached the evidence. Rather than critically evaluating individual reports, they treated virtually all sightings, landing cases, and creature encounters as equally important without carefully filtering them. For example, Vallée’s Passport to Magonia relied heavily on cases taken from old newspaper clippings, many of which lacked proper verification or came from sources known for hoaxes and exaggerations. They argued that the totality of all reports needed to be explained by a single theory, which led them to create a model so broad and all-encompassing that it ultimately explains everything and therefore explains nothing. Instead of acknowledging that some apparently solid reports might actually be the result of misperceptions or outright fabrications, they tried to account for the diversity and inconsistency of the reports by assuming that the interdimensional intelligence behind the phenomenon can alter human perception so that any contradiction can be easily explained away.

Is there a UFO report where one witness describes a disc-shaped object while another describes a triangular one? They’re not lying; it’s the intelligence behind the phenomenon that decided to appear one way to one witness and a completely different way to the other. Does radar pick up a solid object moving at high speed while pilots report seeing a small, slow-moving light? That’s not a mistake or equipment error; it’s the intelligence presenting itself differently to the radar operators and the pilots. In this way, every contradiction, every mismatch between witnesses, instruments, and physical traces becomes part of the plan, which makes it impossible to disprove the hypothesis. This is the exact opposite of the scientific method, because genuine scientific hypothesis must be open to being proven wrong, and that’s something that simply can’t be done in this case.

Overall, the hypothesis doesn’t hold up when you look at the full picture. It treats myths and folklore as if they were evidence, ignores the possibility of misperceptions, errors, or outright hoaxes, and explains contradictions through the actions of an all-powerful, shape-shifting intelligence. It makes the phenomenon impossible to study in any meaningful way, which is exactly the opposite of what a scientific hypothesis should do. By contrast, the extraterrestrial hypothesis offers a more solid framework, because it focuses on tangible evidence, measurable phenomena, and testable claims. It makes it possible to evaluate, confirm, or refute reports rather than relying on an unfalsifiable assumption to explain every inconsistency.

A RESPONSE TO JACQUES VALLÉE’S ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL HYPOTHESIS

by Spartacus01

NOTE: If you compare what I say in this essay with what I wrote earlier in this thread, you’ll notice a clear shift in how I view pre-1947 UFO sightings. Up until last year, I used to take those early reports much more seriously. But, as I’ll explain in this essay, my perspective has changed quite a bit. I’ve grown increasingly skeptical of those accounts, and I now strongly believe that extraterrestrials first arrived on Earth in 1947. Before that year, I do not think alien spacecraft were present in Earth’s skies.

For those unfamiliar with Jacques Vallée, he’s a French-American scientist and UFO researcher with a background in astrophysics and artificial intelligence. In his early work, Vallée supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis. However, over time, he developed a much more complex and unconventional interpretation of the phenomenon. According to Vallée, UFOs are not physical craft from other worlds, but rather manifestations of a paraphysical phenomenon originating from another dimension. In his view, the so-called “aliens” people encounter are actually interdimensional entities that coexist alongside our reality. These beings, he argues, deliberately take on the appearance of extraterrestrial visitors as part of a long-term effort to influence human perception, culture, and even our evolution. Vallée worked closely with J. Allen Hynek, and eventually convinced him to reconsider the extraterrestrial hypothesis later in his life.

In 1990, Vallée published a paper titled Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects, where he presented several objections to the idea that UFOs are alien spacecraft coming from other star systems. Since I support the extraterrestrial hypothesis and don’t share Vallée’s conclusions, I’ve decided to offer responses to each of his arguments. So, let’s go through them one by one.

1. The sheer number of reported close encounters with UFOs far exceeds what would be necessary for any systematic physical survey of Earth by extraterrestrial visitors.

The vast majority of UFO sightings can be explained as misidentifications of man-made vehicles, hoaxes, or natural phenomena, and this is something just about every serious UFO researcher agrees on, regardless of what hypothesis they favor. The number of cases that remain genuinely unexplained is much smaller. If we focus only on those, Vallée’s argument that “there are too many sightings to be extraterrestrial” starts to fall apart. Instead of looking at the total number of reports per year, he should be looking at the small percentage that can’t be explained using conventional means.

But even if we were to ignore the numbers entirely, there’s still no contradiction in the idea that an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence might carry out repeated visits to Earth over time. Think of a scientist observing an anthill: would he glance at it once or twice and then move on forever? Of course not. He’d return regularly, studying the colony’s behavior over an extended period. The same logic could apply to extraterrestrials observing us. If they’re interested in our biological, cultural, or technological development, it would make perfect sense for them to conduct frequent observations rather than limit themselves to a few flybys.

It’s also worth pointing out that, while credible UFO sightings and close encounters involving humanoid beings were relatively common between 1947 and 1997, reports of that nature have become much more sporadic in recent decades, at least when we’re talking about truly convincing, unexplained cases. For example, we no longer see the kind of mass UFO sightings that were frequently reported in the 1960s and 1970s. Given this trend, it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that extraterrestrials arrived on Earth in 1947, conducted an intensive study of humanity over the course of several decades, and then sent most of their fleet back home around 1997.

If that hypothesis is correct, then Vallée’s argument loses even more ground. It would mean that the majority of UFO activity was concentrated within a specific historical window, rather than spread out evenly over time. In that case, the idea that “there are too many encounters per year for them to be alien” wouldn’t really apply, since the phenomenon wouldn’t be ongoing, but rather tied to a particular period of observation.

2. The beings associated with UFO sightings are often described as humanoid. It is improbable for intelligent life forms from distant planets to independently evolve such a similar physical form.

We currently have no direct access to alien ecosystems and no way to observe what forms complex life might actually take elsewhere in the universe. Because of this, any claim about what extraterrestrial beings should or shouldn’t look like is entirely speculative. Vallée’s objection would carry more weight if we had concrete data about the environments of other planets, which could help us make informed guesses about which types of biological forms are likely to evolve under different conditions. But since that kind of information is far beyond our current reach, it’s unreasonable to say that the humanoid form is any more or less likely than any other.

In the absence of actual knowledge about alien biology, dismissing the idea of humanoid-looking extraterrestrials as improbable has no solid foundation. It’s pure speculation and lacks the data needed to back it up. Until we can study alien ecosystems up close, we can’t say what is or isn’t likely to evolve out there.

Imagine trying to figure out the ingredients of a traditional Indian dish by looking at it from far away through a pair of binoculars. You wouldn’t be able to smell it, taste it, or examine it closely. Under those conditions, accurately identifying the ingredients would be nearly impossible. Why? Because understanding something as complex as a recipe requires direct interaction and close observation. The same idea applies to life on other planets. To make solid predictions about what kinds of life might evolve elsewhere, we’d need to observe those planets up close and study their environments in detail, which is something we’re currently unable to do.

3. Many abduction reports detail behaviors by these entities that are illogical or contradictory if their intent were scientific study or genetic experimentation. For instance, repetitive and invasive procedures lack the methodological consistency one would expect from an advanced civilization conducting research.

This is a fair point, and I fully acknowledge its importance. However, it doesn’t automatically rule out the possibility that some UFOs could be extraterrestrial craft. What it does challenge more directly is the notion that alien abductions are truly extraterrestrial events.

It’s entirely possible to argue that some UFOs are alien spacecraft without subscribing to the idea that aliens are abducting humans for experimentation. In fact, most alien abduction reports can be explained without invoking extraterrestrials at all. Even the researchers who take the abduction phenomenon seriously agree that many abduction experiences are better understood through psychology: hallucinations, sleep paralysis, vivid dreams, and other mental states are often enough to explain what people report.

For the relatively small number of cases that do seem to suggest some kind of external influence, there’s still no need to immediately jump to the conclusion that aliens are involved. For example, researcher Martin Cannon suggests that some abduction experiences might actually be the result of covert human experimentation. In his book, The Controllers, he argues that certain intelligence agencies have likely been abducting civilians to conduct secret experiments on them, using a mix of powerful hypnosic techniques, hallucinogenic drugs, and brain implants to induce altered states, implant false memories, and distort human perception. According to Cannon, what many abductees remember about their experiences is probably just a highly distorted version of what really happened to them, shaped by these methods. To back up his hypothesis, Cannon provides a lot of documentation showing that many scientists working for the CIA as part of the MK-Ultra program were researching things like cerebral implants, brain manipulation via electromagnetic frequencies, advanced hypnotic techniques, and more.

So, there are multiple ways to account for the abduction phenomenon that don’t require extraterrestrial involvement. Vallée’s argument, while valid in critiquing the logic of abduction narratives, doesn’t disprove the broader idea that some UFOs might be alien spacecraft.

4. UFO-like occurrences have been documented throughout human history, long before the modern era of space exploration. This historical continuity implies that the phenomenon is not a recent development and may not be linked to extraterrestrial visitors.

One major problem with using pre-1947 sightings as evidence against the extraterrestrial hypothesis is that, before the rise of UFOlogy, there was no reliable way to verify such accounts. Back then, stories of strange aerial phenomena were published in newspapers or passed around in books, but they were never investigated with any real rigor. There were no witness cross-examinations, no radar confirmations, no physical trace analysis, none of the tools that modern UFOlogists use to separate credible reports from rumors or misinterpretations. It was only after 1947, when both governments and private researchers began taking the UFO phenomenon seriously, that real investigative standards were applied to sightings.

Because of this, we have no reliable way of knowing whether most early reports were genuine, misunderstood natural events, or outright fabrications. Take, for example, the airship sightings of the end of the 19th century. Considering the sensationalist tendencies of newspapers at the time, it’s quite plausible — and perhaps even likely — that many of these stories were either hoaxes or heavily embellished for dramatic effect. Similarly, when ancient Roman writers described “flaming shields in the sky,” we can’t say with confidence what they actually saw. Some of these accounts could easily have been caused by natural optical effects, such as sundogs, atmospheric refraction, or other unfamiliar phenomena. Others might have simply been narrative flourishes added by the authors to enhance their historical accounts.

It’s also possible that some of the glowing aerial phenomena observed by ancient Greeks and Romans were natural events that remain unexplained even today. In fact, several UFO researchers have proposed that many glowing spheres reported in both ancient and modern times may be natural atmospheric phenomena. For instance, Paul Devereux has argued that areas near fault lines or rich in certain minerals might generate electromagnetic fields capable of ionizing the surrounding air, creating plasma-like luminous objects. This idea is backed by research showing that quartz-bearing rocks, when subjected to intense pressure, can emit light. Based on that, it’s plausible that some of the strange lights reported in antiquity — as well as the Foo Fighters observed over Germany and Japan during World War II — could be explained by this mechanism.

In light of all this, Vallée’s argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The fact that people described strange things in the sky before 1947 doesn’t disprove the extraterrestrial hypothesis, because we have no way of confirming whether those early sightings were real or even anomalous. If anything, they’re largely irrelevant to the discussion, since they can’t be reliably investigated or verified. Serious UFO research should focus on well-documented cases that have been examined with modern investigative tools rather than vague, ambiguous reports from ancient or pre-modern sources.

5. Reports often include descriptions of UFOs exhibiting behaviors that defy our current understanding of physics, such as sudden appearances and disappearances, shape-shifting, or instantaneous movements. These capabilities suggest that the phenomenon might involve dimensions or realities beyond the conventional space-time framework.

The fact that UFOs appear to manipulate space and time doesn’t necessarily mean they originate from outside our physical universe. More likely, it indicates that they’re equipped with technology far beyond anything we currently understand.

For example, the seemingly instantaneous appearance and disappearance of these objects doesn’t have to mean they’re literally materializing or vanishing. It’s entirely plausible that they’re moving at such extreme speeds that they become imperceptible to the human eye. Since it takes about 13 milliseconds for our eyes to register a visual image, an object accelerating to speeds of 50,000 or 100,000 km/h within that tiny window could easily seem to vanish instantly. Similarly, an object decelerating from that speed to a complete stop could appear to suddenly materialize. In other words, what we perceive as a sudden disappearance or appearance might just be a result of acceleration and deceleration that exceeds our perceptual limits.

In the same way, reports involving time distortion — like witnesses experiencing hours passing when only minutes have gone by — could be the result of advanced technology interfering with human perception. Whether intentional or not, this interference might cause people to lose track of time or experience it differently.

So, suggesting that UFOs operate outside the framework of conventional space-time is premature. It ignores simpler, more grounded explanations. The way something appears to human observers doesn’t always reflect its true nature. Just because these objects seem to defy the laws of physics doesn’t mean they actually do, and certainly doesn’t mean they’re coming from another dimension. Before turning to exotic theories, we should first consider the possibility that we’re simply witnessing technology that’s far more advanced than our own.

THE ETH AND THE LIKELIHOOD OF INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL

by Jean van Gemert

“If we at once admit the foolishness of these perennially suggested ‘impediments’ to star flight, we will be on our way to understanding that interstellar space does not need a bridge too far. Interstellar travel may still be in its infancy, but adulthood is fast approaching, and our descendants will someday see childhood’s end.”
— Dr. Eugene Mallove and Dr. Gregory Matloff, The Starflight Handbook, 1989.

The (un)likelihood of extraterrestrial visitation is probably one of the most debated aspects of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, and the answer is an essential component to the validity of the ETH. After all, the assumed unlikeliness of interstellar travel has become the cornerstone of those who resist the ETH as an explanation for UFOs. So, does extraterrestrial visitation necessarily require all sorts of “unlikely” science, or is it possible to accomplish interstellar travel using conventional wisdom?

CAN THEY GET HERE?

Opinions on the practicality of interstellar travel diverge, but the negative and positive opinions seem to stem primarily from the backgrounds of those conducting the studies. SETI researchers believe that the degree of dispersion of stars throughout the galaxy, combined with the limitations of interstellar travel as we understand General Relativity, effectively precludes the feasibility of extraterrestrial visitation. Thus, they conclude that any extraterrestrial intelligence would only be transmitting their love and good wishes to us. On the other hand, physicists and engineers involved in propulsion research tend to believe that interstellar travel is difficult but not a barrier—or not difficult at all once technology progresses [Mallove and Matloff, 1989; Forward, 1986; Crawford, 1990]. Not surprisingly, the latter choice appears to be the most defensible.

A number of clever designs have appeared in print, describing various methods of getting mankind to the stars. These include projects such as the star probe Daedalus, a robotic interstellar vehicle designed by members of the British Interplanetary Society, which uses nuclear fusion power, or interstellar ramjets that scoop up their fuel between the stars. Physicist Robert Forward, one of the leading experts on space travel, has also proposed an entirely different method of interstellar propulsion—using photon pressure to accelerate a vehicle to a significant fraction of the speed of light in a few years [Forward, 1984]. Such ships would appear as huge sails, using the output of space-based orbital power platforms (Beamed Power Propulsion) for acceleration, eliminating the need for an onboard energy supply [Mallove and Matloff, 1989; Crawford, 1990]. Hence, much less mass would need to be accelerated. The important point here, as astronomer Ian Crawford notes, is that we

“can already identify technological solutions to the problem of interstellar travel that are consistent with the laws of physics as we currently understand them. We do not need new physics” [Crawford, 1990].

Another factor relevant to interstellar flight is relativistic time dilation. Any object traveling close to the speed of light will be subjected to effects predicted by Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. An observer on board a spaceship traveling close to c would observe that time on Earth has sped up, while time on the spaceship, relative to an observer on Earth, would appear to have slowed down. For example, a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri—assuming a constant acceleration of 1g up to a high relativistic speed during the first half of the flight and a constant deceleration of 1g during the second half—would take only three years of spaceship time, while six years would have passed outside the spaceship.

Moreover, recent ideas on speculative space propulsion may bring us the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. Some researchers propose making use of yet undiscovered “loopholes” in physical laws that would allow fast transit between widely separated points in space-time [Alcubierre, 1994; Visser, 1989; Crawford, 1995]. It might even be possible to extract large quantities of energy from the zero-point field (the vacuum) itself. If this can be done practically, then the energy available to a space traveler could be essentially unlimited, eliminating the need for an onboard fuel supply [Froning, 1986].

TOO EXPENSIVE?

Although it is impossible to precisely determine how expensive interstellar travel would be for a civilization about which no pertinent data is available, we can still make educated predictions. Interstellar travel appears not to be expensive for an advanced economy whose productivity has grown steadily for millennia. Therefore, alien contact by visitation is likely once these advanced economies implement interstellar propulsion technologies at insignificant costs relative to their wealth and capital stocks. Similarly, an interstellar transportation system may seem expensive from our perspective, but so would a 747 to the Wright brothers [Jones, 1995]. So, is interstellar flight as “improbable” as the naysayers claim? Only if we grant them their negative and self-defeating assumptions. As Ian Crawford noted in New Scientist (October 1996):

“It seems unlikely that interstellar spaceflight is impossible. Even today, we can envisage propulsion strategies that might make it possible to reach between 10 and 20 percent of the speed of light, permitting travel between nearby stars in a few decades. Any civilization with this technology would be able to colonize every planetary system in the Galaxy in about 10 million years, which is only one-thousandth of the age of the Galaxy” [Crawford, 1996].

WHERE ARE THEY?

Computer simulations and mathematical modeling suggest that the galaxy could be colonized in no more than a few million years [Hart, 1975; Jones, 1976; Papagiannis, 1978]. However, the galaxy is over ten billion years old, and second-generation (metal-rich) stars are up to nine billion years old. Thus, the time needed to colonize the galaxy is much shorter than its actual age.

O’Neill (1974) described large artificial space settlements capable of holding vast numbers of people, which he argued could be realized with existing technology in just a few decades. Scientists such as Frank Tipler and Michael Hart noted the relevance of these designs to the Fermi debate, suggesting that such habitats, equipped with propulsion, could also be used to colonize other star systems. The consequences should be clear. There is no need to invent fantastic propulsion systems such as “warp” or “hyper drives.” Current technology could theoretically allow for the colonization of the galaxy. Yet, despite calculations showing that an extraterrestrial species could have visited our solar system by now, there is no evidence of such visitation—leading to the famous Fermi Paradox. Hart and Tipler believe this paradox proves we are the only intelligent civilization in the galaxy, while SETI researchers argue that interstellar flight is entirely impossible. Other hypotheses include:

• Extraterrestrial civilizations are short-lived. If the average lifespan of an advanced civilization is only 50,000 years, none would persist long enough to colonize the galaxy.
• Most advanced civilizations focus on “more important” matters and have not developed an interest in space exploration.
• Earth is a colony, because one civilization colonized the entire galaxy long ago and now exercises a form of benign paternalism over developing civilizations (Zoo Hypothesis, Ball, 1973).

The first two hypotheses require that every civilization follows the same pattern, which seems unlikely given a galaxy with potentially millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. It only takes one civilization to colonize the galaxy. This author favors the third hypothesis—that there is a “galactic club,” an established network of old, advanced civilizations, and that Earth is under a form of quarantine. Thus, in my opinion, there simply is no Fermi Paradox. The only reason it remains a paradox to most scientists is their failure to recognize possible evidence of extraterrestrial presence in our own solar system.

CONCLUSIONS

The feasibility of interstellar travel suggests that it should be easily accomplished by an advanced society. Arguments that extraterrestrials have not had enough time to find us appear implausible [Hart, 1975; Jones, 1995; Hoerner, 1995]. Neither technical feasibility, energetics, economics, nor social factors seem sufficient to prevent interstellar travel or slow the colonization of the galaxy [Papagiannis, 1980]. The probabilities appear heavily in favor of aliens visiting Earth—perhaps they already have.

• Alcubierre, Miguel, “The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast Travel Within General Relativity,” Classical Quantum Gravity, Vol. 11, 1994, pp. 73-77.
• Ball, J. A., “The Zoo Hypothesis,” Icarus, Vol. 19, 1973, pp. 347-349.
• Crawford, Ian A., “Some Thoughts on the Implications of Faster-Than-Light Interstellar Space Travel,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, 1995, pp. 205-218.
• Crawford, Ian A., “Interstellar Travel: A Review for Astronomers,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, 1990, pp. 377-400.
• Crawford, Ian A., “Where are all the extraterrestrials?,” New Scientist, October 1996.
• Forward, R. L., “Feasibility of Interstellar Travel,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 39, 1986, pp. 379-384.
• Forward, R. L., “Roundtrip Interstellar Travel Using Laser-Pushed Lightsails,” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 21, 1984, pp. 187-195.
• Froning, H. D., “Use of Vacuum Energies for Interstellar Space Flight,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 39, 1986, pp. 410-415.
• Hart, M., “An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society," Vol. 16, 1975, pp. 128-35.
• Hoerner, S., “The Likelihood of Interstellar Colonization and the Absence of its Evidence,” in: Extraterrestrials: Where are They?, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Jones, E. M., “Estimation of Expansion Timescales,” in: Extraterrestrials: Where are They?, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Jones, E. M., “Where is Everybody?,” Physics Today, August 1985, pp. 11-13.
• Jones, E. M., “Colonization of the Galaxy,” Icarus, Vol. 28, 1976, pp. 421-22.
• Mallove, E. F., and Matloff, G. L., “The Starflight Handbook,” Wiley Science Editions, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1989.
• O’Neill, G. K., “The Colonization of Space,” Physics Today, Vol. 27, September, 1974, pp. 32-40.
• Papagiannis, M. D., “Strategies for the search for life in the universe,” Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing, 1980.
• Papagiannis, M. D., “Could we be The Only Advanced Technological Civilization in Our galaxy?,” in: Origin of Life, Japan Scientific Societies Press, 1978.
• Tipler, Frank, “Extraterrestrial Intelligent Beings Do Not Exist,” Physics Today, April 1981, pp. 70-71.
• Visser, Matt, “Traversable wormholes: Some simple examples,” Physical Review D, May 1989, S. 3182.

Original Source: https://nicap.org/papers/gemert-eth.htm

All vegetables are disgusting. I eat them because I have to, because they are healthy, not because I want to.

JadedSkywalker said:

TNG made Klingon’s space Vikings.

I do remember some of the complaints around this a long time ago.

I have always liked the idea, to be honest. But perhaps it is due to the fact that I watched The Next Generation first, and was therefore introduced to the Klingons through their The Next Generation portrayal. The same applies to the Borg Queen. The concept never bothered me, but I think it is due to the fact that I watched First Contact (and the other movies) before The Next Generation, and was therefore introduced to the Borg through their First Contact portrayal.

THE LOGICAL TRICKERY OF THE UFO SKEPTIC

By Brian Zeiler

Skeptics in the scientific community resist the evidence for extraterrestrial visitation because of the implications it raises and the questions it begs. But should the integrity of the determination rely on the implications of a positive classification? Or should the classification of true or false be assessed in isolation from the implications? Which is worse — a false positive, meaning ruling in favor of the UFO as a unique phenomenon when in fact it does not exist, or a false negative, meaning ruling against it and missing out on its true existence? The answer, of course, lies in the incentive structure of the analyst. An equally intelligent non-scientist has no incentive nor predisposition to favor one type of error over the other, but scientists do. For scientists, it would open a whole new confounding problem domain, and it would make them look incompetent in the public’s eyes for missing out on this fact for 50 years.

That is why the incentive structure of contemporary scientists is such that they will not accept alien visitation unless they must — meaning when they get irrefutable physical proof. Their incentive structure prohibits them from making any such inference unless it is unavoidable, and they will strain the boundaries of logic and reason to no end to dismiss all evidence other than physical proof, no matter how powerful it may be. This scientific predisposition toward disbelief, rooted not in science and logic but rather in dogma and paradigm, brings us to the logical trickery of the scientific UFO debunker.

WHAT EXACTLY IS “EXTRAORDINARY”?

First, the scientific debunker will say that because alien visitation is an extraordinary claim, it thus demands extraordinary proof. Therefore, no evidence is suggestive of alien visitation unless it is accompanied by irrefutable physical proof — even if the observations directly indicate, within normal scientific evidential standards, the presence of a solid object under intelligent control with propulsion technology beyond human understanding. No matter how directly the observations indicate an anomalous vehicle of non-human origin, skeptics maintain that a prosaic explanation must be adopted unless physical proof is obtained. But such a stance, rigid beyond the normal standards of scientific methodology, is a direct product of the incentive structure, not of logic, as indicated above. Normal standards of science would require meeting the evidential threshold for each of the above conditions necessary to establish extraterrestrial origin; yet the same degree of evidence for physical substance is rejected for anomalous vehicles when it would otherwise be accepted for observations of more conventional vehicles.

Thus, the debunkers have failed to define the boundary of extraordinariness, which renders the declaration logically specious due to its wholly arbitrary implementation that is easily contaminated by individual and collective incentives. They exploit the arbitrary classification of “extraordinary” by applying absurdly rigid evidential boundaries to cases that clearly feature anomalous, physical vehicles that humans could not have built. Instead of assessing the case for physical substance on its own merits with the radar-visual observations, they merely apply a priori probabilities of nearly zero to the detection of anomalous vehicles, with no logical defensibility in the face of insufficient information to estimate the a priori probability, and therefore give themselves license to reject all evidence of any quality unless a physical specimen is obtained.

For instance, if SETI receives an anomalous repeating signal with intelligent content, such as a mathematical constant, and rules out all known causes of terrestrial and deep-space interference, do they need a chunk of the alien radio dish or a dead alien to attribute it to alien origin? It would be just as easy to apply UFO-skeptic logic and insist that the signal is nothing more than anomalous until we obtain physical proof of aliens; after all, why ascribe a radio signal to alien origin before we have physical proof of the existence of aliens? After all, we cannot rule out malfunction, fraud, or human error with 100% certainty, so the simplest explanation is an undetected flaw, not an alien message. Right? Or is it really just the case that the a priori probability assumed by scientists of alien radio detection is higher than that assumed for atmospheric detection? Is this a priori probability differential between radio versus atmospheric detection logically defensible? Or do we lack sufficient information to make anything but a wild guess, a guess contaminated by incentive, dogma, and mere habit?

Why do so many scientists, including Tipler and Fermi, argue that interstellar travel would be feasible for advanced civilizations whose productivity growth has created such vast wealth that journeys are less expensive than they would be for us humans? Do we know what alien energy resource stocks are? Even right now, we have the technology to mount a journey at 10% of the speed of light and arrive at the nearest star in 40 years. How “extraordinary” is it to consider that, several billion years ago, one culture might have mounted a gradual expedition that took them to our solar system and many others? We sure do not know whether this is “extraordinary” or the natural outcome of technological advancement, but many scientists wish to believe, simply due to heavily entrenched ideologies with absolutely no basis in logic nor fact, that such interstellar expansions are far less likely than the human interception of alien radio signals. So just what is “extraordinary,” aside from a word referring to a claim for which extremely low a priori probabilities of truth are applied? I consider extraordinary a claim that undermines fundamental precepts of physics. Alien visitation does not do this. And no matter the difficulty as we perceive it, interstellar travel does not violate the laws of physics. Neither do aliens. Therefore, alien visitation does not violate the laws of physics, nor does it require a straining of credible probabilistic expectations. We simply do not know how likely it is. And that is hardly a strong case for considering alien visitation an “extraordinary claim.”

Nevertheless, skeptics will insist on applying to alien visitation an a priori probability of nearly zero for some strange reason. Interestingly, many scientists, such as Fermi and Tipler, were skeptical of both UFOs and of alien life in general; they contended that interstellar travel would be easy for advanced civilizations, so the lack of overt contact disproved alien existence. Yet most UFO skeptics do believe alien life exists out in the universe — just not here. So they defend the near impossibility of interstellar travel, which contradicts a considerable portion of the scientific community. This a priori probability allows them to reject evidence arbitrarily that would otherwise confirm the presence of a solid object under intelligent control with propulsion irreproducible by human technology. For instance, when a certain degree of corroboration of physical substance for an airplane is obtained for an unconventional disk-shaped vehicle, this degree of evidence is accepted for the airplane but rejected for the anomalous vehicle. The only way to do this is to apply a priori probabilities of nearly zero to the detection of such an anomalous object. The problem, of course, is that, first of all, we do not have enough information to defend a low a priori probability, and second of all, this approach guarantees the automatic rejection of normal avenues of evidence. Effectively, what the skeptics are saying is that radar evidence is too “ordinary” to suffice for an “extraordinary” claim. They succeed in eliminating from review all types of indirect and direct evidence, except for physical proof.

This type of logic can be successfully applied to any claim. For instance, let us declare that dinosaurs are an extraordinary claim. This declaration requires no logical substantiation — just the way skeptics use their nearly zero a priori probability of extraterrestrial visitation to declare the claim extraordinary with no logical defense whatsoever, given the insufficient information to determine this probability. So, we have declared dinosaurs to be an extraordinary claim. The next step is to reject all fossil evidence for dinosaurs, since fossils are only acceptable for ordinary claims such as woolly mammoths; for extraordinary dinosaur claims, fossils are worthless. What we need, as dinosaur skeptics, is physical proof of an intact dinosaur. And, to make it even more similar to the skeptic approach, we do not need to defend the rationale of the demand for physical proof of dinosaurs; the fact that it is an extraordinary claim allows us to demand the very upper boundary of conceptually feasible modes of proof — but conceptual feasibility does not translate into practical feasibility. Sure, I can demand physical proof, but will I get it? Is it worth ignoring fossil evidence while I wait for physical proof?

We could extend the analogy further by applying more skeptic logical tricks. For instance, dinosaur articles are published in journals that already believe in dinosaurs; therefore, they are biased and one-sided, and hardly representative of truly critical peer review. We could assert that all fossils are best explained as hoaxes, misidentifications of known and unknown geological processes, and hallucinations and/or misinterpretations by overzealous paleontologists imposing their belief system on an anomalous rock. This, I can contend, is the “simplest explanation,” and I do not have to worry about using overly strenuous logic because, in the absence of physical proof of dinosaurs, any explanation is simpler — no matter how contrived and convoluted! This is the essence of the scientific rejection of UFO evidence: an overwhelming need to disbelieve coupled with a shameful lack of research into the actual evidence.

THE DEMAND FOR PHYSICAL PROOF

If aliens were visiting, I find the expectation of physical proof quite illogical, since it is going to be hard to obtain. In fact, it may even be impossible. But the skeptics do not mind, since they have already decided to disbelieve until they obtain the highest conceivable level of proof. In the discussion above, it was noted that anybody can apply this logic by insisting that dinosaurs should not be accepted until we find an intact, frozen, preserved dinosaur with the flesh still on the bones. And if that is impossible — well, too bad. Is it rational to reject fossils the way skeptics reject radar-visual cases and ground-trace cases, and then demand a preserved dinosaur specimen the way skeptics demand an alien and/or vehicle specimen? I contend that physical proof is an unattainable evidential boundary that guarantees rejection of the hypothesis of extraterrestrial origin.

Despite the table-pounding insistence by skeptics on physical proof, they have simply not been able to defend this demand — one which is far beyond the scientific rigor that standard scientific methodology would require. The UFO evidence has satisfied the evidential threshold of normal scientific protocols; unfortunately, the evidence has been rejected by dogmatic, specious demands for physical proof. For all these demands for physical proof, the skeptics have not been able to meet any of the following logical criteria necessary to defend the imposition of this arbitrary evidential threshold:

• How can one declare a claim to be extraordinary without sufficient information to defend a low a priori probability?
• Are there degrees of extraordinariness?
• How does one relate a degree of extraordinariness to a fair and reasonable evidential threshold?
• What is it about extraterrestrial visitation that implies the availability of physical proof?
• How can we obtain physical proof?
• How can an evidential threshold be imposed with no logical defensibility nor any rational expectation of actually meeting such a stringent threshold?

OCCAM’S RAZOR AND THE SKEPTICS

The UFO skeptics do not understand Occam’s Razor, and they abuse it regularly. They think they understand it, but they do not. What it means is that when several hypotheses of varying complexity can explain a set of observations with equal ability, the first one to be tested should be the one that invokes the fewest number of uncorroborated assumptions. If this simplest hypothesis is proven incorrect, the next simplest is chosen, and so forth. But the skeptics forget two parts: the part regarding the test of the simpler hypotheses, and the part regarding explaining all of the observations. What a debunker will do is mutilate and butcher the observations until they can be “explained” by one of the simpler hypotheses, which is the inverse of the proper approach. The proper approach is to alter the hypothesis to accommodate the observations. One should never alter the observations to conform with a hypothesis by saying:

“If we assume the object was not physical, despite the level of evidence that would imply the solidity of a conventional aircraft with near-certainty, then we can also assume the object was not moving, was not exhibiting the color orange, was not 50 feet in diameter as described, and then declare that it was really Venus.”

But that is okay for the skeptics to do, because it is an “extraordinary claim” being made that deserves to be explained away in a Machiavellian fashion as rapidly as possible, with the urgent zeal of a religious missionary. Now, to alter observations to force conformance with the preferred hypothesis — is that science? Or is that dogma? The answer, of course, is dogma. This practice is extremely poor science, and the approach undermines the very spirit of scientific inquiry. It is simply unacceptable to alter the observations that refuse to conform with the predetermined, favored explanation.

THE ETH AND FALSIFIABILITY

While a more thorough discussion of the formulation and potential falsification of the ETH can be found on the ETH page, one particular aspect is worthy of note as another logical trick. The skeptics complain that the ETH is not falsifiable, which is a condition that violates a necessary component of hypothesis formulation. This is not true, as explained on the ETH page. However, even if it were true, the skeptics fail to realize that their beloved SETI hypothesis of alien radio signal detection can be said to be non-falsifiable! Does a lack of detection disprove the hypothesis that aliens are beaming mathematical constants at us? Certainly not, since our equipment may not be strong enough to detect them. It has been 30 years since SETI’s beginnings, with absolutely no positive results whatsoever, yet the non-falsifiability allows the preservation of the project with hopes as high as ever.

SCIENCE VS. SKEPTICISM

Skeptics are skilled propagandists who appeal to base emotions just like seasoned politicians. Skeptics like to wrap themselves in the robe of science, declaring that their approach and conclusions are “scientific,” in just the same way that a politician will cloak himself in the mantle of “family values” and “doing what’s right for America.” But is skepticism really as scientific as the skeptics want people to believe? As has been explained throughout this essay, the clear answer is no. Their logical reasoning is rife with fallacies, from their arbitrary declaration of a claim as being extraordinary to their specious demand for physical proof, to their abuse of Occam’s Razor, to their erroneous complaints about hypothesis falsification. So why do they claim that they are the real scientific side?

Skeptics are mostly scientists, but that certainly does not mean they behave scientifically, as has been explained. Their behavior stems partially from their distaste for public opinions that contradict the consensus of the scientific community. When a public consensus does contradict the scientific opinion, scientists will mount a public campaign to discredit this opinion because such an opinion undermines the role of the scientist in society as the appointed knowledge-seeker and truth-gatherer. What good are scientists if mankind will only insist on believing in warm, fuzzy superstitions anyway? So, these scientists who are guilty of the logical infractions exposed in this essay are so consumed with the presumed validity of their opinions that, like zealous religious fanatics, they must convert the masses to the side of truth in order to salvage their own self-image.

The second stimulus of pseudoscientific skepticism is that these scientists, who do not represent all scientists but rather a rogue band of propagandists, feel that science is about the mastery of nature. When nature introduces an anomaly — a violation of expectation — to science, the anomaly must be crushed. How dare nature violate science’s laws and principles! The anomaly is supposed to indicate an incomplete framework or incorrect a priori assumptions, yet to the skeptical propagandists, it indicates misbehavior by nature that cannot be allowed to undermine their role in society. The anomaly is a threat to the validity of their work, so they must wish it away, convince themselves through wild logical fallacies that the anomaly does not exist, and return the public back toward the truths of nature that are approved by the scientific community. This tendency only changes when it becomes more work to deny the anomaly than to accept it; sadly, with UFOs, this is not likely to occur, because the scientific community will never deal with UFO reports.

CONCLUSION

The scientific community has vociferously resisted the acceptance of anomalies for centuries, with the Copernican Revolution being the most notable historical example. They threaten the paradigm and disturb the equilibrium. They undermine the community’s self-perception of usefulness and value to society by threatening to destroy the assumptions behind their work. For the purposes of emotional well-being, they will be protested and debunked until they can no longer be denied; with UFOs, the breaking point will be physical proof. Yet, as this essay demonstrated, the criterion of physical proof is a product of anomaly resistance rather than a rational assessment of a priori probabilities or a rational interpretation of evidence. Instead of applying fallacious reasoning to the evidence, applying normal scientific standards to the UFO evidence would long ago have enabled the scientific community to embrace the ETH.

Original Source: https://nicap.org/papers/zeiler2.htm

Hal 9000 said:

Did all the humans in Star Wars have a common ancestor on a planet or did at least some of them develop independently?

In the Expanded Universe, it is explained that humans originated on Coruscant, and that the Rakatan Empire — which conquered almost the entire galaxy and used to enslave many species — frequently transported humans from one planet to another for slave labour. As a result, humans became widely dispersed, and by the time the Republic was founded, many planets were already inhabited by them. I personally find this explanation very compelling, because it makes a great deal of sense.

One of the things I love about Star Wars is that, no matter what your personal preferences are, you can always have a laugh when watching some silly video or parody. Whether you like the Prequels or not, you can still enjoy a YouTube Poop or a comedic take on them, and have a good laugh. The same goes for the Sequels — whether you like them or not, you can still laugh when watching a silly spoof about them. For example, I do not like the Sequels at all, but I still loved Star Wars Undercover Boss and laughed a lot when I watched that parody, even though it was based on the Sequels.