Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby elfismiles » Fri Aug 25, 2017 11:17 am

Ufology / Mufon Death Spiral ...

Morton's Run As Fugitive Comes to Predictable End
http://ufowatchdog.blogspot.com/2017/08 ... es-to.html

Alien abduction author Stanley Romanek found guilty on one of two child pornography accusations
A jury trial concluded Tuesday after five days of testimony
By Sam Lounsberry, Reporter-Herald Staff Writer, Posted: 08/08/2017
http://www.reporterherald.com/news/love ... guilty-one

Romanek found guilty on 1 child pornography charge - The Coloradoan
www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2017/08/0 ... 549901001/

Video of some of John Ventreisms …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJcIfjriXxE

James Clarkson – The End Of UFO Study as We Know It – Radio Misterioso radioshow with Greg Bishop.
http://radiomisterioso.com/2017/07/27/j ... e-know-it/

With Regret – Why I Must Leave MUFON Completely – James Clarkson’s blog on leaving over general lack of support from MUFON national, the John Ventre flap, inclusion of cult-leaders in Mufon’s “Inner Circle” etc.
http://jamesclarksonufo.com/ufo-news/wi ... completely

Science has left the building – The Historic MUFON 2017 Symposium and How the Show Must Go On – James Clarkson’s blog on his and Mufon’s Director of Research (and others) dissent over Mufon’s holding there national conference on claims of a Secret Space Program with no scientific evidence or rigor
http://jamesclarksonufo.com/articles-an ... must-go-on

MUFON, Racism and Dodging the Questions – Kevin Randle’s article after his radio interview with Jan Harzan.
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/06 ... tions.html

Kevin Randle’s radio interview with Jan Harzan – audio and YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VySGFlOTAak
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/12180631



elfismiles » 22 May 2017 18:37 wrote:Meanwhile ... status quo ... being slightly shaken up by one of MUFON's top idiots getting attention for his racist tantrums...

MUFON's initial fall-on-face response:

MUFON reaction to recent social media postings
http://www.mufon.com/mufon-news/mufon-r ... a-postings

Other's responses...

MUFON under fire for PA director’s absurd racist rant by Sharon A. Hill
http://doubtfulnews.com/2017/05/mufon-u ... cist-rant/

MUFON – Historic Gross Incompetence Or Hidden Agenda? by Lorin Cutts
http://highstrangenessshow.com/mufon-hi ... en-agenda/

MUFON’s John Ventre and Acceptance of the Repugnant by Regan Lee
https://orangeorb.blog/2017/05/20/mufon ... repugnant/

Ventre has apparently been booted from the MUFON Journal and some future scheduled appearances over this flap.
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby identity » Sat Aug 26, 2017 6:40 pm

Good-People-Cover small.jpg

A "new" novel from Patrick Harpur, author of Daimonic Reality (I suspect that this novel was actually written before DR, since he had been, up to that point, a novelist, and had been asked by his publisher to write something with a sex, violence, or supernatural theme).

https://dreamflesh.com/review/book/good-people/

A book review by Gyrus / Posted 15 June 2017

Patrick Harpur’s 1994 classic Daimonic Reality stands as one of the most interesting attempts to grapple with liminal ‘Fortean’ phenomena such as UFO sightings and abductions, crop circles, and the like. Taking them seriously without taking them literally, Harpur manages to tease out of the attested facts a richly challenging contention that they represent the ongoing life of the soul in the modern world. ‘Soul’ here owes little to the narrow conceptions of orthodox Christianity, and more to the wilder depths of shamanism, alchemy, and Neoplatonism, with its more-than-human vision of the anima mundi, the ‘soul of the world’. Flying saucers and their little grey occupants, in all their confounding elusiveness and implacability, are seen to represent incursions from the reality of the imagination, wearing masks that both pander to and mock the technological rationalism which has increasingly banished this reality.

The Good People, a novel, is essentially a dramatised trip through the realms explored in Daimonic Reality. It opens with a few ordinary people, in Acton in west London, witnessing a strange metallic cube appear in the sky. Maeve, the wife of the local vicar, doesn’t notice at first that nearly an hour of her time in the garden witnessing the thing has utterly vanished from her memory. The missing time creeps back through the narrative, in the process slowly dragging her back to her childhood in rural Ireland, laced with fairy lore. Heather, a failed dancer, is launched by the cube into a state of mystical ecstasy. Her humdrum world now transfigured with evolving meanings, she discovers a local cult which channels extraterrestrial warnings of apocalypse, and slowly unravels in a terrifying descent into apparent insanity. Alistair, the vicar, acts as a ‘non-witness’ foil to these stories, nevertheless caught up in the effects of the cube’s appearance, and forced to confront unfinished business from his youthful dabblings with the occult.

The milieu of this urban tale of uncanny happenings is genteel, respectability setting the bizarre phenomena into relief. Flashbacks to Ireland, an incident in an Irish pub lock-in in Acton, and a few scattered encounters with London’s seedier side, also suggest the way in which the ‘aliens’ get aligned with all manner of less exotic ‘others’. They challenge ‘civilisation’, in its specific sense of ordered decency, and for all the trappings of star-faring sophistication, they are wild in a sense that is much harder to categorise and dismiss than simple images of chaotic abandon.

This aspect governs the most effective passages, dealing with peculiar blends of schizophrenic paranoia, revelations of hidden order, and sheer terror. Potent enough to evoke any hidden fears of insanity in the reader, these passages also take you on mythic journeys, never letting go of the sense that necessary movements of the soul are taking place, even though the harsh realities and chemical mercies of modern psychiatry are also faced.

Occasionally a bit of conceptual exposition, hinting at the models for these experiences from Daimonic Reality, jars a little. But in all The Good People expertly blends endearing human ordinariness with profound ways of thinking about extraordinary experience. Indeed, when the alchemy between narrative and ideas really gets cooking, there is a palpable, believable sense that the liminal modes of apprehension apparently derived from obscure currents of esotericism owe as much, if not more, to the way ordinary people actually process hair-raising bizarreness, in private moments of casual honesty, away from the pressures of respectable conformity. Neither believing nor dismissing, a playful accommodation is reached, and folk wisdom aligns with the intelligence of exalted adepts.
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby mentalgongfu2 » Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:00 pm

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-hillsborough/nasa-confirms-65-reports-of-fireballs-across-florida-skies-tuesday-2-caught-on-video-in-bay-area

NASA confirms more than 60 reports of a fireball across Florida skies Tuesday

TAMPA, Fla. -- NASA confirms at least 60 reports of a fireball seen across Florida skies on Tuesday evening, just after the sun set.

Video captured on dash cam video shows the fireball falling near Little Road and 54 around 6:30 Tuesday.

A Riverview family also caught video of the fireball on their security camera outside their house.


The American Meteor Society, a non-profit scientific organization had at least 55 reports across Florida too.

To can see their interactive map here: click here.

According to NASA's website, fireballs are astronomical terms for bright meteors that are spectacular enough to be seen over a wide area.

NASA has a sky fireball network that shows a network of cameras set up by the Meteoroid Environment Office, they write that their goal is to observe meteors brighter than the plant Venus.

The network consists of 17 cameras with three of them in Florida.
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:35 am

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42329244

Image

A project searching for intelligent life in the cosmos is going to check the first known interstellar asteroid for signs of alien technology.

The odd-shaped object was detected as it sped towards the Sun on 19 October.

Its properties suggested it originated around another star, making it the first such body to be spotted in our cosmic neighbourhood.

An initiative backed by billionaire Yuri Milner will use a radio telescope to listen for signals from it.

The team's efforts will begin on Wednesday, with astronomers observing the asteroid, which is currently speeding away from our Solar System, across four different radio frequency bands.

The first set of observations at the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is due to last for 10 hours.

Previous observations of the object, called 'Oumuamua, have noted its strange, elongated shape, making it look a bit like a cigar.
Image
Mr Milner's Breakthrough Listen programme released a statement which read: "Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust."

Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, who is part of the initiative, said: "'Oumuamua's presence within our Solar System affords Breakthrough Listen an opportunity to reach unprecedented sensitivities to possible artificial transmitters and demonstrate our ability to track nearby, fast-moving objects."

He added: "Whether this object turns out to be artificial or natural, it's a great target for Listen."

Prof Andrew Coates, from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Dorking, who is not involved with Breakthrough Listen, told BBC Surrey radio: "I believe there is an experiment being done to actually listen to this object to see if there are any potential signs of life on it.

"I think this is most unlikely because it's left over from the beginning of that planetary system elsewhere. Much better ways of looking for life are actually missions like our ExoMars project, which is going to be going to Mars in 2020, drilling underneath the surface to look for signs of life. We're building the camera system for that."

He added: "But as this thing is passing through very quickly, why not have a listen just in case. But I think it's most unlikely."

Other researchers who have carried out observations of the asteroid with ground telescopes say that, apart from its shape, it closely resembles natural objects found in the outer parts of our Solar System.

It has a reddish colour, which is often indicative of organic compounds that have been irradiated by cosmic rays. Measurements suggest it has a dense structure and is comprised of rock and metal, but with little - if any - water-ice.

Although 'Oumuamua formed around another star, scientists think it could have been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our Solar System.

The asteroid's name, 'Oumuamua, means "a messenger from afar arriving first" in Hawaiian.
Don't believe anything they say.
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby smoking since 1879 » Wed Dec 13, 2017 2:25 pm

maybe they were dropping something off ;)

drop-off.jpg
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby Burnt Hill » Sat Dec 16, 2017 6:48 pm

^ Hah, I love that! Thanks smoking since 1879



It looks like one of those pods from the other thread.
Last edited by Burnt Hill on Sat Dec 16, 2017 7:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby Burnt Hill » Sat Dec 16, 2017 7:28 pm

Here is the NASA website mentalgongfu2 mentioned.


Image NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network Image

“What was that bright light in the sky last night?”


Intro: The NASA All-sky Fireball Network is a network of cameras set up by the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) with the goal of observing meteors brighter than the planet Venus, which are called fireballs. The collected data will be used by the MEO in constructing models of the meteoroid environment, which are important to spacecraft designers.

Network: The network currently consists of 17 cameras, 6 of which are placed in locations in north Alabama, north Georgia, southern Tennessee, and southern North Carolina. 3 are in the northern Ohio/Pennsylvania area, 5 are located in southern New Mexico and Arizona, and 3 are in Florida. The network is still growing, despite having achieved its initial goal of 15 cameras in schools, science centers, planetaria, and observatories in the United States, predominantly east of the Mississippi River, where there are few such systems.

Image


Cameras: Cameras in the network are specialized black and white video cameras with lenses that allow for a view of the whole night sky overhead.


Data: The cameras have overlapping fields of view, which means that the same fireball can be detected by more than one camera. This allows us to calculate the height of the fireball and how fast it is going. We can even work out the orbit of the meteoroid responsible for creating the fireball, which gives us clues about whether it came from a comet or an asteroid. If the fireball is traveling slow enough, and makes it low enough, it is possible that it can survive to the ground as a meteorite.


This website: This website displays fireball data in the form of images, movies, diagrams, and text files. The data is organized by date. Click on a date in the list on the left to see the fireballs detected that night. If the page appears blank that means no fireballs were detected, probably because of bad weather. The website is automatically updated every morning at 8:00 am Central Time. Only the last 3 weeks of data is available online.

https://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/
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This is really our world. :)

Postby Burnt Hill » Sat Dec 16, 2017 7:37 pm

Geminids Meteor Over Gateway Of A Shrine

Image
Taken by KAGAYA on December 14, 2017 @ Ibaraki, Japan
Torii gate is the entrance to a sacred shrine.
I waited for the time in front of the Torii gate for 4 hour.
The shooting stars light was reflected on the sea.
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby cptmarginal » Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:38 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/p ... -reid.html

Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program

By HELENE COOPER, RALPH BLUMENTHAL and LESLIE KEAN - DEC. 16, 2017



A video shows an encounter between a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and an unknown object. It was released by the Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. By Courtesy of U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE on Publish Date December 16, 2017. .


WASHINGTON — In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find.

Which was how the Pentagon wanted it.

For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, deep within the building’s maze.

The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.

The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with NASA to produce expandable craft for humans to use in space.

On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in May, Mr. Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth.

Working with Mr. Bigelow’s Las Vegas-based company, the program produced documents that describe sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift.

Officials with the program have also studied videos of encounters between unknown objects and American military aircraft — including one released in August of a whitish oval object, about the size of a commercial plane, chased by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Nimitz off the coast of San Diego in 2004.

Mr. Reid, who retired from Congress this year, said he was proud of the program. “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going,” Mr. Reid said in a recent interview in Nevada. “I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.”

Two other former senators and top members of a defense spending subcommittee — Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, and Daniel K. Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat — also supported the program. Mr. Stevens died in 2010, and Mr. Inouye in 2012.

While not addressing the merits of the program, Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at M.I.T., cautioned that not knowing the origin of an object does not mean that it is from another planet or galaxy. “When people claim to observe truly unusual phenomena, sometimes it’s worth investigating seriously,” she said. But, she added, “what people sometimes don’t get about science is that we often have phenomena that remain unexplained.”


A video shows a 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. It was released by the Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. By Courtesy of U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE on Publish Date December 16, 2017. Photo by U.S Department of Defense.


James E. Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle engineer and the author of 10 books on spaceflight who often debunks U.F.O. sightings, was also doubtful. “There are plenty of prosaic events and human perceptual traits that can account for these stories,” Mr. Oberg said. “Lots of people are active in the air and don’t want others to know about it. They are happy to lurk unrecognized in the noise, or even to stir it up as camouflage.”

Still, Mr. Oberg said he welcomed research. “There could well be a pearl there,” he said.

In response to questions from The Times, Pentagon officials this month acknowledged the existence of the program, which began as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Officials insisted that the effort had ended after five years, in 2012.

“It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding, and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change,” a Pentagon spokesman, Thomas Crosson, said in an email, referring to the Department of Defense.

But Mr. Elizondo said the only thing that had ended was the effort’s government funding, which dried up in 2012. From then on, Mr. Elizondo said in an interview, he worked with officials from the Navy and the C.I.A. He continued to work out of his Pentagon office until this past October, when he resigned to protest what he characterized as excessive secrecy and internal opposition.

“Why aren’t we spending more time and effort on this issue?” Mr. Elizondo wrote in a resignation letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Mr. Elizondo said that the effort continued and that he had a successor, whom he declined to name.

U.F.O.s have been repeatedly investigated over the decades in the United States, including by the American military. In 1947, the Air Force began a series of studies that investigated more than 12,000 claimed U.F.O. sightings before it was officially ended in 1969. The project, which included a study code-named Project Blue Book, started in 1952, concluded that most sightings involved stars, clouds, conventional aircraft or spy planes, although 701 remained unexplained.

Robert C. Seamans Jr., the secretary of the Air Force at the time, said in a memorandum announcing the end of Project Blue Book that it “no longer can be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science.”

Mr. Reid said his interest in U.F.O.s came from Mr. Bigelow. In 2007, Mr. Reid said in the interview, Mr. Bigelow told him that an official with the Defense Intelligence Agency had approached him wanting to visit Mr. Bigelow’s ranch in Utah, where he conducted research.

Mr. Reid said he met with agency officials shortly after his meeting with Mr. Bigelow and learned that they wanted to start a research program on U.F.O.s. Mr. Reid then summoned Mr. Stevens and Mr. Inouye to a secure room in the Capitol.

“I had talked to John Glenn a number of years before,” Mr. Reid said, referring to the astronaut and former senator from Ohio, who died in 2016. Mr. Glenn, Mr. Reid said, had told him he thought that the federal government should be looking seriously into U.F.O.s, and should be talking to military service members, particularly pilots, who had reported seeing aircraft they could not identify or explain.

Image

Luis Elizondo, who led the Pentagon effort to investigate U.F.O.s until October. He resigned to protest what he characterized as excessive secrecy and internal opposition to the program. Credit Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

The sightings were not often reported up the military’s chain of command, Mr. Reid said, because service members were afraid they would be laughed at or stigmatized.

The meeting with Mr. Stevens and Mr. Inouye, Mr. Reid said, “was one of the easiest meetings I ever had.”

He added, “Ted Stevens said, ‘I’ve been waiting to do this since I was in the Air Force.’” (The Alaska senator had been a pilot in the Army’s air force, flying transport missions over China during World War II.)

During the meeting, Mr. Reid said, Mr. Stevens recounted being tailed by a strange aircraft with no known origin, which he said had followed his plane for miles.

None of the three senators wanted a public debate on the Senate floor about the funding for the program, Mr. Reid said. “This was so-called black money,” he said. “Stevens knows about it, Inouye knows about it. But that was it, and that’s how we wanted it.” Mr. Reid was referring to the Pentagon budget for classified programs.

Image

Robert Bigelow, a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid, received most of the money allocated for the Pentagon program. On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in May, Mr. Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth. Credit Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

Contracts obtained by The Times show a congressional appropriation of just under $22 million beginning in late 2008 through 2011. The money was used for management of the program, research and assessments of the threat posed by the objects.

The funding went to Mr. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program.

Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena. Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes. In addition, researchers spoke to military service members who had reported sightings of strange aircraft.

“We’re sort of in the position of what would happen if you gave Leonardo da Vinci a garage-door opener,” said Harold E. Puthoff, an engineer who has conducted research on extrasensory perception for the C.I.A. and later worked as a contractor for the program. “First of all, he’d try to figure out what is this plastic stuff. He wouldn’t know anything about the electromagnetic signals involved or its function.”

The program collected video and audio recordings of reported U.F.O. incidents, including footage from a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet showing an aircraft surrounded by some kind of glowing aura traveling at high speed and rotating as it moves. The Navy pilots can be heard trying to understand what they are seeing. “There’s a whole fleet of them,” one exclaims. Defense officials declined to release the location and date of the incident.

“Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” Mr. Bigelow said in an interview. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma. China and Russia are much more open and work on this with huge organizations within their countries. Smaller countries like Belgium, France, England and South American countries like Chile are more open, too. They are proactive and willing to discuss this topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo.”

By 2009, Mr. Reid decided that the program had made such extraordinary discoveries that he argued for heightened security to protect it. “Much progress has been made with the identification of several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings,” Mr. Reid said in a letter to William Lynn III, a deputy defense secretary at the time, requesting that it be designated a “restricted special access program” limited to a few listed officials.

A 2009 Pentagon briefing summary of the program prepared by its director at the time asserted that “what was considered science fiction is now science fact,” and that the United States was incapable of defending itself against some of the technologies discovered. Mr. Reid’s request for the special designation was denied.

Mr. Elizondo, in his resignation letter of Oct. 4, said there was a need for more serious attention to “the many accounts from the Navy and other services of unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities.” He expressed his frustration with the limitations placed on the program, telling Mr. Mattis that “there remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.”

Mr. Elizondo has now joined Mr. Puthoff and another former Defense Department official, Christopher K. Mellon, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, in a new commercial venture called To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science. They are speaking publicly about their efforts as their venture aims to raise money for research into U.F.O.s.

In the interview, Mr. Elizondo said he and his government colleagues had determined that the phenomena they had studied did not seem to originate from any country. “That fact is not something any government or institution should classify in order to keep secret from the people,” he said.

For his part, Mr. Reid said he did not know where the objects had come from. “If anyone says they have the answers now, they’re fooling themselves,” he said. “We do not know.”

But, he said, “we have to start someplace.”


Re: Hoaxes or Creativity Suppressed?
The new way of thinking is precisely delineated by what it is not.
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby cptmarginal » Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:12 pm

It seems to me like there is a whole neglected side to this topic, beyond even the interpretation of governmental UFO-related programs as counterespionage and psychological warfare/research.

Image
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby elfismiles » Sun Dec 17, 2017 3:34 pm

UFOlogical Welfare for Billionaire Bigelow who is partly responsible for the infamous CARPENTER AFFAIR and other incidents that helped drag down and destroy MUFON - which was already well on its way to its own self-inflicted demise.

The UFO Trail: Discussing the Carpenter Affair on Paranormal Waypoint
http://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2014/08/di ... ir-on.html
Aug 15, 2014 - MUFON Orange County recently announced it will feature Carpenter as a speaker. A promotional email circulated by MUFON and received today implied Carpenter advocates scientific research. The email further suggested that Carpenter's experience in the field of researching alleged alien abduction ...

The UFO Trail: The Carpenter Affair: For the Record
http://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2013/10/th ... ecord.html
Oct 22, 2013 - At my request, Hart explained how he came to provide MUFON in 2000 - and then the State of Missouri in 2001 - with information related to the Carpenter Affair. UFO and Ethics Investigation. Long interested in ufology, Hart informed me he was investigating a UFO case in 1999 when he met with some ...

The Carpenter Affair - MUFON - Yola
http://mufonalookattheorganization.yola ... -mufon.php
Aug 7, 2013 - Long time UFO investigator Gary Hart commented tonight at The UFO Trail on the infamous Carpenter Affair. The series of events involved the betrayal of some 140 individuals who sought the support and services of John Carpenter and the Mutual UFO Network during the 1990's. The 140, including Leah ...


cptmarginal » 17 Dec 2017 17:38 wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program

By HELENE COOPER, RALPH BLUMENTHAL and LESLIE KEAN - DEC. 16, 2017
. . .
Image

Robert Bigelow, a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid, received most of the money allocated for the Pentagon program. On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in May, Mr. Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth. Credit Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

Contracts obtained by The Times show a congressional appropriation of just under $22 million beginning in late 2008 through 2011. The money was used for management of the program, research and assessments of the threat posed by the objects.

The funding went to Mr. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program.



Re: Hoaxes or Creativity Suppressed?
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby liminalOyster » Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:06 pm

Alien Hunter Reveals the Most Disturbing Part of the Pentagon's UFO Program
By Rae Paoletta on December 18, 2017

Filed Under Innovation, Aerospace, NASA & SETI

When the New York Times reported Saturday that the Pentagon had spent several years and $22 million researching the possible existence of UFOs, tinfoil hat believers breathed a sigh of relief. The rest of us were surprised, but accepted the news nonetheless because it’s 2017 and nothing makes sense. All that said, an alien hunter-slash-scientist in California tells Inverse that there is something unnerving about this story, but it’s not the UFOs.

“There are a couple examples of really puzzling phenomenon,” SETI Institute Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak tells Inverse. “I mean, I get it, but there’ve always been puzzling cases. There are always plenty of interesting cases, and they make for great television shows. But this doesn’t mean they involve phenomena we’ve never seen before.”

According to the Times, the Pentagon recently confirmed that it had taken part in a partially declassified program to investigate UFOs, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The project — which was launched primarily at the request of former Nevada Democrat Harry Reid — ran from at least 2007 through 2012, though some involved believe it’s still alive in a less organized form.

Reid had apparently been influenced by his friend Robert Bigelow, a billionaire and aerospace entrepreneur who told CBS’s 60 Minutes back in May that he’s “absolutely convinced” UFOs have visited Earth.

According to Shostak, Bigelow’s obsession with extraterrestrials has gone back much longer.

“I know him a little bit; he’s a nice guy!” Shostak explains. “But he’s thought there’s been evidence of an alien visitation for a very long time, as least as long as I’ve known him, and that’s been about 15 years.”

If Bigelow wanted to spend his own money to fund a real-life X-Files, that’d be one thing. But according to the Times, the $22 million appropriated to AATIP — which came from taxpayer money — went to Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace. With this cash, Bigelow hired people to construct buildings to house items that came from supposed UFOs and brought on researchers to study people who said they’d encountered extraterrestrial objects.

For Shostak, what’s “a little disturbing” about the ordeal is that Bigelow, who has collaborated with NASA despite having no scientific background, has received so much money from the project.

“[Bigelow] doesn’t need more money,” he explains. “He’s a very likeable guy, but he’s been convinced all along that we’re being ‘visited.’ And it doesn’t mean [aliens are visiting us] just because a person of note thinks it’s true. The thing that’s a little disturbing about this is that it seems a lot of the money for this study went to Bob Bigelow. I think that if you really wanted to investigate this stuff, the thing to do is to give this to scientists or experts in the field that don’t have a dog in the fight.”

While some of the AATIP mission remains classified, at this point, a few things remain true. One, Harry Reid is good at campaigning on behalf of his friends’ pipe dreams. Two, Robert Bigelow is seriously invested in finding aliens among us. And three, we haven’t found proof of any extraterrestrial beings, as badly as we all want that to happen.

“If the aliens were actually visiting us since 1947, when they made that navigation error in New Mexico, you’d have really good evidence,” Shostak says. “It wouldn’t all be in the hands of the government — and not just the government, our government. If the aliens had bothered to visit any other countries, wouldn’t they have evidence? I find it hard to believe that everybody’s covering it up.

“The bottom line is somebody spent 20 million dollars of your tax dollars to look into this and they didn’t come up with anything.”

https://www.inverse.com/article/39533-a ... fo-program
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Wed Dec 20, 2017 11:57 am

“If the aliens were actually visiting us since 1947, when they made that navigation error in New Mexico, you’d have really good evidence,” Shostak says. “It wouldn’t all be in the hands of the government — and not just the government, our government. If the aliens had bothered to visit any other countries, wouldn’t they have evidence? I find it hard to believe that everybody’s covering it up.

“The bottom line is somebody spent 20 million dollars of your tax dollars to look into this and they didn’t come up with anything.”


Man, it's so weird how these guys can't update their scripts and don't notice when their mouthpeice is malfunctioning in public.

The bottom line is, UFOlogy just entered a whole new phase because after decades of flat cover-up denials, now it's suddenly official AF/DOD policy to confirm UAP is both real and the subject of ongoing study, since it remains legitimately unexplained.

Oh, and the fucking New York Times just ran video of an encounter.

No big deal, though! Just roll out Michael Shermer and Stephen Pinker, you won't even have to wake them up at this point. Everything is normal and SETI is a smart idea. Thanks, Seth!
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby liminalOyster » Wed Dec 20, 2017 1:58 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Wed Dec 20, 2017 11:57 am wrote:
Just roll out Michael Shermer and Stephen Pinker, you won't even have to wake them up at this point. Everything is normal and SETI is a smart idea. Thanks, Seth!


Or shit, just have the commissioner flick on the twat signal: Neil deGrasse Tyson on UFOs: 'Call me when you have a dinner invite from an alien'
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Re: Where is UFOlogy at in 2015?

Postby DrEvil » Wed Dec 20, 2017 4:59 pm

The NYT piece only mentions it in passing:
In 2007, Mr. Reid said in the interview, Mr. Bigelow told him that an official with the Defense Intelligence Agency had approached him wanting to visit Mr. Bigelow’s ranch in Utah, where he conducted research.


That would be the infamous Skinwalker Ranch.

At least this piece explains that strange job listing (which listed pretty much every profession you would need to study a UFO) on Bigelow's site a few years back.
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