Ok, I agree with you on some level. I am utterly convinced that we are not alone in the universe - that ours is not the only civilization by far. There is simply too much space, and too much time for this to be the only place to harbour intelligence. This also means that I have to accept a certain possibility - however low - that Earth has been visited by said aliens. In my mind a vanishingly low possibility, but still a possibility. However, I do not agree that the government at large is keeping something like this from us, and has been doing so for several decades. Do they tell us everything? Of course not. And there are a number of good reasons for this - national security being one. Furthermore; by "telling us everything" what exactly do you mean? Is total transparency of any governmental agency something that we want? "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one". Furthermore, in order for the government to keep something like this from the population at large over the course of several decades would mean they would have to ensure that all government emplyees in the know would keep their mouths shut. Even after said employees retire from their positions. If there is one thing I know for certain about people it is that they love to talk, and they love to gossip. Someone would have talked. Someone would have been able to provide proof. No-one has, and to me this suggest that no government has ever been in contact with, or in league with (so to speak), extraterrestrials. This doesn't preclude the very faint possibility of Earth having been visited, but it does seem to preclude the possibility of anyone knowing about it. And that is the problem with all such conspiracy theories; they are appealing and seductive, but there is simply no way to ensure total silence over the course of decades with an unspecified number of humans involved. Someone would have talked. And one other thing; why would the government keep something like this from us? To what end? Personally I find it much more likely that they would brag about it to anyone willing to listen; "The norwegian government is proud, honored and excited to be the first to announce that we have made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization..." I can imagine the prime minister pretty much jumping up and down as she gave the announcement.
They don't have to silence everyone if they can create an environment where certain topics are so far off limits that even mentioning them marks you as crazy. Case in point: remote viewing. The CIA started playing with this in the late 1970s and got mixed, but positive results with it. The documentation has all been released under FOIA and some of it is even available online on the CIAs FOIA page. No conspiracy here, no "sekret dokuments", just reports in their own words about the slow progress they were making in developing the capability. The problem is that the whole topic has such a stigma attached to it that you can't even mention it and still be taken seriously. I posted an article I wrote about one of the early trials and what we later learned about the target on Bit and was mocked. So what is the truth about aliens? I have no idea. The modern UFO phenomenon started in 1947 and in the first decade or so the government spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out what was going on. Most sightings had explainable causes, and some just didn't. I think somewhere in the late 1950's the decision was made that whatever was causing it didn't seem to be a threat and the government's inability to stop or explain it was making them look bad, so they started denying it was real and mocking anyone who reported a sighting. In the early 60s during the Aquatone (U-2) program they started using UFO ridicule to hide sightings of an airplane that wasn't supposed to exist. When Commercial pilots reported seeing contrails 40,000 feet above them the response was "Oh, maybe it was a UFO, hee hee". Pretty soon people stopped reporting what they saw. I'm pretty sure the trend continues today. Area 51 is a massive, sprawling, facility that continues to expand. A private airline flies employees in from Las Vegas several times a day, and more arrive on unmarked busses. There is no question that it exists or that a massive amount of activity goes on there, but because of it's association with UFO lore you basically can't talk about it and be taken seriously. The point is that you don't need perfect security if you can hide something behind ridicule. The other point is that we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things because we think that "that's not possible". We live in a universe that we don't know what makes up 99% of. We need to stop overestimating what we know and be open to the possibility that we are wrong.
Ah yes, that is an excellent point - and it does explain everything. I suppose we should just prepare to be assimilated, and just accept our new reptilian overlords. This is true of course, though they'd need more than just anti-matter in order to do this. We know today, at least in theory, how FTL could be achieved. An Alcubierre warp-drive seems to work, at least on paper. Now it's just the small technicality of developing some way of harnessing negative-energy and exotic matter. The theory seems sound though, which could be good in the future. Yes, the americans started messing around with it because they found out that the russkies were doing it as well. But nothing ever came of it, and the projects were abandoned. Those positive results you speak of can be chalked down to basic statistics: sooner or later you're bound to get something right even when blindly guessing. If extrasensory perception or other forms of mind-over-matter stuff were possible or real, then why haven't anyone been able to prove their abilities and beat James Randi's challenge? Why is it that under controlled conditions no-one is able to demonstrate their supposed abilities? Because it is all nonsense. "I am not in it for the money, I use my abilities to help people..." Yes, sure. But you're more than willing to take donations from people in order to continue your "work". The world wants to be deceived. That is the issue. Why do you think the charlatan Uri Geller was able to keep up his charade even after he had been exposed as a fraud? Because people want to be deceived. There is no other explanation. Bending spoons ... pfft ... try bending something like this instead; then I might be impressed. Indeed, and even though that is not too long ago we still know a lot more today than we did back then about all the natural phenomena that can, and do, occur. Most things people call UFOs can easily be explained, but I grant you a very small percentage that are a bit more tricky. As I stated in my previous post; I am open to the very faint possibility that Earth has been, or is being, visited. But as always; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And when we're on this subject; why is it, that even today, people are unable to take one single, clear photograph? Pretty much everyone carries a smartphone capable of such a task. It shouldn't be too hard, right? I've seen the documentaries; "The craft just hovered in the air, about 20m up ... it just sat there. There was no sound or anything..." At that distance you should have been able to take a good picture. But no-one has. Until someone does I chalk this one up to someone wanting their 15 minutes of fame, or someone desperate for attention. Makes perfect sense. They couldn't very well go out and say; "Oh, don't worry. That's our new state-of-the-art spy-plane that we're using to spy on the russkies. It's not really supposed to exist, so hush-hush. Ok?" That one falls very clearly under national security. Yes, we know it exists - that it is a real place is not in question. What is in question however, is, as you state, its UFO-connection. We know today that they were flying experimental aircraft out of there, and because of its prime location for it, they're probably still doing that. They do after all need a secure place to test new aircraft. Again; makes perfect sense. As I said; I do not dismiss the possibility, I just state that the possibility is vanishingly low. There is no doubt in my mind that there are other civilizations out there - some of whom are probably way ahead of us in terms of technological advancement, but have they visited us? As I said; because, in my mind, they must be out there, then it is also possible that we have been visited. But does anyone know about it? Well, I stand by my statement: someone would have talked. And you didn't address my final point regarding this: "Why keep it a secret? To what end?" Imagine instead the bragging rights that comes from being the first government on Earth to make contact (unless, of course, VipersGratitude is correct, and the politicians themselves are the aliens. That would explain the secrecy. However, it takes more than just politicians to run a government. The politicians are just the face of the government, but behind them is a veritable army of assistants, secretaries, advisors, lawyers, bureaucrats, consultants, specialists and so on. And I say again; someone would have talked).
I'd respectfully disagree, if for example elephants or whales had the ability to build wireless long-distance communications would they? I don't think they would as they can already communicate over great distances. And as Cthippo later pointed out it seems the radiowaves=intelligent life equation is a very human centric idea of how different species would communicate, not that i can think of a better way.
Unless they have found some way of modulating neutrinos like in Stephen Baxter's book; "Time". They still only travel at the speed of light though...
Both are basically waves but unless elephants and whales (both of who use infrasound) have evolved a means of electromagnetic generation they're certainly not radio-waves even from a basic physics pov. The point i was making is that the search for radio-waves is a very human centric perspective, not that i can think of a better way.
Easy enough to think this until you remember most people can't even take a decent photo of their lunch, never mind something odd hanging in the air.
Granted. However, they seem embarrassingly capable of taking selfies (duckface optional or required - I'm not sure anymore)...
I apologize for not replying by paragraph, but I'm doing this on my phone so formatting is hard. In RE: remote viewing, the only thing I'm willing to say for certain is that the CIA played with it and got interesting results. That much is documented in their own reports. I've also read in a book by someone who claims to have been a military remote viewer that the program was moved to the Defense Intelligence Agency in the 80s and ran as an operational intelligence asset at least into the early 90s. I take the content of the book with a grain of sand, but his description of the experience and results is consistent with what I have heard from other people and experienced myself as to psychic ability. I think remote viewing is real and is a skill that can be learned and developed, but I'm prepared to be wrong. We don't know for sure that no branch of the intelligence community is using it as a collection technique today, but even if it works exactly the way it says on the tin, it would have limitations. Imagine for a second that you are a remote viewer and your target is the new North Korean missile, the KN-11. Imagine that you are able to project your consciousness into the room where the missile is stored. From what I understand the experience is a bit like flying a drone where only you can see the screen. You can move around, over and under the object, but you can't touch or interact with it. With me so far? Ok, now what can you tell me about it? You can say that it's about 80 feet long and 6 feet in diameter, but you can't measure it. You can't tell me what it weighs or what it's range is or if it can actually mount a nuclear warhead. Unless you read Korean you can't tell me what the markings say, and you probably couldn't describe those markings well enough for a linguist to translate them. You can probably describe the physical appearance of the missile, and perhaps even sketch it, but unless you're an expert you would probably not be able to figure out what you're looking at. If you travel outside the building, can you tell me where you are? Point is, even if it works, it might not provide actionable intelligence. As for aliens, I don't think our government or anyone else's knows. I don't think there are crashed UFOSs and alien bodies hidden in the desert somewhere. I think they investigated, didn't come up with anything concrete, and quit looking. I have no doubt that people are seeing things in the skys. I have no doubt that most of those things are explainable. Likewise, some we just have to shrug and winder about. Does that mean aliens visiting earth? Probably not, it just means we don't know. What bothers me is that in deciding somethings not possible and that anyone who believes otherwise is crazy, we not only close our minds to the possibility of being wrong and learning something new, but we also allow others to blind us to certain things if those things can be associated with a taboo topic. Confirmation bias is a real thing and skepticism is healty, but so is being open minded. I don't see much difference between the person who says aliens are here on earth and all evidence to the contrary is a lie an the person who says aliens aren't real and anyone who believes otherwise is crazy. I think the only honest answer is "I don't know". I think some things are probably real answer some things are probably not, but I try to always be open to the possibility that I am wrong. You mean duckface selfies aren't pictures of aliens? I always just assumed...
In a post disclosure project (doctor steven greer) world, saying no body has ever talked is completely incorrect information. Ex members of goverment and military at every level are documented dicussing the topic from every vantage point. The list of people opening up on the topic reads as a whos who and would take many years if not decades to shift through. Its not the 1980s any more, a lot has happend in the past 25years. Ideally the lid will stay firmly shut on the topic untill we are all long gone. The justifcation for that is, its a unquantifiable change and "risk" with unknown implications and ramifactions. Earth is not ready yet, leave us alone to devlop a little further.
"This phenomenon first became a celebrated subject after parapsychologists Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ published a scientific paper which reported on experiments in which a remote location had been chosen, an experimenter visited there, and a subject recorded his or her psychic impressions of the spot. Their results seemed to prove that a “remote sensing” faculty did exist. Subsequently, properly controlled tests were done by several other researchers, eliminating several sources of cuing and extraneous evidence that had been present in the tests. These new tests produced negative results. The data of Puthoff and Targ were reexamined by the other researchers, and it was found that their students were able to solve the locations without use of any psychic powers, using only the clues that had inadvertently been included in the Puthoff and Targ transcripts." - Source. It does seem, however, that you are correct in that the project ran as an intelligence asset until it was terminated by the CIA in 1995 because: "There's no documented evidence it had any value to the intelligence community" - David Goslin, American Institute for Research. Does this mean it doesn't exist, or that it is not possible? No. One should, of course always be open to being wrong. However, and again in the words of Carl Sagan; "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". And let us not forget about Occham's razor. I'm sorry, I got your post mixed up with the one I first responded to by "Damien C". My bad. I agree. Although, the ones who do come forward claiming to have been abducted and whatnot ... well, they do always seem rather ... oh I don't know ... rural? I do find it odd that a highly technologically advanced alien civilization would come to Earth and wonder where to park. The captain of the ship points out all the pretty lights on the ground, but the navigator decide they should land their ship way out in the sticks right next to Bubba-bob and his sister/wife Lou-ann... But, I suppose, if they see Earth as a petting-zoo that does make sense. Anyway, until some solid, irrefutable evidence comes along, I will remain skeptical. It ... it all makes sense now. They're simply hiding in plain sight!
