I was an absolute skeptic until I saw the Phoenix lights in person. That night those lights looked like a giant triangle shaped craft hovering over South Mountain, from my two observations about 20 miles apart. I tend to think that more advanced civilizations who have much further advanced technology, have made the trip to earth. Look at how far our technology has advanced in the last 100 years. It is naive to think that older civilizations that are much advanced, must fit their technology into our mindset so we can comprehend what we see. I speculate that they are reticent about interaction with us and ensure that they don’t cause us a problem, such as giving us access to technology beyond our current level of development, and may be doing research on this planet and inhabitants.
62
Another distraction from the real issues of major concern.
23
$22 million for hunting UFO's. And the US may get admonished by the UN for tolerating extreme poverty and ignoring the human rights of its most needy citizens.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/america-extreme-poverty-...
17
More likely $22 million (plus) spent keeping the truth about "visitors" suppressed and ridiculed. Keeping back-engineered technology silent. Technology that could transform human society and eliminate scarcity.
20
The last thing we need in this country is more people believing illogical things. I fear articles like this just feed conspiracy theories. There has never been any evidence for alien spacecraft. If one would want to entertain that thought one would have to assume that any alien civilization that could visit here is insanely more advanced than we are. Then you have to assume that they spend time and resources to repeatedly come here and then just fly around and then fly away (or according to some people make crop circles or carve unintelligible messages on Mayan pyramids). Or are there supposed to be numerous of these super intelligent civilizations in the universe all behaving the exact same way? It just makes no sense. People stop thinking logically when they want to believe something.
Some people see weird things. Most is probably physical phenomena. Other stuff is made up or misinterpreted. People fool themselves all the time even when looking at fuzzy images or videos.
13
It makes no sense to you because you have a pre-defined version of "sense" and "logic". Visitors have been here on this planet since the very beginning of life. There's a cornucopia of evidence if you set aside the established presupposed paradigms of institutional thinking.
47
This video is from the **(DEPARTMENT of DEFENSE)**, not just from some guy off the street! This is a game changer! This is the 1ST time the govt is actually ADMITTING to the PUBLIC that (their) videos show a UFO object that they cannot explain what it is! Do you understand...the (DOD)?!
This happened in (2004), almost 13 year ago. And the DOD has had time research and TRY to find out what this object could be, and yet the DOD still does NOT know what this object is that moves like (NO normal aircraft) was!
66
Does anyone have a theory how another life form would NOT have an evolutionary development so alien from ours that it would NOT be teeming with microbes that would NOT immediately start eating us? Just so, our species would pose the same danger to any extraterrestrial visitor. Consider what happened when the American Indian was exposed to European germs, and that was intraspecies with only ten thousand years separation. ETs are a silly idea.
An only slightly less silly idea is that these sightings are visitations from parallel universes by humans just like us, for purposes, (tourism, research, amusement rides, competition with other universes, like the Hoyle sci-fi novel), unknown.
7
michael:
The rock creatures of planet Bleezorb have no microbes because…well…they’re made of rock. They wouldn’t infect us and vice versa. Otherwise they are pretty much like us. With the only exception that in their version of “Gilligan’s Island” all attempts to escape on a homemade raft never work because they are…they are rock creatures and are too heavy. We know this because the first season of brand new episodes have just reached us.
13
Look at THIS amazing (UFO) video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsxvOcUCR0
9
"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"
-Chicolini (Chico) disguised as Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho), "Duck Soup"
10
AMAZING!!! Even if it is NOT alien, we have to find out what this is. This is from year (2004), and even NOW the DOD still say they dont know what it is! I have heard that the DOD said they have some MATERIALS from these craft, and are trying to figure out how it works. AMAZING stuff...that is straight out of the (X-FILES and STAR TREK)!
10
They don't want us to know about it because of the possible threat to their monopoly on energy. If the 1% runs our government, bought and paid for, then they would not want anything that challenged that trillion dollar piggy bank. I'm sure technology from anything that merited covering up is beyond our technology. And trying to make us afraid that we couldn't defend ourselves is a ruse. The real threat is that energy monopoly...
14
We have circuses far better than the Romans ever dreamed of. Starting to fall down on the bread side, though.
16
this was all explained in 1984:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKobmM2OnDc
5
It's my fervent wish that aliens more intelligent than humans reveal themselves so the "God created man in his image" canard can finally be put to rest, as the odds that evolution proceeded precisely the same way elsewhere are vanishingly small. But it seems they come, take one look at what a screwed up place this is, and go elsewhere. Having placed my tongue firmly in cheek, I do admit that having read extensively about the subject as a real skeptic, there are some sightings by military pilots and the incident at O'Hare reported by numerous United Airlines employees that make one wonder.
15
Edited:
An observation: comments seem to fall into four main categories: 1) Have read UFO literature, excited by partial disclosure: it's about time. 2) Have done no reading, but based on preconceptions can assume a smug, condescending attitude toward project, government, NY Times, and people silly enough to take this arrant nonsense seriously, harrumph. 3) Have done no reading, but internal evidence within the article piques curiosity. 4) Have seen UFOs and take this topic seriously. 5) Uh, hmmmm... dunno.
I am gratified that there are many more commenters whose letters fall into 1, 3, 4. I hope they continue to pay attention to what might well be the most important story in world history, as I will. For those whose comments belong in category 2, good-luck to you. I hope you are intellectually nimble enough to deal with a major paradigm shift; if not, then, perhaps you will be gracious enough to let others carry the conversation, and politic enough to refrain from public displays of your ignorance.
I hope category 5 folk will yield to the temptation to learn more.
24
What makes you say that those who are, as you put it, smug, have done no reading. Many of us have read a great deal, most of us in the area of -- TA DA -- science. You might try it. It's a whole other world.
6
"Science"? What science are you referencing?
I have seen a few closed-minded commenters declare they are scientists (or Scientists)--without demonstrating how their knowledge might shed any light on the material in the article. You seem to be another one of them. But if you refuse to engage with the empirical UFO data or study the hundreds of multi-witness, daytime, clear-sighted, closely-observed accounts by trained observers of craft seemingly under intelligent control performing aerial maneuvers that are beyond the capability of current state-of-the-art American military or any known terrestrial aircraft--such as the GIMBAL authenticated UAP video--then, so what if you have read "a great deal"? (By the way, I've known a few physicists at my university, and not on of them has ever claimed he or she had read "a great deal.") Anyway, I appreciate your responding to my post. I can understand that you feel threatened, and I can excuse your heavy-handed condescension. You are a perfect category two specimen and, I'll bet readers may suspect I made you up to illustrate my point and then named you "myself" as an inside joke!
12
The extraordinary flight characteristics of the objects studied by this program are consistent with those of similar objects observed all the way back to the mid-1940s. It's the same ongoing phenomenon. That's about the only thing that can be said about it with any degree of certainty. It's very rare to see the subject treated with such seriousness in a major publication. I'm quite surprised by it. If you are intrigued and want to learn more, beware that it is a treacherous subject to develop an interest in because of the giggle factor, misinformation, hoaxes, and the genuine wackos that the subject attracts. There are a lot of books on the subject, but relatively few worth reading, IMO. The best place to start may be Richard Dolan's two volumes of "UFOs and the National Security State." You may not agree with Dolan's conclusions and bias (he's pretty sure they are ETs), but I don't think anyone else has more thoroughly and expertly researched the subject, so he's a good place to start.
14
I saw a UFO while fishing in the Everglades in 1964 (approx). I was 7 years old and with my family. It came within 150 ft. of us and was silent. There was no technology like that that I knew of. We were fishing on Loop Road. It was pretty scary. There is no way to explain it. I wish I knew what it was. I will always wonder what it was. The government spends our money to investigate and document UFO s and then keep the info from the public. We paid for that info. The govt should be releasing it so that the public will be prepared.
27
The public deserves to know what its tax money is paying for. Who profits from the secrecy? Keep it coming.
11
DOD files! We need to find out what THIS is!
6
Doesn’t the top video show the plane banked right but turning left?
1
"... the plane banked right but turning left?"
No. Look at the attitude indicator in the center of the display.
The hooked bars show the artificial horizon, which is *parallel* to the clouds.
Your question shows why amateurs shouldn't be trying to analyze "UFO" reports, and why the US government should be publishing detailed, unclassified analyses.
2017-12-18 01:30:10 UTC
8
I’m glad we have a professional among us.
3
Nothing speaks to the fact that we no longer live in a democracy than the concept of "black money" Democracy hinges on transparency and citizen control and awareness of all spending. The idea that a senator can give his friend 22 million dollars with the details and results of that spending secret, and we have grand corruption. Combine that with the idea we actually accept this type of behavior and I conclude there is not much hope for what is left of our democracy at all.
16
At least we got more for our $22 million from the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program than we did from the millions paid for hundreds of treasury department employees (allegedly) working hard to come up with a one page Mnuchin Treasury report on the Republican Tax Scam Bill.
I'll take the research for extraterrestrial aliens more seriously than a Mnuchuin-trump taking good care of tax payer's money.
31
If they are aliens, let's hope their search for intelligent life on Earth doesn't end with Harry Reid.
8
Unfortunately, America has no free press of any significance when it comes to real investigative reporting on matters of government secrecy or serious technology breakthroughs dealing with unexplained aerial phenomenon. I give Senator Reid a lot of credit. I believe that most other senior government officials, members of Congress, or top Pentagon officials would steer way clear of matters such as UFO’s and ultra top secret advanced technology for fear of ridicule. The corruption and secrecy surrounding this issue is like none other – it is in a class of its own. The media can only cover the subject either in a cavalier or dismissive way – or through direct disinformation and ridicule. No honest investigative report has ever appeared, over time, on this subject in any big media outlet. Let’s keep dedicating 24/7 coverage on topics like sexual harassment and Russian collusion, while evidence of extraterrestrial life, and world-changing advanced technology, is hidden from the masses. "Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change." -- Robert F. Kennedy (1966).
36
It’s funny that we are looking for or questioning alien life when we are part/product of the alien life ourselves!
3
The FACTS is, this thing flies and moves at SPEEDS that is **(WAY MORE ADVANCED)** than any type of aircraft we see now! And we have to FIND out where it comes from! I dont understand how people don seem to get THIS!!!!
9
I love how all of the corruption and waste and harassment is finally coming to light now that the Clintons and the Obamas are history.
Millions wasted on this and given to ONE of Harry Reid's friends.
Sickening.
6
The whole idea of science is to utilize our curiosity and intelligence to try to understand what we do not understand. It is not scientific to either dismiss out of hand unusual observations or to claim understanding when there clearly is none. Either path is nothing other than useless, emotionally driven assertions that do not increase understanding at all, and indeed discourages it. The vast majority of what is put out on this topic by nearly all sides is simply fact-free assertive noise confounding a genuine attempt at understanding. The fact is that there is a long history of serious people observing strange things like these. The only way to get past the understanding-poisoning noise is serious objective research into the matter, and that begins with the "data" of what has been reported and recorded. Personally I think that trained military and commercial personnel's first hand reports are a very good, and perhaps the best, place to begin. The word "begin" is the key. One of the best books (alas, there are many poor ones) on this topic is Leslie Kean's book "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record."
6
They are not interplanetary, they are interdenominational, and the government is fully aware of this. Look into Collins Elite, Jack Parsons, L. Ron Hubbard and Crowley's Lam.
Dude... let's talk. L. Ron Hubbard is a terrible sci-fi author. If you want interdimensional read Anathem by Neal Stephenson and the Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Either way, good or bad, the most likely answer is that they are human made or they have been here and husbanded life on Earth.
1
People who scoff at the possibility of extraterrestrial life truly lack awareness of the incomprehensible size of the universe and the infinite possibilities of the life, advanced technology and unknown wondrous mysteries, that more than likely, abound throughout the infinity of galaxies.
22
—Carl Sagan said that while the universe may brimming with life it is also possible that we may be the first. Someone has to be the first, it may very well be us. We may be alone. He also said: If we’re not alone, why would they come here? We’d be so far behind them in all respects.
—Jay Leno said, “Wouldn’t it be insulting to find out that the only reason they came here was because their kids had to go to the bathroom?”
—Still, today, there is no credible evidence of an ET visit, none.
—I say: If there were ET’s, I have to wonder if the females of their species ever allowed their males the right to vote or hold office.
5
Why would we be BEHIND them? What possible evidence does anyone have that this would be the case?
Simple, if they had the technology to visit us it would mean they would be light years ahead of our species who can barely get to the moon.
11
Thanks Angela…
Because they can travel and survive interstellar space.
I can suppose that when the Europeans reached the New World they were far ahead of the indigenous people. Those people could not make a similar trip. The Europeans exploration was motivated by commerce. A motive unlikely amongst advance cultures. Anyway, you would want zero contact them. The bio-mixing of our shared bacteria and viruses will likely kill us both. Remember what happened the Indians. The Europeans brought them bubonic plague, chicken pox, pneumonic plague, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, and whooping cough. Can’t imagine what the exoplanet equivalents are.
7
While I don't know everything, NOBODY ONE EARTH DOES, it does seem likely that the Earth has been visited before. I think visitors are the origins of the Greek gods on Olympus, as well as the other gods of many civilizations. I think the God of Abraham and his Son Jesus are the creating entity, and the fallen angels (aka demons) following the devil (aka Beelzebub,Lucifer, etc) are the fallen angels (created as angels of God's). While I don't know, God doesn't need to have been limited to creating only one world with intelligent. life.
4
Well as an aside, and coming from a 35 year work history as a professional observer and documentarian of purely empirical data (as a physiotherapist) I would only note my own experience with UFO's
. About 12 years ago, while lounging in my front yard and nursing an iced tea while enjoying a clear and bright late spring Sunday afternoon at my then home in eastern Oregon, I glanced up and gazed to the north to see what appeared to be the classic shape of a flying saucer hovering over my small city of Ontario, Oregon, about 2.5 to 3.0 miles away from where I sat. I noted that the saucer seemed to be gun metal grey in coloration,was about 30 to 40 feet in diameter, had pulsating red, blue and yellow lights circling around its parameter, and had several helicopters and small fixed wing aircraft buzzing around it. After I first noticed it, it remained completely motionless in the sky for about 4-5 mins. And then rose silently, straight up and into the stratosphere and out of sight in a matter of seconds.
To this day I do not know if this craft was part of a hoax, an experiment by our military or just what it was. What I do know was that although there was a mention of a UFO sighting 24- 48 hours prior to my own experience near the near-by town of Nyssa, OR reported in my then local paper, the Argus, I'am not aware that this sighting over Ontario was ever mentioned in the papers. So, I will leave it up to the experts and the wags to wrestle with what it was I saw.
20
Seems like a good idea to inspect a UFO when the opportunity offers, brave, but a justified cause! I would say it is best to follow such "phenomenon". Hell, should it be "Aliens", well, then we can see if Stephan Hawking's "Bad" space alien prediction(s) proove worthy of his metal.
Is 600 million worth the cost, maybe? I dunno what it cost to pursue. Has anyone found Malaysia Air flight 370? What has that cost? Was Flight 370 taken down by some unknown natrual event, right?
A "UFO" by definition, should in principle, begin at a base assumption of a natural event. Of course, maybe not in war and after the list of "usual suspects" are considered it falls back to natural phenomenon. Things that are very important for all sort of insights. The military and feds owe it to the citizens to act accordingly for the country and share their findings the world so the impact could be more efficiently understood. To learn from, it is part of survival no?
3
In the 1980s(late) a large ship-structural craft appeared in airspace above the plutonium trigger manufacturing facilities outside Denver Colorado. I was friends with a man who worked there. "It was large, it was a machine, and it definitely was not made by us" he used to say. Pin drop silent. Dozens of workers filed outside to watch it...funny thing is only about half of the people outside were able to register it visually, even though it was right there in front of them. Other "airtight" incidences to consider or look into...Flight 107 JAL...never been disproved... Operation Mainbrace, 1952?... no military personnel wished to go on record, but, it is clear that that joint military incident involved others-outsiders. Ariel schoolyard Zimbabwe sighting. All far removed from the westernized, sci-fi movie mass entertainment mindset in remote countries and lands throughout the globe. Highly trained, professional, military and civilian witnesses who saw and interacted with solid matter, designed material vehicles. You can allow this to be a part of your belief system or you will not. Ms. Keane is a joke and perpetuates nonsense that is decades old. A book seller nothing more. Many credible scientists work in and study the phenomenon under compleze silence and secrecy. As one retired modern day Govt official once declared off record several years ago: "you are up against the varsity team of black op secrets. You will never ever know what's really going on."
14
I've seen at least 10 times bright lights in the sky at night in all kinds of places which were neither airplane nor stars nor satellites because they were too bright, too low or too fast. And there are literally millions of people out there who have seen them too. Check out all the legitimate army, airforce and navy testimonies of the 2001 National Press Club Disclosure Project press conference, the regularly shot footage of the youtube channel "UFO LOU" or the sightings at the ECETI ranch in Washington, the Sirius movie or the "REALE.T." ufo sightings and testimony collection, or the Phoenix lights testimony - there is something out there without a doubt and it poses a lot more opportunities for mankind than threats: learning about the universe, our origins, higher evolved societies, better medicine and sustainable energy options are only a few of the positive aspects if we met people from other planets. But if we have a free will and they respect it, we have to tell them that we want to meet them and get ready for it. Would be the experience of our lifetime...
7
One of the objects is quite possibly being shone from within the cockpit.
This is a quite likely a sophisticated hoax. Someone may be having a hell of good time.
5
Less than one half of one hundredth of one percent of the Pentagon’s annual budget. The relatively piddling amount is fine. The way it is being funneled to a Reid buddy is the problem.
14
This is nothing extraterrestrial. It was a kind of DoD project (now 13 years in the past) in weapons capability development via nuclear engine miniaturization (e.g., NOW having become fast drone targeting of ICBMs). So, of course, DoD would gladly promote UFO fringe culture interest in what becomes inconveniently public.
If you’re aware of the first-person accounts of military personnel AT Roswell, it’s easy to believe that THAT was a failed aeronautics experiment (with “beefy” manaquins for pilots, weird looking because crudely made) that was hidden through promotion of fringe culture interest.
2
I have no idea what the two crewmen of this FA-18F saw . . . but l'm going to go out on a limb and saw it was not an alien spacecraft. It was probably some prototype of a secret Air Force aircraft.
So why did the Pentagon release this video and acknowledge a very temporary cancelled UFO program? Ordinarily, I would say, "I have no idea." But today, I'd put money on the notion that President Trump ordered this to simultaneously embarrass Harry Reid for wasting taxpayers' dollars AND whip up the hysteria of the conspiratorial wing of his base. The Alex Jones lovers, essentially.
His intent, I think, is to confirm these delusional peoples' belief that the "deep state" is hiding a nearly infinite amount of information from the public land, he, Donald Trump, is going to be the white knight that ends all that.
Of course, it's the ultimate irony--as President, Trump has access to every secret the government holds and it's his constitutional *responsibility* to maintain those secrets that, if leaked, would harm the national security of the USA. But he apparently has not got the memo.
4
You have it wrong. It is a myth that Trump or any other president has automatic access to every secret the government possesses. They do not. Reportedly, JFK, Carter, and Clinton all requested all information the government had on UFOs but were turned down because they didnt have a need to know. The information is classified above top secret. I am sure the same would apply to Trump if he requested that information.
19
The other way around. The aliens decide who should know.
5
This article on the front page for half-a-day makes me consider terminating my NYT subscription.
7
Bye! We would not want you to be afraid because you might have to accept that we are not the center of the universe.
21
Sadly, the Times seems to have concluded that clickbait will pay the bills.
5
Harry Reid definitely has been spaced out for quite some time. For example, take his understanding of the income tax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7mRSI8yWwg
3
If a small percentage of reported sightings would indeed involve aliens, this would mean that they have had a permanent presence flying around our planet for at least several decades. I imagine UFO sightings happen almost on a daily basis on our planet if you take into account the number of sightings in the US alone.
It's not like they would leave and return every week.
So where would they be based? Inside our atmosphere? Outside?
And they have a lot of different shaped vessels that behave in different ways?
What would be good would be to categorize these sighting in a worldwide database and try to figure out what they are. Seems like money well spent, figuring stuff out. Imagine what we can discover and where it might lead.
What makes no sense at all is to just shrug our shoulders and say 'oh well'.
7
I have witnessed a UFO in the early seventies with my brother. We lived in Vestavia, and their was an lot across the street with trees and a trail where we and the kids in the neighborhood use to ride our bikes. It was night time. We both witnessed a brilliant white light. We couldn't make out an object. We were too afraid to get closer. We were only 9 and 7. The next day we went back to that spot where we saw the light with our friends. We found a large circular hole about 5x4 feet deep. To this day i remember standing in that hard red clay dirt, and my brother and one friend remember that incident as well.
7
This program was funded for six years, presumably at $22 million a year. If the government is really interested in intelligent extraterrestrial life, why aren't they contributing to the SETI project. An estimated 1/10 of the annual military allotment would fully fund SETI, a far more worthy use of government funds.
1
I do a podcast on UFOs as I had an unexplainable sighting in 2006 that sparked my interest. After close to 200 shows with a variety of interesting guests, I know about the same about the phenomenon as when I started. I never claim that they are extraterrestrial as there is no proof of it. I also try to stay away from guests that think they know what is going on and have the 'real' answer. However, it is a mystery well worth exploring. Recently more people of science have been taking it seriously, regardless of the ridicule factor. When speaking with a former NASA Senior Scientist, he mentioned that he and some of his colleagues had discussed, that "if a civilization can get through the bottleneck of technology without blowing themselves up, they will explore the stars." Again, I am not saying these unexplainable sightings are extraterrestrial, but I do not rule it out. Kudos to the New York Times for publishing this, the UFO community is abuzz about it and perhaps more logical people will look at it in earnest.
18
They (it?) travel how many millions (or hundreds of millions) of light years to Earth and then ... decide to check out the ocean 100 miles off the Pacific Coast? No detour to the Grand Canyon? No flyover of the Great Wall of China or hovering above Times Square?
This looks like it was a colossal missed opportunity for the aliens.
4
not extraterrestial but an earth phenomenon produced by intelligence. Just look at cropcircles 80% occur around stonehenge wiltshire also the capital of Englands ufos. Ufos a light phenomenon . Guess what people, the Earth has a mind far beyond what we know. Too bad no one listens or cares much. Its all good. Not convinced? watch phoenix lights. Logic has no place here, thats the point of the 'intervention' from Earth. This has been figured out but no one listens haha.
Who knows what else they are hiding or holding back, and you better believe they are. I think their fear is that they don't want the public to be aware of things that are going on, and have been going on, that's the point. I truly think this is a sign for something else. What that is I don't know, but I believe a lot of stuff is going on behind closed doors that we don't get to see. I think whatever it is we will find out sooner rather than later, and when i say sooner I mean like 100 years.
2
Our alien overlords have come to presage and celebrate the earthly arrival of our new messiah: Donald J. Trump.
Sorry, Bernie. Maybe next time.
1
Unusual claims (this is an object from extraterrestrials) requires unusual evidence, certainly much more than a few shadowy video items.
My standard rebuttal for decades has been; I'll believe we have been visited by intelligent beings from outer space when when they land at half time of the Rose Bowl, not until then. It can not the lame corrupt Stupor Bowl, it must be the Rose Bowl. If that occurred, then at that time my skepticism would immediately cease and I would become a full fledged disciple.
2
Thousands of people over many years all over the world who most never met are all telling similar stories.
As in a criminal case with circumstantial evidence, I am convinced something is going on.
Whether it be stories of alien abductions, sightings of unusual objects close up that led to medical problems, or even stories WW2 pilots have told me, there is just enough evidence aliens exist, just short of a smoking gun.
13
Nearly, well decades ago, as a seven year old boy, I'd sit on the top stairs and listen to the adults downstairs talk adult talk. Once, my father and a good friend who was a TWA pilot, had a moment to themselves as the wives were in the kitchen refreshing their drinks. The pilot friend lowered his voice so I had to go down a few steps to hear. He told my father that on a flight from LA to Reno an elongated silverish disk had suddenly appeared on his right side, disappeared and then appeared in front of him. Just as he was about to take evasive maneuvers it disappeared for good. He told the people who he had to report to about any odd occurrences, what happened. After another briefing with what he believed was some form of military, he was told that it may have been something they were testing. They weren't worried about it.
9
Mr. Bigelow bought The Skinwalker ranch a fews years back as part of his research. If you don't know of The ranch, it's worth a looking into. Very entertaining stuff and way, way, out there for sure. Wonder what he's been up to out there in the desert.
1
I've got to admit that it's been a real pleasure to be able to read this story and some of the comments. I'll take space aliens over Trump anytime.
25
This waste of taxpayer money and the ability of senior Congressmen to designate Department of Defense money for et projects in their districts or states is legend. Here all you need to know comes from one paragraph:
"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."
Key in on the words "longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s" and mull that over and over. I'm glad that sanctimonious man is gone from the Senate. But too many other guardians of the money till remain.
3
Oddly, you missed the part where he worked with Ted Stevens, who was not by any means a Democrat.
4
Okay, so there's all this alleged collected data, bits and pieces of alien machinery, etc. Other countries taking the whole UFO thingy more seriously...
Where's the proof? Where is it?
Sorry, but I'm of the belief that we are a species prone to not being very good at keeping secrets, but one that is very good at leaking - rather open-faucet pouring out of such things. That there is no way our bumfuzzled leaky Govt has the prowess to keep these secrets, esp. these secrets - secret for as long as they've allegedly been doing so.
And how is it I can see my back-deck from space, count the boards on it, but our super-tech loaded fighter jets, and such have worse cameras then a bodega surveillance camera! ??? That they don't have the resolution power to zoom right in on these alleged UFO's...?
I can zoom in and see the dental condition of a squirrel across my yard using my 3 yo old smartphone, but these jets take the blurriest, the most awful images since the invention of the camera!?
Tax dollars poorly spent, IMO.
10
Your backyard camera works at night, at several thousand yards' range, while your house is moving at about a thousand KPH and that squirrel's going even faster?
Nifty.
9
Oh Robert...if these alien technology secrets are real...the military is "borrowing" the technology...so their cameras should be better. Or are they purposely using bad equipment...to keep the images fuzzy, and therefore its anyones guess as to wjats being recorded.
Poor Robert. If its real where's the un-fuzzy proof? If, as the Conspiracy Theorist Industry says, the govt is using alien technology, etc...where is it with the camera technology? Only being used in or smartphones and doorknob surveillance gadgets?
While the military keeps using the fuzzy all the time cameras.
Come on. Catch up. Stop making excuses for the lack of unfuzzy evidence. All the alleged evidence is fuzzy!
2
I remember reading a passage from John McPhee's book 'Annals of the Former World' where he described a sighting of a spherical UFO that he and Kenneth Deffeyes, a geologist from Princeton observed in the night sky in a desolate part of Nevada while coming down a mountain from inspecting the talus from an old silver mine. From the sphere emerged another surrounded by a disc. More than 100 people reported the same observations according to the newspaper the next day (The Nevada State Journal). It made no noise and then suddenly disappeared. McPhee is pretty well grounded, a Pulitzer prize winner, and a master of understatement. Most airline pilots who have reported so many sightings not given to hyperbole either. The storyline is too consistent to be ignored.
It seems a bit absurd to me is that so many think we can convene a panel of 'expert scientists' to tell us what is happening. We might as well consult the Oracle at Delphi.
And the possibility that these potential inhabitants of another world might pose a serious threat seems pretty off base. If they have the kind of technology such sightings suggest, what could they want from us... The I-Phone? I'd be a lot more worried if I thought they are something our military has created
17
"... a desolate part of Nevada ..."
The Air Force operates the Nevada Test and Training Range.
McPhee says the sphere "expanded some". That sounds like a balloon.
2017-12-17 20:43:03 UTC
1
for a possible explanation of what John McPhee and Kenneth Deffeyes saw see http://cpacker.org/misc/mcphee.html
3
Someone needs to notify Scully and Mulder immediately!
5
The odds that we will find anything are about the same as Trump being honest. It just is not going to happen.
2
Trump, bitcoin, UFO sightings. Are we there yet?
5
oo yeeess. Way past there.
8
What other videos does the US Government/Military have other than what was released?
4
There's a chance that this is only first story about this in the NY Times. Trump has a propensity to distract the populace from unflattering stories about himself or the administration by creating a new story through his Twitter outbursts. So let's say Mueller announces he has evidence that Trump colluded with Russian interference in the 2016 election. In an effort to distract us, Trump could tweet that Congress, the military, and the intelligence agencies have been sitting on ufo intel for years. He probably doesn't know anything about what the government knows about ET life or technology, but that doesn't matter; the fact that he is president is sufficient ethos. Congress, the military, and intel agencies will have to respond. They will have to choose between calling the president a liar and divulging enough information to placate the people. Many Americans think Trump is a liar anyway, but the fact that, as president, he *could* have access to this intel would make it seem possible that Congress, the military, and intelligence agencies are hiding something (and they do hide things, so that's not a stretch). Those groups might do more damage to themselves by contradicting Trump because enough Americans will see denials of such intelligence as further obfuscation. Otherwise, those groups, the national media, and social media could start the narrative that this story from Trump is evidence that he is not of sound mind. In any case, it'll be interesting, to say the least.
3
Well when this sort of story comes out, I get nervous, because it's usually the White House controlling the drip-drip. Last time it was the JFK assassination. Now UFOs. This is red meat for his conspiracy-suspecting base.
So what is it this week he doesn't want them paying attention to, again (godspeed, Mr. Mueller!)?
4
You think the Whitehouse controls the New York Times? Considering the number of articles in the NYT covering and praising Mueller, they're doing a really bad job.
I'm sure Trump's mantra is 'As long as they're talking about me I don't care what they say (because I will tweet and create even more bread crumb trails away from Russia).'
Try talking with air traffic controllers. They see UFOs a lot. But they don't report them because then they have to talk with psychiatrists and ultimately, it counts against them career-wise. Funny that.
27
I have an idea, lets remove the military from any of this activity. The last thing we need is a military...well...anything, if someone comes to visit us. Has anybody considered that any space being of advanced intelligence would find a military-first presence unwelcoming?
Lets unclassify all of it...
3
I just have one question for the aliens, "What is up with all the probing of the hill people?" Not cool aliens, not cool at all!
6
This explains the existence of Roy Moore and his prancing around on stage in his cowboy suit and toy gun.
6
Why isn't the lead: "Dirtiest Politician in History Funnels $22M to Friend"? You can bet if a Republican had done what Harry Reid did, this would be the lead and you'd run a month of investigative reporting articles.
6
Considering how much money Congress is about to hand some guy named Trump, maybe they were busy.
7
WHATEVER this is, we need to find out! You CANNOT just sweep this under the rug! It could be RUSSIAN or ours, or something ELSE! But you cannot just sweep it under rug. This video is from the DEPARTMENT of DEFENSE! The NY TIMES would not post something like this without VERIFYING the authenticity of the video. The video say courtesy of the (DEPARTMENT of DEFENSE).
4
---I'm thinking that attempted politicization of possible UFO sightings/contacts, such as the incident reported by the two navy pilots from the USS Nimitz off the coast of San Diego in 2004, as well as their Operations Officer from the USS Princeton, is likely not gonna further the advancement of the understanding of these phenomena, which should be the ultimate goal. For obvious reasons of national security, as well as sating our natural intellectual curiosity and attaining a better understanding of the inexplicable nature of the universe we exist in, this is fairly important stuff to many. Spending $22 million out of a Defense Department budget of $600 billion, for science that has such potentially crucial implications on a number of levels seems more than reasonable.
If you really want to nit-pick governmental spending, let's instead consider the exorbitant costs to taxpayers that is being spent on Secret Service protection for a ridiculous lower-case president who travels nearly weekly to his golf resorts to...play golf and hob-nob with his wealthy donor cronies, rather than committing himself to the substantial work of our governance. Work that is simply going...undone. Excess spending that has likely, in less than one years time, grossly exceeded the amount spent on AATIP.
4
It's interesting how believers in UFOs (and conspiracy theories in general) are often 100% positive they are right - without having definitive (provable) evidence.
Regarding UFOs and aliens, whenever someone says "there has to be" or "it's obvious that they do exist" (as in a couple comments here) they can be ignored. (If an individual wants to spend his or her time researching UFOs, go at it. But don't spend tax dollars searching for something fuzzy and blurry someone saw from a distance.)
The scientific method - the only one that counts for understanding the universe - requires that an experiment be replicable, and that others get the same result.
For defense purposes, by all means investigate strange objects. But don't start with the assumption they're from "out there." Believers in fairy tales tend to see what they want. Dispassionate, skeptical people (which scientists tend to be), are more likely to find the truth (and not waste time and money chasing ghosts).
5
---You're certainly within your right to discount the numerous eyewitness accounts of thousands of people for...many, many years. However, if you were able, for a moment, to apply the degree of healthy skepticism that any scientist should possess to a thoughtful examination of the numerous, unrelated accounts of thousands of sightings that have been reported, or, particularly, if you had witnessed any one of the number of the forms that these sightings have taken, I guarantee your skepticism would be tempered.
I've spent hundreds of nights camped in remote wilderness areas throughout the western U.S. for almost 40 years, spent countless hours examining the night sky, seeing nothing other than...stars and some meteorites. But...the incredible, absolutely inexplicable sighting that a friend and I experienced over a midnight suburban southern New England sky some 42 years ago...was proof enough for me, so...un-earthly and amazing it was. It sure cured the healthy...doubting skeptic in me.
Not at all sure about the "ghosts" you mention.
"...But don't start with the assumption they're from "out there." "
Uh...I have no need or desire to feel..."special". I had no previous inclination to either believe, or dis-believe in "life" that didn't originate here. But...What we saw...was, without doubt, otherworldly, so strikingly fantastic and seemingly defiant of any known physical...physics, explanation, it was.
13
So democrats have no problem with a program that is clearly a cash cow for a Democrat backer. Bet if a Republican had done this we would have gnashing teeth and riots about GOP spending
2
Extraterrestrial origins can be ruled out. We know we have had no interplanetary visitors by the same reasoning that we know the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon. The skies are crystal clear and everyone who had the ability to see the Moon landing saw the Moon landing, even our strongest adversaries. Meanwhile, UFO reports are almost always in some remote part of the country, almost exclusively our country, and are absolutely never spotted coming into our planetary system from beyond. Unless they are Romulans with a cloaking device, they don't exist. I'm pretty sure there are no Romulans. The funding is a boondoggle and Bigelowe needs to find himself a real job.
2
---"Extraterrestrial origins can be ruled out."
Sorry, but that's as ludicrous a statement as is imaginable. The defense of it that you offer is...no defense at all.
2
An amazing video at first glance but...
Does anyone else notice that the subtle banding of the background sky around the object appears to rotate with it when it rotates with respect to the horizon? That argues for this being an optical effect of some kind.
As a physicist, it makes no sense for aliens - with technology capable of faster than light travel requiring completely new physics - to try to hide their existence from us any more than it would make sense for you to hide your existence from an ant.
I'm embarrassed for Harry Reid.
6
I believe these extraterrestrials dont want to interfere with our society, like when we observe wild life. They just want to *(OBSERVE)*. They are MUCH more advanced than we are, and from our INTELLIGENCE point of view, we are probably on the same level like when WE observe animals! That is why they dont just LAND, and say they are here to the entire planet.
16
Right argument: wrong conclusion. Like I said... if they are that much more advanced, it's like you watching an ant. Do you worry about interfering with ants? Do you worry that they see you? Or squirrels? Or deer even?
If they can travel here, the are at least as far beyond us as we are beyond ants. In that case, our existence is entirely insignificant to them.
4
If a UFO could be found...taken apart...the tech jump to the finder would be massive. Now, Imagine a smartphone is transported back to 1942. The best computer in the world is a project in England...using thousands of tubes at high voltages. There is a war on, but the phone would probably be destroyed in the process of trying to figure it out. Even charging it would be an obstacle. The wireless parts would be simply incomprehensible, as the frequencies and modes of transmission used would be unreadable, even if they were properly captured by the equipment of the time. The screen would be an amazement, and whatever could be found in the device. The camera would be figured out quickly. It would, however, take a long time to understand how to make a microchip. A UFO would be like giving a GPS to Columbus. If he were lucky he could figure out how to use it, but would have zero concept of GPS satellites and the technology used to make both the device and to get those satellites in orbit.
4
I write under the pen name Dave Moore. I have been very interested in these phenomena for years and applaud the Times for bringing to light these matters whose truth remains very much out there. --Fox Mulder
4
I have only once seen something in the sky I felt I truly couldn't explain. On a lovely evening after a dinner at a conference at a beautiful university--yes, a couple glasses of wine at dinner but nothing excessive--I was walking home and admiring the clear night-sky and surroundings. I absent-mindedly watched a satellite (the movement is fundamentally different from airplanes, the sense of speed and distance is evident). After some seconds it shot straight down, from high in the sky to near the horizon, then shot off in the opposite direction I had first seen in moving. Two course changes at something close to right angles--and *accelerating* as it did this. It instantaneously set my heart pounding in a way I have never really experienced before or since.
Now I am not going to insist it was a UFO: it was a strange day, there had been a dramatic thunderstorm a few hours earlier, and before the dinner I had walked across the same spot and seen a rainbow--so I am fairly happy to say it was an odd atmospheric phenomenon that I had never encountered. But what HAS stuck with me was that when, the next day at breakfast, I mentioned this to a colleague whose son is a pilot for British Air, she replied quite matter-of-factly, "oh yes, pilots see things like that quite commonly."
We tend to think that there is no way something like this could remain secret. But it may just be an open secret--one that many people are simply embarrassed to mention to others for fear of ridicule.
18
If you understand the distances involved, and the COST of sending living beings to another world, you'll find it quite improbable that we are being visited by beings from other worlds. They would have to send ships out with the knowledge that they would never see them again, never gain any benefit from that mission, and the fate of those whom they sent would be sealed. Finally, If you inderstand NASA specifications, they need to insure that any electronics can turn on and run "unattende" for 10 to 15 years. Now, if the journey takes the thousand years, and the electronics only lasts for ten ... well? What do you think?
3
Area 51 is in Harry Reid's state, Nevada.
Earth is the gem of the universe, but it is a long way home for aliens. They must be careful not to be captured nor to lose their technology to our hungry planet.
Go to the library and look for books written about UFO's in the late 40's or early 50's. If you find a card for a book in the card catalog, look for it on the shelf. You will find that all of the books are missing. Not some of them. All of them.
Obviously if Russia or China captures these space craft and the technology first, our national security is jeopardized. Of course this must be a top priority, as it has been since Roswell, classified above top secret.
The misinformation, such as saying we have no program to capture UFO's, is not helpful.
7
Whereas I don't subscribe to the lunatic fringe that see space aliens behind every cloud, and whereas the distances involved in travel to other stars are so huge, I think it still makes sense to investigate documented encounters as described in the article.
If someone can indeed fly at amazing speed, then it behooves us to learn how they do it, if we can. And as far as cost goes - probably a lot better investment for potential gain than the billions spent on those "flying bricks" - that is, the planes so loaded down with stuff that they can barely maneuver in the air.
3
Never thought I'd see the day that NYT would report such a story. Could this be one small step in acknowledging the possibility of a new paradigm? Funny, that his should come at a time when U.S. government has never appeared to be as fractured or as untrustworthy. However, enough credible people have witnessed strange aerial phenomena (and then some), the implications of which shatter current tech as most of us know it, eons of dogmatic belief and longstanding boundaries of acceptable reality.
8
Of course if this story, if it had involved a republican senator getting goodies for his pal back home, would be about poltical nepotism. The bias of the mainstream press shows up exactly in the focus of stories like these.
Here's another tip from a conservative Christian: what is and has been in the process of being disclosed is the air forces secret space program. This is the controlled disclosure of what is a relatively low level secret program. The one the navy has is much more advanced.
1
Why would advanced machinoids take any interest in a primitive, suicidal bio-species? By definition they manipulate matter at molecular & atomic levels, so we have nothing they could possibly want, unless they fancy bizarre collectibles. Even so, we are particularly noisome--& in the stifling confines of a space freighter, well...
If we assume they are here, what do they want? A couple of options, one they are scientists who are watching us with a policy of non intervention, two they are all pervasive and have no interest in us either malevolent or benevolent, three they are simply waiting for some inflection point to act, four we are as a species or even a biome, their experiment, five they are fattening us up to eat us or last but not least they are a running a betting pool on how their influences over time have created or hilariously stupid religions, sects, societies and wars and they simply watch us like a brutal and bloody reality show to see who's side is winning. Let's just hope they don't yell "you're fired."
4
Why is it that I’m able to find mountains of credible documentation of the Black Money programs and the existence of proof of the government and UFO programs dating back to the 1950s? But the New York Times is acting like this is something amazing and suddenly newsworthy? Why haven’t you been reporting these stories going back decades? Phil Corso, Eisenhower, Dr. Steven Greer, start there.....Don’t get me wrong...I’m thrilled that this is coming out in such a prestigious publication! I’m just wondering what took so long??
9
It looks like there's an insect on the camera lens in that video. Is this a joke?
2
Looks like a flyswatter is needed to clean up this mess.
Just park the time machine at the curb or you will get a parking ticket.
Our planet has no-parking zones.
2
Good for Harry Reid and associates. I'm glad somebody is curious and interested in the world, the universe, instead of putting a bag of myths over his/her head.
5
LOL is this a satire piece NYT? What a hilarious article. UFO's (que x files theme). If there are aliens on our planet believe me, you, I and everyone on the planet will know about it. Waste of taxpayers money.
3
Looks like those aliens in that spacecraft in the video are having a real bumpy ride. Urp!
Let's hope this wasn't one of the programs HIllary was literally giving away.
Anyone think to ask Elon Musk?
Why does it seem that pictures and videos of UFOs always appear to be blurry, fuzzy and hazy?
8
The Times obviously spent a lot of time tracking down $22 Million the DoD spent on UFOs. I wonder if they noticed any other news worthy items in the $Trillions they had to sift through to find this pearl? Page 1A, no less.
4
Amazing that a bug inside of a camera lens can cause the US Government to spend millions of dollars on UFO sightings!
4
Especially when they could pay a lot less if they hired men to stare at goats, eh?
2
The biggest takeaway from this article is how well it illustrates the graft in Congress.
Big donor buddy "deserves" a favor?
Invent a mega million dollar "project" and fund it with millions and millions of taxpayer dollars.
Thanks for the donation, Buddy! What else can I do fer ya', ya know, after I get done with another one of my soapbox speeches congratulating myself about how responsible I am?
2
In this vast unfathomable Galaxy, or Galaxies, of our's; there has to be some one else out there. To think otherwise would not only be arrogant but extremly foolish.
4
If there is interesting information about UFO available, it it dumb and irresponsible for hacks in our government to hold onto it. Open access would allow the world's best and brightest to glean potentially useful information about potential neighbors or interesting optical phenomenon that may be important as well for airline and aerospace safety. Secrecy is stupidity. No country is going to gain technological superiority from a civilization capable of interstellar travel. it would be like giving a TV to a chimpanzee. Such information could be very important to us however culturally, scientifically in the long term, and for our posteriority who could make contact at some point. Just knowning a civilization can outlast its technological infancy (wihtout destroying itself) is useful info. Just knowning such technologies could be possible, is enough to inspire our scientist to work on these things. Its a waste for this to be in a file cabinet collecting dust.
2
I find it sad that the biggest takeaway from this argument is being ignored: The military is seeing craft in the sky that it believes no government has the technology to build.
13
This is a good example of mass hysteria which usually happens when we humans invade new horizons. We expect and imagine that they invaded us instead of we invading them. Now that TV is full of these digital monsters called movies, and people removed from reality and being slaves to their cellphones we should expect that this hysteria will deepen even more.
1
Geez, I never agree with you, but you're spot on this time.
1
Maybe we should spend $22 million dollars on getting better cameras on our fighter jets... seriously, how is UFO footage such pixilated rubbish when everyone knows those cameras can read a license plate from 100 miles away?
1
It would seem to me that if you have two Navy F-18s getting launched after this whatever by the Nimitz, it's likely worth $22 mil to try and figure out what's going on.
I mean, it's not like some drunk mistook the moon for little green men: it obviously showed up on the best ship-based radars and sensors we have, not to mention on the two jets' sensors.
Seems to me that even if it's just some really strange glitch, it's worth figuring out--and if you're worried about cost, well, do you know what it costs to scramble two F-18s off a nuclear carrier?
17
Keep in mind that religion plays a strong role in the US denial. When a population lives under the idea that a God created the universe, Adam and Eve, as well as our morality and ethics, where does that construct go if there are other planets, universes and living beings who, heaven help us, are smarter and don't look like we do?
8
Trump's on it. We will find out sometime.
You'll see.
2
Yeah. When he needs to distract us from a big, big, bad news story, he'll loudly accuse Congress and the intel. agencies of withholding this information for years. He won't actually know what he's talking about, but the Republicans who think they have something to gain by siding with him will start demanding the truth. Still, not sure how that will bend the military and intelligence agencies toward divulging the info, unless they simply want to avoid the biggest media war with the president yet.
The Putnam character sounds like a loon or a charlatan, and his appearance in the article was...poorly written.
Still, I'd kind of like to know what two of our most-sophisticated jets were chasing, especially since I assume that they didn't get launched because some sailor thought he saw a light in the sky. I mean, last I heard carriers like the Nimitz don't go anywhere without an Aegis cruiser along: what was the reason for sending up the two F-18s?
A lot of the comments are from folks who're sure what this was, whether it's Harry Reid's Evil or our alien, angelic brothers. I have no idea, but it strikes me that if something's flying over a carrier group that we can't catch and can't figure out, it's worth $22 mil to find out what's going on.
And the the money fusses you...well, do you know what air operations off a carrier COST?
7
I am among those who have seen unexplained sky phenomena.
Late one winter night in Grand Rapids, Minn., I went outside to see if the Northern Lights were on display. They were not, but I did see, as I looked north a distant light, significantly brighter than the surrounding stars, moving rapidly from the western horizon eastward. When it neared the midway point in the sky between the western and eastern horizons it's course turned on a dime and proceeded northward until it disappeared from view. It was in view for 10-15 seconds. No colors, no flashing, just a bright light moving faster across the heavens than anything I have ever seen, behaving in a way I doubt a man-made object can even today.
111
Same thing happened to me one clear winter night in NH 50 years ago. My dad was driving me to a sewing competition. We were running late. That's why I was surprised when he pulled the car off the road. He asked me if I saw what he saw. I looked where he was pointing out the front window of the car. Stars everywhere but one brighter than all the others, zipping around in lots of directions...to the right, then straight up, then back down again. My dad had his pilot's license and told me that no plane could do that, no spotlight either. It disappeared and we went to the contest (I won 2nd place). Next day in the newspapers my dad found several others had reported sighting this phenomena, including some policeman. It was buried in the middle of the paper. We never spoke of it again.
26
A pair of satellites on different orbits that passed close to one another in the sky right as they crossed the line of passing in/out of the earth's shadow. Must happen thousands of times a day from the point of vies of innumerable places on the earth's surface. (A lot more likely that winning the lottery).
10
A logically possible explanation, Tim, but I've watched satellites before and the speeds they move at are nowhere near the apparent velocity of what I saw, nor anywhere near as bright.
27
Next thing we know, this'll be settled science - unanimously attested to by experts...
#littlegreenlivesmatter
...Of course, we'll need to build a dome - a really big dome - to protect us from these undocumenteds...
Or - we could repurpose the $100B Mount Reid Memorial to store and curate all things alien...
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-Yucca_Mountain_cost_estimate_rises_...
2
We already know about extraterrestrials, even if the governments around the world play stupid and pretend it doesn't exist we already know, no need for anymore evidence or anything else WE ALREADY KNOW and they will deny it anyway so whats the point? there are actually more facts proving it than anything disproving it but they still play stupid so its pointless.
1
The object in the video looks like it is using a more advanced version of the technology in Lockeed's MKV intercepter. Search Youtube "Missile defense multiple kill vehicle hover test".
I am sure that for every incident reported and recorded, there are a hundred that were either never reported, or suppressed as the report moved to higher levels. Those involved feared ridicule, or questioning of their mental readiness to continue to serve.
Maybe we need a "#Me Too" movement for those who have seen, but never reported, unexplained phenomena.
7
I do believe that many people would ask the aliens the first question like, is there God, or, are you Christian, too, or, do you think there is no god but Allah, and Mohammad be his Prophet?
1
“There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie”
~ David Bowie
3
Finally, this is quite an astounding revelation that our gov't has actually spent money and actually had a serious project to investigate UFO accounts. All these years they have done nothing but deny any investigations like this. This has always seemed extremely silly to me. And, why should anyone be ridiculed for saying what they think they observed. This confirms to me how stupid people are: Everyone has to follow the herd; nobody should get out of line.
4
Leslie Kean wrote a UFO book (2010). A review from Skeptical Inquirer (SI):
http://debunker.com/texts/kean.htm
Check it out on Amazon. It is endorsed by Michio Kaku. He has largely been ostracized by the scientific community for his views on UFOs (and time travel). Rudy Schild also endorses Kean’s book. He promotes an alternative theory of black holes published in his own fringe journal. He is not well respected for that. Another commenter has brought up Harold Puthoff (also a Kean endorser), who was duped by Uri Geller.
Many of us “want to believe” we are not alone in a vast, cold, uncaring universe. Here is the reality of it.
As far as we know, we are alone. We are searching for life in our own solar system; we have found none other than on Earth. If we find primitive bacterial life in, say, the ocean under the ice on Europa, is it based on DNA, like us? If so, we won’t know if we came from it, or it from us – in short it will be a mess. The holy grail is finding non-DNA based life; that would indicate a true “second genesis.” On the other hand, finding spectral evidence for *any* life on an exoplanet would indicate a second genesis because the odds of contamination from life from our own solar system are zero. We have found none.
This is a poor NYT article. And how much more did James Oberg have to say that didn’t appear here? Indeed, Harry Reid is probably just helping his friend.
And the “Phoenix Lights” were trashed by SI long ago.
3
James Oberg's quote in the article is fascinating and a bit cryptic, certainly the last portion. From the article:
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.”
What does this mean?
We've spent more on Trump's golf outings than this.
16
Bugs Bunny to Marvin The Martian - "You can't blow up the Earth! Everyone I know lives there!"
1
If they wanted to really make things clear, they should start doing a financing program to study the BOL, the aerials balls of light phenomena, like the Hessdalen phenomena, or lake Ontario, Arizona ecc...
1
Such a program is wasted resources. While the 7th fleet stands undermanned, the navy somehow finds the money to fund ridiculous, far-flung programs. Perhaps there is merit in analyzing unexplained sightings, yet to make it its own program with a budget of 22 million is stupid.
I would propose many of those sharing comments, especially as to a waste of government/tax payer resources, have never studied the subject as a serious matter. This is a phenonmena no matter how you approach the subject. Our societal approach has understandably made it difficult.
I have watched the topic very closely and objectively since the mid-60's. I recall Johnny Carson often spoofing every "nut job" his monologue or sketches featured as being one of those "wackos who has just seen a UFO" and getting us to laugh at the silliness of the idea. Virtually every so called news report for the past 50 years concerning what might have been a credible sighting is handled with mockery and inevitably has a cartoonish flying saucer from a 1950's sci-fi movie as b-roll with the reporter's voiceover. We have all been conditioned to not believe this is even a possibility and that something natural must be at play. Only natural things can fit in the universe and certainly in and around our world. Really? I surmise this can be attributed in part to Johnny Carson (and 100 other TV entertainers) and the afraid-to-be-serious news reporters who have "brainwashed" us into thinking this is a silly subject. Otherwise we may be ridiculed or worse. Perhaps our situation is somewhat akin to the North Koreans and the bubble they live in but in this case we have stymied ourselves and limited our own thinking to the advantage of no one.
The truth is not likely what you think.
7
"...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."
Well, that's not boding well!
For me that sounds like a bunch of people that specialized in bilking the U.S. government in order to secure their income/position and at the same time follow their scientifically dubious interests.
Are there U.F.Os? Yes.
Are they of alien nature? Probably not.
U.F.O simply means "Unidentified Flying Object", nothing more or less. There are people that claim that the U.F.Os seen since WW2 are advanced Nazi-Germany flying machines and that the Third Reich somehow has survived in South America. This is as good an explanation as "...they are from an alien planet...".
I agree with professor Stephen Hawking when he writes that any encounter between us and aliens would be like Cortes landing in America. We would be wiped out. So if they are here, what are they waiting for? Let the enslavement and plundering begin!
No, they are not here. And neither is E=mc² something that's pushed aside easily, faster-than-light travel still seems impossible. And every day we find more habitable planets out there, yet there is not one electromagnetic beep from any of them (and SETI is still listening!). There may be life out there, but maybe they are still very exited about this "fire" stuff they just discovered...
74
So I don't think anyone on this planet has a craft that can go from 80 thousand feet to surface level, hover above the ocean then fly up again and hover in 138mph winds as these Navy aircraft encountered unless Im missing something? So clearly SOMETHING is here..
And who says an advanced race would be using rockets to get from A to B? That seems absurd and very primitive thinking.
25
"No, they are not here. And neither is E=mc² something that's pushed aside easily, faster-than-light travel still seems impossible."
Earth like planets in the "Goldilocks zone" have been discovered around stars that are less than 20 light years from earth.
Alien craft piloted by A.I. (or long-lived biological creatures, or short-lived creatures in suspended animation) could reach her in a mere 40 years going half the speed of light.
A.I. Space travelers or biological ones in craft which could sustain many generations could have embarked 10,000 or 10,000,000 years ago and could have been based on our moon since before humans even evolved.
The "speed of light argument" against alien visitation is only an issue for people of very limited imagination and understanding of science.
31
Given the vanishingly small likelihood that life evolved on only one of the vast numbers of planets, I am virtually certain that life exists elsewhere. I am equally as certain that somewhere it is intelligent. The likelihood hat it has visited our planet is however also vanishingly small. The laws of physics are universal. We will never travel to any extrasolar world, nor have or will any extrasolar beings visit here.
6
For all the true believers out there, why is it that after thousands of so-called sitings, not a single one has been indisputably proven to be a UFO (i.e. intelligent life from another planet)?
A lot of people are prone to believe things without evidence. I'm a skeptic. You'd think maybe just one of these UFOs would land and maybe say hello to the President. (But not this president.)
Do people in other countries also have sitings? It seems unlikely that most UFOs would visit the United States.
This little venture should not be paid for by our tax dollars. Let Mr. Bigelow use his billions to pay for his hobby.
2
Recommend taking the time to research the large body of reports and evidence that already exists of sightings and encounters worldwide.
5
To your question about other countries having sightings? Yes countries all over the world have had sightings . It's been going on for decades. We here in the US are not the only ones that have witnessed the extraterrestrials.
5
What's most fascinating about UFO sightings is the effect it causes to the observers. A natural inclination is to immediately try to explain what is one of Man's most bewildering and strangest experiences.
It is quite difficult, and ultimately destructive for Government to try to tell, often large groups of people, or professional observers like pilots or the police, that what they've seen is "swamp gas," or shooting stars, or some other pat explanation for one of the most common yet strangest apparitions of human experience.
This subterfuge has been a large and contributing factor to the general distrust of Government and the foundation for all sorts of wild and wooly conspiracy theories. For there ARE conspiracies, and Government handling of UFO sightings have certainly been one of them.
Viewed in a different way, Government MUST show interest and respect for one of Man's strangest experiences, and most certainly when professionals and absolutely credible individuals have seen what they have seen. To do otherwise is to utterly estrange Government and Authority from those they are meant to serve.
Best not to fish for explanations and simply accept and remain open to what credible observers are seeing. If you don't, you will lose respect of those you are to govern.
So, this article is very good news. Again, the observations are what are to be respected, not hasty jumping to conclusions about the origin of such strangeness.
10
How peculiar it is to see so many people suggest the money for this program would be better spent on lunch money for school kids - as if that is the only alternative. Ironically, if we were to make official contact we might just as easily learn new technologies to end hunger.
The reality is that aliens have been coming here for eons and we need only read our ancient texts - and accept that they are true.
3
There seems to be a fair number of anecdotes here about UFO sightings. Anecdotes are not data. Not one passes scientific muster for evidence. Certainly not waste money on this type of “research.” (boondoggle)
First question everyone should ask…How did they get here? What type of propulsion? It is the first step.
1
I don't think so Glen. The first step is to ascertain the character or the observation and the persons making it.
In my view, seeking a "physical" explanation for these apparitions that many, many, utterly responsible observers have seen is putting the cart far ahead of the horse.
The observations are what to study and duly respect if they meet certain criteria for reliability.
Great program, as long as Science leads the way and not Intelligence Agencies with different priorities.
1
I have seen a UFO, in the night sky of Seattle about 1987. It hovered, moved in several directions and then disappeared.
5
I'd love to know how you could possibly spend $22 million dollars on investigating a few hundred eye witness accounts of little fuzzy dots in the sky?
I have also seen an object flying across the night sky when I was 12. It moved silently and faster than anything I have ever seen before. I have no idea what it was. I am an agnostic on what I saw in fact because I was left without any hard evidence: only my visual siting and now my memory of it.
The author quotes a source saying to the effect that "unidentified objects" that don't appear to originate on earth have been collected and are under lock and key in some obscure governmental warehouse, somewhere. So, UFO's are facts held by the government.
I agree with other comments that request the government to share the findings of fact of these weird, inexplicable objects. I think the pubic is ready for this. Displaying inexplicable objects would not be proof of "alien" life visiting earth, it would only be evidence of physical things we can't explain. What threat to the public imagination is present in this innocent request for a sharing of information?
And to those who insist that UFO's can be explained as an earthly event, or earth produced thing, please show your proof; and if you can't then you are asserting an article of faith. Until we have hard proof of anything, we should all be agnostic on this question. Til then, the government shouldn't keep secrets on this interesting topic.
85
You are asking someone to "prove a negative." That is scientifically invalid. (prove that you can't do algebra) Unidentified is means that there is not any evidence for an object. Jumping to "aliens" is actually a leap of faith. There has to be some prior plausibility and extraterrestrials hanging about for short time spans would be silly. Did they travel all the way to earth to be seen for a few seconds and then leave?
Most unbelievably fast objects are just reflections of lights off clouds or meteors. At certain times, satellites can be seen streaming across space quickly.
1
You are attempting to turn the scientific method on its backside. If you think that non-terrestrial craft have visited the earth, present a testable hypothesis (that is, a falsifiable hypothesis), design your test, collect the data, do the analysis, and confirm or reject the hypothesis.
Otherwise, stop telling people to "show your proof" for a negative. It is the advocates who must show their proof.
3
The truth is out there.
4
The part of the first video transcribed as "[unclear]" is the flight officer asking "Is that an LNS?" Trying to identify the object, he's suggesting it's an Israeli advanced tactical fighter, actually a Saab AJS-37 Viggen, designated "LNS AJS-37" by the Israeli military. It has two sets of wings and looks approximately the shape of the object in the video. --just sayin'-- not that there aren't aliens! <:|
1
So, Reid rewards his longtime friend, and likely main political backer, with a kickback black money program. I'm sure Nevada's UFO-related tourism picked up too... No surprise there, as that's how politics works.
The whole thing sounds like a Pentagon ploy to justify needing billions more to develop next-gen weapon systems, and to take war to space.
1
Its incredible that even discussing UFOs in this day and age is still stigmatized. Do only a little research and you will discover there has been a government cover up for decades. Yet make mention of this fact and most people think you belong in a looney bin as they stare at their iphones. People are to closed minded and believe man is king of the universe-just as they always have. We still abide by the world is flat and the sun revolves around it mentality.
5
The video looks like it is a recording of a software or optical fault, because the "object" tracks perfectly with the aircraft. The pilots should have tried some other maneuvers.
I'm very disappointed in the Times's gullibility.
2017-12-17 04:04:11 UTC
3
The existence of extraterrestrials is essential to the Mormon doctrine and their universal plan of salvation. I am told that Larry Reid is an LDS member. Nevertheless, it is an interesting program that may be worthwhile.
UFOs are from the future, not alien
It is not surprising to hear that our planet may have been visited by advanced forms of life from far outside our galaxy. Nor should it be a mystery as to why they have not attempted to communicate with us. What is surprising is that, up until now, they have not been so repulsed by our misbehavior to each other and /or the other life forms on earth. that they have not elected to exterminate our species as a preventative measure to keep us from contaminating the rest of the universe. Perhaps the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao (as well as the the conception of the first sustainable nuclear pile/breeder reactor, B-29s, and ICBMs) were countermeasures introduced into our world to further our own self-elimination and/or containment. In any case, an excellent, thought provoking story by the New York Times.
We’d do better to spend the money rooting out the one verified UFOO that we’ve all seen, the Unqualified Fool in the Oval Office.
3
Please be sure the tag "UFO" is not associated with "aliens." We know it is unidentified, and we also know it is not "alien." Those who believe, as it were matter of "faith" and of scientific facts, that there are beings from another planet here know nothing about the laws of physics or the size of the galaxy.
Another display of incredible (and completely unfounded) hubris. Isn't it amazing that, here on Earth, in the early 21st century, we have defined the physical universe, and all its mysteries are now clearly identified and understood? Wow.
3
If this is not just the tip of the iceberg in what the defense department is doing in space research with their 600 billion that we the U.S. citizens do not know about then all I have to say is 'beam me aboard Scotty their is no intelligent life here'
1
This is an embarrassment for Sen. Reid and for the party that normally looks like the adult in the room compared with those infantile greedy Republicans.
1
Think about this, when have we seen such a story in such a reputable news source as the Times? Why now? The attached video is stunning.
4
In the 2004 San Diego video the camera switches between ‘white-hot’ mode and ‘black’ mode twice. But the WHT / BLK mode indicator at the bottom left of the frame does not reflect this change. It stays on ‘WHT’ throughout both changes. That would suggest the video has been doctored.
5
The video is REAL!
1
Ken, the WHT / BLK label clearly doesn’t change throughout this video, despite the camera clearly changing modes. If you are going to declare the video is real, then can you offer an explanation for this?!
2
The usual hot mess of what happens when Washington DC gets involved in issues that they shouldn't.
Yes, some of these investigations of alleged UFO's and other atmospheric phenomena are interesting and probably worth looking in to by NASA and the DoD to some degree.
Yet, given Mr. Bigelow's deep pockets, why didn't he use his own resources instead of obviously using his inside-the-Beltway connection to Senator Reid to get the DoD to engage him in conducting these investigations?
There are hundreds, probably thousands, of programs like this one. The worthy ones should be pursued.
But, the many unworthy projects are squandering our hard earned tax dollars on pet peeves, idiosyncratic interests and pure pork barreling of by Congress, mercurial staff of the Executive Branch and unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. This is why DC is considered so out of touch and why "drain the swamp" resonates for so many.
1
Mr. Bigelow is developing inflatable modules for use on the ISS -- and for other purposes. I don't think he is exactly swimming in cash. He had to lay off a number of engineers two or three years ago.
That said, I'm not sure the $22 million was well spent.
Flying or not, humans want to identify objects/ideas/people. It is our nature to strive to categorize and understand.
Why jump to conclusions about what these phenomena are or are not?
Why not speculate and investigate--using reasonable* amounts of time/effort/resources?
* Open to debate.
2
Props to The NY Times for this article enlisting two principled and dogged researchers into this vexed often culturally repressed subject.
Some other powerful, grounded narratives of the eruption of this phenomenon in our conventional reality space can be found on the DVD “Out of the Blue” by James Fox.
2
Yes, the Flying Objects in question were indeed Unidentified, making them, by definition, UFOs.
Yet there's no mystery about what is really going on:
Harry Reid found a uniquely creative way to line the pockets of his long-time friend and supporter, Robert Bigelow.
21st century graft, with twist of George Jetson
3
The problem is the lack of empirical evidence. I can listen to UFO stories all day long, but until something tangible is uncovered, they are only stories.
Thank you! You have no idea how much love and respect you have waiting for you, from all the Starseeds here who are ready and willing to embrace all of you. I'm talking to you, the people who are disclosing information, Humans, ETs, reptilians, and other forms of life. The amount of respect and admiration we have for your decision to bring truth, cannot be over stated. The bravery and fortitude that is being displayed by entities who are pushing for disclosure, will never be forgotten. It is better to be loved, and revered, than to be loathed and feared. You are loved.
It's always amusing to me how these aliens, like various gods, never manifest themselves publicly in a way that is obvious and univocal. They are always furtive and coy. Ya had to be there. The images always grainy, ambiguous or explainable by other phenomena. Guess they have to do that, since they obviously don't have defenses or maybe they don't want to make a scene...
3
Never manifest themselves? How do we know? ;-)
2
I believe they are here just to (OBSERVE) us! That is why they do NOT LAND and say we are here to the entire planet. The same way we are not supposed to disturb wild life in their natural habitat, but just OBSERVE them. They are FAR more ADVANCED than we are. Their INTELLIGENCE compared to ours, is like the way we observe animals.
The "end" could certainly be justified, however it's the "means" that needs to be looked at more closely. A friend of a senator, 22 million dollars of taxpayers' money, conclusions, any?
2
I hope there are other, and more intelligent and peaceful, life forms nearby. If so, and if you can read my thoughts, please take me away. We have made a fine mess of our own planet and have no shame about it.
5
For me this article raises a lot of questions. Why was Sen. Reid given this concession? Why were the funds given mainly to Bigelow for this? If it was considered an important and necessary study, why cancel it? There is no question the UFO phenomenon is real. My own experience while a USAF missile launch officer, involved the disabling of my missiles during close UFO encounters at my facility. It is only one of many such incidents. I have written two books on this subject. My research over the past twenty years clearly shows that our government has had a continuing program studying UFOs secretly.
4
they came to earth , maybe 1 million years ago , wreks founded in South sahara , but on present day , they might come from the futur : our futur ! when the human being will be undergrounded , replaced by an A.I. , with the technology of time travel . this is my opinion, airline pilot and 4 times witness of ufo phenomenon .
3
Too much time spent in watching TV antics with science-fiction movies is the source of this type of childish hallucination! We better concentrate on the real problems such as wars and poverty.
2
I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords.
3
I have been talking with “Angels” for many years. They have come here from the future to help us mature and grow more compassionate. I wrote a selection of short fiction stories that describe how they are active in our world today. “Angels in the City" by Diane Marie Taylor https://www.amazon.com/Angels-City-Diane-Marie-Taylor/dp/152138326X/ref=...
A senator's pet project, operated in secret, that funnels black money to one of the senator's closest pals? This sounds to me like something other than a UFO story.
1
Perhaps military and airline pilots should some have some deeper training in atmospheric optics. There are phenomena that may seem weird, but are explainable by the optics of small, light scattering particles.
51
Would radar get fooled too by small, light scattering particles? From the video it looks like the radar got a lock on the object.
16
Can radar be fooled too by small, light scattering particles? From the video it looks like it got a lock on the object.
4
I know nothing about radar response to small ice particles. It certainly responds to bulk ice. Others may wish to comment on this point.
The only people that think space aliens have visited earth are the people not applying science based evidence to the issue. Fuzzy blobs and spinning lights are not any indication of extraterrestrials. (why would a space craft need to spin like that?) There is zero evidence of any type of extraterrestrial intelligence at all--never mind any visiting earth. The periodic table and the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe. Therefore, any alien intelligence has the same limits that we have. The only energy source that would come close to providing the needed long-term power to cross the interstellar space would be nuclear fusion—and that is just not easy. And we would sense that coming really easy. (the “physics” of star trek or star wars do not apply.)
Why would aliens visit here? Unless they like visiting war zones, it does not make any sense to come to earth and leave no trace at all.
36
This is the scariest part; that humans do not seem to have the ability to reason.
Anyone with interstellar capability would be thousands of years -at least-beyond us technically. Are we using humans to explore? No. We are using robots. And they certainly would not need to buzz us in easily discover-able 'saucers'. More importantly is 'why'? We have only to look at our species and imagine that there is no reason anyone would want anything to do with us. We are poisoning our own planet while we murder other species for 'fun'. Our 'entertainment' is full of 'evil' aliens (and re-animated corpses?) coming to destroy us. WHO would want to visit us? For what? We are clearly to be avoided.
11
Because their star burns out and they need to find habitable planets to survive.
Because they are visited by predators that seek to take away their planet.
Because they need to map this part of the galaxy.
4
Why? Maybe life is EXTREMELY rare in the Universe so finding another planet would be very interesting wouldn't it? I'd love to hear your explanation of this encounter in 2004 then...
12
Reid needs to be in jail for enriching his friend with tax dollars.
2
Doesn't the Times do any investigation before publishing such stories?
As soon as I read that Harold Puthoff was involved I knew what was going on. A former "advanced" member of the Church of Scientology, Puthoff was among those fooled by Uri Geller (and others) at SRI. He published research (with Russell Targ) on "remote viewing" which was later shown to be entirely bogus. It took a magician--the Amazing Randi--to out another magician, Uri Geller (along with dozens of others claiming to have supernatural powers).
That was in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was sad because starting out, Puthoff had done some fine scientific research (he has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering). More recently, Puthoff has been looking into "free energy" "over unity" devices, or maybe it's cold fusion now. He's right up there with dozens of con artists trying to attract investors for amazing technologies which are always--for decades--just around the corner.
With Bigelow and Puthoff doing the "research" for this project, we can be pretty sure it's just government funded pseudoscience. It isn't the first time, and probably won't be the last time.
3
Interesting and provocative.
Googling "SETI Harvard" indicates this search/study has been going on for quite a while.
1) do we now need a 4th class of bathroom? male, female, trans and now alien?
2) do we need to build a wall around the planet?
3) do aliens go on the banned immigration list? how does that fool judge in Hawaii feel about real alien immigration?
3
Here we go again. The government has been spending "yuge" amounts of money investigating these objects (acronyms come and go), since at least the 40s, following a rash of sightings and experiences that intensified after our development of nuclear weapons. The real programs have never stopped, but have developed sophisticated modes for spreading disinformation and "finally the case is closed" stories like this one. Why, NYT, do you find it important to give space to UFO debunkers, when the subject has NEVER been "debunked"? The real black programs are run by a combination of government and aerospace companies, with the goal of weaponizing the alien (yes!) technologies they've encountered. Research the ion propulsion system in the B-2 bomber to understand how even the subject of physics has been "classified" out of our educational system. The "inside" government has existed by classification and compartmentalization, funded by "black" money, and, due to the volume of sightings and encounters, CANNOT continue to exist in secrecy. There are too many government documents in existence to lend credence to Reid's claim about the limited scope of his program. That's just false. We're paying for the suppression of science and technology, at a time when humanity needs truth, not lies.
3
Except that James Oberg is right smack in the middle of the article.
1
Why would a being which could fly many lightyears to come to our planet play tag with a jet fighter?
Silly.
4
Joyriding teenage aliens?
Our research on UFOs won best paper award at ICMLA 17'. One of the findings was a missile test: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315729875_A_Time-Series_Cluster...
So exciting---especially the F-18 pilots' commentary. A practical concern: if the aliens said to the free world (as they always seem to), "Take me to your leader!" we'd now bring them to Angela Merkel?
1
Great, now we need a dome to keep foreigners out, not just a wall. Not sure though how they'll pay for it.
1
Paging Dr. Elizabeth Weir... Dr. Weir to the white SG1 courtesy phone please... ;-)
The talking fish article in the times (in a Hasidic community in upstate NY some years ago) was may favorite one ever, In their inimitable fashion, they reported straight fact (eg "According to Mr H, the fish said " ") without feeling the need to add disparaging snide remarks, since it was assume that the NYT readership is sufficiently sophisticated to understand the editorial opinion on the matter. But this article is a little different. On the one hand they make it clear that a private company led by a UFO-believer maverick produced the reports, and do so without feeling the need to make the obvious comments regarding that, on the other hand they quote reports of airforce pilots and the views of high-level pentagon officials, and a critique of a timid media. And online it is categorized as being in the politics section. Interesting.
Pseudoscientific nonsense. Tax dollars down the tube. Thousands of professional and amateur astronomers scanning the skies 24 hours every day. Sophisticated radars, amateur photographers making remarkably clear photos of the ISS from the ground, yet not one credible photograph of a "UFO."
Atmospheric effects, optical illusions, mirages, nothing at all.
On the other hand, nut-job billionaires are proven to exist.
2
I don't trust anything having to do with the military (industrial) community. If I were part of that, l would understand that I have control of Human Race. Showing images like the ones on this page, is probably a fabricated ploy to validate this nonsense, but think of the positive effect it could have. Humanity united against a fictional enemy............"Invadors From Outer Space Bring Humanity Together". Gosh, fear reigns, rules!
1
The object in the top video is an X-47B JUCAS drone.
1
Seriously. the government knows there would be riots, shock, way worse than during 911 , if they admitted aliens are abducting and experimenting in people when ever they want and there is nothing they can do about it, anymore than an ant can stop you from walking onto their home or path....
1
Mr Reid sure was a master at spending (squandering) "Other People`s Money" (OPM).
2
Please don't tell me we're wasting our tax dollars to investigate UFOs. At least not the sci-fi kind sent by aliens.
Every known case where a UFO was identified, it turned out to be an explainable object - usually related to the military.
Waste of time, waste of money.
1
The film CAPTURING THE LIGHT has all the answers everyone is seeking for in UFO's. Best film ever made on the subject and seals the deal. Watch it and show everyone you know; you can get in on Amazon.
Majority of the money going to Harry Reid friend makes this project obsolete. The videos here can be created at a home pc. This piece could be written for Reid to get out in front of an investigation about to take place about these funds.
It’s too one sided, and gives little background on “why this guy received the millions?”
1
More needs to be released.
5
The most fascinating essay I've ever read on the internet, addressing the question, "With so many likely habitable planets in the universe, where is everybody?".........
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
Enjoy!
2
Thanks! This is the kind of gold that make the NYT comments so valuable! Wow!
1
A secret scam sponsored by the feverish delusions of an obtuse Senator, to the undisclosed benefit of his millionaire friends.
Sure. What could go wrong?
But then: What else is new?
1
Considering that the fact that there are countless numbers of galaxies in the universe, with an incalculable number of solar systems and planets, only a fool would think that UFOs are a figment of imagination.
3
True - but if you read any literature on the technology needed to achieve the faster than light speed that is necessary travel to go from one galaxy to the next when even in close proximity, it is nearly impossible scientifically to do it within the life span of any biologically based being. AI, perhaps, but even that is highly unlikely. See Fermi's Paradox for more on this.
No, we are not alone in the universe, its just that we are in a galaxy far, far away from any meaningful contact.
2
I was a young Air Traffic Controller stationed at Dover AFB, De back in 1984-85. Our airspace was upto 8,000 ft & about a 40 mile radius. I worked Radar Approach Control (RAPCON). Dover was home to C-5's and C-141 (at least back then it was). I cant recall what time exactly but it was at night. I do recall vividly my interaction/radio convo with the military pilot. The pilot was on either the C-5 or the C-141. I recall traffic being light.
The pilot called up Approach Control (me) and reported an aircraft off his right wing. He reported that it was close. His voice was shaken and I could sense the panic. I yelled to my supervisor who was at the helm behind me. I needed him right there because this was bad news in our world-having an aircraft close to another. We can widen out our radar scopes and we have features that can help us zoom in for a lack of a better word and also pick up any light "blips" (radar returns). I saw nothing. This is happening at 6,000 or 8,000 ft. I informed the pilot that I did not see anything.He then reported that its now just off the left wing. As he was talking, I could hear his crew in the background. They are panicked as well-excited/panic background chatter. I could hear them saying it too close! The pilot said it was going to maneuver right to get away. He reported that it was gone and said that he believe it was a UFO. At the time I thought..holy cow..a UFO
145
If it wasn't on radar, just visual, it is likely that it wasn't there.
5
You mean, like, stealth aircraft? That were undergoing a huge test program authorized by Reagan in the mid-eighties? Is that what you mean? LOL
3
No radar signature eh? Isn't that kinda weird?
This is a fascinating article which reveals an essential truth: the U.S. Government is still investigating UFOs today 48 years after Project Blue Book was terminated by the Air Force and despite repeated denials by the military that there was any investigation into UFO incidents. It's also extraordinary that the Times is running this story considering its history of ignoring the subject. Does anyone remember the thousands of UFO sightings during the Hudson Valley sightings wave some years back? The Times ran only one story on that sightings wave: an article claiming that a number of pilots hoaxed a UFO sighting in the area, as if that explained the thousands of sighting reports. Nevertheless, the Times is on the right track now and should continue to investigate this issue, which is extremely important. Hopefully, the Pentagon's acknowledgment of this secret program will lead them to show a greater openness to this issue than they have in the 70 years since the Roswell incident in 1947 was covered up.
5
Silliness, billions of dollars chasing things that don't exist, don't we all think there are better uses for that money besides indulging our childish fantasies....
1
Nonsensical waste of taxpayer monies.
FANTASYLAND...
Why can’t Mr. Reid be satisfied watching reruns of Close Encounters or ET?
1
Let's look at the term "conspiracy theorist" and how it is used to discredit the sanity of anyone who raises a legitimate question about why something happened as it did. Was it not a "conspiracy" that information about an encounter with UFOs involving multiple highly-trained, highly skeptical military pilots was withheld from public view by government officials? Was it not a "conspiracy" that the CIA used LSD and forms of mental torture in the program known as MK Ultra? Was it not a "conspiracy" that the CIA Directorate of Plans concocted a plan to launch "false flag" terrorist attacks in the U.S. to discredited targeted governments in Operation Northwoods? It has also been documented that the intelligence agencies used UFO "incidents" to distract from real-world CIA operations/failures. The UFO cult was promulgated in part by the government to discredit those who believed in such things. As a result of this flypaper approach to using conspiracies against conspiracy theorists, the CIA could discredit ANYONE who recognized patterns of deceit in corridors of power. Are UFO's visitors from alien worlds? We doubt it, but we don't dare ask for fear of being labeled "conspiracy theorists."
1
If we found anything unexplainable the very next thing we would do is figure out how best to blow it up.
4
This paper needs to learn to NOT put constantly moving graphics on the front page sans a stop button! It should be just common graphic design sense, constantly moving graphics are disturbing to be forced to view! Please, cut out the animated gifs! What do I have to do, get some sensitive to declare they are triggered? That would be easy enough!
7
I watched 43 minutes before I realized it was looping
1
If a species is capable of traveling the incredible distances between star systems (or dimensions) to reach Earth, wouldn't they also be able to successfully avoid discovery by a species as primitive and violent as ours?
Perhaps they're watching us closely to see if we are capable of maturing into peaceful cooperation or destroying ourselves in a nuclear holocaust. UFO sightings may be a way of letting us know we have a much larger audience than we ever suspected.
5
Certainly they could avoid detection, if they wanted to. Merely standing off a good distance (a few A.U.) and maintaining radio silence should do it. From there they could learn almost everything they might want to know, given sensors no better than ours.
Conversely, if they wanted to make contact, they could do that without much risk to themselves.
It looks bad, a Senator giving taxpayer money to a billionaire buddy for his personal hobby?
4
In the unlikely event that an intelligent force from some other place wants to say hello to us, I don't see them climbing into some spaceship for the ride over. Sure, look around space, why not? But know you're just as likely to find Santa's slay as a can of aliens.
The argument, that distances are too vast for anyone to arrive is obviously based on the arrogant and narrow human-centered view of the universe which assumes we unlocked enough secrets of the cosmos with our mainstream science to explain these things away. This human-based view also forms the way how and when we should expect the aliens to appear. Michio Kaku's ant analogy explains this quite well. A sort of scientific religion halts progress nowadays, unfortunately.
How to make sense of this 'new' information in this article? Since the cultural and societal implications are huge, it would make sense for governments to keep UFO research as a black project, not to mention simple scientific skepticism would make it more difficult to approve public funds because our science can not offer any explanations for the technology behind the 'valid' observations. In addition, military-industry complex would want to have access to this technology before civilians and more importantly before other nations.
On another note, the appearance of this 'fringe' article in NY times is either based on google artificial intelligence (just search youtube for UFO conspiracy videos and the see the number of views they get) Or, aliens do exist and this article is part of the 'slow' leakage plan.
2
No, really, it is physics, the same physics which operates throughout all universes, space and time, that says how long it would take for one species to contact another in person.
That is exactly what I mean it is our knowledge of physics is just that. Our knowledge.
Your comment should be top NYT Picks.
I do share the same concerns that you've pointed out. I am dismayed that few people are seeing the very flawed narrow-minded conclusions by our mainstream scientists on space traveling. I make this argument every time that scientists cannot judge an advance specie's technology based on our understanding of science. It is arrogant and reductionistic.
It is all about religion. if UFOs exists, all religious books will become obsolete. Humanity is not ready yet
2
Do you really think so? There is much to be gained from religion that is positive including moral values, gratitude and a framework for living. Why would the realization that there are UFO's and life of some sort on another planet make this moot?
I saw a massive UFO.It was silent.It was either from somewhere else or we have a new energy source.
3
Bugs - "Just what did you mean with that crack about the Earth being - 'Gone'"?
Marvin the Martian - "Oh...the Earth? I'm going to blow it up. It obstructs my view of Venus."
2
This is what I want from the NYT. I'm so fed up seeing articles and opinion pieces about Trump. Finally, something interesting.
8
Mr. Budget Suites of America, Mr. Bigelow, rips off the USA tax-payer for hundreds of millions of dollars through his manipulation of his buddy, Henry Reid. A pair of crooks. Las Vegas Nevada where else?
1
Sir, if that's all you can walk away with from this story, it is truly sad.
In all SERIOUSNESS, I believe these extraterrestrials observe us like the way WE just OBSERVE animals in the wild, and are told (NOT to INTERFERE) or disturb the animals or wild life...this is how these extraterrestrials OBSERVE us! They dont want to interfere with our society, like when we observe wild life. They are MUCH more advanced than we are, and from our INTELLIGENCE point of view, we are probably on the same level like when WE observe animals!
6
It isn't extraterrestrials so much as spying by hostile governments that we should worry about.
4
This is video from MILITARY files, NOT just some guy off the street! These are (EXPERIENCED) pilots that know what regular aircraft look like! You can hear the pilots say THIS is like (NOTHING) they have EVER seen! Whatever these things are, WE need to find out what they are! That is what the PENTAGON is for! If this was something that was MAN made, they would have at least used that as the (EXCUSE) to explain what these things were! But they are not even saying that these are MAN made objects, they say they dont know WHAT these things are. And that does not think that we should even try to find out what these OBJECT are, are FOOLS!!!
1
I wasn't saying that investigations are not worthwhile.
1
"Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow"
What more need be said?
2
I find the angry tone of many comments here curious. Why such outrage and ridicule over the possibility of UFOs? What's wrong with exploring the possibilities of life, the universe, and everything? Surely no one really believes that Earth contains the only life in the infinity of the multiverse? That old medieval fable really must go, along with the flat earth nonsense.
Such conceit among us today!
14
I AGREE with you!
1
It's probably fear that fuels their anger. Fear of the unknown and inexplicable.
Read "The Three Body Problem" for the worst possible answer. it is a profound look at the Fermi Paradox through fiction.
To those who call this a waste of money: Our military spends more than this on one mistake. Every time we hit our own equipment the losses could run into the millions and some lives could be lost. Look at the cost overruns also. We keep bases open in countries that really don't want us there costing us 100s of millions every year. The US is the most militaristic country in the World. We constantly have a war going on somewhere for the last several decades. We act as though stupidity is a virtue: Any tyrant in the World knows all they need to do is cozy up to the US and we'll back them-until the whole thing backfires in our face.
There are many reasons the human species is curious about our environment and strives to learn new things. We can learn new things that will help us better survive or survive much easier. Its also very important to be aware of things that can be a threat to our survival and how to combat them.
2
Are there other intelligent life sources in our galaxy or others? Probably. Are they traveling in our atmosphere as UFOs? Doubtful. Should a great deal of money be spent investigating them? For sure! Anything that is polluting the skies above us should be identified and evaluated as to its danger. However, in that, I also include space trash (human made), carbon dioxide, methane and the lack of ozone. I am, however, quite in support also of continued maintenance of the SETI Program which has its giant antennas aimed outward to evaluate possible communications.
2
"Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow [...]"
We *should* be researching UFOs-- unjustifiable financial outlays. But, sadly, there's nothing alien about graft in this country.
3
More of us should look up at the sky and know that we can't comprehend its mysteries: It is beyond understanding. But that mystery shuts people down, apparently: I don't understand why all the naysayers are so firm in their belief that no life is out there, or no life can visit us. Granted you can't prove a negative, but the naysayers have no proof that it is all a lifeless vacuum.
On the other hand, there is evidence of phenomena we can't explain. And world leaders cannot ignore that, any more than they can ignore other issues that can manifest themselves to the benefit or detriment of their countries. I never believed the U.S. had really ignored UFOs, because it couldn't afford to. Thanks to those who continue to investigate, in the face of the people who cannot dream and choose to ridicule instead.
6
After the money waste, the most offensive aspect of this project is its secrecy. Exactly what benefit is supposedly achieved by keeping all their "findings" secret, protecting them from the analysis of the scientific community at large? Fact is, the sky is under constant scrutiny by scientists and hobbyists worldwide and has been for decades. Why is it that only "classified" observers ever discover suspected alien activity?
2
I suspect that they are afraid that if they released what they knew so far it would lead to panic. One only has to look into the history books and read of the infamous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast to realize how off the deep end some would go if they got their hands on this info.
1
Personally, I'm neither worried or concerned about UFO's. As for me, I feel that maybe they're real and maybe they're not. But I feel that putting them ahead of so many of the other truly serious threats to our world, they do not score high on the list of importance. Generally, I've always supported our government's involvement in space travel, the sciences, and medical care. But the fact that Senator Harry Reid was a leader in the move for this project disturbs me, even though I'm a liberal Democrat. If Senator Reid and others feel that the UFO issue is of importance, then where do they why don't they show interest in the long-term storage of the atomic waste used in power generation. Harry Reid lead the charge to stop funding of the Yucca Mountain long-term storage facility, so each and every nuclear power plant is currently storing used material onsite at each and every nuclear power plant thoughout our country. I find that far more concerning than UFO's.
I agree entirely the need for a secret program to investigate UFOs. Many comments here prove that. Because of the "giggle factor," and prejudice of "skeptics" who won't believe because they haven't seen it themselves, the programs must be kept secret.
And its not like the government cannot both, fix the infrastructure and study the phenomenon; and if one is concerned about the hungry Its not like one cannot volunteer at a church or other organization to help feed those hungry. We do not know what it is exactly, however trained fighter pilots know their business and if flying objects are present in our atmosphere that cannot be accounted for, they NEED to be accounted for.
3
Probably the most interesting aspect in connection with UFOs is, that the approximately 30,000,000 experienced amateur astronomers worldwide who are watching and photograping the sky every night never see a UFO they can't later explain as a natural phenomena.
4
I think that such a program can be justified only if its purpose is to explain unexplained visual phenomena in the air, with no assumption of or, really, interest in supposed aliens flying around in our atmosphere. There are various obvious avenues of exploration into this issue, including the analysis of videos and other recordings, but also into human perception, memory, and imagination, as well as such things as the effects of oxygen concentration, gravitational force, drugs, and fatigue and sustained vigilance.(And of course, fraud.) If it turns out that all can be explained through some combination of the above, then the results of the research can be applied in making air travel safer by reducing such effects. And, if it should turn out that there really are aliens flitting about above us, then this would be a godsend for the science publishing industry, since all of the existing scientific literature would need to be revised or rewritten, undoubtedly funded by generous government grants.
1
I saw those things over Mexico City 17 years ago. Like Commander Fravor, I have no idea what it was that I saw. A few years ago, a video from the Mexican Airforce showed objects which were remarkably similar. Today I still do not know, but I can add one thing: this is a recurring event.
6
David Bowie was right all along...
I lived in the Hudson Valley area of upstate New York in the early 1980's. For a period of a year or year and a half thousands of people, included myself, saw and in many cases reported to law enforcement objects in the sky that did not fit the description of a "normal" aircraft.
So, yes. I think this is worthwhile subject to budget and pursue.
99
We lived in Dutchess County and saw the same phenomenon in the early 80s - An extremely low, silent, large aircraft, it looked like it was rotating. Always assumed I was crazy or dreamed it.
7
The nighttime UFO seen several times in the Ashokan Reservoir area of the Hudson Valley during the early 1980's is thought to have been a military drone.
1
I have seen UFOs 3 times in my life - each around 10 years apart. The closest encounter was in Barcelona in 2001 - of all places. I was at a roof top small gathering of mostly Swedish people and we just went on to the roof of the host's building at the top of the La Rambla Avenue and we all had only consumed a couple beers at this point and lo and behold 3 of us saw a huge half a football field size, wide boomerang shaped UFO hovering over the center of the city - just a few hundred yards up from where we were looking at it! I actually recognized it from what I thought was fake footage of the 'lights over Arizona' UFOs from one of those UFO shows on cable around a year earlier. We (me and a Swedish couple) watched with jaws dropped and as we were about to alert others to look up - the ship launched upward and actually squished down into a sphere shaped ball! Thank goodness 2 out of the 3 sightings in my life I was with other people so as to not think I was imagining/seeing things! It definitely shook up the girl and she did not want to talk about it the next day when I ran into the couple on the street a couple days later. I believe the US government has known about Aliens visiting us for a long time now and has covered it up in fear of some kind psychological break down/panic among the general population - especially human-centric religious people and the reverse engineering knowledge they have been trying to figure out for decades now.
91
Read the article again. Look for the parts there the scientists pointed out that seeing something you don't understand doesn't mean it's a UFO. Do you also believe the water-mirages you see on the road while driving are real, even when the road is dry when you reach the area, and the same mirage is now in the distance? (Physics explains that phenomenon, by the way).
3
I had a similar experience almost 50 years ago in upper Michigan. I was sitting outside enjoying a summer evening when my friend and I noticed ball snapped light moving around in the sky. I was shocked when I saw this video because the UFO looked like what we saw. It moved around awhile and then just took of into the distance. I've had an open mind about this phenomenon ever since.
5
That knowledge is what must have broken the government down.
5
Perhaps the less we know the better. As a species, we are far more likely to victimize aliens (start a war) than vice versa.
4
They are here - and have been for a long, long time.
4
At least someone is investigating UFO'S. So many people have seen them including American Military.
3
Two ways to look at this:
1 - Aliens are friendly, will share their knowledge and advanced technology with us, and will leave us be. We’ll become intergalactic pen pals.
2 - Aliens are mean, and came 4 billion miles to mine natural resources or take over our planet as a new home or outpost. Human extermination is probable.
The longer the trip ... the greater the desperation.
My dog was chasing reflections of dragon flies on the smooth surface our lake. Every time he attempted to investigate one it would disappear in a blur of ripples. He investigated them for an hour.
My dog saw another dog in the oven through the glass. The other dog would mock him then disappear from view.
My dog is looking for several billion dollars to investigate these clearly alien encounters
8
Look, everyone! Georgi is resorting to sarcastic extremes in order to make a point! Truly, this is a FIRST on the Internet. Well done.
An agency dedicated to finding and identifying UFOs is crucial and should be taken very seriously. After all, those unidentified flying objects could be alien - from Russia, China, North Korea - and likely pose a threat. Indeed, flying drones these days come in all shapes, sizes and capabilities.
Imagine the Russians dismissing the Black Bird as a UFO because it was flying too high and too fast to be Earthly. That would have been foolish.
5
Are there any seismic shocks that are recorded with these seemingly ultrasonic flying objects?
3
BREAKING NEWS: President Trump promises to build space wall. "Oh, we're gonna build a space wall" President Trump said to loud cheers
"Who's gonna pay for that wall?" Trump said
"Venus" the crowd yelled in unison.
"I'd build it, I'd build it very nicely, I'm very good at building things" Trump said to loud cheers.
.
1
Of course this research has to be classified. That's the only way to be sure the aliens won't learn that they do in fact exist.
3
Carefully studying what you don't understand is perfectly good science. Imagining wild stories about aliens is perfectly good science fiction. Being "absolutely certain" about UFOs piloted by visiting aliens is perfectly crazy.
4
Perfectly phrased.
The undisclosed location where one of the Navy pilots exclaimed "There's a whole fleet of them!" must be Indiana, where I also spotted silver or white oval objects flying in the sky, clearly seen from the ground level with my naked eyes. They were numerous. The dates were between April and June 2015.
The phenomena often accompanied a visible movement of the whole sky, which appeared to be sliding toward the direction opposite to where all clouds were moving or seemed to be drawn to. So, the sky and clouds were looked as if two separate spheres, each was cross-moving against the other's move. I had never seen such phenomena in my life.
Faithfuls consider aliens be created also by God. This surely is the suitable spot to end my comment.
1
Atmospheric Atomic detonations were quite the beacons. Do you really think Angels would meet Devils?
First, Americans love conspiracy so we would have no problem believing that we have already communicated with "other life forms." Because is exist as a secret program only means it must be more real than we think. They must know something they need to keep secret. We elected a TV reality celebrity who consistently engages in fiction over reality to justify his programs and initiatives. So we will believe almost anything. Donnie deals in more fiction than Jules Verne.
Secondly, it is highly probable that there is intelligent life out there. In an infinite universe an infinite number of things are possible. But what would they want from us? Definitely not intelligence or wisdom. If it was a resource they would have it already if they had the power of the type of space travel that can make it from "M" class planets.
Nope it they are here its because we a a interstellar anthropological zoo. School ships explaining to little aliens this is how primitive societies look. Look how foolishly they destroy their own environment, look how they treat each other... This species will alter its own environment beyond its own capacity to thrive, its a dead end species.
Or its another government Boondoggle
2
Well said.
This 'craft' outmanoeuvred one the of the fastest supersonic jets on the planet with a top speed of 1200 mph.
5
I'm convinced there's aliens living among us. Look at what we have serving as our current president and the thought control of his mindless base of supporters. It's time to unite. Wake up America!
1
Good thing Harry Reid wasn't interested in reviving dinosaurs. The $22 million could have been $22 billion.
2
Given the complexities of interstellar space travel, if these alien vessels do exist, they are obviously significantly more advanced than we. Let's hope they are benevolent!
3
I really hope that if the objects sighted are from another planet, they can be faster and smarter and evade the humans of our planet. Earthlings have nothing good to offer any other society. The people of Earth are hellbent on destroying the planet, the creatures of this planet, and each other. Maybe we've been watched for thousands of years as a study of a primitive planet that can't evolve in a positive way.
4
You know, after 9/11 I despaired once again for the human race. I thought that there was just no point in our existence as we were just so full of evil and hate. And then I thought about music, and art and dance and literature and decided to give us another chance. Maybe we have something to share with beings from another planet along these lines?
It remains in the interests of the powers that be to keep the status quo. Obey your gods and trust us politicians to do the will of the gods on your behalf, with the help of your generous yearly tax contributions.
3
I'd feel a lot better about this if one, it was not classified, and two it was not Harry Reid's billionaire 'friend' who spent the money. He'd be my friend too if I could swing 22 million his way..
"Glowing aura ", "phenomena that remain unexplained.”, "runs away at great speed when you get close to it "
It's quite obvious what it is. It's Trump's logic.
2
A billion billion galaxies with a trillion trillion star systems. And we are the only star to have intelligent life on it in the entire Universe. Sure, sure...
6
Unidentified flying objects are exactly that: unidentified flying objects. There is nothing that we can do about the fact that our perceptions and sensibilities do not allow us to identify something that we see, except to improve the technology we use for identifying things in the air. I have looked into the sky and seen things I did not know the identity of. On more than one occasion, when I was birdwatching, my binoculars helped me to clarify. Some have turned out to be birds, some clouds, several recognizable aircraft of terrestrial origin.
That does not mean that this rather trivial expenditure is a complete waste. But the money should mostly be spent to investigate why people persist in claiming that something they have seen is from outside the earth just because they don't know what it is. It might help us in other aspects of public life as well, such as understanding why public figures subscribe to such stupidity as claiming that Barack Obama was born outside the U.S.
1
There's more to the subject than "people seeing something in the sky and assume that it must be from outside the earth."
Your assumption is calling those who have made in depth investigations into the subject, know much more about the subject than yourself and ruled out prosaic explanations as being idiots.
FYI, a large percentage of these events were not just some obscure "something in the sky". They described as solid artificial vehicles under intelligent control. And if they were not ours by all intensive investigated logic, then where else do you expect them to be theorized as being from?
Russia? France?
How do you know that they were something under intelligent control? Oh, Michael Shumer was correct and was intelligently controlling them when he threw automobile hubcaps into the air, photographed them, and got them published in the LA Times as "unidentified flying objects." They were solid, anthropogenic (or artificial as you say), and under intelligent control.
There is no reason to think that objects came from distant worlds just because an observer fails to identify them.
1
Wouldn’t it be something if the 2008 movie “The Day The Earth Stood Still” came true, in that aliens would come here and save our beautiful planet....from humans. The earth was recognized from the outside beings as unique and precious and worthy of preserving.
We should be spending more than 22 million on this ....
The video published and thoughts of the air force beg the question why such amusement and jolly banter between two pilots?
They sound like jokesters themselves. For instance wouldn’t the military pilots say we need to scramble to investigate? Perhaps over-drama but... Are they heading towards ANY BUILDINGS? Assess and report, not wow that’s cool...high five!
1
This is great. Lets make contact with them quick so when Trump messes us up real good we have another planet we can run to!
2
Why don't we let the billionaire pay for whatever research he'd like to to in exchange for the rights to sell whatever he learns to the producers of the new X-Files series? Other articles this month point out how children are dying of starvation in Venezuela and the homeless population in L.A. is 55,000.
Thank you NY Times as always! Disclosure is just another piece in this large puzzle that is happening on this planet. 3D "reality" is an incomplete and distorted dimension without the other higher dimensions, that are also happening simultaneously and within each other. Thus, space/time, linear 3D is an illusory experience, meaning you are only seeing part of the whole as well as only part of your Higher Self. The veil that has been over this consciousness is being removed, and it won't be stopped. Some of the other puzzle pieces are the flushing out of sexual predation, audits into the Pentagon, more Black Budget reveals, major religious detox and correction, cancer cures, zero point energy technology, more banking collapses, etc. The lights are coming on, and the places to hide in darkness (limited consciousness) are going to start shrinking very soon and very fast. If you believe 3D is all there is, well, hold on, because this is going to be the strangest and roughest ride ever.
We live on a minuscule planet circling a middling star on the edge of the Milky Way--an insignificant spot in a universe so vast we can't comprehend it. Why would space travelers wash up in our atmosphere?
The most obvious (and likely) explanation is that these are reflections or phenomena which have a natural explanation. There's too much woo-woo in the world already. Too many are looking for supernatural explanations or Little Green Men.
Reid is a Mormon, a religion which makes truth claims around some pretty sketchy stories its early founders told. So do many other religions such as snakes talking to humans. Most Jews see Genesis as a mythic story, just as many Christians take it literally. Reid's 'will to believe' that 'there's something out there' may have gotten the better of him.
My point is not to dismiss religion but to highlight the scientific method as the best way to validate truth claims. Scientists 'disbelieve' their hypotheses until experiments show them to have some validity. Every experiment or finding must retested and all biases must be eliminated. This Black Money effort seems pretty darn shaky to me--and unnecessary.
Meanwhile ruthless politicians are cutting vital programs with abandon. These lawmakers are public Christians. How do they manage to ignore the moral and biblical injunctions of their Faith? The sick and the hungry, the need to bind up the wounds of Iraq War veterans? These pie-in-the-sky programs are cruel. Stop this nonsense.
4
Having left the flat Earthers, and #iamthecenteroftheuniverse crowd behind perhaps we next will leave the linear timers and "this is the best of all dimensions" mindset behind too?
1
I remember Jimmy Carter stating that he saw a UFO. And remember that high ranking Canadian, who was sure they existed? Why dispute it? Just because you haven't seen one, doesn't mean that they don't exist.
I have seen UFO's twice, 20 years ago while driving in darkness about 3AM near Houston. On the radio the next day, other people had seen it and reported it.
Another with my husband one morning, in the sky over the desert outside of Marfa. Again we heard reports that others had spotted it, too.
Just look at those videos. What moves like that?
Someone tell Trump that we will finally like him if he opens the files on Area 51 for the public to see. It might be his only ace in the hole.
3
"And remember that high ranking Canadian, who was sure they existed?"
Stanton Friedman, I presume.
Dan Aykroyd sort of qualifies as a high-ranking Canadian, I guess.
And I for one welcome our new Alien Overlords.
1
Santa has upgraded his sleigh.
1
I posit a different theory-- these videos, such as the one in this story, are fabricated. Perhaps the senators were more interested in paying off their friends, like Mr. Bigelow (whom I have met in his conference room holding a plane wing as a table in NV).
Orbital Science has fabricated similar video in VA a number of years ago for the SSS program. Sorry folks, there are no UFOs, nothing from space but emptiness. I am, however, happy NYT did this story as an start to finding "Trillions" of lost money from the Pentagon.
It is amusing and humorous to visualize the apoplexies, hysterics and outright denials the really ignorant and/or truly superstitious would have and go through over proof positive evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life...
2
Shame, shame, another government coverup:
When Bob Engler, of US Space Command, came to Sam Seaborn on "big block of cheese day" and asked why the US wasn't investigating an unknown object over Hawaii, it turns out they were, but Sam didn't know about it.
The credibility of such programs is destroyed by the lack of logic even at the simplest level. The investigation finds lots of 'unexplained' phenomena. That is, observations they can't explain. Except, of course, someone like Bigelow then leaps on an explanation like a fat kid on a cookie. Aliens! 'Absolutely convinced' [despite the complete absence of an explanation]. Baffling.
There is plenty of money in the SETI programme (none of which is govt money) and it is far more scientific, rational and logical.
Er...this is a very peculiar article.
Yes, the fact that the money went to a billionaire friend of Harry Reid's is very concerning.
On the other hand, if, as the piece claims, actual physical objects have been found and are being stored and studied, then this really should be public knowledge.
12
This is the best argument I've heard today for the Republican plans to cut the size of government.
2
Don't worry, any visitors must have long ago decided there is no intelligent life here; they know we have nuclear weapons, and that they are aimed at ourselves.
8
Unlike many of the clips and "evidence" seen in the past, Now we have the NYTimes getting some facts through the door. The question is, what now? This article brings so many questions. I want a follow-up!
* What did they find out?
* Where all this phenomenon explained?
* Are there any evidence that such a program was is still in existence?
* What happens in other countries?
* Almost as if Area 51 was not to be mentioned... why? This is the right area (and the right senator?)
Keep it coming!
7
A politician giving his buddy tens of millions in taxpayer money. What a shock. This would probably have far more credibility if the money had gone to someone who wasn't a buddy of Reid.
Maybe the UFOs are humans time traveling from the future. If there is alien life (most likely there is) then I have a hard time believing that it'd waste its time coming to this planet unless it is just to get a laugh at what a joke humanity has become.
1
What you don't know is that Bigelow has put millions of his own money into setting up a research platform for this subject. He is most qualified to take on Harry Reid's investment in investigating the subject.
So the evil back story that your suspecting may be in your own head.
Three people decide to spend millions to chase ghosts. Isn't this already a TV show?
7
The US Military has been studying this phenomena for decades, spurred on by reports of encounters from credible and experienced personnel. To suppose that their interest has died a natural death is simply unreasonable, given the seriousness of the subject. Just as we haven't known about Reid's efforts till now, we'll no doubt be reading the disclosures of continued efforts by our government to understand the nature and origin of UAP's at some point in the future.
The NY Times has opened the door for other well respected publications to begin a legitimate conversation on the subject; they are to be commended for it. Perhaps now the discussion will be elevated from the realms of voodoo theory and knee jerk skepticism into an intelligent, scientific discourse upon what so many pilots and nuclear personnel, as well as the public, have been reporting upon for years. I can think of nothing more exciting than the possibility that we are not here in the universe alone.
8
Well stated. But the scientific discourse has been happening behind closed door within the confines of the black. There, you'll find many scientists already on board with the investigation. And they may have already confirmed that these crafts are alien.
1
Having an Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification is almost hilarious. Of course the military would consider these as "threats", but honestly our "advanced" technology could not even come close to whatever is advanced enough to be zooming around and coming to visit. Perhaps music and the arts would a wiser greeting for such a phenomenon and not the Pentagon's "everything is a threat" program.
2
Cool ! Thanks NYT for the article. Humans who think UFOs / alien life doesn't exist are woefully self-important. Statistically, we simply cannot be the center of universe.
5
Of course this research has to be classified. That's the only way we can prevent the aliens from learning that they do, in fact, exist.
Nonetheless, we do need to take precautions in case they hack into the Pentagon's computers. We must make Will Smith the new director of the program and broadcast "Independence Day" on all channels from Areceibo, Mauna Kea, and the Very Large Array, so they'll know not to mess with us.
We also need to seriously consider the behavioral evidence emanating from the Oval Office that aliens already have taken up residence here. In addition, I have it from unidentifiable, unimpeachable sources that Presidential tweets have been identified as originating in Alpha Centauri.
5
What else do we have Harry Reid to thank for besides sci fi nonsense and the "nuclear option" he instituted during the Obama administration, which means no more filibusters, no more 60 votes needed to get anything through Congress.
I am shaking with anger at the waste of tax payer money, considering we live almost in a third world country, poverty wise, and our infrastructure is literally falling apart. Oh, and the deficit. Etc.
How absurd. One little man from Nevada, and look at the bill he ran up.
1
Quite a sophisticated way for a government official to channel taxpayer money to a friend.
Sad.
3
The most qualified to investigate the matter, regardless of friendship is Bigelow. He has the platform for this investigation.
Everyone always links UFOs with aliens. It doesn't matter what it is: as soon as you noticed something unidentified or unexplained - anything - it's in everyone's interest to investigate it, and provide enough funding for this.
Seriously, nobody noticed it was just a fly on the lens?
3
Being worried about what the Russian government is capable of here on earth in regards to hacking, cutting underwater transatlanticcables that carry transactions for Amazon, online banking, international phone calls, intelligence, is in my opinion where time and money should be spent.
1
Pardon my skepticism. Not at the possible existence of UFOs, but at the folly of spending money on research. People who still find it possible to deny the existence of climate change after decades of nearly-incontrovertible evidence are unlikely to accept the existence of what they'll quickly brand as "little green men". #FAKENEWS
1
I am curious what prompted the publication of this article at this time.... The government has made announcements of doing research on UFOs and ESP in the past. Was it the fact that the protagoninst resigned? Was it the formation of the new school?
Furthermore, the possibility that branch races coexist on the planet with us is not explored. ETs may be unlikely, but a race living under the ocean (which is largely unexplored) is less unlikely. Furthermore, Europe, Russia, China, and Chile have made similar studies and publically announced many cases still being unexplained.
What got me in the article is that there is alleged stockpiles of tangible evidence of beyond-next-generation technology. This evidence was not from any country, apparently. "Now that is interesting..." (to quote movie Contact).
1
Disclaimer: I write stories with a bit of a paranormal/supernatural bent and I have a Facebook page that posts articles about weird things (www.facebook.com/MitziFlyteAuthor)
For hundreds of years most of the natural phenomena we accept now in the 21st Century were considered magical or supernatural. Scientific evidence-based discovery (bad words these days) was based on people of knowledge looking at some "supernatural" and saying, "What is that really?"
Therefore, how can a department (no matter whose department it is...) that reviews these phenomena and attempts to define them be wrong?
Imagine what we could find in our universe if we open our minds? You don't need a tinfoil hat to want to explore what could be real.
Luis Elizondo, is retired as director and won't name is successor. Maybe, we can hope, it's a man named Mulder.
1
The credulity indicated by this article is rather disturbing. Thankfully, the editor demanded interviews of Seager and Oberg, but the problem here is that these reports, such as they are, do not have the quality that a scientist requires. Astronomers all know that strange things are seen from time-to-time. The ones that are best measured are almost always identified. (c.f. http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2013/12/01/astronomers-and-ufos/} The ones that are less well-documented get put on the pile of "unidentified". The leap from "I saw a light" to "Aliens are among us" is a vast one that fails a simple test called "Ockham's Razor". A good investigative report would have looked into how such a razor could be (and apparently has been) taken to these claims.
3
This is very similar to a hyper secretive programs on mind control, and all kinds of neurological manipulations, that few people wrote about decades after they left their CIA and/or secret military intelligence research programs. You can catch books on these on Amazon. Some of these issues were used in novels and movies, like Bourne Identity one supposes.
Not only was that frightening, disturbing and extremely undemocratic...but it is also the kind of stuff that works against safe survival and development of the human race.
Men, especially White men, can destroy the world with their secret research used for control and domination, even through wars. Human species can become extinct with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and skewed policies that embrace exploitation, extreme inequality and wars
One thing I am grateful for is that I never had kids in the US, and that I stayed in a place like Cal, among more educated progressive Americans, Whites and Immigrants for some time. Outside that tiny world America is dangerously unenlightened and misdirected, even among some East Coast elites.
When Brown social scientists write about this politely, using relevant data, and using less harsh words...nobody listens. But those same people will listen to Bill Maher's vulgar outrageous political comments..no matter how true.
It appears good Social scientists with knowledge and values have been sidelined and dismissed. Maybe that is why some issues come up too late.
1
We do not accept intelligent life from "other" political parties in this country, nor do we accept intelligent life from other countries. I do not think that this country is ready for intelligent life from other planets, galaxies, etc.
In the summer of 1977, the sky would periodically light up behind Mt Tamulpais in Marin County, CA, as you looked from Larkspur towards the coast. I would see one or two flashes, as might be created by lightning flashes. However the weather was clear, and there were no reports of lightning.
No one could ever explain this phenomenon. Military exercises? Someone in Bolinas would have seen ships or aircraft.
OK, it wasn't an 'object', it was a flash, but it was in the sky, it was unidentified, and it happened many times over a period of weeks.
1
Kodos and Kang are fictional characters on the Simpsons, not real aliens. We needn’t have spent $22 million of taxpayer money investigating them or other fantasies. The nearest star to ours is 4.25 light years away, so with such great distances we may sleep soundly without need to fear alien invasion.
I find it very strange that objects with off this earth capacities interacting with very credible military men in their craft do not generate more research. If the military do feel that it is not a threat then it must be because they think those "craft" are not airplanes from another country. The scientist are quick to dismiss those unexplained sightings as probably natural phenomena but do not investigate the matter. Hum...It seems like unscientific attitude to me!
2
There are many real physical phenomena we do not fully understand, which can explain many mysterious observations. They involve neither space aliens nor Area 51. Curious readers can start by looking up "ball lightning".
1
Not odd atmospheric "phenomena",
Many are described as physical crafts under intelligent control.
Daniel Inouye was arguably the greatest senator in US history and no stranger to secret government programs. His investigations and oversight were central to bringing the CIA’s post WWII Paperclip programs like MKUltra to public light. He was not an advocate for shadowy or wasteful ops programs so to sign off on this and allocate funds he must have seen serious value and necessity in it. If he was thumbs up on this, I’m actually intrigued.
2
Things that frighten us include things that outpace our most current technology by eons. Perhaps most is the fact that those in power cannot allow information that there are other beings that are not only of this earth, but are millions, billions or trillions of years more advanced than anything that has thus far survived or stayed on this earth. We may even refer to these beings as GOD. Mankind allows GREED to interfere with their acceptance of "The Truth". If there is one spiritual saying that rings true, that would be that GOD is "The Truth". Unfortunately we have allowed our rulers to turn "GOD" into an invisible all powerful all seeing man to whom we must follow orders passed to us through "rulers" of churches that are simply an essential part of any oligarchy.
These objects may also be from a community of humans right here on Earth somewhere – advanced enough to make these things, as well as to know why and how to keep themselves hidden. Isn’t this likelier than them being from some other planet – not one hint of life having yet been found on any? And our planet is more than teeming with life.
1
Fascism relied on the occult and the inexplicable to bolster its unholy grip on the reins of power and society while it existed briefly in the third and fourth decades of the 20th century. Extreme-right viewpoints need a supernatural foundation to establish hegemony, whether it's a monarch claiming the divine right of kings or an Austrian corporal pretending that Nostradamus and his personal astrologer decreed his fate was to rule over the countries under the influence of Leo (central Europe). This UFO business may be ascribed to a similar phenomenon where the self-styled pseudo-scientific elite claims that they have a mandate to rule over the rest of us from these beings. Like many bizarre phenomena, this may or may not obtain in the universe but even so, UFOs probably won't change anyone's daily life substantially....
1
If there was a box weighing 100 pounds labeled “beetle specimens” and the US government tasked a group of biologists to label each individual specimen inside the box with its scientific name and at the end of 10 years that group had 700 specimens with no name to attach to them, wouldn’t it be weird if the government declared 100 pounds minus 700 specimens sufficiently labeled then declare those 700 specimens secret and lock them away in a vault?
1
We always seem to refer to aliens as "intelligent" creatures. If they keep expending resources to come gawk at us, are they really that intelligent? We are a bad TV serial that's been going on for generations, with every so-called plot twist, just a repetition of something that has happened before.
4
The greatest technology on the planet, and the best they have is some blurry footage of a random blob. Hardly convincing. Just more distractions for the public and more money for the DOD.
2
I think it was my in-laws coming to visit. They're always showboating with their new toys.
1
If an object is flying and has not been identified, then it is by definition a UFO. That in no way implies that it has anything to do with aliens, extraterrestials, or anything like that. The ufologists claim that they have in fact identified these objects, but there are plenty of reasons to question their assumptions.
Yes, UFOs undoubtedly exist almost by definition, but that proves only that our abilities to identify things in the sky are limited.
2
Conspiracy or Corruption?
These days it can be hard to tell.
Why not? We invest so much money in nonsense research and regulation, let there be at least something interesting. I'm waiting to see if they find me new friends :) It reminds me the argument for or against near death experience of some people. Good luck...
1
On Feb. 10, 2016 at 5:15 in the morning I stepped out onto my driveway. I was starting my work day - the last day of a job I was no longer contracted to be paid for so I wanted to start it early and finish early. Almost like a voice within deep in my brain said "look up - look to this certain spot". I look up and in the sky at the edge and beyond a wispy cloud was an, for lack of better description, a Blue Electric Halo, traveling from Northeast to Southwest.
Off to the side a super huge bright "star like" light, twice the size of Jupiter at it's biggest, came on and then off. A moment later the bright light came on and off but this time directly in the center of the Halo. Then it came on directly in front of the Halo and stayed on. The Halo continued to travel in the same direction but now with the light leading it. It was absolutely silent. Matter of fact all other natural noises and even the noise from the very distant freeway which is always there as a din in the background could not be heard. All was silent until the phenomena passed.
I could feel that what I was looking at was not a natural thing. I could feel that deep inside me. It was like the first time a doe sees an automobile or something similar. That thing in the sky was in charge. It was the "advanced one" between it and me.
13 other people reported it, along with myself on the National UFO Reporting Centers site. Others in that group reported seeing far stranger things that morning.
13
Things in the sky can actually become “charged” electrically with respect to the earth. But never “in charge.”
Well Rich, you weren't standing next to me to see nor feel what I saw and felt. Simple as that.
3
Take a look and read around this site via the link below: Until I reported what I saw I had never even heard of this site nor did I give a full two minutes of thought ever to UFO's. I am not at all sure of what I saw that morning but I saw something extraordinary. What I and others saw that morning was interesting enough for the NUFORC's director, Peter Davenport, to give me a call to discuss.
You can believe what you want. That will say more about you than me.
http://www.nuforc.org/
1
You can't do science in secret. The money was wasted. There may be some interesting phenomena that could be discovered by a real scientific study. I doubt aliens from another planet have visited us. The likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe is high and also the likelihood of intelligent life seems high as well. However, most intelligent life arises from animals who are driven by survival against nature. These survival mechanism are hard wired into the intelligent animals. Therefore when these animals develop technology they cannot lose their animalistic tendencies and thus develop technology that destroys the nature that they are genetically wired to war against. The animals destroy themselves with their technology. So they can never develop to a level of technology that would allow space travel and so they cannot visit us because they are dead. This is why talk of space travel by humans is silly and wasteful, because humankind will be dead from it's own hands far before we can develop space travel.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a legitimate pursuit. Chasing flying saucers, not so much. If outer space aliens are visiting Earth and don't want us to know about it, I have to figure that they possess the capability to conceal themselves. They traveled many, many light years to get here. Surely it isn't necessary for them to hover about in plain sight within Earth's atmosphere.
2
You had me until I read that most of the funds went to Mr. Reid’s good friend; I have no reason to believe we are unique in the universe but this reeks of cronyism.
3
A proposal: Give me the $22 million and I will produce whatever evidence will confirm your pre-determined conclusion. Honestly. Trust me.
3
Upstate New York : Mmany years ago, in my back yard, my young daughter and I 'thought' we observed what I described as UFO. Afterwards, she inquired,"Are they really UFOs?" "Yes they are Unidentified Flying Objects." I did add that "only if the morning papers reported masses of People witnessing the same phenomenon, were it actually True".
2
So use the taxpayers' money, but decide that "such extraordinary discoveries (require) heightened security" to stay secret, why? How 1950s.
1
The San Diego UFO is exactly as an anthropology professor described seeing over the jungle in Borneo, thirty years ago. The entire village watched it for about fifteen minutes; then it shot straight up into the sky.
5
I witnessed the proverbial green men, back in 1980 West Germany, I was in U.S. Army 3 ID A co. 1/64 armor, there was an alert called across Germany, we mustered in the forests around Hohenfels, I've seen one at around 3am, I noticed it observing us from the tree line, it was an outline of a man, but much taller, a see thru green energy, it glided from the tree lined and climbed my tank , I was in the turret, paralyzed with fear, it was an incredible site, it felt like it was checking us out, like it was observing us, everyone else was asleep, eventually it glided away, I woke everyone up, screaming. No one believed me, but it wound up in a report, a month later an officer showed to interview me, he suggested it was a side effect from night vision device. I periodically read about similar experiences from other people and soldiers. Famous guitarist Slash had similar experience, he described it , to a tee what I have seen.
5
The only thing that makes me doubt UFO stories and sightings is that any sightings that are recorded are always blurry and grainy. I think if it was 1956 ok but with todays high resolution technology? Gimme a break!
2
I like the comments from people who don't want to believe there is anything that cannot be explained as natural. I was once in a NORAD unit when we had radar that would have located the 9-11 hijacked jets, which we could not find after they turned off the IFF (so we were told). That means it was very advanced.
We saw things that could not be explained, like objects moving at 4000 MPH and making almost 90 degree turns. Often when such things were reported to the duty commander, the systems were shut down with the explanation of a computer malfunction. Sometimes the incidents were classified so no one could talk about them.
Then there were incidents like objects shadowing aircraft landing, with competent USAF ground observers and radar images as large as a B52 and KC135 docked for refueling, and minutes just over the horizon where the UFO went there were locks at missile launch control facilities turned off their settings with no tracks in the snow and no tracks around the parameter...
No one on this planet has ever had that capability. ...But its all a waste of money.
8
The real stunner here is that the program was shut down instead of being allowed to bloat indefinitely based on a powerful congressmember's say-so.
2
Why does the UFO discussion always come down the idea that the whole thing is a bunch if baloney or we are seeing the 5:02 from Zeta Reticuli. Alien interstellar spaceships may be the most conventional explanation of the phenomenon, not the least.There are plenty of possibilities between baloney and little green aliens. If UFOs do truly represent some sort of unknown phenomenon than it would be best to keep an open mind on the subject especially by those who think they have one already but have never considered ideas that may be even "farther out" than space aliens.
I throw out ONE as pure speculation: If time travel is ever developed , even ten million years from now, then by definition it exists "now." If UFOs were transporting post-human EARTHLINGS as either tourists or historical scholars (or both)it would be easier to accept their great numbers and aversion to serious contact with all but perhaps an isolated few with few if any witnesses. It would also explain their humanoid appearance through the ages -- it would be far less likely that evolution, determined by countless chance events and sequences of events, would have followed so similar a path elsewhere.
I am not advocating this is an answer to the mystery, just bringing it up because this paradigm of little green interstellar voyagers or baloney, to the exclusion of all else, has gotten us nowhere.
4
......and what is the utility of this double reverse about the existence of these programs ? What value is being masked in denying the vast extent of long-ongoing identification, pursuit, capture, storage and de-engineering of these phenomena ?
"There might be sumpin, sumpin there, so we spent 22 million"; if this is the beard for black ops they are willing to acknowledge, the true figures must be staggering--all without public oversight--that is getting scary ?
A hidden program, created by a single powerful Senator, the bulk of whose funding goes to a billionaire friend--and, I presume, contributor--of the Senator, carried out by military officers with no accountability to the public. Now we know for sure: Democrats as well as Donald Trump are turning the United States into a third world kleptocracy molded on the Putin model.
2
I wish I could join other commenters in complimenting the Times for this coverage, but considering that the Times belittled the subject for decades, I can only say "better late than never."
The government activity detailed here is only the tip of a decades-old iceberg. There is a vast literature on the subject of UFOs, much of which is garbage, but there are many good and rigorous books dealing with the subject, including the ongoing interest of the military and the intelligence services in the phenomenon. I might recommend in particular the journalist Leslie Kean's book "UFOs" (Harmony Books, 2010), but there are many others.
The article correctly points out that some other countries (France in particular) have been more open and accepting of the data and have conducted good research, some which has been made public. The English-speaking countries have been the most close-mouthed by far.
It seems clear than an intelligence of some kind with a technology superior to our own has been present in our airspace and indeed on the earth itself for a considerable period of time, perhaps centuries. A common error is to jump to the conclusion that we are dealing with aliens from outer space. In fact there are other possibilities to consider.
4
Loosely, it seems an UFO is anything that flies in the skies to which we cannot conclusively attach a name, establish an identity, explain as phenomenon, or determine a point of origin. We who live here in NM seem to have a lot of experience with them - not including Roswell, even!
I firmly believe that UFOs exist. What they are, obviously, is a mystery, but only the government could come up with the idea that study of UFOs has to be kept top secret. After all, if people knew what they were, they wouldn't be UFOs anymore.
1
I believe that in today's day and age with cameras being EVERYWHERE (a meteor cant even speed out of the sky without a dozen people catching it on their cell phones or dash cams) that we would have seen some pretty moving video by now if there was as many legitimate sightings as people claim.
3
It may be worthwhile to spend a modest amount on a program to collect and analyze data related to apparent observations of aerial phenomena that have no obvious immediate explanation. Whether around $7 million a year is an appropriate amount may be subject to debate.
The warning flag comes out, however, with the mention that Harold Puthoff, of remote viewing notoriety, is associated with this even remotely. "Skeptical Inquirer" has had, over the years, a number of articles that suggest he and his former associate Russell Targ were, on the most charitable interpretation, gullible and unwitting tools of the illusionist Uri Geller and others. Puthoff's emergence as a spokesperson for the undertaking does not speak well for its scientific seriousness.
64
Although Puthoff and Targ were indeed deceived by Geller's spoon-bending and other antics in the 70's, one hopes they might have learned something about gullibility since then; in any case, the phenomena seem worthy of investigation.
1
Using the Skeptical Inquirer (SI) "magazine" as a reference for anything completely undermines your argument. The SI is like the National Enquirer in that it's suitable for entertainment purposes, but it's hardly a reliable scientific source. By contrast, Puthoff and Targ published their work in Nature, one of the top science journals in the world.
7
Mr. Elizondo said, “there remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.”
We might expect the DOD to show some interest. Beyond that, my personal shock is about America's lack of imagination, stultified curiosity about the world around them, let alone the universe. It seems that the days are gone in what was once a great country of childlike interest that led to industry, the arts, building of great dams, bridges, cities and . . . and spaceships! Medicine, architecture, diplomacy and social cohesiveness in the face of financial and political stress. What happened to the "great American"?
My opinion is that it died under the boot of a government and financial industry that crushed the average citizen. America's imagination withered under a rule of law that laid aside wisdom and justice and beneath a government respected neither by the world nor a majority of its own people.
Nobody denies the greatness of the American idea. But quick, it's fading. This article's challenge is an opportunity to relight the candle of passionate interest--if not for the thrill, at least for interest in prepared survival for the unknown.
5
@Douglas Chapman:
On the whole I agree with your well-stated critique and observations.
I'll add into the mix a major component which has directly lead to the waning intellectual quotient of the American populous: the erosion into inanity of what passes for television in our country. One upon a time the news on the whole was objective and of substance, as was much of the evening viewing. Certainly there was Gilligan's Island, Gomer Pyle and their "peers" (which I watched regularly, mea culpa), but we all understood such programming to be purely comic relief, not meant to emulated nor worshiped . . .
Somewhere along the line shows utterly lacking in intelligence such as Survivor (as fake as it was, many apparently did not realize this somehow) and -- mind-boggling -- the massive following of the Kardashians is prima facie evidence that our national IQ has fallen below the red line, well into critical care remedies (none on the horizon). We are dumbiing ourselves down steadily, day by day, because, apparently, Critical Thinking and thoughtful analysis is not only just to hard, but just as likely "boring."
A pity, and quite sad, even tragic.
1
Thank you for publishing this. It's been a long time coming. Over the years, there have been several excellent and hard to ignore books on the topic, written by sane, reliable sources. Avoiding research into a fascinating phenomena that seems inconceivable to some, is no different than insisting the earth is flat. While the connection between Harry Reid and his friend may look dubious it's certainly not the worst ever. $22 Million is a drop in the bucket. Especially when you remember that colonization never goes well for those colonized; think current politics as an example.
2
I have always had a strong interest in this scientific phenomenon. Like many I have been frustrated by U.S. governmental obfuscation of the data. I would posit that any extraterrestrial/inter-dimensional intelligence are likely greatly disturbed by the mental instability of the U.S. Commander In Chief. They are no doubt interested in how/why the most powerful nation on the planet has put the future of humanity at risk by conferring such authority upon a deranged person. Perhaps we have finally crossed the line, and they feel compelled to interfere.
1
@ Imbrid Old:
One hopes it'll be a pinpoint strike, and not a global euthanasia . . .
The truth isn't out there. At least I doubt it. Not that I have any answers either but this seems one more great waste of money. Unless you were blocked by religion, everyone ought to have assumed there were lots of other planets outside the solar system. And it was only reasonable to assume that life happened on many of those planets and intelligent life on some, in some cases far exceeding our own intelligence. But, the fact that they are out there light years away, or even using inter-stellar flight, doesn't mean they are here.
If they are similar enough to us to want to go around the universe looking for deals for vacation homes, then they are likely similar enough to us to have either killed, enslaved, eaten, helped or traded with us. Some kind of interaction - and it hasn't happened. Also, if they can travel here from other parts of the universe, they are likely so much more advanced than us, they can watch us minutely from far away - just as our telescopes can see the moon up close from here and we can map Venus with radar. I doubt very much a craft that can travel at or near light speed - the reasonable assumption, would need to follow Ted Steven's WWII aircraft to see what it was doing. We can see planes with ground radar from a hundred miles away. Where curvature presents less of a problem, it is far greater. Space travelers could likely see us from Saturn.
Besides, isn't this program duplicative of what Scully and Mulder do?
1
The amount of money involved is so small, especially compared to the vast waste of much of our military budget, that I don't really have a problem with the program. A modest budget put towards an unlikely use seems reasonable. It's like buying a lottery ticket for $1 once a week.
I'm more bothered by the secrecy. It's my money they're spending, my tax dollars. I think it's time we shine the light on all aspects of the Federal budget, but ESPECIALLY on the "intelligence" and military budgets. There's way to much money disappearing into the cracks of the sofa cushions.
Carl Sagan explained it best when he talked about the vast multitude of stars and their associated planets, and how the probability of "life" out there was correspondingly high.
But too many people don't begin to grasp the literally "astronomical" distances involved and the extreme unlikeliness that we or any living being will ever overcome them, based on what we know about the energy required to travel near light speed.
Helios 2, the fastest moving object made by humans, traveled at one point at around 221,000 mph. At that rate it will take almost 13,000 years to reach the NEAREST star. If we send a radio signal at it, that's how long it will take the message to reach it. Then IF there were something "intelligent" at the other end to answer, it would take another 13,000 years to get the answer.
And that's the NEAREST star.
So the likelihood of any kind of contact ever occurring is incredibly remote.
2
I don't want to express an opinion on the existence or not of UFO's. Although perhaps we should change the name to Unexplained Aerial Phenomena, as this seems to be a more accurate description. It is also something that definitely does occur, I imagine with a surprisingly high frequency.
This shouldn't come as a shock. After all, we have only begun to study the space around our planet in any meaningful and structured manner very recently. Even the reexamination of data that was gathered a few decades ago usually yields new insights. If only from a National Security point of view then, it makes eminent sense to investigate and to log as much data as possible. Our understanding is at present very fragmentary. The unknown unknowns vastly outnumber the known ones.
By the same token, maybe we could find out what happened to MH370, the Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared utterly in March 2014? After all, it must be deeply worrying to people tasked with defending a nation's airspace that at B777 full of people can vanish so completely. It is also, by the way, a cold shower for those of us who grew up being told that various countries' spy satellites could map every square inch of the planet's surface.
2
@Rudy Flameng:
MH370 dove into the ocean; debris has washed ashore. The cause remains unknown, but a catastrophic mechanical failure (engine disintegration, metal fatigue in key elements, or a terrorist bombing are all far more plausible explanations than anything extraterrestrial.
They talked about these UFO ships in the book "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," by Hynet of Northwestern University. He said you could see these ships in Europe and South America. I was in Ethiopia for three years from 1967 to 1970. I was up 8,000 feet above sea level. I looked up every night in pitched black skies. I wanted to see something. I saw no flying sauces of any kind. Lot of snakes.
2
Actual scientists scan the skies and universe daily. This couldn't be more ridiculous. 22 million secret dollars spent on a secret of ridiculousness when it could have been spent on infrastructure, homelessness, the heroin epidemic, some portion of insurance for everyone, I could continue listing but you get the idea.
2
It looks like a bird to me. Good grief we have truly entered the twilight zone. I think some people spend too much time watching monitors and not enough marveling in the realities of life and nature from a human vantage point, like feet-on-the-ground earth!
To the all people griping about the cost of this program, let me submit this. It seems that there is some serious, sober investigation happening here, and that it is not just a boondoggle. It is never possible to know where such investigations lead -- sometimes nowhere, sometimes to significant discoveries. That is the nature of investigation and we should be afraid to, in fact we should always pursue it. As for the cost, consider that one (!) F35 fighter costs more than 10 times that of this program over the last 10 years. I would be prepared to live with one less fighter to fund this program for 100 years, and we could keep the change left over.
2
I am highly skeptical about aliens having visited earth. AND, I fully support reasonable funding of government inquiry into any reported sighting and COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY of all information gathered by the government past and future.
Maybe funding could be a $1 checkoff on our tax returns—I’m guessing sufficient funding would result, all voluntary.
There is much speculation regarding alien travel to earth. There are many believers on both sides who need more data and the public scrutiny which is a hallmark of science.
I’d like to see sufficient funding for adequate inquiry and full transparency to bring this issue, these experiences out of the murky shadows.
I’m betting on little solid evidence coming forth and enough remaining mystery and uncertainty to fuel alien belief for all times. Conspiracy theories, though, could decrease and good thinking could be nurtured. I could live with unproved and unprovable claims better than current views based on uninformed intuition and an apparently well-founded notion that data are being hidden by the government.
2
Considering the light-years of distance separating Earth from other potentially life-supporting planets (with the possible exception of Mars, which we have under observation), it should be clear that no mere "spaceship" is going to travel from there to here.
It's possible to imagine some extremely long-term interstellar migration, longer than the current history of the human race, with a nearly planet-sized mother ship sending out reconnaissance craft comparable in size to the UFOs being reported. But it hardly seems possible that we would remain unaware of such a thing while the small craft promiscuously showed themselves again and again without making purposeful contact. If they had in fact made contact that you and I haven't been told about, Harry Reid would probably know.
I love a good UFO story as much as a good ghost story, but I want any public expenditure on UFO research to focus on identifying unidentified objects such as experimental aircraft that may be coming from places on this planet.
As a form of scientific inquiry programs of this sort have to be properly vetted by reliable experts before conclusions stated by proponents are accepted as reliable. The scientific vetting process generally avoids useless political argument, although that is not always the case as we have seen in connection with climate change and global warming. Secrecy in government is best met with skepticism until competently vetted facts establish conclusions to the contrary.
There is an absolute speed limit in the universe, the speed of light. The nearest star, Alpha Centuri, is over 4 light years from year. In real terms, a physical object with real-world mass cannot come anywhere close to reaching the speed of light; even with advanced technology, it would take decades to travel between our star and our nearest neighbor.
There may well be star systems out there that enjoy the presence of life. Some may even host intelligent life. Given the immutable laws that govern our universe, they are likely to be centuries away. Perhaps its best this way.
The warp drive of Star Trek and hyperspace of Star Wars are science fiction. The operative word is fiction.
It is fun to speculate about flying saucers. But let us spend our time and finite resources worrying about the very real problems we and our planet face.
3
Finally! We need to bring a scientific approach to unexplained aerial phenomena. And as with all scientific endeavors, follow the data no matter where it leads. I’m sure we’ll discover that there is still much in the way of natural aerial phenomena that we don’t understand, and this is the way to understand it. It could lead to enhanced flight safety. And if we do find that some phenomena leads us to the inescapable conclusion that we are being visited by ships and unmanned probes from “elsewhere”, so be it. Our species future may depend on our knowing this.
I suppose a little more detail would make this article more interesting -- or likely, less interesting. One only need watch a cat trying to catch the beam of a flashlight moving across a floor to appreciate the possibility that the pilots were simply seeing light reflected off of something and projected in front of them. It may have even been their own shadows.
If the article mentioned that these unidentified visual phenomena also had radar signatures with altitude and speed, that would be different. There is no such mention and, thus, it is not a very compelling article, unless questionable government spending were something new.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of chaff associated with the topic of UFOs. It's difficult to discuss the subject when people's minds associate the topic with alien invader movies from the 1950s. It's easy to be skeptical or mocking when the alternative is disturbing.
But there are really two questions here: "Is there something to the phenomena of anomalous aerial vehicles?" and "If so, are these extraterrestrial in nature?"
The second question is unknowable. The first, if one reviews the ample evidence dispassionately, seems to clearly indicate that there's something there worth further investigation. Credible accounts from trained fighter pilots (and, indeed, entire aircrews), accompanied by corroborating video, are easy enough to find for those willing to honestly examine the question.
Finally, two notes. First, the object in these videos was clearly tracked via the Hornet's IRST system (Infrared Search and Track). It's computer-controlled and operates independently from the fighter's movement.
Second, many of these incidents take place at night. Try taking a photo of a plane flying high overhead at night with your smartphone camera. Unless you have a camera, a wide-aperture lens with a long focal length, a tripod, and the time to assemble all of these and aim at an object (or a 1000W light), you're not getting anything other than a blurry photo.
2
Some years ago I had a conversation with a layman about flying saucers — because I am scientific I know all about flying saucers! I said "I don't think there are flying saucers'. So my antagonist said, "Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it's impossible?" "No", I said, "I can't prove it's impossible. It's just very unlikely". At that he said, "You are very unscientific. If you can't prove it impossible then how can you say that it's unlikely?" But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible. To define what I mean, I might have said to him, "Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence." It is just more likely. That is all.
Richard Feynman in The Character of Physical Law (1964)
3
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research would it?"
A. Einstein
As a scientist, I love this phrase, because it reflects a spirit that if lost it will damage progress in our civilization.
And it is an answer to those that write things like "22 million would have fed X children". Yes, it is true. And so would have the money that people spent light coherence. What's that, you say? Lasers. An invention that at he time it was discovered it was called "an answer in look for a question". And aren't you glad that it went that way? And you are reading this newspaper on a project that at its inception also would have seemed a waste of money, because how many people had computers to build a network?
Research is always an investment. And as with startups and the stock market, you have to hope for the best. But it doesn't ALWAYS pan out, does it?
2
Just what we needed, another reason for mass reality avoidance. How about concentrating resources on programs that would help our species survive inequality and the degradation of our planet?
1
Has Mr. Bigelow by chance used some of his billions to identify those "metal alloys ad other materials" that have been "recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena?"
When's he going to show us the results? We're tough enough to take it.
1
One early evening several years ago, my partner and I witnessed a round object hovering in the sky from our patio with what appeared to be soft LED lights around the circumference. It hovered for several minutes and then jetted off disappearing from our line of site.
There is an air force base located in Georgia, so we just assumed they were testing some new air craft out. Now, I'm not so sure.
Nevertheless, we were not abducted nor did we have some life altering experience. It was what it was.
2
No Doubt, this is our own equipment. They were there that night to test the reaction of conventional pilots. Folks, I lived through a time when Reagan said we are going to take our military into the 21st century with star wars technology. That was nearly 50 years ago. For a while the advancements were touted on the news then it all stopped. No mention of our new abilities. You have to assume there had been a major breakthrough most likely in energy. Whatever is was the military went hush.
I've been hearing UFO reports all my adult life, since back in the 60s, and many of them predated those years -- like the McMinnville incident. IIRC, people were reporting strange things in the sky from the late 1800s, long before they knew flying machines were possible.
If we assume they are alien craft, the aggregate of all reports "makes Earth look like the crossroads of the universe" (to borrow a phrase from the late Arthur C. Clarke.) Yet in all that time, no one has obtained a photograph that is indisputably showing an unknown flying craft. No one has obtained any residue that is unquestionably of ET origin.
What we have, then, is thousands of eyewitness accounts and little more. If even a fraction of these represent alien visits, the purpose of the visitors remains incomprehensible. They neither approach us openly nor keep themselves hidden. I conclude from this that some other explanation must fit the phenomena far better. Sorry to be a downer.
4
So here's a great way for politicians to pay back supporters and to siphon taxpayer money to cronies -- free from public scrutiny: declare the program classified.
1
I don't believe it is impossible that there is intelligent life somewhere in the universe that has been monitoring our planet and my reasons are not crazy.
If our world was picked it could jot be because just chance.
We know there is some huge number of many planets in the Universe but the number where life can be supported is minute.
My theory is that hundreds of millions of years ago our planet was identified as being of one of these planets .
Way before complex living animal life existed here but after the building blocks that are needed to support that life were in place.
I believe it is possible they started watching our planet to see what would develop or more they had a hand (if they have hands) in that development.
We don't know how life began,
Maybe they planted a seed of some kind.
Maybe they have been guiding us and thru a process we call evolution so that life would not only just exist here but would become somewhat intelligent.
If any of this is possible it might explain why they would be here if they are.
@Stone: the one glaring kink in your thesis is the assumption that all life it he universe much have evolved along the same general lines as we have on this tiny blue orb.
Where is the prima facie proof of that?
1
So, serious men, with serious power and serious political experience decide the best way to establish credibility and advance science that much of the world holds in disrepute is to scam $22 million from a defense budget so bloated nobody should have noticed, and hand it unquestioned to a pal to run a program they needed to hide and whose reports they would never disseminate?
And we're supposed to think that's a good thing, an intelligent thing?
Because generating questionable data that you intend to deny exists is more important than, what, giving lunch to six year olds year at school?
If there is intelligent life out there, I'm sure they're avoiding us at all costs.
3
We study all sorts of phenomena to create knowledge, advance science, and produce greater good. Why studying these occurrences is such a shame or a taboo? Wouldn't this research add to knowledge and understanding? How can this be bad?
2
A lot of people here appear to be complaining about the money wasted on this enterprise when the nation lacks investment in many sectors. The point is well taken but you are barking up the wrong tree. 22 million is pocket change in the grand scheme of things.
If you want to complain, then first do so about the absolutely massive and stunning defense budget of over 600B every year. And that is just to protect us from other countries on our own tiny little pale blue dot.
Complain about the theft that Trump and republicans are attempting through the new tax bill.
Space exploration and scientific enterprises such as this one are too important to be slashed in favor of other important goals. Especially when there is already massive waste of taxpayer dollars on many many things like giving corporations and richest of rich more tax breaks.
We need science more than ever. Trump is already denigrating all things science. We need more spending not less.
1
I know what I saw... I was 21 or 22, with two other friends, out at about 11 P.M. one Saturday night back in the early 1970s. The only thing we'd had to drink was a Coke, to be clear. As we sat at a stoplight, one of my friends noticed a very bright light above us, almost as if someone was holding a flashlight. And then, just as quickly, it was located in the distance, seemingly a mile away. Needless to say, we were amazed, and being young and dumb, we decided to head towards the new location. But by the time we approached the new location, whatever it was we saw headed north, faster than our eyes could track it, and stopped again, probably a few miles away, still visible to us. We puled into a parking lot and watched, and then it disappeared.
I don't know what we saw that night, and certainly we didn't report it.. who would have believed 3 twenty-somethings with the story we had, and no proof?
I know what I saw...
1
The phrase "twilight zone" aptly sums up this whole subject. But if these occasional visitors are real, let's hope they decide to help us rather than hinder us, as we need plenty of the former. I also hope in this regard that they for their sake and ours contact the right people. Peace on earth, good will to all.
1
Mr. Bigelow is more than likely a conduit for political "fundraising". The Pentagon budget is the single largest source of illicit political money. This is probably just one small facet of that phenomenon. Reid wasn't the Senate Majority Leader because he was popular. In politics, it's always about the money.
1
Within the next 50 years, as better and better satellites peer into distant galaxies, it seems likely we'll be confronted with concrete evidence of life on other planets. The discoveries of the last 5 years in our own solar system, coupled with the beginnings of identifying planets in other star systems, are already making it hard to believe there is not other life in the universe. Probably abundant life.
It's hard to imagine a technology that would permit aliens to travel the great distances required to visit Earth, but then we've only been around 100,000 years which is a blink of an eye, and look at all the gadgets we've created.
1
I find the size of the universe and the passage of time incomprehensible.
But during the zillions of eons and chances, it would be nice to think that things worked out somewhere. As much as I hope this is true, I doubt we could communicate with then and get any hints as to how to manage a successful planet. We're on our own, I fear, but this effort needs to continue.
2
The size of the universe and the time it has existed is all but incomprehensible to us.
But it's contents are pretty standard issue.
Science has shown that stars are not just dots of light in the night sky but in many cases parody of our own solar system. A star orbited by planets. Planets that formed the same way our Earth did. Built with atoms that look the same at this end of the universe as they do at the other end of it.
So it is not a great leap of faith or logic to believe that what happened here has happened someplace else.
It is a great leap of logic however to believe that if the government had direct knowledge of alien or inter-dimensional beings visiting our world that they could keep it secret.
If it is true I hope they show up during Trump's reign. Be great tv.
2
It is significantly more likely that unicorns really do originate from a cave in North Korea than that intelligent aliens are visiting our planet for the purposes of frightening aviators.
I am not saying that there isn't intelligent life out there, but, the distances between stars is incomprehensibly vast, and any species that decided to make that leap would almost certainly look more like Independence Day than Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I am honestly baffled how this article ended up on the front page of the New York Times without some serious caveats.
80
Take your thumb (no, your whole body) off the scale, Michael.
The question is not whether intelligent aliens are visiting our planet for THE PURPOSES OF FRIGHTENING AVIATORS but whether intelligent aliens are visiting our planet. Given the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, to think that there exists no life capable of crossing the stars to reach us seems to me a failure not only of the imagination but of logic as well.
As for reasons to visit, there are many, not to mention many better works of fiction to conjure. For examine, more advanced races could be visiting to help homo sapiens make the next evolutionary transition ("Childhood's End"). More chillingly, the purpose could be to warn homo sapiens that evolving technologically from being able to destroy their near neighbors on Earth to doing the same on a galactic scale will not be tolerated ("The Day the Earth Stood Still").
Much as I'd like it to be for the former, knowing what we know of humanity, the smart money is on the latter, wouldn't you say?
2
The scholars who scorned to look through Galileo's telescope must have sounded very similar. "If Jupiter had moons, would not Master Aristotle have known about them?"
The really absurd belief, in fact, is to imagine that, with 100 billion stars in our galaxy, many with planetary systems, only one planet of all those billions has developed intelligent life--our own.
Of course interstellar travel with our present technology is impossible. But we have only had science since the 16th century, about 500 years. What might be possible to a civilization that has developed technology for 5000 years?
4
.....given that the may have hundreds of millions of years of a head start, perhaps our very limited powers of perception are insufficient to recognize phenomena all around us, at all times ?
The distance of space travel was probably overcome long, long, ago in a galaxy........
4
The "aura" surrounding the object appears to be nothing more than a result of an automatic contrast enhancement algorithm applied to the video (before or after it was captured). Such processing is known to produce these artifacts.
32
Or it's vector field lines from gravitational induction. Gravity with curl.
2
In 1996 in the middle of nowhere in Argentina, a group of 7 of us saw a UFO. I think it was probably an unexplained natural phenomena created by the earth’s magnetic field (I.e. something akin to an aurora boreales). The ridiculous thing is there is no where to report this with NASA, so some scientist can see a pattern and understand our planet better. The European Space Agency does keep tract of sighting , so we made a report in Europe. The ridiculous thing is how some people are so uncomfortable when I tell them the story, while scientists (or people in scientific fields) are fascinated and wish they could have seen the phenomena.
51
Given that intelligent life on earth appears to be rapidly disappearing, we may as well establish contact and try to source it from elsewhere in the galaxy.
162
The Human intelligence you're looking for is Nature. Can we connect back to it?
2
excellent observation
Trump has noted that, among our new alien Overlords, there are "many good people."
75
ICE chief tells lawmakers agency needs much more money!
11
Build that sheild! Build that sheild!!
What a huge waste of money. We still have no money. Let' make America broke again, again,again.
9
There is plenty of money. The USA has an annual GDP of over $18.5 trillion! The fact that the government is incapable of balancing its books by raising needed revenues is a completely different matter.
2
To put it into perspective, the cost of this program is about 160% of what Trump is spending to cart himself around to his resorts and back to the White House. We stand to learn something by investigating UFO's. Allowing Trump to enrich himself by renting out his resorts to the government and making us pay to cart him back and forth shows we have a lot to learn.
1
Looks a bit like a fly that got caught inside the jet before it couldn escape... It turned like a fly... Yeah would you lookit that...
13
Yeah. A fly hovering at 2,000 miles altitude practically no ambient oxygen. Super Hornet at 0.9 Mach, your precious fly would be pulverized to smithereens by hundreds of thousand foot-pound pressure.
I feel like you guys got played by that F18 video. The relationship between the target and the crosshairs of the HUD is 100% locked for almost the entire duration of the clip, which would make the pilot an alien in his own right. Or the mark of an unskilled VFX artist.
27
maybe the camera has target tracking technology
1
The target is being tracked in the video, but the relationship between the target and the center of the HUD is locked and unchanging. The two things are different - one shows the attitude of the aircraft, the other locates the target in the HUD. Watch any video of literally any other target engagement and you’ll see what I mean.
I think you're assuming the pilot is doing the filming. Is that the case? I'd guess it's being tracked by a computer - the camera seems to be making minor adjustments constantly - as you suggested, too - it doesn't look like it was filmed by a human. For the record, though - not having much experience looking at these things it doesn't look like an alien aircraft to me. I wish the article had more information on this incident.
1
A robot with small hands and yellow hair, telepathically controlled by an ethereal female with pronounced foreign accent and dispassionate, almost Vulcan-like, presence, who is in turn controlled by a male figure of the same accent and characteristics - hmmm…
31
The extraterrestrial presence is not here for our benefit. They want our planet for its biological resources. Please check out "allies of humanity dot org"
7
Perhaps they want to serve man--Twilight Zone-style.
They've got the tech. Why don't they just take it? Why not back a few hundred years when all we had to fight them with was arrows and swords?
And then watch "To Serve Man," too, Andy. Ooooh, scary, right?
Look more closely. I read the date 2007 and laugh. This program is nothing new, as I can attest as producer of the documentary film by Amy Gerber, “My Grandfather was a Nazi Scientist: OPA, von Braun and Operation Paperclip.” You can get it on Amazon.
2
There are billionaires and there are billionaires.
If this guy found it worthwhile to research UFO he should have done so in the way Bill Gates has done a lot of science research - from his pocket. The photo looks like a third grader’s rocket science project.
I’m not denying the possibilities of UFO existence or life beyond earth. But this feels like someone funded someone else’s pet project, more like a train set than serious work.
26
Actually, Robert Bigelow has funded a substantial amount of UFO research out of his own pocket. Read up on him and you'll find out more about that research effort.
1
"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.
I always thought that Harry Reid looked and acted like an Alien :)
6
"There's already one spaceman in the White House / What do you want another for?"
16
I sincerely believe our country should continue looking for all forms of alien life beyond our world. One of them is bound to be trump's home planet, and we need to get him a ride back ASAP (his followers too)! No price tag is too high.
I wonder how many people here who claim that alien theories behind these UFOs are ridiculous are spiritual... or believe that gluten is bad for them... or are against vaccinations... or believe that a man rose from the dead 2017 years ago... or hold any other equally ridiculous views but for some reason believe that aliens are beyond the pale
37
No, he reportedly didn’t rise from the dead 2017 years ago, that was his alleged birthday. He supposedly rose from the dead thirty-three years later, one- thousand nine-hundred eighty- four years ago... 1984!
Now, that’s something that UFO enthusiasts could study.
That would be more like 1987 or so years ago... According to their legend, he was born 2017 years ago and lived to about 30.
Your timing is off. The man you refer to as having risen from the dead was born ~2017 years ago. His death came ~33 years later.
I hope they don’t ask “take me to your leader.”
189
Why not? Maybe they will take him with them.
1
We can always send them to Justin Trudeau.
Upon meeting with our "Leader," they're response would surely be: "Let's keep going. There's no intelligent life here, either."
1
do we now need a 4th bathroom status: men, women, trans and now alien?
do all the countries of the world need to come together to fund a force field wall around the planet?
where does that fool Hawaiian judge stand on extraterrestrial immigration? are aliens on the banned list?
13
Of course: Trump is a Gray! That explains everything!
14
It's about time that The Times gives this serious, all-important issue some serious attention. ETs obviously would be a game changer for our planet, good or bad. I hope The Times explores this issue in more depth.
35
The objectors here fall into several categories-
1. Those who find it suspicious that Harry Reid gave a lucrative contract to a billionaire associate. This group pays no attention to the subject whatsoever- they just see in it another example of their own obsession- Government spending.
2. Those who think Bigelow is unqualified to be dealing with such matters, so it must be a hoax.
3. Those who think, like my friend G., that money spent to research the phenomenon should be going to feed the poor, which is an idiotic argument. If that were true, no scientific research could be validated at all.
4. Those who misread the article, supposing it claims that UFOS are proof of alien visitation, which it absolutely does not.
5. Those who simply dismiss as fantasy anything having to do with UFOS; who have swallowed the official line that they all can be perfectly explained by natural phenomena. These people have never bothered to look into the matter, or they would know this position to be false.
75
Is there something wrong with being obsessed with government spending? After all, it's our money, it shouldn't be used without representing us, and leaders should be held accountable for its use,
You're right in your characterization of the objectors. What they all have in common is a lack of knowledge of the subject and of the evidence in support of the reality of the phenomenon. They need to do some research themselves in order to be able to comment on this subject with authority.
Money spent on scientific research is a good idea, Mr. Little. However, before my money is tossed into the pot, I'd want to know the professional qualifications -- and IQs -- of those deciding what is scientific and what is absurdity.
And, by the way, how would you advise us to "look into the matter" of UFOs?
How fast are these objects moving on the screens ? Do we know?
7
Congratulations on beginning to investigate and write about what has been a determined campaign to suppress information on Extraterrestrial technologies, contact, and Intelligence. One man who has gone beyond his due diligence in publishing information on various aspects of this story-- of what will be a huge story for our current century -- is Dr. Steven Greer, founder of The Disclosure Project. I recommend anyone who is curious to watch Unacknowledged, a documentary created by him, and/or to read his book by the same name. I'll never forget the inimitable Dr. Edgar Mitchell, an American astronaut, saying: "We have to get used to the idea of being a planetary civilization…Our destiny is to be citizens of the universe." Powerful words. My novel, Reconciliation, due out early next year, was inspired by them.
12
any aliens who have the technology to get here is bad. see: battlefield earth, twilight zone "how to serve man" and "monsters on maple street" etc...the list is endless. it won't end good for us.
4
What I'm reading in these comments are mostly pro, or con for this government program, but if some alien lifeform is visiting us, there is another point that needs to be considered. The capability to come here from a place we have absolutely no knowledge of, suggests these aliens should have the capability of defeating whatever defenses we might think we have. We can only hope the Federation of Planets they came from will follow orders and not violate the Prime Directive.
14
Can I go home, now?
4
Where is Fox Mulder hanging out at?
6
What a nice reward for the "genocide" king.
1
We reside on a tiny planet wayyyyyy way way out revolving around an uninteresting star in a small arm of our galaxy, much less how many millions of other galaxies exist.
I can’t possibly imagine that we are interesting enough to be part of a “blue planet” extra terrestrial documentary, particularly since we seem inclined to want to kill our own world.
10
Well, perhaps WE aren't all that interesting, but our planet is certainly beautiful. Maybe that's what they're here to visit and study.
1
is anyone debating that earthlings exist?. if not, then it's absurd to think WE are the only life form that exists.. space is way too vast, although it's a miracle that the earth we live on has a perfect environment for life as WE know it..
7
I don’t think anyone is debating the question of whether there is other life elsewhere in the universe. But as one commentator points out, the vast size of our universe makes interstellar travel unlikely.
UFOs not having placed themselves under scientific scrutiny, all that can be studied are UFO reports -- and there is at least one excellent reason why the Pentagon ought to be studying such reports. Whatever else may be causing them, MANY have for decades been caused by Soviet/Russian top secret missile/space activities badly misinterpreted by startled witnesses. Ranging from test of space-to-ground nuclear strike weapons, to nationwide space-war simulations, to US missile defense evasion techniques, legitimate military intelligence targets have made their greatest public mark as UFO reports -- providing any alert intelligence analysts with significant performance parameters.
9
This coming from an organize skeptic's perspective is suspiciously slanted to say the least. No, UFOs have not been largely top secret Soviet rockets. The best cases make that unscientific and unproven claim to be erroneous.
Citations, Highlander?
There is a real threat from the skies, and it does not come from saucers. It is called a near-Earth asteroid. How much is our government dedicating to deflecting one, once astronomers find that rock with our name on it?
13
We are not alone in this universe. But the vastness of space time along with the low chance of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations developing, make it virtually impossible that anyone will visit us. If anyone mastered interstellar travel, we would have seen the signs by now as they would have colonized our galaxy. Also, won't those species suffer from the same politics, pressures of energy/money, limited life times as we do? So, if there are UFOs they are meteorites, comets etc. Not anything built by intelligent beings.
10
@RS: I agree that logic speaks to the distinct possibility of extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the unfathomably vast universe in which we live.
However, your presumption that any other species' mastery of interstellar travel would have colonized our galaxy. Thee are also literally millions of galaxies, each vast distances from one another. Who knows in which direction such alien explorers set out? Who's to say they have mastered flight perhaps a primitive in its own right as the Wright Bros' plane compared to our space shuttles?
I don't doubt the probably existence of intelligent life elsewhere, but I balk at the declaration that we'd already know due to the assumptions you make.
That's as a narrow-minded take on the possibilities out there given that our science is likely at a zero level on a scale of 1-10 with respect to understanding the nuances of the universe.
Kudos for the report, but here's my issues.
1. Robert Bigelow. Bigelow has claimed he has evidence of 'artefacts', but yet has to produce anything. Additionally, the fact most of the budget went to Bigelow, who was a friend of Reid and is also renowned for making sensational claims, doesn't inspire confidence.
2. There's over 70 different space agencies on the planet, some of whom are very hostile to the US. If any of those had evidence they'd use it to usurp the US and cause embarrassment.
3. If this phenomena is real there'd be more than $22 million allocated. Of course that doesn't discount there's a further, secret budget.
4. Elizonda is now part of the 'To The Stars Project'? Tom deLonge...
3
We know who they are and what they are doing. We try to explain it on our blog using their own intercepted messages as examples. Our code word lexicon can be found on the front page of the blog. They use everyday words to communicate and they insert their communications into dialogue in TV Shows, movies and music lyrics. It's quite easy to follow what they are talking about once you grasp that they ARE HERE, and NOT OUR FRIENDS. Mostly they chat about attacking humans, especially children. They are horrific, in fact, and the human population must wise up now to what is happening here. Please see our blog, but make the effort to read it and understand the code words and messages. Don't dismiss it, your future depends on it.
1
Can I speak for every man and boy in America -- and probably many women and girls too -- in saying when Mr. Elizondo's unnamed successor is ready to retire, please tell me where to send my resume!
8
Some still think the sun revolves around the earth...how can they ever believe there are intelligent beings out there, who perhaps have been visiting us....Such arrogance to think we are the only intelligent beings in this infinite universe/multiverse. Transparency and research is very much needed. Galileo...where are you?
Susan
13
I can believe it is almost certain that in our galaxy there are many stars with planets on which there are civilizations. I can believe it is highly probable that quite a few of those populations have mastered space travel to a degree equal to or greater than what we on the Earth have done.
It remains extremely unlikely for a large number of physical reasons that the Earth has been visited by any of them, or that the reported UFOs are anything other than unexplained atmospheric events that people interpreted as "objects." That doesn't mean we should not collect and analyze data about such events, but only that we should remain skeptical about applying unlikely and scientifically implausible explanations to events about which we know almost nothing.
These are not events that can be dealt with easily by conventional scientific methods that involve careful and repeated measurement of carefully defined properties. Instead, they typically are seen by casual observers lacking tools to collect quantitative data about them, as shown by even the better examples like that shown in the first part of the article. That, unfortunately, is likely to remain true until a way can be found to attract these UFOs for repeated measurement and perhaps even attempts at manipulation. It may be worth spending some money on, but only as speculative basic - and generic - data collection unlike anything mentioned in the article.
1
Susan, exactly how do we research the "infinite universe/multiverse" to find out if intelligent beings are out there?
Why do we need to know if they're their or not?
Has anyone considered the more mundane possibility that other countries with defense departments equally as secretive as ours have created much more advanced forms of aerospace technology, so advanced that they could be mistaken for alien creations, and refused to publicly publish this information? (If anyone has considered it, forgive me for not reading all 718 comments before writing this one.)
10
Right? If the richest and most advanced nation in the world has not come anywhere close to developing the technology observed in these videos, surely some other nation must have.
7
I have doubts that the US is the most advanced nation in the world. We don't know for sure just how advanced other first-world countries are, because we do not have complete access to their defense spending records. It doesn't seem 100% inconceivable to me that countries such as China, Israel, and Russia, or for that matter any other nation that is strongly invested in its military, could have important air defense research going on. North Korea is a poor country whose citizens still struggle with the residual effects of malnutrition, yet their nuclear program is quite well off. (This is why defining "richest" countries is a bit vague. Is the "richest" country the one with the biggest GDP, the most federal spending, highest income per capita, or what?)
Alternatively, the objects could be the product of privately funded research projects or tight-lipped corporate aerospace development (Lockheed, Raytheon, Halliburton, etc.).
It seems at least as likely that our own country has come up with devices that they are keeping secret from other branches of our own government as well as the public.
Have the scientists found any microbes, bacteria or viruses from other planets or space that are usually not present in our Atmosphere, Toposphere, Stratosphere, Mesophere and Thermosphere yet ?
After we find anything there, we should then talk about UFOs from Exosphere!
Ah, but the UFOs may also be a flock of organisms flying together collecting data from all the cloud servers. They do not need to interact with us to know much about us I presume. With far advanced extra planetary Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techiniques, they can analyze the data and know about my favorite restaurants.
This is getting interesting.
2
Isn’t this the country that sent soldiers into combat with defective tanks that couldn’t withstand a blast from home made IEDs?
15
We also sent our soldiers into battle in Vietnam with defective machine guns. Nice track record.
If congress is going to waste it's time on pointless garbage, it can at least spend it eliminating obvious wastes of the taxpayer's money like this. There are not, no have there ever been visitations of space aliens to this planet.
10
You're the same ostrich who wanted Gallilleo expelled for his new and now widely held discovery. It's amazing that people still think this way.
Soft disclosure.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
21
Soon we will find proof that global warming is an alien effort to terraform our world to make it more habitable for them. What we really need is government investment in special sunglasses so we can see them for who they really are! Obey! Reproduce! Consume!
14
Yes, we are here. We've been on this planet for some time.
We are from far, far away.
One day we will reveal our nature. Until then just know our intentions are to observe.
19
hey can do you recommend me investing on bit coins?
another question,
can we be friends :D
Thank You, NYT for treating this as a serious subject worthy of discussion. There are many well documented episodes of UFO sightings from over the years reported by our military personnel in which UFOs either interfered with our advanced weapons systems or displayed an unwarranted interest in our nuclear weapons related areas. The US government has always taken the line that the general public is too fearful or backward thinking to be told the truth about these sightings. But sooner or later this phenomena is going to become undeniably obvious to the public and the best way to prepare them is to begin that discussion.
29
What the heck is "unwarranted interest," Roger?
And "undeniably obvious?"
I always love that line, "well documented episodes." Dependably sans citation.
P.S. Did anyone notice that in the last half second of this abbreviated clip the target appears to have twin vertical tails – just like the F/A-18?
8
I believe the Air Force knows how to tell the difference. So, no.
8
I saw UFOs regularly when I lived in Puerto Rico. No doubt. The barrio where I lived has long been named 'Voladoras.' That means golden flying saucer. Locals there are quite used to seeing flying objects that are not aircraft, drones or other known craft.
9
I have been interested in UFO energy source since I had to pay over 4$ a gallon for gasoline . It looks like the UFO engine is very powerful so it must be very efficient otherwise it would melt. The energy comes from the lose of mass. It was just determined after 160 years the lead acid battery does this better than the tin acid battery. So we are slow in the scientific community since the lead acid battery has been around for 160 years. The trouble here is , will society last long enough to figure out how UFO’s do it. Thermonuclear energy occurs when electrons get the energy. If a another particle were to get the energy in a reaction , that would explain what they are doing.
2
Let me get this straight. There could be alien life out there that is far more technologically advanced than we are, but America's scientists are not supposed to use words like "science-based" and "evidence-based."
Trump lives in a bizarro world where scientists can't be scientists.
36
It appears that the former Democrat Senate majority leader funded this program. Not understanding the attack on Trump
3
So, you still can't get over the fact that your candidate lost.
2
Once I saw a snowflake that looked like a UFO.
UFOs are serious business and this project was just a smokescreen. According to Dr. Edward Teller, inventor of the Hydrogen bomb, the "UFO Secret" is actually classified higher than the bomb.
For the record, I've seen 5 or 8 over the years in various locations. My Mother saw one that paralyzed her for an entire night as she watched it out the bedroom window. When dawn broke, the object began to move, and from the time she left the bedroom to open the backdoor (about 30 feet) it was already zooming over the horizon. She had thyroid problems thereafter, which is sometimes associated to radiation exposure.
There must be a reason why the Pentagon is revealing this info at this time.
And to all those debunkers, if UFOs are just imaginary, what was in the center of the scope on the F/18?
If you want to learn more from serious UFO researchers, do a search for Richard Dolan, who is an excellent UFO researcher and author. And if you would like to listen to an entire radio station devoted to UFO's and paranormal, check out KGRARADIO. Both Dolan and Linda Moulton Howe have programs on this station.
25
I've sort of been keeping tabs on folks who believe UFOs visit us from outer space. Every last one of them I've encountered also believes in a god.
God and UFOs. And, of course, paranormal. And so on.
1
"...the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena."
In other words, what? We shot - or tried to shoot - some of them down? I'm not sure how wise that is, however, it would be quite the headline! This article will revive speculation about the '47 incident at Roswell and all the talk, largely consigned to the tabloids, of a flying saucer crash. It's now back on the front page of the mainstream press. Time we got the real and complete story; what's the point of the government keeping it secret? They're not protecting us from anything.
13
As I had always suspected! The X-Files was actually a documentary!!
15
Greetings from the land of the "Roswell Incident." The following are quotations from "The [online] Skeptic's Dictionary" re: UFOs:
"'Choose the nearest star; decide how long you're willing to travel, how fast you will need to go to get there in that time, what you will have to take with you, and how many should be in the crew. Make it a one-way suicide mission if you wish. As a final step, calculate the kinetic energy that must be imparted to the spaceship to get you there in that time (one half the mass times the velocity squared.) I suggest you stay away from the relativistic limit; it complicates the calculation and won't help you anyway. The good news is that you will then sleep secure in the knowledge that UFOs from elsewhere in the galaxy are not subjecting humans to hideous experiments.' --Bob Park"
"[T]he fact that some pilots or scientists claim they cannot think of any logical explanations for some perceptual observations is hardly proof that they have observed alien spacecraft. . . . [I]t should be noted that UFOs are usually observed by untrained sky watchers and almost never by professional or amateur astronomers, people who spend inordinate amounts of time observing the heavens above."
10
Astronomers observe astronomical events. When ET crafts violate space time with the ability to cloak, our current scientific tools will not necessarily detect them. So your default standard scientific observation will not explain the modus operandi of aliens and crafts that it cannot understand.
So your explanation is rather very ill-informed and not very wise.
When mainstream scientists are too narrow-minded to explain something outside of their understanding, I'd only give the likes of Michio Khaku and others with a broader imagination to give a theoretical explanation.
Otherwise, you're operating as a reductionist.
I hope they are including "Crop Circles" in the investigation.
12
If they included bees, it might actually be useful.
1
Of course this research has to be classified. That's the only way to be sure the aliens won't learn that they do in fact exist.
10
It never hurts to keep a look-out.
4
How are Aliens and Humans supposed to make contact?
Through DNA.
I have Alien DNA and human DNA.
I am gifted in Mathematics.
We communicate using mathematics.
3
The truth is out there.
But it sure ain't in this place.
Follow the money.
9
Dozens of people saw the “mother ship” pass right over metro Phoenix that March evening. Even the governor saw the huge but silent craft passing over blocking out the stars. I have 5 huge palm trees in my back yard and the craft was bigger than all 5 put together. It made not the slightest sound so unless we have new and amazing space craft it was not of this world as we know it.
28
What a relief this is from the tawdry business of politics. Definitely a daily section dedicated to UFOs would be a Godsend about now and for the next three years.
23
Where's Dana Scully when we need her?
12
The 21st Century when billionaire real estate tycoons turned science into fake news.
Bigelow who made billions on a budget hotel chain and selling real estate holdings just before the 2007 crash emerged as the leading expert on aliens and UFOs when he proclaimed on the venerable CBS 60 Minutes program that he is “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth. Corroborating his vast pile of scientific evidence is Luis Elizondo a former DOD Senior Career Intelligence Officer with academic background in microbiology, immunology, parasitology and ship hull patents.
Trump, another real estate tycoon among other notable titles, became President of the United States while claiming that climate change is a Chinese hoax among other notable fake science news claims.
For the latest in scientific research and discovery call your local real estate developer. If anything, their answers will prove that there are aliens among us.
3
Super funny! Evolved aliens would like to recruit you for their "Few Earthlings who think, analyze, interpret and conclude intelligently" list. These evolved aliens also don't understand the concept of "real estate"...because for them their entire planet belongs to all their beings, species and advanced life. They live in harmony, work in harmony and visit in harmony without disturbing our idiocy and human cockroaches called "dumb, greedy, lying deceiving manipulating politicians".
My uncle was a 40 year veteran from the CIA.
He believed in Aliens.
7
The government is spending money on investigating unidentified air craft in our air space? And this is news, why?
4
This Bigelow fellow bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Happy Harry Cox.
2
Now it's UFO's?
I'm not giggling, I'm alarmed about our society and culture. The lunatic fringe may have finally won...
13
Aren't we gullible.
3
As if 2017 couldn’t get any more bizarre, tomorrow the failing NYT will report first contact. I, for one, welcome our alien overlords.
5
Twilight Zone episode: How to.Serve Man
6
Awesome!
5
The little green men up in space
Do not like the whole human race.
They buzz past our planes
And zap our poor brains,
Then scamper away without trace.
7
Government should pay for this by posting all thir click baiting ufo videos on internet on a special nasa web site supported by ads... Then they'd have many hundred of millions $ to pursue the ufo search program...
10
On the one hand, I find Bigelow's carefully worded statements that the DIA just happened to show up at his ranch to look for UFOs--suggesting that he had no role in inducing them to do so, which may or may not be the case--to be indicative of an desire to hide intent--and it seems that virtually all of the money went to him.
That does not mean that these videos are not fascinating, particularly the first, which, if not an intentional hoax, does suggest propulsion to this non-aerospace scientist. Note, for example, the increase in flaring above and below as the object turns, which does not appear to be due to movement blur.
It's difficult to know how much of this is a) helping out an old friend and the confirmation bias that comes with working in such positions; b) reality.
I'd like to see more of the videos that the project has on file--and that, after all, we paid for.
Perhaps the Times can do more of this excellent work and pry a few more well-documented examples up for readers to see.
7
Probably the only $22 million out of the $600 billion DoD budget where we really got our money's worth.
7
Reading the comments, It is a reminder of how we have difficulty comparing expenditures when a lot of zeros are involved.
The U.F.O.s research project is pegged at $22 million per year, and a new F-35 jet will cost $85 million. That’s easy enough. One F-35 is about four times the cost of the annual U.F.O. investigation budget.
Let’s compare to some big-ticket items. A B-1 bomber costs $2 billion, and the price for a B-2 is about the same. The means that a B-1 or B-2 costs more than 90 times the annual U.F.O. budget.
If we look at even bigger-ticket items, the Gerald A. Ford aircraft carrier costs around $13 billion, which is nearly 600 times the U.F.O. project annual cost.
Some may say, “Well, for the U.F.O. project the number is an annual cost, but you only pay for each jet or for each aircraft carrier once.”
Think about it. There is a huge operating cost for an aircraft carrier, and it includes aircraft and large support ships. A figure of $2.5 million per day is commonly used, but even that may not include all fuel, labor and maintenance expenses. Assume it does include everything, $2.5 million a day is close to an annual expense of $1 billion – 90 times the annual U.F.O. budget.
Again, that’s on top of the purchase price already paid for the carrier.
8
And the UFO's annual project cost is about 1,824 times the amount deemed sufficient for one person to survive on (per the Federal Poverty Level gang.)
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/sunday/yes-there-have-been...
The article above states that from a mathematical standpoint, the sheer magnitude of the universe dictates that there have been thousands, if not millions, of other intelligent civilizations. If there is even a chance that the physicist who authored the article is correct, then $22 million is a small price to pay for what could be invaluable knowledge.
7
Why are these things obsessed with following planes? How many do they need to follow? These are super creatures who transcend limits of physics and natural laws! They can figure planes out!
As a youth, I desperately wanted to "believe" in UFOs. My attitude now is that I "believe" in UFOs, I just don't "believe" they are evidence of an alien presence on Earth.
If you defend the opposite hypothesis, please, show us a crashed vehicle, a body, or a sample of an alloy that for some strange reason can't be blended here on earth. Till then, I will continue to hold that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
19
First, they should show us a Yeti. Then, a Big Foot. Maybe Nessie. And god.
2
Seriously, is that video the best that they can come up with? It would take anyone with a bit of video editing/creating experience a few hours to come up with that, add a few distorted voices and Voila!
4
An alarm bell rung in my head when I read that Dr Harold Puthoff participated in this Program. Why? Please look him up in James Randi's book "Flim-Flam: Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and other Delusions."
11
Thank you. I will.
A secret program run by a billionaire. Why does this read like a Marvel Comics Universe movie plot?
12
Don't feed any hungry people or try to stop diseases. Forget about the warming planet and our destruction of it. We want to see little Green Men! It is just like Tinkerbell- if we all clap our hands and wish loud enough the little Green Men will become visible! Of course there are no "unexplained" phenomenons except why we pay human beings tons of money to hold on to jobs that do nothing for anyone (and never have). Look for this same development to sit exactly like it does now forever. Zippo.
7
I'm already here.
I am part Alien and part human.
4
you're not alien. you're special.
6
“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.”
Uh ... just an aside but exactly what is Oberg talking about here? I have no idea. The idea of extraterrestrial visitors is pretty dismaying for most of us, but this statement scares me too, just in a different way.
3
UFOs not having placed themselves under scientific scrutiny, all that can be studied are UFO reports -- and there is at least one excellent reason why the Pentagon ought to be studying such reports. Whatever else may be causing them, MANY have for decades been caused by Soviet/Russian top secret missile/space activities badly misinterpreted by startled witnesses. Ranging from test of space-to-ground nuclear strike weapons, to nationwide space-war simulations, to US missile defense evasion techniques, legitimate military intelligence targets have made their greatest public mark as UFO reports -- providing any alert intelligence analysts with significant performance parameters.
5
As far as the advanced alien civilizations are concerned, they are the scientists and we are the lab rats. It's a great big galaxy out there, boys & girls . . .
7
Their last visit was in November 2016, on a mission to confirm proof of intelligent life. Finding none, they left and haven't been seen since.
16
the first questions that come to mind:
1) do we now need a 4th bathroom? men, women, trans and alien?
2) can we get all the nations of the world to pay for a wall or force field around the planet?
3) I assume they will be on the banned immigration list? where does that fool judge in Hawaii who keeps striking down immigration stand on aliens?
7
Whatever the origin of these objects I hope they take Donald Trump with them!
12
He’s probably the only thing keeping them from landing. Anyone with the technology required to travel interplanetary has to assume we’re too crazy to create anything other than headaches for them. Plus, they’re probably worried about having him around their daughters, too.
4
"Operation Bluebook" way back in the early 1950's. A memory that has remained with me since my long ago youth. Only the NYT would have the depth and resources to include that small piece of UFO history in an article. That and "Worlds in Collision", which seemed plausible then but has since been debunked as I understand it.
Well if nothing else these phenomena put the lie to the smug sneering atheist community who routinely attack the biblical writers and scribes who saw things in the heavens they attributed to divine origin. Now with our greatly advanced science, we still don't have more than guesswork and harrumphing.
1
Sure thing, I guess that was god on his heavenly Harley they were chasing around up there.
You must have read "Chariot of the Gods" once to often.
5
People don't you remember just before Iraq we pulled the stealth bombers out of Area 51. What you see here is what we are going to test on North Korea
2
Nothing a flick of the ole' windshield wiper wouldn't clear away.
7
Umm, Fastwalkers....what? Leslie Kean, UFO's and John Podesta emails about Fastwalkers. This is getting weirder by the minute. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/54211
2
The cost of this program, 24 million dollars spread out over years was equivalent to the cost of just Three Abrams Tanks. We've built and bought Ten Thousand of them. The Pentagon plans to spend $391.2 billion on 2,443 F-35 aircraft, with each plane costing $160 million. We can certainly afford to fund an Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and UFO research project.
15
"Mr. Elizondo said he and his government colleagues had determined that the phenomena they had studied did not seem to originate from any country."
Doesn't this really mean 'could not determine a country of origin'?? Not being able to find something does not prove it doesn't exist.
Obviously there are unidentified phenomena, but the most likely explanation for most is spy technology being tested/used by our military or others around the globe such as China and Russia.
These sightings represent successful attempts at eluding tracking both on the way in and on the way out (of the 'view window'), but were briefly sighted in the interim. Isn't this what we have spy aircraft doing all the time?
I'd be as thrilled (etc) as anyone to learn that even one of these reports is credibly related to intelligent aliens from another star. But that absolutely does NOT mean I think it's the most likely explanation. It's actually one of the least likely.
4
I don't think you read the companion article.
It seems you are open minded enough to conceive there was really something there and the 2 pilots saw it with their own eyes and the carrier's radar technician spotted it as well. Since the pilot's account was that "it accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen" and the video clearly shows it is not an airplane, and this was back in 2004, do you really think the most likely explanation is some kind of Russian or Chinese aircraft operating 100 miles off the coast of California that can run circles around U.S. Navy F-18's?
And 12 years later, we still dominate the skies in Syria with the F-22 and F-35 (which are just regular old fighter aircraft).
Just saying that your theory seems implausible. So what's left? We have UFO-like aircraft propulsion technology but it was developed in secret by the U.S. military and it is never used except to scare Navy pilots?
13
I don't think the video clearly showed anything other than a blurry light.
LouB writes: "To the naysayers, the 2006 event over O'Hare Airport in Chicago is just one of many eyewitness sightings in broad daylight by professional air workers. It is obvious *something* out of our realm of understanding is occurring in some of these cases. "
What is out of the realm of understanding is how this object was visible to dozens of people for about 5 minutes in 2006 and NOBODY TOOK A PICTURE.
Wishful thinking by alienated people.
9
Alan, it's rather like the fact that no one has ever found a dead Big Foot or Yeti. Or been able to locate the monster in a loch with available technology capable of spotting something as small as anemone larva in our oceans.
UFO literature is filled with notes that they appear during times of great duress. In the modern era, we thought that meant that folks were hallucinating or wishfully dreaming of intervention by a higher power. Now we have great clear video from the US military of these phenomena which have definitely appeared at a time of great duress. My guess is that they're back to prevent global nuclear annihilation as they probably did in the recent past.
6
There are two possibilities:
1) The aliens landed some time ago and have now firmly entrenched themselves in all major areas of control (the White House, the Kremlin, and Beijing).
2) We are being observed by more advanced beings and at some point they will find a way to intervene and save us from ourselves.
I fear the former and pray for the later.
Truth be told, if I had to pick between the last two years of American political life and this article in terms of weirdness on a scale of 1 to 10 - I would rate the last two years at a 20 and this article at a solid 10.
12
I am so happy to see the NYT's addressing this phenomenon. Thank you, thank you, thank you. They are real, they are not figments of anyone's imagination. Again, thank you.
12
Aha. The ones who know, don't talk. The ones who talk, don't know.
6
There is obviously content that has been discovered that substantiates this program’s existence. A billionaire doesn’t need $22m - that’s not the story. They keep it classified because they think that if the General Public knew the details of their findings that there would be pandemonium. Maybe, but’s so what? I think they would be surprised how creative and resilient people can be when faced with a common challenge. Transparency and full disclosure is key.
6
Carl Sagan said it best when it comes to extraterrestrial visitation of the Earth: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." There is not a shred of evidence that we have been or are being visited. The universe is vast beyond our imagining in terms of both space and time and the likelihood that we are close neighbors with another intelligent civilization is virtually zero. It took 4 billion years for intelligence to evolve here. There is no reason to believe it will be different anywhere else. If there are intelligent extraterrestrials, they either exist in another galaxy separated from us by millions of light years and are forever separated from us or they existed in the past and are now extinct. I totally support spending money on space technology and development but this is a complete waste.
7
Nothing in this article claims that the objects recovered are from another planet.
The reality of UFOs is absolutely undeniable at this point. (Read Leslie Kean- UFOS: Pilots, Generals and Government Officials Go On the Record) What they are is another question, which certainly cannot be answered yet.
To be sure, many sightings are perfectly explained; but the ones that aren’t clearly represent something beyond our current understanding of the universe.
2
I have a paradox for you, because while universe is probably teaming with intelligent life, we are still practically alone and probably will be for centuries to come. I say "practically alone" not only because of the expanse of space but also the expanse of time. Enough has been said the former, but about later, it is highly unlikely we will run across a playmate our age. They would likely be millions of years our senior and no more communicate with us than we try to talk to bacteria. In addition wouldn't it be likely they practice a sort of "astro environmentalism" and want to leave us to our natural development? The Earth is an egg and humanity is the chick. Some day we may be strong enough to peck out of the shell, but if we prove ourselves to be "unviable" as a species, we will die in the shell. Thus I really doubt the aliens would interfere with our self destruction.
5
it is not self destruction. investigate a bit more. brain is not the only tool you have.
If you would like to be convinced, read Leslie Kean's "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record". At a minimum, you will find these accounts provocative, especially when you consider the sources. It's encouraging to see this story in the New York Times. Maybe the New Yorker will take a look?
11
Before any intelligent person would even for a second consider the accounts of a Government Official "provocative," we'd remind ourselves that Donald Trump is a government official.
Why, by the way, are UFOs never identified as anything but "Unidentified Flying Objects?" When is someone going to catch one? (For that matter, when is someone going to catch Sasquatch or Yeti or Nessie?)
A billionaire with a secret government contract to investigate and try to explain the unexplainable? I think that such contracts ought to be put out to pubic bid and let the public weigh in on the need to spend money on such things - especially since so-called UFOs have never been determined to be a threat.
3
Let me know when you find the mother ship. It's 4.2 light years to our nearest star Alpha Centauri. It seems like a long way for a 40 foot spacecraft. The necessary physical characteristics of an interstellar craft would be completely different from an atmospheric one.
I am pretty sure there are other intelligences out there in the galaxy but doubt that we will ever come into contact with them. It's possible if first we can extend human lifespans into the hundreds of years required for interstellar distances at sub light speeds and then achieve propulsion at a significant fraction of light speed. But we have been listening for incoming signals at effectively light speeds a while now and so far nothing. Unless that is being suppressed by the powers that be. I would think the best bet is to spend the money on listening as closely as possible.
5
Many people interested in space travel are motivated more by science fantasy than actual science. That would seem to describe Robert Bigelow, whose background is in real estate development (yeah, really), and who has no formal training in the advanced mathematics, physics, or other technologies required to begin to understand the domain. Because he hires smart people to implement his big ideas does not mean he has any real clue as to what is involved.
That Harry Reid listened to him at all on the subject of extraterrestrial visitation is an indication of the corruption of money in politics more that anything else.
6
If I had a degree or two in the relevant sciences, and had no burning desire to be honorable or honest, whatsoever, I'd certainly accept Bigelow's offer of big research bucks and give him all the answers he wanted.
Smart people, indeed, mjv.
There is a common optical effect called Spectre of the Brocken, or a "Glory" that is kind of like a shadow. We see these from airplanes when we look down at cloud tops at the shadow of the plane. I think this may explain the "mysterious" object. Sorry folks. No little green men.
7
If we had to spend $22 million on anything related to this nonsense it would have been better spent upgrading the cameras and recording systems on these aircraft. UFOs always disappear when the imaging gets clear enough.
7
Fun article. It'd be nice if the Times took a deeper and more consistent look at the DOD's finances in light of the fact that its books are still such a mess that it cannot be fully audited.
6
I share comments of incredubility of a billionnaire getting all this funding.
Granted, he is only a billionnaire compared to the annual Pentagon expenditure of some $600 plus billions.
Surely, if he just partially joined the call of Mr Gates and other billionnaires in donating - he could fund this effort himself.
And a Pentagon officer "deep in the bowels of bureaucracy" managing this program - this was his ticket to a cushy retirement - never mind, he resigned.
It would have also been good to know qualifications of this Pentagon officer to manage this program.
Finally, in some countries like India and others, black money is a money you do not declare to government to evade paying taxes.
Use of this term here to evade attention of tax payers - gives it entirely a new meaning.
I have had faith in Mad Dog" - but this action of his in closing down the program - is just another medal on his chest.
1
After reading just a few of the comments which support this absurd, comical waste of taxpayers' dollars, I'm beginning to understand how the present occupant of the White House got votes.
9
So wait. Area 51 is real? The article seems to suggest that certain buildings in Las Vegas are warehousing pieces of these craft, that they are made of weird alloy and that "a 2009 Pentagon briefing of the program asserted that 'what was considered science fiction is now science fact.’”
I have always been skeptical of UFO fanatics. I mean get a life. How could a craft cross light years of space to get here? Now I'm scratching my head!
2
multidimensional traveling.
you see, the 3rd dimension is not the only thing that exist. universe is way bigger than just matter
So... did the New York Times just confirm the existence of aliens?!
"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."
Surely the NYT wouldn't print this without proof that document was real - which would indicate there are aliens?
7
Ah! Nothing like a front page UFO/ET story to take out minds off the all too terrestrial problems here at home. Let's all try to keep in mind that the U in UFO means unidentified and the FO's are NOT necessarily piloted by ET's. Should they be studied, yes, but not in a secret program funneling millions to friends of Harry Reid or any other congressman.
5
It's obvious that there are aliens and visitations for one reason: the government admits nothing. There is your proof.
2
(I just wanted to add that i think people should re-read this article with their heads outside the box.... in addition to other parts... (which were also full of obvious winks.. and none of them are even a big deal, mind u... even when they are, they arent...) 'm familiar with one of the people who was quoted in the article and I can't believe so many didnt see how theres really no other way to take the analogy he presented.... it's clear cut... if u were our govt would u say shocking things if they were true? Or would u be subversive and educate the more intelligent of those have some intuition.... ? Ok.. I'm likely not making sense now becuz im rambling, but people, some of u anyway... u must know what's going on.... that Leonardo da Vinci analogy was clue-ing u.... ok i'll just say it.. the mods can decide if its cool or not... - "alloys and materials recovered from uaps exhibit strange properties," doesn't shock people like it would if the NYT actually translated what the officials were trying to allude to, which would read like "Captured UFOS STUDIED, REVERSE ENGINEERING UNDERWAY," and i mean it's difficult becuz our scientists are like Leonardo da Vinci would be if he woke up and a smartphone landed in his lap! He was one of the greatest minds and inventors of his time, even concept of flying machines, not to mention hal even used an example regarding electromagnetics lol.. I know some of u may think this idea is nuts but it's not even nuts it's not even a big deal.
2
lol, not wrong but drunk again. or still. lol
3
No wonder Sen Reid retired a wealthy man, fabulous kickbacks!
Little green men? Why not?
2
I believe.
4
2007 and Harry Reid is pushing to spend money on aliens.......priceless!!
1
I have heard of Robert Bigelow before. He was a frequent guest on the Coast to Coast radio program of George Noory, formerly Art Bell's old show. Another frequent guest on the program was Alex Jones. The dangers inherent in highly placed government officials lending credence to loony conspiracy theorists have been well documented of late and require no further comment. As for Mr. Bigelow, he thinks he is Elon Musk, but I have yet to see anything tangible emerge from his grandiose schemes. This sounds like a preposterous boondoggle of the highest order and ought to be shut down immediately.
14
Bigelow has components on the ISS. He keeps a lower profile than Musk but his company is legit.
1
Why so closed-minded?
1
Odds are, you won't see anything tangible until the study is declassified. Going to the moon, mapping the human genome, building a computer smaller than an SUV was all considered preposterous at one time. Judging by the article, there's stuff we aren't told about. Don't think small.
2
If we do indeed have visitors, what a tremendous shame --of what we have done with the planet, animals and plants, and our fellow human beings, of our unjust and disgraceful ways of distributing (and in some cases) generating wealth, of our destroying beauty and the natural world, of tossing the potential of so many; our cruelty, our lies. Let me not even start about our leaders...
But if we do have visitors, it does mean that --at least for some civilization-- there is hope. One reason to cheer!
4
its not a shame. they assisted in this planet destruction. dont believe what they will tell you.
there are many races, good and bad. but dont believe any, believe only what you see and know. follow only yourself. question everything.
they dont come in peace, cheer not. be aware.
In the early 90s I was a kid who lived by the airport and was used to hearing airplanes all the time but 1 night there was a noise of an airplane but it wasn’t moving. I looked outside and saw an oval shape hovering and it had many different lights spinning around in the air.
I couldn’t believe what I saw and said to myself it can’t be real and went to sleep. I woke up in the morning and my room was freezing cold, I couldn’t get up, I was paralyzed and I all I could do was think to myself and move my eyes around.
I saw these beings around me there were tall and skinny and almost seemed like holograms. I freaked out and screamed in my head please save me Jesus ! Once I said that 2 in the front looked at each other and all disappeared. I ran to tell others but said to myself no one is going to believe !
I went to school and pretended like nothing happened. After school my neighbors told me they had an alien experience and asked me if I had the same experience or anything similar and I said no because I definitely didn’t want to be on tv or make a big deal about this.
I think about the experience today as pretty cool but it is pointless to spend millions of dollars to find out about them ! When theres so much need in rural and inner city America !
Me & my neighbors grew up poor with barely any running water with parents living check to check. People need hospitals, free healthcare , tech schools, better roads, jobs etc... not money for research into the unknown !
5
Are you okay with a $ 600 billion defense budget? One fighter jet costs about $ 80 million, and some naval carriers are $ 2 billion and require a million dollar a year for maintenance.
UFO's definitely exist, because I saw 2 when I was a kid with my parents in NH, in 1966. It was a clear, fall night, and we saw a very bright light high in the sky, moving slowly in random directions, up, down, sideways, sometimes zig zagging, and all the while turning color from blue to red to green and white. Another light just like it appeared near it and the two lights started to move around each other, until there appeared to be an arc of light move between them, at which point one of the lights disappeared. The other light moved slowly until it was below the tree line and out of site. I'll never forget it, my parents were blown away and called the police to report a UFO. Several other people reported seeing the same phenomena. I've tried to rationalize what they might have been for years, but can't come up with any explanation.
7
Oh, it's such a shame that no one had a camera back then, JS.
I was on a US Navy ship in the Pacific ocean in 1971 doing a nighttime lookout watch. The sky was cloudless. We spotted an air contact, a regular occurrence. This one however did not blink, was bright white and eventually became about the half the size of a dime held at arm's length, about 45 degrees up from the horizon. It stopped moving and hovered, and when we looked at it through the signalman's telescope we seen a paler yellow disk in the middle of the while light. It started moving up at an angle. leaving a bar shaped vapor trail cloud behind it, the only one in the sky. The object stopped for a brief time and then shot straight out into space at an incredible speed. We were steaming at 20 knots and it took over an hour to pass under the cloud that was left.
19
I'm with Mr. Oberg , “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.” 99.99% sure what's going on here is a little black budget project stumbling upon a very large black budget project. Nothing to see here, move along...
Oh, and the aliens won't be contacting us until we achieve immortality (3 to six generations from now?). Until that happens any conversation an interstellar specious had with us would be like their having conversation with a downing man.
4
You know, this is one of the reasons why people lost faith in the Dems.
It is not about the UFO but about Mr Reid and his friend Mr Bigelow. Mr Musk might want government funding too for his project but he has been above board. Mr Bigelow is a rich man, he should be able to finance his own projects. If he wants government money, be open it. And Mr Reid knows how hard the dollars come by... and in this case, one shouldn't mind children before aliens
6
The current wave of “UFO” sightings serves to confirm an indisputable, time-honored correlation with the threat of ICBM attack.
In 2017, DPRK has replaced the Soviet Union as the genesis of these strange hallucinations appearing in darkened skies (apparently, aliens only visit at earth-night). The only mystery is how human judgment can be so easily corrupted by fear.
5
At first I thought this was a Trump thing. Now I find out it's a Harry Reid thing! Mr. Reid, you owe the American people a lotta money. Start cashing out of that bitcoin.
4
"$600 billion annual Defense Department budget." Now there's a story that warrants further investigation.
23
I like to see where the money went. 22 million with zero to show?
3
Contact Dr. Steven Greer. You are so close but have barely scratched the surface here. Keep going!!!
3
Trying to justify all the spending by giving credence to unfounded suppositions. Yet more photos so out of focus that no conclusions can be made. Today, with all the millions of cameras taking nice clear photos...UFOs are still unrecognizably out of focus....hmmm
5
The earth is flat. At least from where I'm sitting.
5
For anyone who has seen a UFO close up--as I have--there is no possible way to deny or explain it away it--or to believe it is anything made by man. The event I experienced happened over forty years ago, at night in the hills near Thousand Oaks, California. Late in the evening, I looked out my bedroom window and a craft that measured at least three football fields in length and width--round, glowing bright orange, hovered perhaps a quarter mile away from my residence. It stayed there for long enough for me to wake my girlfriend and for her to see it also, for least two to three minutes. It then simply disappeared. Not as in a magic trick, but as in "took off". It accelerated, and was gone in literally a second. Out of sight. Nothing like that can be "explained". Sorry.
29
"... at night in the hills near Thousand Oaks, California."
What was the time of year and what was the weather?
"... a craft that measured at least three football fields in length and width ..."
How did you "measure" the "craft"?
2017-12-17 04:40:22 UTC
Can we please get some spacecraft from another planet to please pick up Trump and take him far, far away? And, while they are at it, Mitch McConnel and Paul Ryan.
We would be in their eternal debt.
43
Earth may be like Australia originally to the British - an off-planet penal colony where they send such psychopathic refuse instead of taking sterner measure against them on their home turf.
2
Yes, nice program Mr Reid, what a legacy. What are the stats on the homeless in America? Does America still have citizens that are starving? Let spend millions on UFOS!!!
3
The NY Times with a report on the X-Files. Pretty funny stuff. Nobody would be more excited than I would to see even a shred of credible evidence suggesting extraterrestrial visitation. Alas, there remains none. The notion of entire "fleets" of alien ships running around our skies is pretty laughable.
3
We can find UFOs but no Russian connection? Too much free time in Washington.
2
HERE is the genuine 'Russian connection'. UFOs not having placed themselves under scientific scrutiny, all that can be studied are UFO reports -- and there is at least one excellent reason why the Pentagon ought to be studying such reports. Whatever else may be causing them, MANY have for decades been caused by Soviet/Russian top secret missile/space activities badly misinterpreted by startled witnesses. Ranging from test of space-to-ground nuclear strike weapons, to nationwide space-war simulations, to US missile defense evasion techniques, legitimate military intelligence targets have made their greatest public mark as UFO reports -- providing any alert intelligence analysts with significant performance parameters.
UFO Earth tours to see the wildlife.
2
Some real Delta Green stuff here...
The first video is "Balloon Boy". The second video is a hacked version of "Pong". There. Mystery solved.
2
Do I think intelligent life exists elsewhere in the galaxy? Most likely.
Do I think such lifeforms may have visited Earth? Possibly.
Do I think a species capable of crossing the interstellar gulf that wished to keep its presence here a secret would possess the technology to do so? Absolutely.
Do I think such a species that did not want to keep its presence here a secret would go galivanting around in fits and starts where any old fool could take movin' pitchers of it would do so? Absolutely not. They'd likely set down on the White House lawn and say howdy. Otherwise they'd stay concealed.
6
Maybe these things aren't U.F.O.
1
This stuff is always miles away and out of focus, fun for those that love aliens though. My suggestion, any alien in their right mind wouldn't come close to this planet, so look for the Russians tossing pie plates.
2
The first video looks off; unless it's a cropped view of the video from the chase plane perspective, jets don't make a left turn with the port wing (left) above the starboard wing (right)...
3
It's fake, it's fake. Have you no eyes and ears?
2
I think spending money on this kind of investigation is fine. Having Harry Reid channel it his friend's company is worrisome.
And let's just all remember that the 'U' in UFO is 'Unidentified', not 'UnFromThisWorld'.
4
God help us all if they land and ask to take them to our leader.
17
The Gaslighting of America continues apace. Look! Over there! Shiny (unidentified flying) objects! Pay no attention to the madman in the White House or the felons in Congress currently conspiring to pick your pockets. This way to the egress!
10
> including footage from a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet showing an aircraft surrounded by some kind of glowing aura...
The aura is an artifact of the camera. It has nothing to do with the object being imaged. (Once upon a time I worked with people whose job it was to build better cameras which wouldn't exhibit auras like that.)
5
Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won't you please take me along
I won't do anything wrong
Hey, Mr Spaceman
Won't you please take me along for a ride...
"Mr. Spaceman" by The Byrds
1
When Aliens arrive I hope they dont ask us to take them to our "leader".
4
A lot of comments are concerned about the $22 million spent on this project.
However that is but a drop in the bucket of the scores of $billions of waste in the defense budget, which I read recently, somewhere, has never had an audit. (I hope I'm wrong about that)
Maybe the reluctance to acknowledge even the possibility of alien life arises because of the challenge it presents to many people's conservative christianity which has a strangle hold on too much of our country's politics.
3
$22 million sounds like a lot of money to the average person, but given the DOD's annual budget that amount is a pittance. The DOD burns through $22 million every 20 minutes. The more important question is should we be spending tax dollars to try to figure out why there are things in the skies, and possibly under the oceans, that can out-maneuver our most sophisticated military hardware? Of course we should. These things represent a gigantic threat to our sovereignty, and perhaps to humanity worldwide. We should be spending billions to learn what's going on.
5
Classified top secret. But from whom? From the aliens? But can't they, with their "next-generation" capabilities, simply read our minds or use their X-Ray vision to peer into locked file cabinets? What makes more sense is that this is being kept secret from taxpayers, who might think that this is a complete waste of money.
3
Another waste of money. Basic understanding of E=MC squared seems to be lacking here. How many other waste of money projects are out there. As someone said, how many kids could have been fed or gone to college with this money. Say something about the intelligence of our legislators.
2
@RickRieder
It is E=mc^2 not E=MC squared. ^2 is an exponent. You are right. No celestial bodies break through the speed of light. Except being engulf into the black hole that light can not escape. Light bends and engulfs to black matter and into oblivion. Einstein's General Relativity predicts this phenomenon. Back to Earth, those Navy pilots saw something objectively.
1
A large number of people now have a camera with them all the time in their smart phones, and yet the number of photographs of UFO's has not increased. The big objection to UFO's is that other stars are very, very far away (the closest is about 4 light years), and our understanding of special relativity says that material objects like you and me and a ship cannot attain the speed of light, but only approach it (with increasingly gigantic demands on energy).
Most of the scientists I know (and I'm a physicist) think it very likely that there is life elsewhere, but probably so far away that we'll never meet.
That said, the video of the naval pilots (and other reports as detailed in the Condon Report of 1968) tends to support the notion that there are genuinely unidentified flying objects. To be sure, most observations are of everyday phenomena: Venus, the moon, a satellite and so on. A handful are hoaxes. But there are definitely a small number, say 2 to 5%, that so far have resisted all explanations. Doesn't mean it's little green men or women, or even their satellites. But the phenomenon is worth investigation.
8
I want to second the comment from TomF from Chicago, as well as the 'juvenile taboo' remark from Mr Bigelow. Scientific study and investigation should never be ridiculed. Anyone who has followed and studied this issue for years should be heartened by this report, as well as vindicated for all of the ostracism they have faced.
7
I'd really like to hear more from the skeptics as how to so easily explain away the first-hand account from the two Navy pilots as set forth in the companion story to this article ("It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen"), which is corroborated by the video and contemporaneous audio recording of the reactions of the pilots at the time of the event. And how to explain away the thousands of similar accounts by military and commercial pilots.
It seems we have prima facie evidence of something not of this world--a flying craft under intelligent control that exceeds the inertial capabilities of any flying technology known to the general public (airplane, helicopter, airship, drone, rocket, satellite or orbital vehicle).
Any one of these accounts could be a hoax or a misidentification of terrestrial aircraft. One of the authors Leslie Kean was part of such a misidentified UFO story last year--the Chilean helicopter video event which turned out to just be a commercial plane.
But I need a better counter-explanation than "it is an insect on the camera" or "interstellar travel is physically impossible". That just reeks of sticking your head in the sand and refusing to confront what could be our reality.
18
How does one measure the effectiveness of such a program? What is considered accountability?
It is the duty of the US Air Force to deal with any threat from the sky, and if an unidentified flying object is indeed, uh, unidentified, they'll want to know what it is and where it came from. While it's unlikely that these originate from other worlds, they could be experimental devices devised by someone who might not like us, or they could be artifacts produced by our own detection equipment, which is important to know about as well.
I'm not altogether thrilled by the secrecy of the project and its budget, but that's understandable as well.
3
Look at the enormous U.S. military budget, the open acknowledgment that billions are wasted each year in fraud and abuse, and the fact that it has been disclosed that the Pentagon has never completed an internal audit.
With that track record, it is incredible that Defense Secretary Mattis and his predecessors have declined to fund organized research into U.F.O.s and other extraterrestrial phenomena possibly related to alien exploration of Earth.
The expenditures on such research would be a drop in the bucket in comparison to the billions wasted on huge ships and aircraft which are no longer relevant to the types of armed conflict our nation is likely to face in coming decades.
Donald Trump is fascinated by the big hardware which giants of the military-industrial complex try to peddle to the Pentagon. That childish presidential fixation and the greed of contractors should not be allowed to cause potentially existential scientific research to be abandoned.
Good for Harry Reid for his intellectual curiosity and, more importantly, for his recognition that trying to find answers about U.F.O.s is in the best interest of American defense and science.
6
One pilot claims "They are going against the wind" another states "the wind is 120 miles to the west." Here are a couple of aviation knowns: All aircraft fly against the wind. And, the correct terminology used by aviators when discussing wind is to state direction first followed by velocity. For example, "The wind is west at 120. "miles" would not be used because it is understood to be knots in aviation weather. What this pilot has said is that the wind is located 120 to the west of his position. I find it odd that this nonstandard terminology would be used by professional pilots.
5
I think they actually say knots and it was mistranscribed. When I listen closely knots seems to be what I hear.
1
If the defense department released this video imagine what they have that wasn't released. We deserve to see all the evidence especially for $22 million a year.
4
It's a practical certainty that there is life out there.
It's possible (I suppose) that some have figured out FTL travel, or some other hack of physical laws.
If so, it's also a practical certainty that if they're all that advanced, they've figured out that cronyism and government are toxic mixture. Harry Reid's friends and their pet project need to justify themselves in open forum before they take my tax-dollars and give them to Bigelow for their own private Comic-Con.
Just paid my 4th Quarter estimated tax, and I'm just a bit sore on this point.
My opinion is that all ufo videos are fake, look how their shape changes and evolves through history, from disc- retro- shape to current triangle more hi-tech new shapes. The phenomenom follows clearly the pop culture and the human perspective of what it would be technological advanced.
The United States government has spent more than half a century and countless billions (trillions?) investigating UFOs without a single demonstrable benefit. Just a bunch of "highly sensitive unconventional findings" that, surprise, no one outside of the government gets to look at and judge their value. Meanwhile, Mr. Reid's buddies get fat on taxpayer dollars. What an absolute boondoggle.
Cf. Colonel Philip Corso, “The Day After Roswell”. Trillions in economic benefits. He says he administered technology transfer program, including game-changers such as integrated circuits/microchips filtered secretly through big companies’ R&D departments.
1