NASA holds first public meeting on UFO study

They are presenting the Metabunk analysis of Go Fast at the moment (it wasn't credited properly but still) and the presenter concluded it's parallax.

Scott Kelly now related UAP encounters he had that turned out to be a balloon and atmospheric lensing.
 
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I feel a bit bad for the scientists and others that had to turn up for this meeting. It is a complete and utter waste of time, recourses AND money. But hey, that is what "the American public" wants.
 
Not able to watch it could anyone who knows where post where I might be able to watch a recording?
 
Not able to watch it could anyone who knows where post where I might be able to watch a recording?

From within the EU:
Code:
$ yt-dlp [largelyirrelevant switches elided] oOFv7zF9JAA
youtube url: oOFv7zF9JAA
[youtube] Extracting URL: oOFv7zF9JAA
[youtube] oOFv7zF9JAA: Downloading webpage
[youtube] oOFv7zF9JAA: Downloading android player API JSON
[youtube] oOFv7zF9JAA: Downloading MPD manifest
[youtube] oOFv7zF9JAA: Downloading MPD manifest
[info] oOFv7zF9JAA: Downloading 1 format(s): 247+140
[dashsegments] Total fragments: 2899
[download] Destination: NASA_holds_first_public_meeting_on_UFO_study_full_video-[oOFv7zF9JAA].f247.webm
[download]   1.9% of ~ 645.04MiB at  620.40KiB/s ETA 03:35 (frag 56/2899)^C
ERROR: Interrupted by user
 
I feel a bit bad for the scientists and others that had to turn up for this meeting. It is a complete and utter waste of time, recourses AND money. But hey, that is what "the American public" wants.
My favorite question from the public was, "What are the science overlords hiding?" And the answer, from a scientist — um, nothing, because that's not how scientists are.

Then again, this "scientist" seemed nervous giving his answer…a real scientist telling the truth wouldn't stammer like that. And, do I spot an earpiece feeding him lines? I'm just asking questions ;)



Source: https://twitter.com/edwardcurrent/status/1663970743510523904
 
My favorite question from the public was, "What are the science overlords hiding?" And the answer, from a scientist — um, nothing, because that's not how scientists are.

Then again, this "scientist" seemed nervous giving his answer…a real scientist telling the truth wouldn't stammer like that. And, do I spot an earpiece feeding him lines? I'm just asking questions ;)

I am seriously appalled "NASA" had to scramble together experts to answer these questions. I am saying "had to" because with all the pressure from [UFO Enthusiasts] they were basically forced. Sad, I think it leads only to endless budgets being burned and endless repeating of the same questions like a Möbius strip.
 
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I feel a bit bad for the scientists and others that had to turn up for this meeting. It is a complete and utter waste of time, recourses AND money. But hey, that is what "the American public" wants.

I disagree. It's about time some of this junk is addressed seriously. There were a number of positive takeaways, just from today's meeting:

1. GoFast was explained as parallax
2. Another UAP was explained as SpaceX train
3. Scott Kelly related an anecdote where his co-pilot saw an UAP but when they investigated it turned out it was a balloon. He also said that pilots can be easily confused because there are a number of phenomenon such as parallax and atmospheric lensing that pilots are unfamiliar with.

NASA is public institution, and the public wants to know what these UAPs are. If NASA doesn't address it, the pseudo-science hacks will.
 
It's almost all or nothing, you go "Metabunk but NASA" on all the claims or else you just leave enough gaps for more speculation around what you didn't say. As it is this NASA thing is basically just more credence to the "there's something going on otherwise why would NASA being looking at it" crowd.

GO FAST has already been memory holed by the UFO fans as "the least interesting" of the 3 Navy videos and you knock down 1 video and another comes along.

If they do GIMBAL I think that would be interesting to see the reaction as it really is the iconic poster child of the modern UFO revival.

I think GIMBAL is really only explainable with some deep dives into the technical optics and other mechanisms which might cut too close to the ATFLIR secrecy, here we inferred a lot of it from leaked manuals and patents and a little reverse engineering to show/prove it might start to touch on some uncomfortable NDAs etc.

That's the beauty of the military leaks for UFO footage a lot of the info is secret and the "aliens" can hide in the gaps.
 
I think GIMBAL is really only explainable with some deep dives into the technical optics and other mechanisms which might cut too close to the ATFLIR secrecy, here we inferred a lot of it from leaked manuals and patents and a little reverse engineering to show/prove it might start to touch on some uncomfortable NDAs etc.
I believe you could get around that by just focusing on Mr. West's "Four Observables."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs


The explanation is more complex than that of "Go Fast," but not so complex as to be unintelligible without giving away secrets about the hardware/software of the ATFLIR. They could even just say "Mr. West pretty much nails it in this video, there are some things he does not know because some aspects of the system are Top Secret, but his broad outline is correct -- it is glare that seems to rotate only because the camera system rotates, rotating only WHEN the camera rotates."

Posted in case anybody over at NASA is reading this thread looking for advice on how to explain "Gimbal" without giving away secrets.;)
 
Interesting comment from Kirkpatrick (in bold, below)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3pbTRxk89Y&t=3551s


But essentially anomalous is anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the sensor. Right, so is doing something weird, whether that's maneuvering against the wind at Mach two with no apparent propulsion, or it's going into the water, which we have, we have shown is not a case, that is actually a sensor anomaly that we've now figured out, and we're going to be publishing all that. You know, those kinds of things, make anomalous signature. We'll call it signature management. But it's things that are not read readily understandable in the context of, hey, I've got a thing that's out in the light, it should reflect a certain amount of light. If it doesn't reflect that amount of light, something weird.
Content from External Source
Is it Aguadilla, with the low contrast and compression, or Omaha Sphere where the IR glare goes behind the horizon?
 
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They are presenting the Metabunk analysis of Go Fast at the moment (it wasn't credited properly but still) and the presenter concluded it's parallax.

Scott Kelly now related UAP encounters he had that turned out to be a balloon and atmospheric lensing.


There is a video floating around from years ago, where Scott Kelly talks about looking out the Shuttle window to see a small piece of space junk in the cargo bay. They were worried it would jam the cargo bay doors. They were going to report it to Nasa, they decided to take some photos. Before sending the pics, they zoomed in on them. Instead of being a small piece of space junk ~30 or something feet away in the cargo bay. It was actually the space station 60 miles away. He mentioned this story when someone had asked about the Navy UFOs years back. Could hvae been a response to the tic tac event. I'd have to find the video again
 
There is a video floating around from years ago, where Scott Kelly talks about looking out the Shuttle window to see a small piece of space junk in the cargo bay. They were worried it would jam the cargo bay doors. They were going to report it to Nasa, they decided to take some photos. Before sending the pics, they zoomed in on them. Instead of being a small piece of space junk ~30 or something feet away in the cargo bay. It was actually the space station 60 miles away. He mentioned this story when someone had asked about the Navy UFOs years back. Could hvae been a response to the tic tac event. I'd have to find the video again
He repeated the story today.
 
We've already had the Condon Report. It was rigorous, exhaustive, and conclusive. But in UFOlogy lore it was at best severely flawed. It was at this time that the notion that all solved cases are simply noise that should be thrown out became a hardened position among UFOlogists. Hynek really pushed that. He expressed frustration that so much attention was being paid to the solved cases. Taking away, in his mind, time and energy from the "real" cases. Which assumes that the cases that remained unsolved required an extraordinary cause.

That is antithetical to the scientific method. If 95% of all cases are solved, that supports the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis being that no extraordinary explanation is needed to explain all reports.

Any further study is going to run into that same mindset.

By about 1970 some Skeptic coined the term "postcard rack."

pch46242bk.rw_zoom.jpg

As old cases are solved and removed by Skeptics standing on one side of the rack, new cases are being put into the rack on the other side by UFO True Believers. The rack is always full. The Skeptics point to the pile of discarded postcards on the counter. The True Believers say, "So what? Why are you talking about that junk? Look at that full rack!"

The customers in the shop, the General Public, will just look at all those shiny postcards and say, "Hey, I'll buy that one!" And, "Ooh, look at that one there! Shiny!"

Of course most UFO True Believers are not going to have even that relatively sophisticated mindset. They're just going to yell, "Liars."

So what's the point of spending public money?

Hey, UFO Enthusiasts. Any one of you who wants to spend your own money on a further study... well, God bless you.

But my hard earned tax dollars? Oh, my aching back!

What's next? A USGS panel on reports of Flat Earth sightings?
 
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The rack is always full. The Skeptics point to the pile of discarded postcards on the counter. The True Believers say, "So what? Why are you talking about that junk? Look at that full rack!"

The customers in the shop, the General Public, will just look at all those shiny postcards and say, "Hey, I'll buy that one!" And, "Ooh, look at that one there! Shiny!"

I was about to agree with you my friend, but it's not just the new postcards in the rack, the true believers are picking up the discarded ones and replacing them in the rack. Think Roswell, Rendlesham and others.

Hey, UFO Enthusiasts. Any one of you who wants to spend your own money on a further study... well, God bless you.
Bigelow did for a while, until he figured out how to use our money for a bit.

I suppose the whole thing is a bit like Metabunk. If a bunch of scientists come out and explain many recent UFO/UAP sightings as mundane, many true believers will cry "coverup", but maybe, just maybe a few will go "wait a tick, perhaps that was explainable and not an ET". People come here and sometimes realize their UFO/UAP/Paranormal encounters might be explainable.

Of course, spending tax money on helping a few individuals realize their UFO/UAP may have been mundane may be wasteful, but at least it's not AASWAP. I'll watch some more as time permits.
 
True believers will not change their mind no matter what. It's the general public that will though.
The Navy videos and Louis Elizondo's interviews were fascinating and widely reported, but the debunking has not.
I think a rigorous, high visibility study by NASA will also be picked up by the media and has a chance of setting the record straight.
 
I disagree. It's about time some of this junk is addressed seriously. There were a number of positive takeaways, just from today's meeting:

1. GoFast was explained as parallax
2. Another UAP was explained as SpaceX train
3. Scott Kelly related an anecdote where his co-pilot saw an UAP but when they investigated it turned out it was a balloon. He also said that pilots can be easily confused because there are a number of phenomenon such as parallax and atmospheric lensing that pilots are unfamiliar with.

NASA is public institution, and the public wants to know what these UAPs are. If NASA doesn't address it, the pseudo-science hacks will.

The junk *has* been addressed "seriously", that's what we've been doing for years-to-decades - you mean *officially and seriously*. More precisely, I hope you mean "It's about time some of this junk is addressed officially and seriously - and only seriously, with a complete absence of the fluff that has had an official stamp of approval in the past."

Unless the summary "all the evidence has been garbage, and all of the conclusions from the skeptics has been 100% on point, you need to stop trusting the people you've previously been trusting, as they've been deliberately misleading you" was delivered, then it was a waste of time. The important thing isn't discrediting the *cases*, it's about discrediting the *narrative*. Cases will, and do - interminably, come and go; it's the cult-like behaviour of the credulous as putty in the hands of those armed with high-pressure bunk-nozzles that remains the same (and of course the behaviour of those in command of the high-pressure bunk-nozzles too).

Do we have a list of quotes describing the now-accepted-as-bunk cases as "the best evidence yet" and similar? Use their own words against them - just hold up a mirror. I appreciate that shaming people isn't the metabunk way, but I believe there are many paths that vary depending on your precise goals.
 
I suppose the whole thing is a bit like Metabunk. If a bunch of scientists come out and explain many recent UFO/UAP sightings as mundane, many true believers will cry "coverup", but maybe, just maybe a few will go "wait a tick, perhaps that was explainable and not an ET". People come here and sometimes realize their UFO/UAP/Paranormal encounters might be explainable.

Of course, spending tax money on helping a few individuals realize their UFO/UAP may have been mundane may be wasteful, but at least it's not AASWAP. I'll watch some more as time permits.

Metabunk used to be about writing primarily for 'people on the fence', not about only focusing on "true believers".

That was the whole point of the politeness policy. If the general public who is 'on the fence' sees the constant insults about 'believers' it turns them off and they may not accept the explanations. Kinda like how people just dismiss every single thing Trump says (he isnt always wrong) because he is just rude, which is highly off putting. Or how conservatives don't even listen to liberal talking heads or MSM anymore, as they constantly call us stupid, deplorables, racists, nazis etc..ie it is highly off putting.

Where as a "serious" investigation (ie unbiased, egoless, honest, polite) can stop huge numbers of people from becoming hardcore true believers...and hopefully teach some critical thinking skills and real investigative techniques to these 'on the fence' people, which will likely generalize into other aspects of life.
 
This, at least in the USA, is an era of mistrust of government and of science in general, fostered by a toxic political climate and the elevation of lying as an art form. I fully expect AI imagery to make this even worse in times to come. In other words, it is a singularly bad time to try to present a scientific analysis to the general public without provoking more "true believers" to get vocal about it. Their attitude is likely to be "Look, NASA is concerned so there must be some truth in it or they wouldn't be trying so hard to deny it".

I fear this presentation will be counter-productive.
 
I feel a bit bad for the scientists and others that had to turn up for this meeting. It is a complete and utter waste of time, recourses AND money. But hey, that is what "the American public" wants.

Why's it a waste of time, resources and money? Because you don't think any reports are of a truly anomalous nature and all explained be mundane objects? That's fair, I guess, for someone who hasn't seen anything. But after you sift through the noise of Starlinks, flares and balloons, there's a small percentage that can't be explained so readily, a lot of people have seen things, myself included, where the vehicle displayed characteristics beyond what we would currently think achievable with today's technology. That's the main point I want to get across; it exhibited capabilities you just would not expect. It might have been some form of advanced military drone, for example, a hyper-sonic glide vehicle, but then it might not have been, it was operating in a residential area. I can't say one way or the other on this. You can sit there and say, "we're all misidentifying mundane objects" but the truth is you don't know for certain, shouldn't we at least have scientists investigate this properly?
 
shouldn't we at least have scientists investigate this properly?
There just isn't much for scientists to investigate.

If we had unimpeachably solid, hard data on even one case of an object, say, entering and subsequently leaving Earth's atmosphere, scientists definitely would be investigating it.
 
Why's it a waste of time, resources and money? Because you don't think any reports are of a truly anomalous nature and all explained be mundane objects? That's fair, I guess, for someone who hasn't seen anything. But after you sift through the noise of Starlinks, flares and balloons, there's a small percentage that can't be explained so readily, a lot of people have seen things, myself included, where the vehicle displayed characteristics beyond what we would currently think achievable with today's technology. That's the main point I want to get across; it exhibited capabilities you just would not expect. It might have been some form of advanced military drone, for example, a hyper-sonic glide vehicle, but then it might not have been, it was operating in a residential area. I can't say one way or the other on this. You can sit there and say, "we're all misidentifying mundane objects" but the truth is you don't know for certain, shouldn't we at least have scientists investigate this properly?
Scientists aren't in the business of investigating anecdotal nonsense.
 
where the vehicle displayed characteristics beyond what we would currently think achievable with today's technology.
I know this is not what you want to hear, but if that is true, especially if it seems to break the known laws of physics, then perhaps the word you'd want to reconsider is "vehicle". If a vehicle can't DO those things within our current understanding of technology, then perhaps it isn't a vehicle at all. And we've already seen insects, reflections, or camera artifacts that get mistaken for alien craft.
 
Why's it a waste of time, resources and money? Because you don't think any reports are of a truly anomalous nature and all explained be mundane objects? That's fair, I guess, for someone who hasn't seen anything.
I do think there are anomalies in some sightings. But do we need to spend endless money on it? I think that money should go to proper science, like for instance astronomy. I did not mention Möbius for nothing: we are in an endless loop and nothing comes out of it, and this is going on for over 70 years now.

But after you sift through the noise of Starlinks, flares and balloons, there's a small percentage that can't be explained so readily, a lot of people have seen things, myself included, where the vehicle displayed characteristics beyond what we would currently think achievable with today's technology. That's the main point I want to get across; it exhibited capabilities you just would not expect. It might have been some form of advanced military drone, for example, a hyper-sonic glide vehicle, but then it might not have been, it was operating in a residential area. I can't say one way or the other on this. You can sit there and say, "we're all misidentifying mundane objects" but the truth is you don't know for certain, shouldn't we at least have scientists investigate this properly?

What makes you so certain about your personal experience that it was a craft? You have already made your mind up that there was a vehicle in the air.
 

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Why's it a waste of time, resources and money? Because you don't think any reports are of a truly anomalous nature and all explained be mundane objects? That's fair, I guess, for someone who hasn't seen anything. But after you sift through the noise of Starlinks, flares and balloons, there's a small percentage that can't be explained so readily, a lot of people have seen things, myself included, where the vehicle displayed characteristics beyond what we would currently think achievable with today's technology. That's the main point I want to get across; it exhibited capabilities you just would not expect. It might have been some form of advanced military drone, for example, a hyper-sonic glide vehicle, but then it might not have been, it was operating in a residential area. I can't say one way or the other on this. You can sit there and say, "we're all misidentifying mundane objects" but the truth is you don't know for certain, shouldn't we at least have scientists investigate this properly?

This current investigation/disclosure is really just the result of a lobby group getting lucky. As others have mentioned, the UFO enthusiasts will jump on the stuff they can fill gaps with and ignore the boring stuff that indicates there isn't much to the phenomenon.
I have a very hard time believing that branches of the US military don't try their best to identify things that may pose a threat and it took a lobby group for them to start.
 
But after you sift through the noise of Starlinks, flares and balloons, there's a small percentage that can't be explained so readily
That doesn't make them alien craft, that just makes them so lacking in information and detail that nothing can be reliably concluded about them at all. Unless everything you can't explain magically gets accompanied by a 6-note ditty (specifically A-E-D-E-G-E) in your head, and ...
a lot of people have seen things, myself included, where the vehicle displayed characteristics beyond what we would currently think achievable with today's technology.
... you like jumping to unfounded conclusions.

The less you know about an occurance, the less support you have for claiming anything exceptional about it (which is just a corollary of the Sagan standard).
 
That's the beauty of the military leaks for UFO footage a lot of the info is secret and the "aliens" can hide in the gaps.
Content from External Source
Right next to Gods & Ghosts

The "GAPS" Means: Gods-Aliens-Phantoms-Supernatural
 
Why's it a waste of time, resources and money? Because you don't think any reports are of a truly anomalous nature and all explained be mundane objects? That's fair, I guess, [1]for someone who hasn't seen anything. But [2] after you sift through the noise of Starlinks, flares and balloons, [3]there's a small percentage that can't be explained so readily, a lot of people have seen things, myself included, where the vehicle displayed characteristics beyond what we would currently think achievable with today's technology. That's the main point I want to get across; it exhibited capabilities you just would not expect. It might have been some form of advanced military drone, for example, a hyper-sonic glide vehicle, but then it might not have been, it was operating in a residential area. I can't say one way or the other on this. You can sit there and say, "we're all misidentifying mundane objects" but the truth is you don't know for certain, [4]shouldn't we at least have scientists investigate this properly?

1. I have seen things I couldn't explain... for awhile. One example: At an Angel's night game I saw an oval, luminous, miles long alien spaceship high in the atmosphere. I felt a burst of awe and wonder. Truly. It was an extraordinary experience.

It had no wings or visible means of propulsion. It was performing maneuvers at speeds outside of the laws of physics as we know them. I kept looking though, and it turned out to be a moth illuminated in the powerful stadium lights about 100 feet over my head. A solved case.

2. This is what I was talking about in my previous post. Solved cases are not noise. They are evidence. If 95% of cases can be solved, that's evidence that humans are entirely capable of producing UFO sightings with nothing extraordinary behind them.

3. Unsolved cases have no unique qualities. Not perceived motions, extraordinary appearance, or the emotional reaction of the witness. Or the conviction of the witness that something very extraordinary and life changing was involved. Solved cases can have all the qualities of unsolved cases. The reasonable conclusion is that unsolved cases remain unexplained due to lack of information. And this is the crucial bit. You have to expect that there will be unsolved cases due to the quirky method of collecting data. If you haven't studied experimental design and analytical statistics, this is hard to understand. Experiments are designed to prove that the scientist is wrong. It's called the Null Hypothesis. In a statistical test, the hypothesis that there is no significant difference between specified populations, any observed difference being due to sampling or experimental error.

4. We did. The University of Colorado UFO Project... The Condon Committee. These folk didn't conclude that the UFO phenomenon is malarkey. They concluded that further scientific study of the UFO thing isn't likely to result in anything useful. Which I think still holds. UFOlogy is just meandering along, heading nowhere.. .As it was in 1948 and 1966 and 1973... (Those are famous UFO Flap years.) Let's just wait until something definitive happens. Not pretend that something definitive is happening. It ain't. It just ain't.



Further comments:

If the Null hypothesis is rejected, that is support for the scientist's notions. The scientist's notion, (the thing he wants to be true) is called the alternative hypothesis. Our Null Hypothesis should be: No extraordinary causes are needed to generate UFO cases .

The alternative hypothesis seems to be: An extraordinary cause is required to explain at least some UFO cases.

True Believers don't include known or unknown quirks in human perception, memory and psychology in the category of "extraordinary." They mean aliens or extra-dimensional beings... or whatnot.

There are also quirks in instruments, such as radar and cameras.

Accepting the Null Hypothesis only supports the idea that it's not necessary to resort to extraordinary explanations to explain all UFO cases.

But accepting the null hypothesis should rule out the idea that an extraordinary cause is necessary to explain at least some UFO cases.

EDIT: I've removed some statistics talk here, because it was getting too ponderous... and quite possibly incorrect.

Basically...

In experimental psychology it's expected that 5 percent of the data you collect during an experiment is bogus, because of the quirky nature of human psychology and the difficulties in collecting data from humans. You reject or support the null hypothesis with that in mind.

We're not even doing a controlled experiment here, which makes it even more quirky. If 95% of UFO cases can be solved we should conclude that it's not necessary that something extraordinary must be going on out there. I don't think it's reasonable to believe that there's any hard core of cases.

This whole thing has been going on a long time and nothing definitive has ever happened. But we have learned something. We've learned something about human psychology. Which is what piques my interest.
 
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It’s
1. I have seen things I couldn't explain... for awhile. One example: At an Angel's night ballgame I saw a luminous miles long alien spaceship high in the atmosphere. I felt a burst of awe and wonder. It had no wings or visible means of propulsion. It was performing maneuvers at speeds outside of the laws of physics as we know them. I kept looking though, and it turned out to be a moth illuminated in the powerful lights about 100 feet over my head.

2. This is what I was talking about in my previous post. Solved cases are not noise. They are evidence. If 95% of cases can be solved that proves that humans are entirely capable of producing UFO sightings with nothing extraordinary behind them.

3. Unexplained cases have no unique qualities. Not perceived motions, extraordinary appearance, or the emotional reaction of the witness. Or the conviction of the witness that something very extraordinary and life changing was involved. Solved cases can have all the qualities of unsolved cases. The reasonable conclusion is that unsolved cases remain unexplained due to lack of information. And this is the crucial bit. You have to expect that there will be unsolved cases due to the quirky method of collecting data. If you haven't studied experimental design and analytical statistics, this is hard to understand. Experiments are designed to prove that the scientist is wrong. It's called the Null Hypothesis. In a statistical test, the hypothesis that there is no significant difference between specified populations, any observed difference being due to sampling or experimental error.

4. We did. The University of Colorado UFO Project... The Condon Committee.



Further comments:

Our Null Hypothesis should be that no UFO cases need an extraordinary cause. If the Null hypothesis is rejected, that is support for the scientist's notions. The scientist's notion, (the thing he wants to be true) is called the alternative hypothesis. In this case the alternative hypothesis is that something extraordinary is needed to explain all, not some, UFO cases. UFO True Believers don't include known or unknown quirks in human perception, memory and psychology in the category of "extraordinary." There are also quirks in the instruments, such as radar and cameras, involved in UFO cases.



In experimental psychology the confidence level has traditionally been 95% due to the quirky nature of human psychology and the errors you have to expect in collecting data. It's expected that 5 percent of your data is bogus. Even after the Null Hypothesis has been rejected, the experimental design is evaluated.
Its descriptive research not hypothesis testing.
 
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