NASA's UAP team - Bigelow Aerospace connection

jarlrmai

Senior Member.
NASA recently announced their UAP team

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-announces-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-study-team-members/

The team seems relatively good, maybe a few too many astrophysicists / astrobiologists / planetary scientists and not enough engineers, I would love to see the engineers at JPL have a go at analysis.

We've already seen from the recent FOIA release that the SCU has had a go at influencing matters inside NASA.

I did some looking up for the members of the NASA team

Mike Gold was previously a Director at Bigelow for 13 years, this part of his career is not mentioned on the NASA page.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-gold-37a263b6/

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Their definition of UAP differs radically from the UAPTF/AOIMSG definition and is quite suspect:

Article:
Observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena are categorized as UAPs.


I'm getting enthusiast vibes more than science vibes from the overall selection of the team-members.

Since the AOIMSG/DOD "purge", Bigelow seems to have managed to weasel his agents into the the newly established NASA UAP team. I'm actually impressed by the brilliant lobbying of his college.
 
Their definition of UAP differs radically from the UAPTF/AOIMSG definition and is quite suspect:

Article:
Observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena are categorized as UAPs.


I'm getting enthusiast vibes more than science vibes from the overall selection of the team-members.

Since the AOIMSG/DOD "purge", Bigelow seems to have managed to weasel his agents into the the newly established NASA UAP team. I'm actually impressed by the brilliant lobbying of his college.
Indeed, I think my main concern is that the "unidentifiable/unusual behaviour" aspect of the videos will be "a given" here.
 
Their definition of UAP differs radically from the UAPTF/AOIMSG definition and is quite suspect:
Yes. The problem is the word 'cannot'. The 'U' in 'UAP' stands for 'unidentified', not 'unidentifiable'. Whether or not observed events have been identified as known phenomena is largely* a matter of fact. Whether or not they can be so identified is largely a matter of opinion. By adopting the word 'cannot' in their definition the new NASA team seem to be prejudging a central issue.

*I say 'largely' a matter of fact because some diehard UFO enthusiasts will dispute any amount of identificatory evidence.
 
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Somewhat disappointing journalism from Reuters regarding the new NASA UAP team. Reuters doesn't usually disappoint as much as many other mainstream outlets. The bolded bits are particularly slanted and inaccurate reporting.

Article:
The parallel NASA and Pentagon efforts highlight a turning point for the U.S. government after spending decades deflecting, debunking and discrediting observations of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, dating back to the 1940s.


Article:
A Pentagon report issued a year earlier likewise found insufficient data to determine the nature of more than 140 credible sightings documented by military observers since 2004, mostly Navy personnel.

Senior defense and intelligence officials testified before Congress five months ago that the list of cataloged UAP sightings had since grown to 400 but many remain beyond explanation, either as advanced earthly technologies, atmospherics or something alien.

Among them are video released by the Pentagon of enigmatic airborne objects exhibiting speed and maneuverability exceeding known aviation technology and lacking any visible means of propulsion or flight-control surfaces.


The following bit is accurate reporting of Zurbuchen but his statement is in itself problematic whilst not at all uncommon (the likes of Avi Loeb and Eric Weinstein have been spouting similar stuff):

Article:
"Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what's happening in our skies," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate NASA administrator. "Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable explainable."


There will always be LIZ even with the best and the most futuristic of sensors in the year 2222. Consequently the scientific approachability of perennially sketchy LIZ evidence will likewise always remain poor. It is overkill to hire the most brilliant minds from every Ivy League school to establish what Mick West (without similar credentials which, personally, is a plus in my book) has already established with sufficient confidence as poor and unimpressive evidence, lending itself remarkably poorly to further analysis. The best we can do is demonstrate whether anything extraordinary in terms of defying physics actually transpires in such footage. This is usually sufficient for most people in demystifying the evidence.

On the other hand, for a military organization such as the DoD, a reasonable certainty (not requiring full-fledged scientific identification of an object) of a threat-level of a likely mundane object is enough for most operational decisions and hence UAPs haven't been a significant concern for the DoD as also evidenced by the extremely modest budgetary appropriations for the likes of UAPTF/AOIMSG. These entities were never established based on high-priority internally identified operational needs within the DoD that the department needed major funding for, but rather due to external lobbying and pressure.

Now that the DoD has largely been purged from Bigelowists, Bigelow's found NASA as the next and willing target.
 

Waaat? Well, that might explain the poor quality reporting. The loaded word choices and insinuations you quoted were just dripping with bias, Reuters should be ashamed of that.

Now let's check the author's fields of expertise, as measured by previously written articles:
https://www.reuters.com/authors/steve-gorman/
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Content from External Source
Not exactly screaming "science is my thang".
 
That shotgun approach to subject matter suggests to me somebody whose job it is to take press releases, file off the serial numbers and call it reporting.
 
The parallel NASA and Pentagon efforts highlight a turning point for the U.S. government after spending decades deflecting, debunking and discrediting observations of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, dating back to the 1940s. Source: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/nasas-ufo-panel-convenes-study-unclassified-sightings-2022-10-25/


Now let's check the author's fields of expertise, as measured by previously written articles:
https://www.reuters.com/authors/steve-gorman/

Hmmm, I don't like the Reuters text (highlighted by LilWabbit) much either.
I think the workings of Blue Book and the Condon Committee have been well-documented, and their alleged weaknesses (sometimes the result of individual senior members) have been much discussed.
But I don't think an objective viewpoint (inasmuch as such a thing exists!) supports the claim that the US government spent
decades deflecting, debunking and discrediting observations of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs
Content from External Source
...which rather implies an officially-sanctioned cover-up, which I think is highly unlikely.

Just as problematic is the fact that Reuters- which has a good reputation- apparently thinks "science" stories should be a subset of "lifestyle" on their website
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/nasas-ufo-panel-convenes-study-unclassified-sightings-2022-10-25/
Content from External Source
I think that's astonishing- and really, really bad.
 
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