The Age of Disclosure film

[Gary C]

My confidence is based on:

• 100% of solved cases being proved not NHIs
• 0% of solved cases being NHIs
• Years of experience as military observer (what goes into an official file can be mind-numbingly dull.)
• Years of experience as an amateur astronomer studying the night sky
• And several decades watching humans make similar mistakes in politics, finance, and most other large scale activities.

All of which contributed to my resolving my own UFO experiences myself. Once I had enough evidence it was really pretty simple.

The film makers have not presented evidence. They have not demonstrate such evidence actually exists. They have assembled a collection of stories that merely suggest that such evidence exists and done so in a way that leads exactly nowhere we have not already been. Only you will be $20 lighter in the wallet after you rent it.

You still can't see the forest. You could run your committee for ten years and publish a report that all of the members agree to. No report that doesn't result in a levitating alien pod on the floor of the US Senate will prevent the film makers doing a few more interviews and releasing a sequel.

 

[beku-mant]

The idea that the fruits of back-engineering have been hoarded since c. 1947 doesn't make sense: No profits for corporations/ defence contractors, no improved defence for the United States (or Russia, or China, all vulnerable to each other's missiles), no benefits for voters (I might be naïve but I think most politicians try to improve things, and they're usually quick to receive any credit for doing so). Just (presumably) some ultra-secure environments (where?) and a cadre of scientists, engineers, security guards over seven decades who have never spoken out. All for no apparent purpose, as no-one benefits, and nothing is learned.

This is just a string of fallacies. You think we shouldn't look at the evidence because it's not good enough, but for some reason you think you can just solve it conclusively without looking just through low effort thought experiments. It doesn't work like that.

 

[John J.]

What I think are strong arguments for why UFOs that accelerate suddenly to high speeds (etc.) might actually exist and the claims should be taken seriously, depends on examining the body of information thoroughly and holistically... But it would have to allow posting links to many long videos of people telling stories, and a willingness by the participants to view them.

So these strong arguments are based on watching videos of people, whose evidence you find compelling, recounting what they claim to have seen?

 

[John J.]

The idea that the fruits of back-engineering have been hoarded since c. 1947 doesn't make sense: No profits for corporations/ defence contractors, no improved defence for the United States (or Russia, or China, all vulnerable to each other's missiles), no benefits for voters (I might be naïve but I think most politicians try to improve things, and they're usually quick to receive any credit for doing so). Just (presumably) some ultra-secure environments (where?) and a cadre of scientists, engineers, security guards over seven decades who have never spoken out. All for no apparent purpose, as no-one benefits, and nothing is learned.

This is just a string of fallacies.

Please could you point out a fallacy in the text you quoted.

(Edit: Meaning any fallacy in the given context; obviously corporations/ defence contractors have made profits, just not from anything that might in any credible way be UFO-related.)

 

[beku-mant]

You may think your arguments are convincing. But this is a niche community.

A post in the thread about interstellar travel argued that things don't exist until we prove they do. E.g., black holes didn't exist until we observed them, cancer didn't exist until microscopes were invented etc. This is an extreme fringe view. Yet look how many people agreed. Here you might be preaching to the quire, but outside of Metabunk your arguments might not be received similarly.

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/in...s-and-extraterrestrial-life.14579/post-357679

 

[Angatar]

This is just a string of fallacies. You think we shouldn't look at the evidence because it's not good enough, but for some reason you think you can just solve it conclusively without looking just through low effort thought experiments. It doesn't work like that.

The nature of conspiracy theories is that they are not falsifiable. Conspiracists could be given free access to every document and facility that every government and corporation has ever produced or used and find nothing extraordinary and it would not be enough to convince them because They could always have secret documents and secret facilities that They are hiding.

 

[beku-mant]

The nature of conspiracy theories is that they are not falsifiable. Conspiracists could be given free access to every document and facility that every government and corporation has ever produced or used and find nothing extraordinary and it would not be enough to convince them because They could always have secret documents and secret facilities that They are hiding.

Since you are someone who thinks something just plain ontologicaly doesn't exist until we prove it, it is not surprising you would not want to evaluate inconclusive information and make subjective judgements about its credibility. But not everyone holds such extreme views, and you have to at least meet people in the middle sometimes.

 

[Angatar]

Since you are someone who thinks something just plain ontologicaly doesn't exist until we prove it, it is not surprising you would not want to evaluate inconclusive information and make subjective judgements about its credibility. But not everyone holds such extreme views, and you have to at least meet people in the middle sometimes.

Frankly, you do not understand what you read in that other thread and should try again.

 

[beku-mant]

Frankly, you do not understand what you read in that other thread and should try again.

Maybe you agreed to something just because you wanted to show support for your side/tribe. If you don't want people to perceive that as agreement to the content, maybe you should change how you communicate.

 

[John J.]

A post in the thread about interstellar travel argued that things don't exist until we prove they do.

In hypothesis testing, it is assumed the null hypothesis stands unless there is statistically significant evidence for the alternative hypothesis.
That is what @Scaramanga was saying (please correct me if I'm wrong, Scaramanga).
He clearly wasn't saying "things don't exist until we prove they do" in a general sense, and no-one in their right mind would say that.

But you choose to adopt that mistaken interpretation as a characterisation of people you disagree with here.

 

[beku-mant]

In hypothesis testing, it is assumed the null hypothesis stands unless there is statistically significant evidence for the alternative hypothesis.
That is what @Scaramanga was saying (please correct me if I'm wrong, Scaramanga).
He clearly wasn't saying "things don't exist until we prove they do" in a general sense, and no-one in their right mind would say that.

But you choose to adopt that mistaken interpretation as a characterisation of people you disagree with here.

He clearly was, based on his literal words, and fervent opposition to my view that sometimes we don't know if something exists or not.

 

[Gary C]

You may think your arguments are convincing. But this is a niche community.

A post in the thread about interstellar travel argued that things don't exist until we prove they do. E.g., black holes didn't exist until we observed them, cancer didn't exist until microscopes were invented etc. This is an extreme fringe view. Yet look how many people agreed. Here you might be preaching to the quire, but outside of Metabunk your arguments might not be received similarly.

View attachment 86519

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/in...s-and-extraterrestrial-life.14579/post-357679

You are conflating conjecture, hypothesis, prediction, theory and evidence in a way the prevents any progress.

A form of black holes was predicted by Newtonian Gravity but we lacked the technology to do anything about it so the debate over their existence remained moot for a couple of centuries. They were a mathematical curiosity nothing more.

Once the implications of General Relativity began to filter though the worlds of math and physics, it didn't take long for astronomers to realize they now had instruments good enough to test a prediction of Einstein's theory, that gravitational bending of space by mass would deflect the path of light from a distant star. Newton's and Einstein's theories made slightly different predictions about how much this deflection should be but in either case, there should be some.

The null hypothesis was that no deflection would be observed. That would have disproved aspects of both theories. The deflection that was observed better agreed with General Relativity. The null hypothesis was disproved. Newton's gravity was understood to be subsumed under GR.

This result demonstrated the bending of space-time and moved black holes into the realm of the possible. After that is was a combination of decades of developing theory and improving technology that eventually led to the Event Horizon Telescope project.

Note that some people STILL say they don't exist. They push alternative 'theories of everything' that do away with need for GR. The problem is they don't have any evidence, just arguments. Arguments are not a substitute for evidence.

All you have is an argument that such evidence exists based of the stories told by people such as these film makers.

 

[beku-mant]

In hypothesis testing, it is assumed the null hypothesis stands unless there is statistically significant evidence for the alternative hypothesis

This is not even true. A hypothesis only needs to be falsifiable. You can have a low probability hypothesis, where the null hypothesis is more likely if that is convenient on a case by case basis. Or you can choose one thing or the negation if both are falsifiable. Believing, or declaring, the null of a hypothesis to be true, until you've falsified it, is not how science works, and if it were, it would lead to all kinds of absurdities.

 

[NoParty]

Okay, so here are the literal words:

No we don't. You're making stuff up. We start with the default premise that unicorns don't exist. We do so because you can't prove a negative. You can only prove that unicorns do exist....you could never prove that they don't. That is why the non-existence of any claim is taken as the default. It is the only position suceptible to empirical evidence.

Thus we don't simply say 'we don't know'. We say 'there are no unicorns....and if you think there are, then provide some evidence'. The scientific onus is on the person making a claim for the existence of something to prove it exists.

That applies for unicorns, UFOs, ghosts, Bigfoot, cold fusion, life on Mars...etc etc etc. It is how science works.

This is one of the reasons that paraphrasing is strongly discouraged, here:
A) The phrase "default premise" is the first evidence that poster is talking about trying to prove things.
B) He says "we say" there are no unicorns, as a starting position to determining if they exist.
C) He never says the words you say he does: "...something just plain ontologicaly [sic] doesn't exist until we prove it..."
That's your straw man of what he actually was saying. Ironic, huh?

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/in...xtraterrestrial-life.14579/page-3#post-357679

 

[beku-mant]

You are conflating conjecture, hypothesis, prediction, theory and evidence in a way the prevents any progress.

A form of black holes was predicted by Newtonian Gravity but we lacked the technology to do anything about it so the debate over their existence remained moot for a couple of centuries. They were a mathematical curiosity nothing more.

Once the implications of General Relativity began to filter though the worlds of math and physics, it didn't take long for astronomers to realize they now had instruments good enough to test a prediction of Einstein's theory, that gravitational bending of space by mass would deflect the path of light from a distant star. Newton's and Einstein's theories made slightly different predictions about how much this deflection should be but in either case, there should be some.

The null hypothesis was that no deflection would be observed. That would have disproved aspects of both theories. The deflection that was observed better agreed with General Relativity. The null hypothesis was disproved. Newton's gravity was understood to be subsumed under GR.

This result demonstrated the bending of space-time and moved black holes into the realm of the possible. After that is was a combination of decades of developing theory and improving technology that eventually led to the Event Horizon Telescope project.

Note that some people STILL say they don't exist. They push alternative 'theories of everything' that do away with need for GR. The problem is they don't have any evidence, just arguments. Arguments are not a substitute for evidence.

All you have is an argument that such evidence exists based of the stories told by people such as these film makers.

A hypothesis can range from almost certainly true, to almost certainly false based on reliable priors. Believing the negation of whatever a hypothesis states prior to testing it, as an epistemological principle, leads to absurdities. When you cherry pick, and use a unicorn example, it sounds appealing, but when you don't, then it makes little sense at all.

I guess I don't really know what it is suppose to mean, if you do declare x doesn't exist, as the default, outside of an actual scientific methodology, but as a matter of (supposedly scientific) principle and belief. Maybe "doesn't ontologically exist" wasn't what was meant. It's still an extreme fringe view, and roughly equivalent to the other in practice if you push if far enough.

Conflating this view with science and using it as a basis to comfortably say UFOs don't exist and we shouldn't investigate them, then saying that is just how science works, is pushing it too far.

 

[Ann K]

You may think your arguments are convincing. But this is a niche community.

That post was an explanation of the scientific method (which you seem not to understand) as a reply to your post, in which you say "Then we make subjective judgments based on evidence and theory..."

We're still waiting for that evidence.

 

[JMartJr]

The Chit Chat forum is the place threads go when you don't want non-members to be able to see them. That would defeat the purpose of the thread I proposed.

Don't know what to tell you, then. That's the proper place for what you describe, I think.

 

[jimmyslippin]

You may think your arguments are convincing. But this is a niche community.

A lot of people will just blindly accept that claims must be true because they come from people they perceive as unassailably credible. Others will dismiss those claims at face value because they sound ridiculous. The vast majority of these people will expend precisely zero seconds of time researching this topic any further.

The entire purpose of this community is to test those claims to determine if they are factual or not. So you're right, this is a niche community.

There's a moment in Age of Disclosure where Lue Elizondo complains about how "99.9%" of the scientific community thinks he's full of shit. Isn't that a bit of a concern? The scientific community is best positioned to validate his claims and yet what Lue says puts him in the niche community, doesn't it? Maybe that's because the evidence he and his associates present isn't very convincing.

Maybe it's because "AATIP's Chief Scientist" and a star of Age of Disclosure, Hal Puthoff, has a history of peddling nonsense like Uri Geller and his spoon bending mind powers. Maybe it's because the Chief Scientist of the UAP Task Force is Travis Taylor, who in addition to appearing in Age of Disclosure, also has a few side gigs on The "History" Channel's most prominent pseudoscience programs and is a self proclaimed expert in alien invasions? Maybe it's because the main star of Age of Disclosure, Lue Elizondo, has been busted pushing fake UAP images MULTIPLE TIMES now? Maybe it's because the guys with unassailable credibility that are making second hand claims, like Tim Gallaudet, also believe mentalist Theresa Caputo and his daughter can commune with the dead?

Or - and more relevant - maybe it's because when there actually is enough information to assess the claims these guys are making (GOFAST, for example) they end up being wildly incorrect in a way that really makes you question their motives.

 

[Jack Mallory]

Anyway...

This painfully-flat presentation just dropped.

Christopher Mellon Responds to 'Age of Disclosure' — The Air Force Must Testify Under Oath

As the title suggests, Mellon is calling on Congress to compel the leaders of the U.S. Air Force to testify, under oath, in regards to data and records they may have regarding UAPs. Apparently the Air Force has been stonewalling more than other branches of the military, and Mellon wants some accountability.

Specifically, he asks why the Air Force hasn't provided data on UAPs when covering the same DoD training areas as the Navy, which has reported on UAPs. Especially since, according to Mellon, the Air Force possesses "greatly superior sensors" [than the Navy].

Still within the first couple of minutes of the video, Mellon then returns to, of all things, the 2004 Nimitiz case! Yes, we're still talking about the same old, same old. He wants to know what happened to the radar data from the USS Princeton on that fateful day, as well as the deck logs from the USS Nimitiz, all of which were supposedly confiscated from the Navy by the Air Force.

My question is: Why is Mellon presenting these questions in a low-res, hostage-style YouTube video as opposed to presenting these directly to members of Congress through some slightly more official channels?

Mellon also points out that, apparently, the Air Force has also been withholding "NORAD UAP intercept data" from AARO, but then curiously adds @3:33 "Why are there no reports of UAP in space, despite a massive U.S. Air Force space surveillance capability?" [Would that be Space Force?]

Well, Chris, I can easily think of at least one reason why there aren't any reports of UAP in space.
Honestly, this whole video sounds more like something I would expect from George Knapp, and not some former DoD insider like Mellon.

@4:55 "It is time for Congress to put the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations under oath, in a secure hearing room, to get to the bottom line. Enough games. It is past time for the appropriate committees on The Hill to go directly to the source."

For the record, the current names of the above positions would be:

Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force: Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach
Secretary of the Air Force: Dr. Troy E. Meink
The current Commander of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations is Brig. Gen. Amy S. Bumgarner.
The Executive Director, the top civilian leader, is Pearl S. Mundt

Then in the typical circular fashion that we've become accustomed to from these people, Mellon goes on to repeat, without any evidence whatsoever, this worn out chestnut:

@6:38
"UAP incursions over nuclear sites have been going on since WWII. But General Clapper's comments [in The Age of Disclosure] are the first acknowledgement of the secret U.S. Air Force UAP program operating as recently as the 1990s. Indeed, this secret program may go all the way back to the 1950s and be part of a larger ongoing program, perhaps one that includes attempts to reverse-engineer recovered UAP technology."

"May be." "Perhaps."
And around, around we go. The UAP merry-go-round never disappoints.


FYI: Detailed, minute-by-minute time-stamps are available within the Youtube description of the video.

 

[Ann K]

You're proving my point by responding with ridicule and using a fallacy to make your point.

Ooh, it appears that your AI model is completely devoid of a sense of humor!

 

[beku-mant]

We're still waiting for that evidence.

A lot of credible people say there is classified evidence. Here are just a few statements that have been made.

Adam Schiff, Chairman of Select Committee on Intelligence, "There is something there, measurable by multiple instruments, and yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics".

Tim Phillips Deputy Director of AARO, "There are some spooky things in places they shouldn't be with performance we can't replicate today.", after confirming they have evidence. And who went on to subsequently suggest the evidence includes multi-sensor systems at sensitive facilities.

Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Navy Intelligence, "There are a number of events that we do not have an explanation for, in which there are flight characteristics or signature management, um, that we can't explain...the capabilities, systems, processes and sources we use to record study, and analyze these phenomena, need to be classified at appropriate levels."

Ooh, it appears that your AI model is completely devoid of a sense of humor!

My AI model? I don't follow.

 

[beku-mant]

Mellon also points out that, apparently, the Air Force has also been withholding "NORAD UAP intercept data" from AARO,

I think he was talking about both NORAD and the Air Force withholding data separately? In the documentary, former Deputy Director of Operations at NORAD gives testimony about tracking a UFO they couldn't intercept. And James Clapper (former Director of National Intelligence) claims that the Air Force was tracking UAP they couldn't explain over Area 51 and other sites.

 

[jimmyslippin]

A lot of credible people say there is classified evidence.

Yeah, yeah, you keep banging on about this while accusing others of using logical fallacies.

Let me ask you something. AAWSAP wasn't mentioned by name in Age of Disclosure and is only given a fleeting and incredibly vague reference by Stratton. James Lacatski's name isn't mentioned either which is a very interesting creative decision given the genesis of AAWSAP and what we'll charitably refer to as "Lue Elizondo's AATIP." Leslie Kean also made this creative decision in her 2017 New York Time's article.

Why do you think happened? Why are these guys that are extremely dedicated to disclosure (Age of Disclosure, UAP Disclosure Fund, Disclosure Foundation, etc.) so tight lipped about AAWSAP?

Is there something to hide about it? Is this the classified information they can't talk about? Or maybe there's something they prefer us not to learn from this?

Perhaps there's a parable to be learned here from the story that James Lacatski (director of AAWSAP) tells himself - the story of the old, bored guy with a desk job at the DoD that reads a book by George Knapp about ghost and goblins at some ranch nobody had ever heard of, then contacts his friendly eccentric billionaire and says "you know what? We should go investigate that. Maybe you can lean on your friend Harry Reid to get a Congressionally mandated program and funding under the guise of some near future capability assessment that will be designed to only attract one bidder." Thus opening the doors to a bunch of known whackadoos that begin feeding a lot of credible people complete nonsense.

Stratton, werewolf enthusiast and MEMBER OF AAWSAP, says he "hand picked" the UAP Task Force members. What does that tell you?

Adam Schiff, Chairman of Select Committee on Intelligence, "There is something there, measurable by multiple instruments, and yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics".

Honestly, if Adam Schiff is the first cab off the rank in this appeal to authority it just crashed into a wall.

 

[beku-mant]

Honestly, if Adam Schiff is the first cab off the rank in this appeal to authority, it just crashed into a wall.

It's not appeal to authority, it's people in a position to know something we don't know telling us something. And it's not just Schiff, or democrats. It's bipartisan. This is a good reason to think there is likely compelling classified evidence. The fallacy is saying there is no evidence.

 

[Gary C]

Or they are just trying to keep the fund raising coming in from UFO interested constituents. If Adam Schiff, [former] Chairman of [the House Permanent] Select Committee on Intelligence, needed access to a program he would already have it. He's literally on the committee that deals with the budgets for black programs.

 

[jimmyslippin]

It's not appeal to authority, it's people in a position to know something we don't know telling us something. And it's not just Schiff, or democrats. It's bipartisan. This is a good reason to think there is likely compelling classified evidence. The fallacy is saying there is no evidence.

Nobody is saying there is no evidence hidden away in classified data. What we are questioning here is the claims that are being made about the evidence that presumably does exist and who is making them. Are they the same people that got GOFAST so horribly wrong? Do you think Adam Schiff actually understands what is being told to him on a level that allows him to make his own independent determinations?

You skipped right past AAWSAP quicker than Age of Disclosure did.

I'm a logic guy. Are you a logic guy? I hope so, because maybe you could tell me where I am going wrong:

1) AAWSAP is the real secret program with the real documentation.
2) It included paranormal investigations, not just UAP.
3) Age of Disclosure and other high level reporting on this subject omits it.
4) Selective omission is not consistent with transparency.
5) Therefore, "classified evidence" claims deserve more skepticism, not less.

 

[NoParty]

Adam Schiff, Chairman of Select Committee on Intelligence, "There is something there, measurable by multiple instruments, and yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics". It's not appeal to authority, it's people in a position to know something we don't know telling us something. And it's not just Schiff, or democrats. It's bipartisan. This is a good reason to think there is likely compelling classified evidence. The fallacy is saying there is no evidence.

Did you actually see Schiff say this? It was a hearing in which he mostly asked questions...he was not a witness...
and was almost certainly referring to someone else's summary in the Director of National Intelligence 2021 unclassified report. Here is the full context, with video and transcript. The Schiff words that you quote are about 7:30 in...but it's the whole session that makes clear that Schiff is there to gather information...not to testify about his UAP knowledge.
https://www.rev.com/transcript-edit...b7XoHPLU1Ps?loadFrom=PastedDeeplink&ts=4585.1

 

[beku-mant]

Are they the same people that got GOFAST so horribly wrong?

When it comes to AARO, isn't it specifically the people that got gofast right?

 

[jimmyslippin]

When it comes to AARO, isn't it specifically the people that got gofast right?

Do you think you're making some kind of clever point?

Still nothing to say about AAWSAP?

 

[beku-mant]

Did you actually see Schiff say this? It was a hearing in which he mostly asked questions...he was not a witness...
and was almost certainly referring to someone else's summary in the Director of National Intelligence 2021 unclassified report. Here is the full context, with video and transcript. The Schiff words that you quote are about 7:30 in...but it's the whole session that makes clear that Schiff is there to gather information...not to testify about his UAP knowledge.
https://www.rev.com/transcript-edit...b7XoHPLU1Ps?loadFrom=PastedDeeplink&ts=4585.1

I'd have to look into that in more depth. This appears to be an "open portion" of the session, meaning the other portion is classified. Who knows what Schiff knows from classified briefings. Often congress asks questions they already know the answers to, in order to get things on the record, or establish context to the wider audience.

 

[NoParty]

I'd have to look into that in more depth. This appears to be an "open portion" of the session, meaning the other portion is classified. Who knows what Schiff knows from classified briefings. Often congress asks questions they already know the answers to, in order to get things on the record, or establish context to the wider audience.

I'll take that as a "no."

I guess, in theory, anything could've happened in the classified briefing. Witnesses could've actually
revealed clear video that was worth a damn. Schiff & Moultrie's unicorns could've violently unseated them
and then performed the lambada together...
(which, obviously, would be forbidden to the rest of us lowly taxpayers).

 

[beku-mant]

I'll take that as a "no."

I guess, in theory, anything could've happened in the classified briefing. Witnesses could've actually
revealed clear video that was worth a damn. Schiff & Moultrie's unicorns could've violently unseated them
and then performed the lambada together...
(which, obviously, would be forbidden to the rest of us lowly taxpayers).

I saw a video of him giving his statement. I hadn't watched the whole session, at least not recently enough to recall everything that happened.

He gives his statement at the beginning and prior to the information contained in his statement being discussed by the people he is questioning, so I think it is fair to say this is probably information he was already briefed on prior to this portion of the session.

The rant about unicorns is irrelevant, and your characterization is misleading.

 

[jimmyslippin]

I saw a video of him giving his statement. I hadn't watched the whole session, at least not recently enough to recall everything that happened.

He gives his statement at the beginning and prior to the information contained in his statement being discussed by the people he is questioning, so I think it is fair to say this is probably information he was already briefed on prior to this portion of the session.

The rant about unicorns is irrelevant, and your characterization is misleading.

Now that you're more familiar with the Adam Schiff quote you mentioned earlier, help me out here.

The question is asked:

Adam Schiff (01:16:25):
Thank you, Chairman. Just going back to the 2021 report, under the category of UAP appear to demonstrate advanced technology, those 18 incidents in which some of the UAP appeared to remain stationery, winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed without discernible means of propulsion. It goes on to say, "In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency energy associated with UAP sightings." I couldn't tell from that whether that small number of cases was a part of the subset of 18, that is among the 18 which appeared to move with unusual pattern or flight characteristics. Did some of those also emit radio frequency energy?

Scott Bray (01:17:21):
I would have to check with our UAP Taskforce on that. I believe, without getting into specifics that we can do in the closed session, at least some that we have detected RF emissions from, were not behaving oddly otherwise.

Did you ever play arcade games in the 80's? I used to put all my pocket money into this classic:



Like I said, into the wall.

 

[jimmyslippin]

measurable by multiple instruments

Speaking of people taking measurements from these multiple instruments...

Explain GOFAST to me.

The information that can be used to determine how fast the object is moving is RIGHT THERE IN THE VIDEO.

We haven't even established that the people taking the measurements, such as the ones who say GOFAST was "hauling ass", actually know how to read the instruments.

 

[jimmyslippin]

Revisiting this.

A lot of credible people say there is classified evidence. Here are just a few statements that have been made.

Adam Schiff, Chairman of Select Committee on Intelligence, "There is something there, measurable by multiple instruments, and yet it seems to move in directions that are inconsistent with what we know of physics".

Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Navy Intelligence, "There are a number of events that we do not have an explanation for, in which there are flight characteristics or signature management, um, that we can't explain...the capabilities, systems, processes and sources we use to record study, and analyze these phenomena, need to be classified at appropriate levels."

That's a very interesting quote from Scott Bray.

Referring to the transcript produced by @NoParty earlier.

Adam Schiff (39:56):
Okay. Last year's report also said that of those a 144, 18 of them reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics, appear to demonstrate advanced technology, and some of them appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed without discernible means of propulsion. That's pretty intriguing. And if you're able to answer this in this setting, are we aware of any foreign adversary capable of moving objects without any discernible means of propulsion?

Scott Bray (40:48):
Without discernible means of propulsion, I would say that we're not aware of any adversary that can move an object without discernible means of propulsion. The question then becomes in many of these cases where we don't have a discernible mean of propulsion in the data that we have, in some cases, there is likely sensor artifacts that may be hiding some of that. There's certainly some degree of something that looks like signature management that we have seen from some of these UAP, but I would caution, I would simply say that there are a number of events in which we do not have an explanation, in which... And there are a small handful in which there are flight characteristics or signature management that we can't explain with the data that we have.

(41:40)
Those are obviously the ones that are of most interest to us. Earlier, when we asked about how you avoid technological surprise, the biggest way you avoid technological surprise is by collecting this type of data and by, importantly, calibrating the assumptions that you go into with how you do that analysis. I'll tell you within the UAP task force, we have one basic assumption, and that is that, generally speaking, generally speaking, our sensors operate as designed. And we make that assumption because, many times, these are multi-sensor collections. We make no assumptions about the origin of this or that there may or may not be some sort of technology that we don't understand. That's, I think, the key to avoiding technological surprises by calibrating those assumptions.

Then we have to go to back around 20 minutes...

Scott Bray (21:03):
If UAP do indeed represent a potential threat to our security, then the capabilities, systems, processes, and sources we use to observe recorded study or analyze these phenomena need to be classified at appropriate levels. We do not want, we do not want potential adversaries to know exactly what we're able to see or understand or how we come to the conclusions we make. Therefore public disclosures must be carefully considered on a case by case basis. So what's next? We're concentrating on a seamless transition to the new organization and future analysis of complicated issues of UAP issues will greatly benefit from the infrastructure of the process and the procedures that we've developed to date. I'm confident that the task force under Navy leadership has forged a path forward that will allow us to anchor assessments in science and engineering vice anecdotal evidence. We remain committed to that goal as I know the USDI organization does as well. So thank you very much for your interest in continuing support for the UAP task force.

Just putting all of that out there for full context.

But more importantly, it turns out two of the top three guys in your appeal to authority fallacy are actually speaking at the same meeting about the same UAP Task Force report.

 

[Mendel]

Because the hard evidence that is purported to exist is classified.

What in Age of Disclosure makes you think that?

And we have an enormous amount of credible circumstantial evidence that a lot of people find compelling. If you don't address it holistically in earnest, then all you do is lose trust and fail to convince a lot of people who have and recognize the red flags in your treatment of the subject. It damages your own credibility, and fails to address the rational reasons why a lot of people think there is likely something to this.

We have explained, holistically and in detail, why the "circumstantial evidence" is not compelling. The believers do not want to hear it.
Rational people ask themselves why 70+ years of circumstantial evidence have never led to hard evidence, anywhere in the world. Age of Disclosure is no exception.

A post in the thread about interstellar travel argued that things don't exist until we prove they do. E.g., black holes didn't exist until we observed them, cancer didn't exist until microscopes were invented etc. This is an extreme fringe view. Yet look how many people agreed.

Would you agree that we don't know whether unicorns exist until we observe them?
How do you find out whether something you have not observed exists or not?

Any of these witnesses could go to AARO, make a statement about anything UAP-related, NDA or not, and have AARO investigate it. AARO has full access to everything they need, and they detail in the Historical Report Volume 1 how they ran some of these claims down. But they also detail that there is s certain group of people who have kept the rumor mill going for a long time, which means that what people hear from different sources actually originates with the same group. The pervasiveness of it does not make it true.

There is no evidence whatsoever that disclosure is imminent.
There is no evidence that there's hard evidence.
None of the people you quoted claim there's hard evidence.

 

[Mendel]

But more importantly, it turns out two of the top three guys in your appeal to authority fallacy are actually speaking at the same meeting about the same UAP Task Force report.

Oooh, this is getting good. Who served on UAPTF?

Spoiler

Article:

The reasons for UAPTF's abject failure became clearer in June, 2022, when OG UFO propogandist George Knapp revealed that the task force had been led by former AAWSAP member Jay Stratton with TV's Travis Taylor of Ancient Aliens and The Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch fame as its so-called "chief scientist".

Source: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Unidentified_Aerial_Phenomena_Task_Force

And who was featured on Age of Disclosure? Yes, both of them.

If ufologists Jay Stratton and Travis Taylor are the ones @beku-mant 's sources are quoting, why do the ufologists still not know anything?

 

[jimmyslippin]

Oooh, this is getting good. Who served on UAPTF?

Spoiler

Article:

The reasons for UAPTF's abject failure became clearer in June, 2022, when OG UFO propogandist George Knapp revealed that the task force had been led by former AAWSAP member Jay Stratton with TV's Travis Taylor of Ancient Aliens and The Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch fame as its so-called "chief scientist".

Source: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Unidentified_Aerial_Phenomena_Task_Force

And who was featured on Age of Disclosure? Yes, both of them.

If ufologists Jay Stratton and Travis Taylor are the ones @beku-mant 's sources are quoting, why do the ufologists still not know anything?

And here's the other weird thing about that...

I'm mostly interested in what James Clapper, Kirstin Gillibrand, Marco Rubio, Karl Knell, André Carson, and Mike Rounds have to say. I honestly don't trust Elizondo, Puthoff, or Stratton very much. I trust Grusch, but already know his claims, and I'm still waiting for them to be investigated, or corroborated. Eric Davis, I don't know enough about. I imagine he will make some claims similar to Grusch's. I'm not sure about Gallaudet. Mellon I've heard from extensively, not sure if there is anything new from him. The others probably have nothing new to add, although I'll wait and see.

 

[jarlrmai]

There's this weird phenomenon in Ufology where the more physical evidence and the more specific claims a claim-maker (with some sort of credentials) stands by the less they are "trusted."

Generally because as they reveal their evidence and detail their claims they become less convincing.

 

[Carlo]

I saw a video of him giving his statement. I hadn't watched the whole session, at least not recently enough to recall everything that happened.

He gives his statement at the beginning and prior to the information contained in his statement being discussed by the people he is questioning, so I think it is fair to say this is probably information he was already briefed on prior to this portion of the session.

This is a few times now where what you are quoting and what was actually said do not align. Maybe instead of paraphrasing from now on you should give direct quotes. After all, we all know how unreliable human memory can be. Which dovetails nicely into why testimony has so much less value than hard evidence.

If we only had Elizondo's testimony and no videos gimbal and gofast would both be proven alien spaceships. They were only able to be debunked because there was actual evidence that can be analyzed. It's impossible to go into a memory and do any analysis. Could this be why stories are preferred to tangible evidence within these communities? It's impossible to be proven wrong.

The United States government had credible testimony from demonology experts that rock bands were embedding demonic messages in their songs. This was taken seriously by many credible people in high positions within government. Did that make it a serious topic? I guess I just don't understand where the faith in these people comes from. Like, how can you trust someone like Elizondo to do your critical thinking for you? And tell you there is compelling evidence when time and time again compelling evidence of alien spaceships for him is a balloon like object flying at wind speed.

I got to this forum through Mick West and Elizondo's "debate" where West presented solid mathematical evidence that contradicted the narrative presented with gofast and Elizondo's response was to appeal to hidden information. He assured us he would come back and reveal the hidden information that proved West wrong but for some reason has not found the time in the intervening four years. He has done dozens of interviews in that time with people that don't ask pointed questions. It seems like despite his assurances to the contrary there is no evidence to verify the claims forthcoming.