I love when this stuff hits the networks. I always go back to you. I shared this on Twitter. Maybe more people become interested in what the heck is going on.
Billy, I read Avi Loeb very recently was invited to talk to the NASA team (his 25 Oct Medium article) so Nadia would have been there, I guess. From his piece it all seems really upbeat! ... "We agreed that we all look forward to an exciting future ahead, guided by high-quality scientific evidence." And he met Alex Dietrich there! (did she also talk to the team?). So looking good methinks. Be interesting to watch some of Nadia's next tweets after meeting Avi.
And I just don't get the recent NYT piece saying Gimbal has been "explained since Ryan Graves gave evidence to Congress as well as Dietrich! The rest of the "fleet" as well as Gimbal? Their movement? The extraordinary level of detail Graves has given? It's bizarre. As people have rightly said, *what* "plane" was it?
The subject is too much of a leap, psychologically, for some people. Anyone with natural curiosity about UFOs/UAP would read up and find cases that stand out as very strange and yet are supported by credible witnesses and sometimes sensor data. Investigation is the natural consequence of the available evidence.
But when individuals assert that they don't 'believe' in the possibility of an extra-terrestrial explanation then they are either failing to pay attention or they are psychologically flawed - unable to accept the possibility that reality has something new to reveal. (The flip side to implying that witnesses with very strange accounts are psychologically or cognitively impaired.)
Imagine an AI, sans ego and with no regard for 'optics', discovering strange anomalies. It would have no issue conducting an investigation; no bias one way or the other, just an impulse to discover. Nothing to lose.
Humans, on the other hand, often have something to lose, or possess a bias created by hubris.
We don't know what exists out there, but one day it will be the new norm, no matter how bizarre it might seem to us today. An entire universe vs the expectations of naive Earthlings. Do we really think we're not going to be surprised or amazed?
No one likes to be wrong, including me; so I'm fascinated by the polarised conclusions of individuals regarding UFOs.
It *seems* that individuals who are less knowledgeable about the long history of good UFO cases, tend to be more dismissive. But there's still a general issue about how we process information - witnesses and analysts alike.
Wiki includes a disheartening encyclopaedia of 'cognitive biases'. Normalcy and Belief biases jumped out as being likely candidates for the 'disbelievers', but it's interesting just how many biases there are. (It's amazing that we can even manage to make ourselves a cup of coffee.)
It's easy to forget that even when we have empirical data e.g. radar returns, these still have to be interpreted to some degree. Cases are always judged on the available evidence with filters and biases applied by the individual analyst (after the witnesses themselves have applied their own filters and biases when recounting events), which is why multi-witness cases are always the ones where confidence is higher.
Now add in politics and issues of national security (both subject to biases, possibly even more exaggerated than UFOs). No wonder we're getting nowhere fast.
As for the old saw that aliens can't get here from there. It's well accepted that given the wide range of ages of stars, alien civilisations could have colonised the Milky Way by now utilising sub-light-speed technologies; or alien AIs could have spread to every corner. And that assumes that future science and technology hasn't found any short cuts or access to alternative methods of transportation. It's absolutely possible that they are here in some form or another.
If they truly aren't here, then the mysteries presented by the strangest UFO cases are no less significant to the advancement of science and our understanding of reality.
The more I contemplate peoples' resistance to new and unexpected truths, the more it seems that at least one root cause is the fear of change - especially among scientists and so-called experts. When a long held, conventional paradigm is threatened many will respond with denial, rather than curiosity. That is essentially a fear response.
Having just watched Dr. Steven Greer's latest film (Beyond Top Secret: The Technology Behind Disclosure), I would imagine he would put NASA's new effort to consider validating UFOs/UAPs as one more move by the "Military-Industrial Complex" to frame these phenomena for the general public as a major security threat to justify spending trillions. Up until recently, the range of official responses has amounted to, "Nothing to see here. Move on." It does seem that something has changed in officialdom, but whether it lasts, broadens, and moves forward seems to be too soon to tell. Greer and followers clearly outline what would be called a conspiracy theory, and what usually happens in cases like this, people polarize to the point that conspiracy is synonymous with crazy or with Truth. We do accept as fact (something verifiable) that the financial elite have been very good at maintaining and adding to their wealth often by hidden means and with sometimes fierce efforts to create a legal basis for their efforts. There is a publication that shows how interconnected many are through being on boards together, though I have a hunch that often similarities in actions happen because of having the same perspective. But Greer is outlining something much more deliberate and collective than that on the part of the uber wealthy aided by hidden groups within the government who have access to knowledge of forms of energy that would be vastly superior to anything we have today -- to the point that some would lose fortunes, power, and positions. And this cabal, he believes, has used lethal means to maintain control. So, I am curious, Billy, how you and others who have been a part of this for so long see Greer's efforts and the conclusions he is now sharing? Is there any kind of consensus about the pros and cons of his efforts? I'm going to watch this again because I found some of the interviews confusing in part because it seemed that some comments required a background I don't have.
I haven't seen his latest, and I can't speak for anyone else. But I heard him on Curt Jaimungal's podcast recently where he stated with casual certitude that the Tic Tac UFO was our own secret tech, without providing a scrap of proof. Curt should've called him on it, but that's what Greer does -- he just makes stuff up. But he's promoting his conspiracy yarns at a moment when confidence in government is in the cellar, and I think that's dangerous. By rolling public contempt for spiraling corporate profits into allegations of military-industrial malfeasance over UFOs, he's selling a story that many find not only plausible but irresistible. And unfortunately, major federal over-classification of so much of its work plays right into Greer's narrative. On the other hand, his films *are* well produced. If I were new to the subject and all I saw was his work, I'd be scared shitless.
Billy, I can't get the certitude of Greer and that bit about the Tic-Tac which I too saw. It's like we all get what Fravor, Dietrich and Underwood have said and he deliberately not listened. Often I look at people's personalities when they speak (like West and his contradictions and partiality/omissions, e.g. he now thinks Gimbal is explained but what about the effing rest of the sighting?) and see their personalities are bound up with their "explanations". Which is why Graves, Dietrich, Fravor, Underwood shine with their personalities (the Navy chooses well) but know there is something extraordinary. They also care about others. Alex is an ethics Professor!
Mick West is a smart guy, but when, early on, he tried to tell some of America's best fighter pilots that they had mistaken UAP for distant conventional exhaust plumes or whatever, he became dispensable, for me anyhow. That was a Phil Klass stunt.
I shouldn't have said West thinks Gimbal is explained because of the analyses by @MvonRen (West blocked him) and @the_cholla (scientist) and of course Ryan Graves. The full details preclude this. So I wonder what him and his backers next move could be - perhaps hope for a mainstream media invite to give an "I told you so" chat.
If that's the first question from a reporter then one can immediately deduce 'this fluffy-haired, self-indulgent cipher is ridiculously ignorant of anything significant concerning the subject,' so why waste my time.
Perhaps at last, at long long last... we are near the day when one of our serious UFO World investigators can turn the ridicule table and reply "That's a stupid question, really. Next..."
As for the NASA project, they're going to formulate the best scientific way to study the nature of UAP? (Heck, I can help with that: They are very, very fast.) Then what? Another team to formulate the best way to implement the recommendations of the former? Like M.C. Escher stairways?
Do I smell a lingering odor from the Condon Report?
"The trick is to pretend that we are seriously studying the topic while we already know the outcome, but we can't reach that official conclusion for another few years"
And the bobblheads in the news media will simply accept the conclusions and discard serious study of the topic ..Not that they ever did or will...The fix is in...... thanks to NASA and SETI.
On Oct. 21, 2022, the day that the make up of the NASA team was announced, NASA said in a tweet, "There is no evidence supporting the idea that UAP are extraterrestrial in origin." I sent an email to Dr. David Spergel, the chairman of the NASA team:, stating: "'There is no evidence' -- that is a pretty sweeping pre-emptive declaration. First the verdict, then the investigation?"
The next day, Dr. Spergel replied, "I am entering into this study with an open mind. I am hoping that we will be informing NASA not so much about the nature of the UAPs but about how to design a program to most effectively understand their nature."
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the NASA's objective is here. Chris Mellon has been serving up blueprints on how to collect UFO data for several years now. Maybe they're feeling some political pressure to produce something, anything, and hope it suffices for a checked box.
I love when this stuff hits the networks. I always go back to you. I shared this on Twitter. Maybe more people become interested in what the heck is going on.
Thanks, LP. The ODNI was supposed to release a progress report today. Drumming my fingers ...
Billy, I read Avi Loeb very recently was invited to talk to the NASA team (his 25 Oct Medium article) so Nadia would have been there, I guess. From his piece it all seems really upbeat! ... "We agreed that we all look forward to an exciting future ahead, guided by high-quality scientific evidence." And he met Alex Dietrich there! (did she also talk to the team?). So looking good methinks. Be interesting to watch some of Nadia's next tweets after meeting Avi.
And I just don't get the recent NYT piece saying Gimbal has been "explained since Ryan Graves gave evidence to Congress as well as Dietrich! The rest of the "fleet" as well as Gimbal? Their movement? The extraordinary level of detail Graves has given? It's bizarre. As people have rightly said, *what* "plane" was it?
Here's hoping everyone shares Avi Loeb's enthusiasm.
The subject is too much of a leap, psychologically, for some people. Anyone with natural curiosity about UFOs/UAP would read up and find cases that stand out as very strange and yet are supported by credible witnesses and sometimes sensor data. Investigation is the natural consequence of the available evidence.
But when individuals assert that they don't 'believe' in the possibility of an extra-terrestrial explanation then they are either failing to pay attention or they are psychologically flawed - unable to accept the possibility that reality has something new to reveal. (The flip side to implying that witnesses with very strange accounts are psychologically or cognitively impaired.)
Imagine an AI, sans ego and with no regard for 'optics', discovering strange anomalies. It would have no issue conducting an investigation; no bias one way or the other, just an impulse to discover. Nothing to lose.
Humans, on the other hand, often have something to lose, or possess a bias created by hubris.
We don't know what exists out there, but one day it will be the new norm, no matter how bizarre it might seem to us today. An entire universe vs the expectations of naive Earthlings. Do we really think we're not going to be surprised or amazed?
No one likes to be wrong, including me; so I'm fascinated by the polarised conclusions of individuals regarding UFOs.
It *seems* that individuals who are less knowledgeable about the long history of good UFO cases, tend to be more dismissive. But there's still a general issue about how we process information - witnesses and analysts alike.
Wiki includes a disheartening encyclopaedia of 'cognitive biases'. Normalcy and Belief biases jumped out as being likely candidates for the 'disbelievers', but it's interesting just how many biases there are. (It's amazing that we can even manage to make ourselves a cup of coffee.)
It's easy to forget that even when we have empirical data e.g. radar returns, these still have to be interpreted to some degree. Cases are always judged on the available evidence with filters and biases applied by the individual analyst (after the witnesses themselves have applied their own filters and biases when recounting events), which is why multi-witness cases are always the ones where confidence is higher.
Now add in politics and issues of national security (both subject to biases, possibly even more exaggerated than UFOs). No wonder we're getting nowhere fast.
As for the old saw that aliens can't get here from there. It's well accepted that given the wide range of ages of stars, alien civilisations could have colonised the Milky Way by now utilising sub-light-speed technologies; or alien AIs could have spread to every corner. And that assumes that future science and technology hasn't found any short cuts or access to alternative methods of transportation. It's absolutely possible that they are here in some form or another.
If they truly aren't here, then the mysteries presented by the strangest UFO cases are no less significant to the advancement of science and our understanding of reality.
Nicely put.
The more I contemplate peoples' resistance to new and unexpected truths, the more it seems that at least one root cause is the fear of change - especially among scientists and so-called experts. When a long held, conventional paradigm is threatened many will respond with denial, rather than curiosity. That is essentially a fear response.
Having just watched Dr. Steven Greer's latest film (Beyond Top Secret: The Technology Behind Disclosure), I would imagine he would put NASA's new effort to consider validating UFOs/UAPs as one more move by the "Military-Industrial Complex" to frame these phenomena for the general public as a major security threat to justify spending trillions. Up until recently, the range of official responses has amounted to, "Nothing to see here. Move on." It does seem that something has changed in officialdom, but whether it lasts, broadens, and moves forward seems to be too soon to tell. Greer and followers clearly outline what would be called a conspiracy theory, and what usually happens in cases like this, people polarize to the point that conspiracy is synonymous with crazy or with Truth. We do accept as fact (something verifiable) that the financial elite have been very good at maintaining and adding to their wealth often by hidden means and with sometimes fierce efforts to create a legal basis for their efforts. There is a publication that shows how interconnected many are through being on boards together, though I have a hunch that often similarities in actions happen because of having the same perspective. But Greer is outlining something much more deliberate and collective than that on the part of the uber wealthy aided by hidden groups within the government who have access to knowledge of forms of energy that would be vastly superior to anything we have today -- to the point that some would lose fortunes, power, and positions. And this cabal, he believes, has used lethal means to maintain control. So, I am curious, Billy, how you and others who have been a part of this for so long see Greer's efforts and the conclusions he is now sharing? Is there any kind of consensus about the pros and cons of his efforts? I'm going to watch this again because I found some of the interviews confusing in part because it seemed that some comments required a background I don't have.
I haven't seen his latest, and I can't speak for anyone else. But I heard him on Curt Jaimungal's podcast recently where he stated with casual certitude that the Tic Tac UFO was our own secret tech, without providing a scrap of proof. Curt should've called him on it, but that's what Greer does -- he just makes stuff up. But he's promoting his conspiracy yarns at a moment when confidence in government is in the cellar, and I think that's dangerous. By rolling public contempt for spiraling corporate profits into allegations of military-industrial malfeasance over UFOs, he's selling a story that many find not only plausible but irresistible. And unfortunately, major federal over-classification of so much of its work plays right into Greer's narrative. On the other hand, his films *are* well produced. If I were new to the subject and all I saw was his work, I'd be scared shitless.
Billy, I can't get the certitude of Greer and that bit about the Tic-Tac which I too saw. It's like we all get what Fravor, Dietrich and Underwood have said and he deliberately not listened. Often I look at people's personalities when they speak (like West and his contradictions and partiality/omissions, e.g. he now thinks Gimbal is explained but what about the effing rest of the sighting?) and see their personalities are bound up with their "explanations". Which is why Graves, Dietrich, Fravor, Underwood shine with their personalities (the Navy chooses well) but know there is something extraordinary. They also care about others. Alex is an ethics Professor!
Mick West is a smart guy, but when, early on, he tried to tell some of America's best fighter pilots that they had mistaken UAP for distant conventional exhaust plumes or whatever, he became dispensable, for me anyhow. That was a Phil Klass stunt.
Do West and Michael Shermer share a flat, or something?
They share a *belief* system.
I shouldn't have said West thinks Gimbal is explained because of the analyses by @MvonRen (West blocked him) and @the_cholla (scientist) and of course Ryan Graves. The full details preclude this. So I wonder what him and his backers next move could be - perhaps hope for a mainstream media invite to give an "I told you so" chat.
The media will never tire of Mick West.
Do you "believe" in UFOs?
If that's the first question from a reporter then one can immediately deduce 'this fluffy-haired, self-indulgent cipher is ridiculously ignorant of anything significant concerning the subject,' so why waste my time.
Perhaps at last, at long long last... we are near the day when one of our serious UFO World investigators can turn the ridicule table and reply "That's a stupid question, really. Next..."
As for the NASA project, they're going to formulate the best scientific way to study the nature of UAP? (Heck, I can help with that: They are very, very fast.) Then what? Another team to formulate the best way to implement the recommendations of the former? Like M.C. Escher stairways?
Do I smell a lingering odor from the Condon Report?
Anyone remember the Low Memo in 1967??
How about this hypothetical scenario...
⁹
Ms Drake to Scott Kelly ...on the QT:
"The trick is to pretend that we are seriously studying the topic while we already know the outcome, but we can't reach that official conclusion for another few years"
And the bobblheads in the news media will simply accept the conclusions and discard serious study of the topic ..Not that they ever did or will...The fix is in...... thanks to NASA and SETI.
On Oct. 21, 2022, the day that the make up of the NASA team was announced, NASA said in a tweet, "There is no evidence supporting the idea that UAP are extraterrestrial in origin." I sent an email to Dr. David Spergel, the chairman of the NASA team:, stating: "'There is no evidence' -- that is a pretty sweeping pre-emptive declaration. First the verdict, then the investigation?"
The next day, Dr. Spergel replied, "I am entering into this study with an open mind. I am hoping that we will be informing NASA not so much about the nature of the UAPs but about how to design a program to most effectively understand their nature."
Douglas Dean Johnson
@ddeanjohnson on Twitter
Thank you Douglas. I always watch your posts with great interest. The few of the few.
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the NASA's objective is here. Chris Mellon has been serving up blueprints on how to collect UFO data for several years now. Maybe they're feeling some political pressure to produce something, anything, and hope it suffices for a checked box.