UFO reports by US troops skyrocket to over 500

[nightwing1240]

A new de-classified US government report on UFO sightings by US troops has revealed hundreds of new cases.

The US National Intelligence office is now aware of 510 reported sightings, an increase over the 144 compiled in the spy agency's first 2021 assessment.

Nearly half of the new sightings were deemed "unremarkable" and attributed to human origins, according to the report.

However, more than 100 of the encounters remain unexplained.

The report says that encounters with UFOs - which the government calls Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) - continue "to occur in restricted or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns for safety" and national security.

Of the 366 new reports, 26 were determined to be drones, 163 were balloons and six aerial objects were attributed to clutter.

Link - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64252340
---------------------
Very interesting. I have always felt with how massive our universe is, that it is somewhat foolish to think we are "alone". I suppose being a major sci-fi fan does not help with those thoughts. But I do remain very curious.

[PCIntern]

1. I'm with you

My mother and brother had an experience in 1950. They were anything but liars or fabricators.

[BigmanPigman]

11. Having anything happen to you first hand

is an automatic "this is real, I'm not crazy" realization. Too many people have odd experiences but are afraid to say anything for fear of being labeled nuts. Seeing a ghost, having a near death experience, etc happens a lot more often than we are aware of.

[nightwing1240]

13. I totally agree!

[KPN]

16. I agree completely. I had an experience while with my girlfriend at the

time in the summer of 1973 or so. I won’t go into details, but it was remarkably up close. As it occurred, my girlfriend was terrified and had no question immediately after and for the rest of the evening that we had experienced something strange and totally unexplainable. The next day, however, she was in complete denial and explained it as nothing more than some odd lighting. It wasn’t. I have always believed that she feared exactly what you mentioned — being labeled nuts. I still to this day have absolutely no doubts, but must say that over the years I have become very selective about who I tell that story to.

[BigmanPigman]

19. I have had some odd experiences and know people who also have

and sometimes they were verified by others who shared them. There are too many occurrences to simply dismiss as an overactive imagination, especially when you have a bunch of witnesses. It is almost an insult not to be believed. I don't care who calls me nuts, I know what happened to me was real. Skeptics don't intimidate me.

[PCIntern]

27. If you ever want to share, PM me

I’ll reciprocate.

[BigmanPigman]

45. It would be a long list

Did you know that John Lennon saw one with May Pang in NYC inthe 70s. Several people in the city even reported it to the police.

[PCIntern]

59. I meant your experience.

[BigmanPigman]

70. I know what you meant.

I was planning on sending you a note about those too.

[Beaverhausen]

39. Have your mother and brother ever made a report about their experience?

MUFON.org has been around for over 60 years and takes reports. No matter how long ago it happened it’s important that they give a report.

[PCIntern]

41. Yes they did about 55 years ago.

[PatrickforB]

2. These UFO contacts began to proliferate when we started

setting off nukes.

Probably before, but definitely after.

We are probably considered too dangerous and barbaric to have such capabilities, and they are wondering if our wisdom might be catching up with our technological abilities. Silly aliens, we have evolved into capitalism and Wall Street is our real leader. Along with billionaire parasites who are somehow the most strange, dangerous and sociopathic of us.

[GreenWave]

3. Maybe since most orbs are not for surface air breathers

we may have subsurface occupants.

[roamer65]

67. July 1945 would have been a big warning sign to them.

Would have said we are now in a truly dangerous phase as a species.

[lapfog_1]

4. lot more people flying drones

might account for the rapid increase in "UFOs"

[JohnSJ]

5. While the question of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe has always been intriguing, because

of the unimaginable vastness of space, that in the near term, finding any intelligent life in the universe, or it finding us, would be like finding a needle in a haystack

[triron]

30. What do you base this on?

The cosmos is far Stanger than we can imagine.

[Arthur_Frain]

44. I'm a big fan of elegant explanations of complex science

Check out “Vlad The Astrophysicist” by Peter Mulvey. It’s on his “Letters From A Flying Machine”
CD. Hands down the best explanation of why we will never meet the other life in this universe.

It’s available online too, but I can’t figure out how to post a link that doesn’t start with ads.

[JohnSJ]

48. I base this on the entire size of the solar system. It is probability and distance between the

galaxies

[leftyladyfrommo]

54. A million light years away? Even traveling tge speed of light

would take lifetimes.

I used to work with a retired airforce pilot who said that he had a run in with a UFO. He tried to chase it but gave up. He was carrying nuclear warheads and he didn't want to engage.

[JohnSJ]

60. Exactly

[triron]

63. Our galaxy probably has billions of worlds and has less than

A 50,000 ly radius. Why limit speeds through spacetime to luminal or subliminal speed? Perhaps advanced civilizations have ways of manipulating spacetime to traverse hundreds, thousands, even millions of light-years in very short periods of time. Making assumptions based on our level of technical knowledge is probably very naive.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

6. I suspect the sightings have always been happening, but now REPORTING it is more open than it was

Of course they could be time traveling descendants of ours from the future or interdimensional joyriders coming to visit the zoo

But we only know what the visitors want us to know, and beware the M.I.B. to be on the safe side, ayep

[KPN]

18. Ayep!

[Whiskeytide]

7. So 45% of the sitings by military personnel are ...

… deemed to be balloons?




/revision/latest?cb=20180414000040

[KS Toronado]

47. I hate it when Killer Klowns steal my ice cream.

[IHateRonDesantis1986]

8. I believe

I believe!!!!

[nightwing1240]

10. Holy X-Files, Batman!

[PatSeg]

37. Welcome to DU!

[fightforfreedom]

9. If you believe aliens are visiting earth, you are not a big believer in physics.

[nightwing1240]

12. How do you know that aliens don't have something to transcend physics?

Food for thought.

[genxlib]

17. Nothing transcends physics

However.

There is physics that we understand and physics that we don’t understand.

There is certainly the possibility that there are aliens that have a grasp of physics that we currently don’t know.

I have always hated the term supernatural. Nothing is more than natural. It is either nonsense or something that is natural that we just haven’t figured out yet.

Sorry I don’t mean to be pedantic. It is just a the history of mankind and science to make sense of the world/universe and we are still working on it.

[triron]

69. Seems to be a semantic argument.

[grantcart]

24. Or common sense

If you accept the primary condition that they have found a way to go faster than the speed of light then you have to accept that they were not clever enough to

1) have improved optics to be able to view from a distance unnoticed (something we can do now) but have to do
a drive-by up close

2) could travel millions of miles at incredible speeds but would crash once they got here (Roswell)

3) that they would attempt the physics defying physical trip rather than simply sending a message (still impossible due to distance but a much more likely first step)

[edisdead]

40. I don't know that we can even make those suppositions.

I hear what you are saying but I don’t think that we can even say that these things necessarily matter to them.

For example…
1) we walk by creatures all the time without worrying whether or mot they notice us or not. That ant hill on the sidewalk. It is of no consequence to me if they notice my presence or not.

2) Even some of our most advanced tech suffers and fails at times. I don’t think that we can take for granted that a visiting alien species is beyond ability of failing or mistake. Out ancestors didn’t have the ability to fly. We have flight capabilities that are unimaginable to early man. That doesn’t mean we do not have crashes from time to time.

3) We do not know the reason they are in our neck of the woods or it they are even attempting to be noticed (or care - again see response to item 1)

To me making arguments about if they are here or why they aren’t here from the standpoint of what would the purpose be really isn’t important. We really wouldn’t know.

I do know this though. We spend a lot of time and resources looking for evidence of other life, creating stories, cinema and all other works of art regarding the topic, it captures our imaginations and seems to be something that humans think a lot about. Why do we presime that would be different for another species?

[gopiscrap]

73. welcome to DU

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

31. LOL puny earthlings thinking they know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, hubris, lol

THEY created us, directed our evolution, of course they want to hang around for our next Human 2.0, breeding experiments...mothership out in the Oort cloud, we'd never know.

For civilizations millions or billions of years more advanced than ours anything is possible.

[triron]

32. What physics? Special relativity?

How little we know about the fabric of spacetime (it may not be real).

[roamer65]

57. Gravity.

I would bet that’s the “special sauce”.

[Disaffected]

38. Or science in general or,

critical thinking. The world is steeped in irrationality and it's a minor wonder we have survived as long as we have.

It's an oldie but a goodie - Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark". Should be required reading in all our schools.

[Owl]

43. Exactly.

[librechik]

50. Check out the latest Nobel in Physics if you are a big believer in Physics

They broke it. And won the Nobel for it. The Standard Model is wrong. In Quantum Physics there is nothing to stop "them" from coming "here" at any time at any speed. Causality can come after the event. You can be 2 places at once when you're not anywhere at all? The newest NOVA show on PBS has a great documentary about how this all happened. Watch if you can, or look up "The Bell Inequality"

And buckle up. Things are going to get strange.

[C0RI0LANUS]

14. Stephen Hawking on Alien Life

Thanks for the article, nightwing1240.

Attached is a link on what the late Stephen Hawking thought about alien life.

https://www.newsweek.com/stephen-hawking-death-alien-contact-aliens-theory-ufo-search-breakthrough-844920

Imagine a First World War Sopwith Camel pilot encountering a 21st Century Stealth F-22 Raptor. "But how does it fly so fast-- and without propellers? That's impossible!"

We may be in the position as that Sopwith Camel pilot.

[edhopper]

51. And yet we watch

science fiction movies and perfectly understand the concepts behind the space ships. At least the ones that have a scientific grounding.

So I don't think Hawking's quote applies.

[brooklynite]

64. Do you know why Star Trek had transporters...

Last edited Sat Jan 14, 2023, 06:55 PM - Edit history (1)

…in order to move the story along faster than having the ship land.

we create concepts in sci-fi that are rarely based on real science, for the sake of story telling.

[edhopper]

65. As I said

scientifically grounded. Not Star Wars X-Wing fighters and such.
As for Star Trek, there is a rabbit hole in the internet for scientific explanations for everything they do, then endless debates about it.
But my point remains, we understand these concepts, even if we are not capable of them. Clarke's Theorem has been made obsolete by the genre he wrote in.

Look at this thread, people are talking about wormholes and FTL travel with clear understanding of the concepts.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

74. There is a distinction between science fiction and science fantasy.

Those Star Trek transporters are not impossible in the universe as we understand it. Some episodes contain fantasy, in my opinion.

[Skittles]

15. I think they know we're here and want nothing to do with us

yes INDEED

[BigmanPigman]

20. I don't blame them.

If an alien watched what humans do and how we act they would skip this planet altogether. That is a first sign of higher intelligence.

[Skittles]

21. agreed

and I just don't EVEN pay attention to anyone who thinks WE ARE IT....I mean, WTF, *THAT* would be very depressing indeed

[newdayneeded]

28. I think they're waiting for

trump to die before doing their big reveal.

[paleotn]

22. Whatever

People see all kinds of shit. Doesn't make it "intelligent life from another star system". It's a UFO. UNIDENTIFIED flying object or effect of some kind.

[Chainfire]

23. It has always been my contention that if another species figured out interstellar flight

and wanted to explore us, without being discovered, that they could pull it off.

[Ligyron]

25. Any life intelligent enough to travel here from outside our galaxy...

1. Wouldn't need lights to see in the dark at night.

2. Would also have the ability to cloak their presence in the daytime.

3. So unless they want us to know we are being observed, why get caught
peeking?

[panader0]

26. I think that it's the height of self -important pompousness to believe that among the vastness

of unimaginable space, and the millions of planets that could support life, that anyone could possibly
believe that humans are the only intelligent life form. And that "intelligence" we claim is quite questionable.
Why the existence of other life in the universe upsets some people is beyond me. Are they scared?
I have had a couple sightings, and I was not alone, that convinced me.

[pirsquared]

29. Do not suspend disbelief.

Do not suspend disbelief.

The visitors from BetaGamma would have better things to do than hover over Area51 or stare into your bedroom. Like beam up all the gold in Fort Knox.

[JuJuChen]

33. Until they are literally knocking on your front door? nobody gonna do nothing.

[Talitha]

34. IMO it's closed-minded not to believe something exists just because you've never seen it.

Heck, I've never been to New York City - but I hear it's a helluva town.

[Prairie_Seagull]

35. If we are not at least curious then our own evolution has some ripples in it.

Our curiosity has given us advantages and yes probably cost a few lives. We learned pretty soon that the cost of trying to eat a lion was to high, but at some point someone long ago was curious what lion tastes like.

I believe everyone is curious about UFO's. The only way that I can see where someone is not is if they intentionally have their blinders on for some reason.

That said, Carl Segan said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Of course this is subjective but you get the point. I believe this as well, however.

"I want to believe"

[old as dirt]

36. They're Made Out Of Meat

[frogmarch]

42. Maybe the UFO sightings are of space debris, but

if some UFOs are indeed alien space craft, how do they avoid getting hit?

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html

More than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris, or “space junk,” are tracked by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) sensors. Much more debris -- too small to be tracked, but large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic missions -- exists in the near-Earth space environment. Since both the debris and spacecraft are traveling at extremely high speeds (approximately 15,700 mph in low Earth orbit), an impact of even a tiny piece of orbital debris with a spacecraft could create big problems.

The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, including to the International Space Station and other spacecraft with humans aboard, such as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

[Polybius]

53. That's easy

With their technology, they would certainly have force fields. They would be protected by anything 1/5th or so of their size or less.

[frogmarch]

55. I've read about magnetic fields

but what are the force fields of which you speak?

As for magnetic fields doing the job for us and for aliens, our crafts would have to be outfitted, and the debris would need to be magnetized, wouldn't it?

Oh well, never mind. I'm not very brainy and probably wouldn't get it anyway.

[KS Toronado]

49. If aliens are visiting earth

I suspect it's to get a fresh meal, they get tired of their MREs every day.

[roamer65]

56. +1000

That would explain cattle mutilations.

Odd choice of bovine parts, but they would probably look at us the same way.

[KS Toronado]

58. Had an Uncle who claimed

he lost a new born calf to aliens. They left about a 36 foot round burn mark in his pasture.

[roamer65]

66. Very possible.

I don’t think all of the reports are hoaxes.

[KS Toronado]

68. He took dad & I out to that spot

a couple years after the fact and there was only one type of weed that would grow there, no grass.

[Kid Berwyn]

52. Increase due, in part, to treating witnesses with respect.

From BBC:

The report was issued in part to help "destigmatise" experiences with UFOs and improve air safety.

And it says increased reports of encounters are indeed the result of "a concentrated effort to destigmatise the topic of UAP and instead recognise the potential risks that it poses as both a safety of flight hazard and potential adversarial activity", the report states.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64252340

I can relate.

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2386270

[edhopper]

61. Just curious

Have any been identified as craft from another solar system? Because I see many using people seeing something they aren't sure about as some kind of proof of alien visitation.

[brooklynite]

62. It doesn't matter whether "we're aLone" or not...

The issue is whether it’s practical for an alien species to get HERE: 4 LY from closest prospective habitable planet. If you assume that aliens are so transcendentally ahead of us in technology that they can achieve FtL travel sufficient to travel here in a reasonable time period, I see no reason why they wouldn’t my ability to mask their presence.

Additionally, we’re still in a situation where nobody have been able to capture a detailed photo of said UFOs despite cameras and smartphones being ubiquitous.

[nattyice]

71. I think MuseumOfTarot is on to something. Nothing to do with "aliens". More terrestrial than we

realize.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRgTD2J4/

[ecstatic]

72. Blame global warming.

Disrupted ecosystems, disrupted food chains, previously low key species coming out to look for food.