AATIP - The "Pentagon's" UFO research program

[Viper 12111]

I remember this thread in the old forum and listened to a podcast about it the other day and thought I bring it back up here. I didn't realize at the time how much the whole "program" just looks like a scam run by a politically well connected millionaire. 

 

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4621

Quote

In December 2017, the New York Times ran a story that shocked readers worldwide. It was the revelation of a Pentagon program called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, which spent $22 million from 2007 to 2012 investigating UFOs. Videos were released showing apparently unexplainable thermal images of maneuvering UFOs taken from US fighter planes. The Internet went mad as people embraced what appeared to be government endorsement of actual alien visitation. But then cooler heads had a chance to look at the reports, and we now view the episode quite differently. For it turns out that this whole program was not so much an official investigation of a genuine phenomenon, so much as it was a singularly successful public relations coup by a group of lifelong UFO believers and promoters of alien visitation and the paranormal.

What was reported by the New York Times was that the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP, sometimes given as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) was the brainchild of Harry Reid, then a senator from Nevada, with support from senators Daniel Inouye and Ted Stevens, due to their shared concern that UFOs may represent a national security threat — the same reason Project Blue Book ran in the 1950s and 1960s, and other similar programs since. The funding was reported to be $22 million over five years, with most of it going to Robert Bigelow, a Nevada hotel billionaire and space entrepreneur. The project was run at the Pentagon by a mysterious man named Luis Elizondo. That's all well and good, seems legitimate enough; and bolstered by the very impressive UFO videos, it's understandable how the story captured the attention of news agencies — and the public — worldwide.

But what they probably didn't know was the dubious history of the cast of characters behind AATIP. The central figure was Bigelow, known to NASA for Bigelow Aerospace, but known to the UFO and paranormal communities for Skinwalker Ranch. It's a 480-acre property in Utah which Bigelow purchased in 1996 after learning stories of paranormal activities said to happen there: cattle mutilations that he believed were the result of alien experimentation, UFO sightings, ghost lights, and trans-dimensional and shapeshifting beings. Bigelow had formed a group he called the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDSci), a group of parapsychologists and alternative scientists to study telepathy and related phenomena. He moved them all onto Skinwalker Ranch.

Bigelow described his position on alien visitation to the TV news program 60 Minutes:

60 Minutes: Do you believe in aliens?

Bigelow: I'm absolutely convinced. That's all there is to it.

60 Minutes: Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth?

Bigelow: There has been, and is, an existing E.T. presence, and I've spent millions and millions — I've probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.

60 Minutes: Do you imagine that in our space travels, we will encounter other forms of intelligent life?

Bigelow: You don't have to go anywhere.

60 Minutes: You can find it here?

Bigelow: Yeah.

According to news site Politico's analysis of campaign donation records, Bigelow was a major donor to Harry Reid, his Nevada senator. The two were friends. It was at Bigelow's urging that Reid approached Stevens and Inouye and secured the $22 million, which was then given to Bigelow. It was an odd transaction. First, $22 million over 5 years (about $360,000 a month) accomplishes very little on a governmental scale — regardless, it's a bit smelly that it was given to a major donor and friend. How Bigelow spent it has not been made public, but what has been released is that many of the people Bigelow employed at NIDSci are the same ones listed as senior researchers for AATIP, such as engineer and parapsychologist Hal Puthoff — one of the people behind Project Stargate, the CIA's failed effort in the 1970s to employ psychic powers for intelligence purposes. Puthoff wrote the proposal to fund AATIP, and used his time there to write 38 papers about his ideas for metaphysical space-time drive systems for spaceships, described by physicists as pure pseudoscience.

And now that the AATIP program has ended, many of these same people are still working together, though now under former rock musician Tom DeLonge, who in 2015 founded something he calls the To The Stars Academy (TTSA). It's crowdfunded by selling corporate shares, and to date, around 3,000 UFOlogists, conspiracy theorists, and other enthusiasts have sent money to support TTSA's mission of proving an alien presence on Earth, and the reality of phenomena such as telepathy. DeLonge writes that this is necessary because:

The public interest in the outer edges of science and the understanding of phenomena has always been suffocated by mainstream ideology and bureaucratic constraint.

It's a theme familiar to Skeptoid listeners: Dismissing disliked science findings as "mainstream ideology" is a common gambit of the pseudoscientist.

Biologist Colm Kelleher, who was the head of NIDSci for many years, studied cattle mutilations and other paranormal phenomena at Skinwalker Ranch until its closure in 2004; then he was the Deputy Administrator for AATIP from 2008-2011; and is now listed as the biotech consultant for TTSA. Running one's eye down the lists of personnel employed by these programs, one could get the impression that this is a single ongoing enterprise of hardcore believers in alien visitation, moving as a group wherever the funding leads them. Legally, there are no evident corporate connections between Bigelow's NIDSci, Reid's AATIP, and DeLonge's TTSA; but in reality, they are clearly a single spiritual thread followed by a core of believers. Each program begins approximately where its predecessor left off. Cynical observers might well conclude that AATIP was little more than Bigelow's successful plan to shift the funding of his personal hobby studying the paranormal from his own pockets to that of the taxpayers.

Even Leslie Kean, the principal reporter behind the New York Times story, has been a part of the ongoing enterprise for some time, having written articles promoting TTSA since at least October 2017. She is also a lifelong promoter of UFOs and the paranormal, having written books on both; with such titles as UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record and Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife.

The intermingling of UFOs and aliens with paranormal phenomena like telepathy and the afterlife has been a common theme throughout these groups. Telepathy, they believe, is how the visiting aliens communicate with us. DeLonge made this convoluted statement to Paper Magazine in 2015:

...A person that was gathering all that footage for the congressional hearing...was telling me that the big belief, which I had corroborated by a university professor that was in the know, by the way, that the communication of this particular phenomenon is the frequency of thought. So part of communicating and making contact is shutting your mind down and being able to project your thoughts.

Elizondo is the most cryptic of these personalities. His biography from AATIP listed roles in intelligence at virtually every national security agency you can think of. Yet when Wired magazine submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for information about Elizondo's employment at the Pentagon, they turned up no records at all; nor does any Luis Elizondo appear in an online database of federal employees for that period of time. A Pentagon spokesperson did confirm only that he had worked for the Department of Defense at some point. So it's all very strange. Elizondo's position today is as Tom DeLonge's personal bodyguard at TTSA, though with the grandiloquent title of Director of Global Security.

But of course, it's not the people or their backgrounds or beliefs that determine the validity of these claims of alien visitation, but rather the evidence itself. None of the programs discussed have presented any empirical evidence, but both AATIP and TTSA have offered the videos taken from US fighter jets. These videos were passed along to the media with the press releases in December 2017. So let's take a look at them.

The most dramatic of these videos, filmed in 2004 by an F/A-18F fighter plane, appears to show a stingray-shaped craft banking above some clouds, even making a few turns. It's enough to impress almost anyone... except, of course, military pilots familiar with the characteristics of the FLIR infrared camera. It's a bit difficult to explain in an audio program, but for an excellent breakdown of exactly what you're seeing and why it looks like a stingray-shaped craft turning above some clouds, see the article on the Metabunk website. In short, what's happening is that the stingray shape — two roundish wings with a short tail — is how any single sharp point of heat appears through the glare filter of the FLIR pod mounted to the fighter plane. Other confirming examples of this shape are widely available online. When the craft appears to rotate in the video, these movements correspond to the rotation of the gimbal on which the FLIR turns in response to the airplane's maneuvers. The FLIR camera was looking off to the side, not straight ahead; and the fighter plane was moving past the clouds, while the distant point of heat remained stationary — most likely a commercial jet headed away from the fighter, about 15 miles away according to reconstructions. The video was simply an effective combination of two commonplace optical illusions.

If these videos were so easily explained, why then did Elizondo and TTSA present them as evidence of alien visitation? The reason is simply that these people are not very good investigators — and certainly not impartial ones. Astronomer Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute explained to Business Insider how Bigelow and DeLonge's people were not the best choices to analyze these videos:

If you were investigating some phenomenon that you're not sure whether it's for real or not, but it would be extraordinarily important if were real... you would want somebody impartial, I would think. Giving this case to somebody who already knows what the answer is is maybe not terribly objective.

Putting an exclamation point on this was another video shown by Tom DeLonge at a TTSA event. Its explanation was even simpler: it was revealed to have been amateur video shot of a metallic foil party balloon in the shape of a number one, such as you might buy along with a number two for someone's 21st birthday party. This is the investigative acumen paid for by those who have bought shares in the company.

So, did the Pentagon's $22 million Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program prove that the US government is in contact with alien visitors? No. But it did prove that US Senators are just as susceptible as news reporters (and the general public) to being persuaded by rhetoric and pseudoscientific sensationalism, when expertly wielded by passionate true believers.

 

[smuggs 9353]

[LongestHorn 759]

Remote viewer Hal Puthoff and his family have been in Austin for decades.  Earthtech is his family business with UT ties.

http://www.irva.org/conferences/speakers/puthoff.html

[PilotsError 2314]

That Tom delonge guy is crazy. He was on rogan's podcast last year and I couldn't tell if he was a true believer or in on the scam.

[686 3450]

When the Navy is releasing videos saying "we don't know what this is, it was fast as hell, affecting the surrounding environment, and fucking with our radar" (para); I'm sitting up and listening.

"In November 2004, the ship's ultra-advanced AN/SPY-1 multifunctional phased-array radar caught the object hovering at 60,000 feet before nosediving to the ocean surface in a matter of seconds.

It then sped off so rapidly that crew members thought it was a ballistic missile.

It appeared again two days later, and a pair of high-tech F-18 jets were scrambled to intercept it, but pilots reported that the object had turned itself invisible.

It could still be detected as it was triggering a a circular disturbance in the water "about 50 to 100 meters in diameter."

The craft was described as "solid white, smooth, with no edges... uniformly colored with no nacelles, pylons or wings", and looked like "an elongated egg or Tic Tac," according to one of the pilots.

Days later, a second jet spotted the same disturbance — and this time saw the UFO hovering above it "like a Harrier [jump jet]"."

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/05/31/supersonic-tic-tac-ufo-stalked-us-aircraft-carrier-for-days-pentagon-report-reveals.html

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/i-team-exclusive-confidential-report-analyzes-tic-tac-ufo-incidents/1187688105

 

 

 

[Viper 12111]

That's not the navy saying that, it's the scam UFO investigators I mentioned in the OP. That "UFO" report was even explained in a link in the first post in the thread. Like the other footage, it's most likely just another plane. It looks like it's moving fast and suddenly because the camera is zoomed in and is also moving.

https://www.metabunk.org/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage.t9190/

 

[686 3450]

13 minutes ago, Viper said:

That's not the navy saying that, it's the scam UFO investigators I mentioned in the OP. That "UFO" report was even explained in a link in the first post in the thread. Like the other footage, it's most likely just another plane. It looks like it's moving fast and suddenly because the camera is zoomed in and is also moving.

https://www.metabunk.org/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage.t9190/

 

The video I could understand being a little suspect, but what about the radar data? And are the Navy pilot(s) that are talking about it in on the scam or what? I haven't been following this very long, sorry.

[Parliament 14283]

1 hour ago, Viper said:

That's not the navy saying that, it's the scam UFO investigators I mentioned in the OP. That "UFO" report was even explained in a link in the first post in the thread. Like the other footage, it's most likely just another plane. It looks like it's moving fast and suddenly because the camera is zoomed in and is also moving.

https://www.metabunk.org/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage.t9190/

 

Why should we trust you, Viper?  YOU work for THEM.

[bmbmd 1027]

On 5/25/2018 at 2:48 AM, PilotsError said:

That Tom delonge guy is crazy. He was on rogan's podcast last year and I couldn't tell if he was a true believer or in on the scam.

If you had had one of those alien probes, you'd be a true believer, too.

[Parliament 14283]

Some more details from Mr. Rogoway. He says the new radar used on some Naval fighters is able to pick these things up. It kinda had me sold until I heard the audio in that YouTube clip. Real fighter pilots aren't that glib on the coms.


https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-pilots-disclose-recent-ufos-encounters-new-radar-tech-key-in-detection

[RollLeft 5045]

[mulletpelini 5215]

On 6/1/2018 at 4:23 PM, Parliament said:

Why should we trust you, Viper?  YOU work for THEM.

What he isn't about to tell you is classified. It could end his career.

[Brisketexan 105213]

Lotta talk here, but we know how this ends up.  The way it always does....

[deadshank 24653]

19 hours ago, Parliament said:

Some more details from Mr. Rogoway. He says the new radar used on some Naval fighters is able to pick these things up. It kinda had me sold until I heard the audio in that YouTube clip. Real fighter pilots aren't that glib on the coms.


https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-pilots-disclose-recent-ufos-encounters-new-radar-tech-key-in-detection

I don’t know if I believe in UFOs but I do believe “glib” is a great word. 

All I got. 

[Viper 12111]

19 hours ago, Parliament said:

Some more details from Mr. Rogoway. He says the new radar used on some Naval fighters is able to pick these things up. It kinda had me sold until I heard the audio in that YouTube clip. Real fighter pilots aren't that glib on the coms.


https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-pilots-disclose-recent-ufos-encounters-new-radar-tech-key-in-detection

https://gulfnews.com/world/americas/ufos-spotted-in-us-wow-what-is-that-navy-pilots-report-unexplained-flying-objects-1.64220161

 

Quote

Leon Golub, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, said the possibility of an extraterrestrial cause “is so unlikely that it competes with many other low-probability but more mundane explanations.” He added that “there are so many other possibilities — bugs in the code for the imaging and display systems, atmospheric effects and reflections, neurological overload from multiple inputs during high-speed flight.”

 

[SquishMitten 10425]

There's one major flaw in the theory about it being aliens who appear "right before major military deployments." If their tech is as advanced as described by the pilots, then a) they wouldn't give a shit about monitoring our tech, and b) even if they did want to check it out, they wouldn't need to have little ships flying around so closely. They could monitor from much farther away. 

If it is aliens, they're tourists, and all those little ships are their version of safari trucks. But really, I think it's air dolphins. They play with passing planes just like ocean dolphins play with passing boats. 

[Viper 12111]

2 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

There's one major flaw in the theory about it being aliens who appear "right before major military deployments." If their tech is as advanced as described by the pilots, then a) they wouldn't give a shit about monitoring our tech, and b) even if they did want to check it out, they wouldn't need to have little ships flying around so closely. They could monitor from much farther away. 

If it is aliens, they're tourists, and all those little ships are their version of safari trucks. But really, I think it's air dolphins. They play with passing planes just like ocean dolphins play with passing boats. 

this explanation has more evidence for it than the aliens explanation. 

[Blotto 23565]

20 hours ago, Parliament said:

Some more details from Mr. Rogoway. He says the new radar used on some Naval fighters is able to pick these things up. It kinda had me sold until I heard the audio in that YouTube clip. Real fighter pilots aren't that glib on the coms.

Honestly, if your conspiracy theory is shaky enough that you cant even rope in Parliament, probably best to scrap the entire thing and start over from scratch.

[Viper 12111]

[Dolemite 143]

Can't wait until someone asks Trumps wtf is going on. 

[hayden_horn 11365]

the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog

[elfenix 34331]

^^ Damn that metric-imperial conversion

[bernorange 8363]

Quote

The US Navy has for the first time confirmed that a set of eerie, grainy videos that appear to show UFOs flying through the sky are indeed real – and contain phenomena the military still cannot identify.
...
While this footage was at the time reportedly declassified, that appears to now not be the case, at least according to intelligence website The Black Vault.

A spokesperson for the US Navy has allegedly told the site that the videos are authentic – the first official confirmation by the military that the footage depicts flying phenomena that can't be identified, although the abbreviation UFO (unidentified flying object) is no longer in official use.

"The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena," Joseph Gradisher, the official spokesperson for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, reportedly told John Greenewald at The Black Vault.

"The 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena' terminology is used because it provides the basic descriptor for the sightings / observations of unauthorised / unidentified aircraft / objects that have been observed entering / operating in the airspace of various military-controlled training ranges."

To be clear, this doesn't mean the videos show aliens, or that the US Navy is suggesting that's what they are. It only means the unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) are objects that cannot be identified.
...

https://www.sciencealert.com/us-navy-finally-confirms-ufo-footage-is-real-says-we-were-never-meant-to-see-it

[Grippe 313]

Surious question here:  Is it wrong to believe the odds favor intelligent life outside of our solar system and, ergo, a smaller percentage probability of said intelligent life would have interstellar transit capability?

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4976]

I think it's hard to really say what the odds are that there is intelligent life out there capable of interstellar travel, so it's not unreasonable to believe either way. There are lots of theories out there to explain what we do know (great filter, we've already been visited, lizard people, etc), but we really don't have enough data to say for sure. 

[crash_davis 23114]

48 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

I think it's hard to really say what the odds are that there is intelligent life out there capable of interstellar travel, so it's not unreasonable to believe either way. There are lots of theories out there to explain what we do know (great filter, we've already been visited, lizard people, etc), but we really don't have enough data to say for sure. 

the universe is estimated at 14 MILLION years old.  humans on earth amounts to a tiny fraction of a second in that timeframe.  with the billions upon billions of stars & planets and the extraordinary span of time of the universe, i'd say it's absolutely ridiculous that we even think we are alone or haven't been visited. 

if we don't kill ourselves before then, just think what humans could do in another 1,000 years.  now think if other civilizations had 100,000 or 1,000,000 years head start.  we're just ants in an ant farm.

Edited September 19, 2019 by crash_davis

[gecko 1104]

You can believe intelligent life is out there and also believe it isn't visiting Earth to create History Channel content

[DaysOff 7967]

*billions

Obligatory

[Prepuce of Doom 21100]

2 hours ago, crash_davis said:

the universe is estimated at 14 MILLION years old.  humans on earth amounts to a tiny fraction of a second in that timeframe.  with the billions upon billions of stars & planets and the extraordinary span of time of the universe, i'd say it's absolutely ridiculous that we even think we are alone or haven't been visited. 

if we don't kill ourselves before then, just think what humans could do in another 1,000 years.  now think if other civilizations had 100,000 or 1,000,000 years head start.  we're just ants in an ant farm.

As @DaysOff (not to be confused with @Days.Off) previously pointed out, the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, not 14 million years old.

For reference, the dinosaurs lived between 66 and 245 million years ago. 

[El Diablo 4232]

My sister will tell you that the earth is 6K years old and that we don't even know what light is so how can we say with certainty how fast it travels. 

Advantage Literal Bible folks.

[crash_davis 23114]

10 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

As @DaysOff (not to be confused with @Days.Off) previously pointed out, the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, not 14 million years old.

For reference, the dinosaurs lived between 66 and 245 million years ago. 

my bad.  i was thinking billions and said millions.  either way, we are insignificant in the span of the universe.  not difficult to image other worlds having thousands to millions of years head start on us.

[crash_davis 23114]

4 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

My sister will tell you that the earth is 6K years old and that we don't even know what light is so how can we say with certainty how fast it travels. 

Advantage Literal Bible folks.

i am amazed that people like this exist.  with all the information available available to us, we still have people believe in fairy tales and flat earth.  you can sell anything with salvation.

[Guest Lobo]

 We’re not looking for them so we can find them .   They will find us because we are looking .

 Our worry should not be what will happen when we meet them, I suspect their worst designs on us can be carried out before we ever knew what happened.  What terrifies me however is what we are going to do to one another when we find out that our organized faiths were nothing more than Stop-gap fairytales.   The only thing more soul crushing that your life and society revolves around a rouse is knowing another group did it too, and somehow still managed to pick a better work of fiction.  

There are people who will tell you that this discovery only validates their belief system and they can fit it in with what they were raised to believe.   I promise you these will be the first people to take up arms against the rest of us.    Beware the man who splits 2’s against a dealer face card.  I’d rather him call the game bullshit and enjoy a last drink with him at the bar.  

Edited September 19, 2019 by Lobo

[crash_davis 23114]

16 minutes ago, Lobo said:

 We’re not looking for them so we can find them .   They will find us because we are looking .

 Our worry should not be what will happen when we meet them, I suspect their worst designs on us can be carried out before we ever knew what happened.  What terrifies me however is what we are going to do to one another when we find out that our organized faiths were nothing more than Stop-gap fairytales.   The only thing more soul crushing that your life and society revolves around a rouse is knowing another group did it too, and somehow still managed to pick a better work of fiction.  

There are people who will tell you that this discovery only validates their belief system and they can fit it in with what they were raised to believe.   I promise you these will be the first people to take up arms against the rest of us.    Beware the man who splits 2’s against a dealer face card.  I’d rather him call the game bullshit and enjoy a last drink with him at the bar.  

well maybe the new visitors will have a fancy set of fantastical stories which in 2000 years from now, the descendants use as scripture to hate people not like their own.  i have faith some part of our base humanity will survive any attempts at enlightenment.

[Dbeasy 15078]

 We’re not looking for them so we can find them .   They will find us because we are looking .
 Our worry should not be what will happen when we meet them, I suspect their worst designs on us can be carried out before we ever knew what happened.  What terrifies me however is what we are going to do to one another when we find out that our organized faiths were nothing more than Stop-gap fairytales.   The only thing more soul crushing that your life and society revolves around a rouse is knowing another group did it too, and somehow still managed to pick a better work of fiction.  
There are people who will tell you that this discovery only validates their belief system and they can fit it in with what they were raised to believe.   I promise you these will be the first people to take up arms against the rest of us.    Beware the man who splits 2’s against a dealer face card.  I’d rather him call the game bullshit and enjoy a last drink with him at the bar.  

[triplehorn 2664]

On 9/19/2019 at 6:04 AM, bernorange said:

https://www.sciencealert.com/us-navy-finally-confirms-ufo-footage-is-real-says-we-were-never-meant-to-see-it

Hadn't seen the second video before.  Regardless of who made it, it's using non-combustion advanced propulsion.  The entire object appears "hot" on FLIR.  

Pretty cool:

 

 

 

[ChickenSandwich 9848]

On 9/19/2019 at 9:56 AM, crash_davis said:

the universe is estimated at 14 MILLION years old.  humans on earth amounts to a tiny fraction of a second in that timeframe.  with the billions upon billions of stars & planets and the extraordinary span of time of the universe, i'd say it's absolutely ridiculous that we even think we are alone or haven't been visited. 

if we don't kill ourselves before then, just think what humans could do in another 1,000 years.  now think if other civilizations had 100,000 or 1,000,000 years head start.  we're just ants in an ant farm.

I also like the theory that it is entirely possible other intelligent life could have happened and become extinct and we would never know. 

 

[CooterBrown 18022]

25 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

I also like the theory that it is entirely possible other intelligent life could have happened and become extinct and we would never know. 

 

Probably millions of civilizations have gone extinct during Earth's existence.

Also, this military research program wouldn't exist if the Pentagon didn't already have tangible proof aliens exist.  

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

I’ve always thought it interesting that people assume that other life would be far more advanced than humans. It’s a possibility. Even probable. But it’s just as possible that we’re the hottest thing going in non extinct civilization tech. As in then 787 might be the most advanced piece of mass transportation in existence. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Bobby_Batronic

[SquishMitten 10425]

I'm just going to stick with the theory that 1) we've been visited, 2) because Earth is habitable, 3) they're making sure we don't fuck it up beyond repair, and 4) they'll step in before we go full nuclear and destroy the entire world.

I hope they will step in to show us the error of our ways. But they could probably just exterminate us in minutes with some sort of weapon that kills every human without killing any other living species. Or we're just an ant farm and they're watching us so they can create their next ant farm a little better. 

[Mikey4 2476]

I also like the theory that it is entirely possible other intelligent life could have happened and become extinct and we would never know. 

 

I guess not intelligent enough to put anything into orbit?

[Parliament 14283]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9k8kaz/the-pentagon-released-new-documents-about-the-tic-tac-ufo

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/i-team-exclusive-confidential-report-analyzes-tic-tac-ufo-incidents/

[PilotsError 2314]

 

 

 

 

[C-Man 27248]

32 minutes ago, Parliament said:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9k8kaz/the-pentagon-released-new-documents-about-the-tic-tac-ufo

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/i-team-exclusive-confidential-report-analyzes-tic-tac-ufo-incidents/

Why bump this with two links to stories from May 2018?

[Parliament 14283]

More of that Navy tic tac vid.  Lol at the pilots laughing about it.  

 

[CastHorn 815]

I’ve always been curious about the perspective of those who are immediately dismissive of anything “unearthly”. It’s as if they are borderline offended by the topic. Is it because of the stigma surrounding the conversation or is it a genuine belief? Speaking from an open minded neutral position. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21920]

Binge watch Ancient Aliens.  After about five seasons you'll want to shoot anyone who mentions anything "unearthly"

[NateHitch 1282]

This is and always has been fascinating to me. These videos leaked a while back and they were dismissed and it's amazing to me that even now the Pentagon is confirming they're real and we still dismiss them. Everything aspect is interesting from what exactly those craft were to the culture we've cultivated that this is a non-story to the average American

[Tailgate 3022]

My dad was Air Force. It's a very interesting universe!

*hear knocking at the front door

[Texas Jeff 1945]

10 hours ago, Parliament said:

More of that Navy tic tac vid.  Lol at the pilots laughing about it.  

 

Man that second shot is totally the Millennium Falcon ... headed for Earth a long time ago from a galaxy far far away