Who said it is? Tons of people report seeing all manner of nonsense.
The idea of whole departments in the US government being staffed with them is absurdist nonsense.
Most UFO reports fall into the Optical Illusion category rather than extreme schizophrenia.
Your allegation about UFO reports is accordingly simply incorrect.
So it seems strange that you have jumped to the conclusion that these must be real UFOs since most people do not hallucinate.
The whistleblower reports of the existence of a research program that he was briefed about. He testifies this program was stuying non-human technology, among that functioning craft, aka "flying saucers".
The determination of it being non-human in orgin was due to extensive material analysis, evident morphology and working characteistics of those devices.
I think I take your point: he doesn't have firsthand experience seeing the evidence.
That said, the quote "Someone claims that someone else told him material exists that is from aliens." doesn't by itself convey the significance of these other people being high ranking intelligence officials. A trained intelligence professional has much more analytical skill and credibility than a person randomly sampled from the U.S. population.
> The Debrief reported that Grusch’s knowledge of non-human materials and vehicles was based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials”. He said he had reported the existence of a UFO material “recovery program” to Congress.
> “Grusch said that the craft recovery operations are ongoing at various levels of activity and that he knows the specific individuals, current and former, who are involved,” the Debrief reported.
> In the Debrief article, Grusch does not say he has personally seen alien vehicles, nor does he say where they may be being stored. He asked the Debrief to withhold details of retaliation by government officials due to an ongoing investigation.
Indeed. Here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident you can listen to the audio recording of some soldiers investigating what happened at the site of a proposed UFO landing, where they observe weird lights and scorch marks on trees.
There's another page some guy set up where he posts photos he took himself at the site and even used screenshots from a TV interview of one of the witnesses of the event to clearly show that those lights were easily explain by surrounding structures (light house etc) and the marks on trees were probably left by lumberjacks.
I'm baffled how a bunch of trained soldiers investigating over several days can just "conclude" that it was all very mysterious stuff going on and that, despite it being clearly debunked, this event is still seen as THE UFO event in the UK.
Then again I have no idea how these latest videos of flying objects can be explained. To a lay person like myself it just seems completely crazy. How can a pilot claiming to see things fly at supersonic speeds doing impossible maneuvers be explained by a problem with the lens and / or "it's just a weather balloon". The "explanations" of it being ufos seem completely believable to me.
Or 20 UAPs zooming around, in and out from water, up and down from low Earth orbit in seconds.
You are not factoring in how many times he has tried to guess other people's pins. Or if some pins are more common than others.
Similarly here you are not factoring in how often an entire group of sensors has the same big and repots incorrect data at the same time in the same way. You are Cherry picking the one time the data looked like it might be a UFO. This is also a form of confirmation bias.
Someone who works in astrophysics for a govt entity in the US told me they have such massive budgets that it's not uncommon to throw some of it to some weird department just as a favor or to keep up the public's interest in "space stuff". Another person (working at ESA) confirmed it, they both rolled their eyes and claimed it was all BS.
NOT saying this is definitive truth.
Second, I will respond in terms of the charitable substance of your comment. I think there is some useful back-and-forth to be had.
Please be specific: part is “complete nonsense” to you; which of the following applies?
1. You reject the predictive processing theory? Why?
2. You reject my characterization of the theory?
3. You reject my application of the theory to the example of seeing UFOs? For the reason you gave? Is there more?
4. What research have you done to support your knowledge and claims?
5. Have you read “Hallucinations and Strong Priors” in Trends in Cognitive Science [1]? I referenced it in nearby comment as well.
Penultimate point: correctly or incorrectly, I am using facts and reasoning in my above comment; I don’t see how this qualifies as “hallucination” in terms of an AI or human phenomenon.
Final point: there is considerable nuance and skill required to criticize effectively. In asking questions 1 through 3, I’m offering an example of a better way.
As already stated, the whistleblower does not fall at all in the context you are discussing here, as he reports having been briefed on research programs that study non-human technology.
Now, in the case of those sightings by military pilots, you have multiple sensor systems and multiple pilots involved simultaneously. Clearly impossible to be explained by your idea here.
But even in cases of single eye-witnesses, their sightings are often over extended periods of time, entirely incompatible with your paper.
1. No. This interpretation of one HN Guideline is not accurate. Such a view would justify being non-charitable, which is incompatible with the guidelines more broadly.
Curious conversation should not stop because you think my comment is off-topic.
2. And as I explained at length in another comment, as conversations evolve in a tree of comments, there may be considerable distance (in terms of a topic vector space) from the root.
3. Each time you say “utter nonsense” or “bogus” (and the like) it comes across as insulting. Are you aware of this?
There are clearer phrases and terms to use that are not insulting. Depending on what you are trying to say, you might try:
- you could say you disagree (in the sense of a value judgment or a subjective matter)
- you could say that I’m making a logical or rational error
- you could say that something is not true, factually
- you could say that particular claim of mine is inconsistent with another claim
- you could say that I am not providing evidence or support for a claim
Onto a different point. You wrote:
> not on completely unrelated nonsense, that you are no expert on anyway (as you professed yourself).
4. Stating that I am not an expert in a particular cognitive science theory does not inherently disqualify the logic of my argument. It merely suggests an openness to learning if there are mistakes. Such an openness is indicative of humility and a tendency to not overreach.
As you can see in my other comments, I have recognized and agreed with some of your points. But these points have not contradicted or disproved what I wrote.
Just think for a second, if such a thing was possible, why would it be restricted to "UFOs"?
Obviously, such an illness would be well known.