Question for Neophiles: I got into a bit of a spat regarding FIRE. You may have seen the video of the prof in the ridiculous space helmet going on a profanity laced rant, calling his students among other things, co.cksuckers. He’s been suspended, but FIRE has taken up his case. For the first time in forever I disagree with FIRE. I don’t think this is a 1A/academic freedom issue, as much as an issue of totally inappropriate and unprofessional behavior towards subordinates. Some people disagree… ? What do you all think?
Is Althouse our guest blogger today?
“Bows and flows
of angel hair
and ice cream castles
in the air ….”
You get the picture. Things of beauty, passing by.
J. Mitchell
RIP Marvin Lee Aday
My Southern grandmother (born 1893) called that a “Clabber-milk” sky. Buttermilk. It was a sign that snow was on the way….
Look to the skies!
What is the actual state of play/lay of the land with regards to UFOs? *
Well, if you believe that some irreducible percentage of UFOs that are sighted are real (as the government has finally admitted) and that the government has been covering up their reality and the importance of UFOs for 70 years, and doing so through a masterful, systematic “long game” campaign of disinformation, ridicule, intimidation, and stigmatization, “Men in Black” apparently included—their campaign has worked.
Many who say they have observed, or even interacted with UFOs or Aliens in various types of encounters have been silenced, made afraid to come forward with their testimony for fear of the consequences to their jobs, estimates of their mental state, or their standing in the community.
“Serious” news sources (see your local tabloid for coverage–with pictures–of Aliens at the White House, the latest woman who claims to have been impregnated by an Alien, etc.) and scientific researchers have been scared off.
The result?
By now the waters are so muddied that its hard to discern what might be true, and who or what to believe, which was the objective.
However, as one possible motive for such a long-standing and elaborate campaign of disinformation and suppression, it stands to reason that if some group of people or nation does have possession of Alien technology that appears to be hundreds or even thousands of years more advanced than our current technology–and it can be reverse engineered–those who succeed in doing so would have an immensely valuable, decisive, and perhaps unbeatable advantage over everyone and every nation on Earth.
As has been said,“once you know that something can be done, that is half the battle to finding out how to do it.”
(Apparently the existence of exotic Alien technologies becomes much more thinkable and likely when viewed through the lens of newer quantum mechanics rather than older Newtonian physics.)
Some say that what may have happened is that while our military initially legitimately took charge of the UFO issue starting with Roswell in 1947, in the decades since, some small, shadowy, and very secret rogue group within government/the military/private contractors has come into being, and seized control over UFO material and the UFO issue—moving further and further away from oversight, and burying knowledge, physical items, and research so deeply within government Black programs and civilian aerospace contractor’s Secret defense research projects that those in government who would normally have knowledge of, oversight, and control over this issue—Presidents included–reportedly have none of these things.
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Chris Mellon—who sat on the board that monitored all DOD Black programs, and who, thus, should know–recently said that to his knowledge UFOs were not secret US craft, and that any UFO material and research is buried so deep within government Black programs that he was not able to find it.
According to Lou Elizondo–once head of the Pentagon’s formerly secret AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) which studied UFOs–there are also factions within the DOD which don’t want UFOs studied because they see them as “Demonic,” and/or others who have been very successful in keeping information on UFOs bottled up within DOD who don’t want public disclosure of any of that information. These are the people within the DOD who fought—every step of the way–Elizondo’s efforts to broaden research and to get more disclosure and who continue to do so today.
As evidence of this struggle over UFO research and disclosure Elizondo has pointed to the recent dueling UFO research organizations–the DOD’s hasty creation of their own limited in scope UFO research organization (with no mandate for public disclosure of its findings) done before Congressional passage into law of the FY2022 DOD Defense Authorization Act, as a way to regain control over and limit disclosure vs. the Act, which directs DOD to create a permanent, more robust, and wide-ranging UFO research organization, one with a mandate to make periodic reports of its findings to Congress and to the public.
Over the decades since Roswell in 1947 the “zeitgeist”—the spirit of our age–has increasingly been saturated with innumerable books, movies, TV series, cartoons, artwork, comics, events, lectures, and products which feature UFOs and Aliens, and which sometimes have tantalizing bits of what might be truth embedded, here and there, within them—examples of which may perhaps be found in things like movie “Independence Day” and “The X-Files” TV series.
Overall what we see is Aliens who are portrayed far more often as out to do us harm, than as being benevolent.
I view this spreading of the memes of UFOs and Aliens as preparing the battle space; getting us “ready” for some sort of eventual “Disclosure,” whether accidental or deliberate.
From the outside looking in to the very “colorful” UFO community, there are all sorts of different takes on what is happening, what is true, and who is involved; many UFO researchers and groups are serious and trying to discover or spread the truth as they see it, some people are apparently out to make a buck or to attain fame, there are some who are suspected of being disinformation agents, and there are some apparent whack jobs, muddying the waters even further.
Some discern a number of different Alien species/civilizations involved in visiting the Earth, now and, perhaps, in the past–each supposedly with its own agenda—the Grays, the Reptilions, Insectile Aliens, Aliens which are reportedly very human looking, and look like they could be of Nordic origin, etc.
Some see Aliens as helpful—our Guides and even Saviors–out to “elevate” us, to lead us upward to a higher state of consciousness, or to save us and the Earth from nuclear or environmental destruction.
Some see them as malevolent.
(Incidentally, there is evidence emerging that those humans who have had close encounters with a UFO–in the air or on land–often suffer from measurable physical damage to their health due to this proximity.)
Cattle mutilations have also often been associated with the appearance with UFOs, and there have been many tens of thousands of such bizarre mutilations reported, apparently all over the world.
And, then, there are the many people who say they have been Abducted.
Its hard to square either cattle mutilations or Abductions with Aliens being benevolent.
But–to add to the confusion–there are some who claim that Aliens are not responsible for either of these actions, but that they are “false flag” operations being staged by some secretive government organization, as a way to convince people that Aliens are a threat, and to prepare the public for a war on them.
There are blurry images of UFOs seemingly everywhere—many obviously everyday objects, misidentifications, or hoaxes, and some images now acknowledged by the government to be real, and said to be “unidentified.”
Meanwhile, Lou Elizondo is saying that the government has many more photos and videos, many of them far clearer, one a very convincing closeup video 53 minutes in length, and some images showing not only UFOs but their occupants.
Then, there are all sorts of “leaked” documents floating around, and people who claim to have inside knowledge and information. See, for instance, the “MJ-12” documents.
Some assert that the government has been in communication with Aliens, meeting them, and coming to agreements with them.
Some even claim that such agreements permit Aliens to conduct some number of Abductions and cattle mutilations they want to/need to, in return for which permission these Aliens are giving the government some of their advanced technology.
There are those who claim that, in the far past—hundreds of thousands of years ago—Aliens may have tinkered with our genetic makeup, or that Aliens were the Gods or culture heroes of the first ancient human civilizations, and were responsible for their rise.
Some people claim to be able to communicate with Aliens, and there are claims of current day Alien bases on the Moon, underground and undersea bases here on Earth, and even elsewhere in our solar system.
Some claim that reverse engineered UFO crash debris has led to the “invention” of or breakthroughs in things like lasers, computer chips, and fiber optics.
One Astronaut, Gordon Cooper, says he witnessed a UFO land at Edwards Air Force Base in 1957, that a camera crew he had with him to do some other filming on base that day filmed it, and that subsequently someone “from Washington” flew onto the base, took the film away, and it just “disappeared.”
When, at Presidential direction, Chris Mellon, Deputy Director of the Department of Defense for Intelligence, tried to find that specific footage, he says he was told by an Air Force officer something to the effect that “oh, that old stuff was thrown out when we were cleaning up.”
There are also reports that radar and other technical surveillance records of the now famous 2004 U.S. Nimitz carrier battle group encounters with UFOs were similarly taken into custody by two officers who flew in, and who had enough authority to order all the recorded technical data gathered up and given to them, all data wiped from these various surveillance and recording machines, and who then took all the bagged up material and flew away.
One might ask, who were these “officers,” what location did they come from, from where did they get their overriding authority, what official organization within the military or government were they a part of, and who did they report to?
These obvious questions are never answered.
So, there you have it, a bountiful and very colorful sampling—a smorgasbord of ideas, assertions, and information that is floating around, just crammed full of all sorts of unusual, disparate, and exotic items we have to sift through, evaluate, and mine, to try to find out what is really going on, and where the truth lies.
A spectrum starting from–we now admit that some of the lights in the sky are real but we haven’t a clue what they are, to we’ve got good pictures but you ain’t gonna see ’em, to yeah, we might have some UFO crash debris and we’re working on reverse engineering it, to yeah, we’ve reverse engineered a few things and you’re using some of our work right now, and ending with yeah, we know who the Aliens are, we’ve met ’em, and made deals with them.
Take your pick as to where you might think the truth might lie along this very broad spectrum.
Good luck!
* (For an excellent overview of the UFO issue check out the 1 hour 41 minute 2020 documentary, “The Phenomenon,” available for viewing free on ROKU or TUBI. )
Could be worse, could be flat earth.
physicsguy, free speech does not preclude asking professors to be professional and respectful with their students. That prof is way out of line. He could easily have expressed concerns about viral infection without being abusive. I’m with you.
Snow on Pine, thank you very much.
@physicsguy, I generally agree with your assessment. I don’t believe this (clearly unhinged) Professor’s freedom of speech is being exactly curtailed by his being “put on leave”, although I guess I could see the argument. It’s not as if he’s being put on leave for expressing an overt political opinion… although some might infer or impute that he is since Covid has been so deeply conflated with politics these days. It seems like he just insulted all his students for 14 minutes straight.
On another thread someone was commenting on choice, freedom, vaccinations, and of course the Constitution. It seems the fat lady is still singing in the USA:
physicsguy ~ Wow, professor space helmet going on a profanity laced rant is kind of interesting when the whole video is viewed and maybe he was trying to be clever with satire and crude language however what I saw was a smart alec 13 year old in a frightened 70’s body who could never gain the respect of students he roasted. At times I almost enjoyed his cutting humor and reference to his Calvinist grading system but at the end his left leaning disregard for those who disagree was about enough to gag a maggot, using a crude metaphore. In the context of a professor addressing his class his choice of words and disdain for his students was reprehensible and his verbal assault of students who are paying for an education, paying customers, was weapons grade stupid. I am older than that old goat and I don’t mask up unless it is going to the VA for my hearing aids and have not for the last two years and I don’t live in fear.
And and add on for the ‘mad professor’, I liked the Camel commercial and have fond memories of smoking unfiltered Camels when I was in the ARMY in the 1960’s, overseas they were about $2.00 for a carton of ten, no tax and they were mild with a good taste. I know smoking caused a lot of health problems for some folks yet I think overall we were a better, calmer, more friendly bunch of people and perhaps all the stuff folks use now to feel better might be worse for our population than tobacco. I am probably wrong and gave up smoking cigarettes in 1970 when I came back to the USA, never had one since.
@ Physicsguy,
I went to the FIRE web site and read their argument.
They agree that anyone seeing the edited viral video, minus his introductory comments and the context would agree that he was unhinged.
I personally think his language is out of order regardless.
But their argument that an injustice is being perpetrated is based on the facts that:
– The video is edited and out of context.
– That his methods are well known at the university and popular with students
– That prior to the viral edit release, the administrators had looked with approval on his performance as meritorious , both in this instance and in the past generally.
(Frankly, I at first glance thought I was looking at Alan Dershowitz clowning around in a space helmet, and thought I had the wrong page.)
If all that is accurate, then it seems wrong to change the rules, tacit or otherwise, ex post facto. I suppose that there an argument for preserving some modicum of academic decorum and professionalism however, and that the university would be right to broach the matter with him.
But had he not been using the extreme vulgarity, and were the context of the performance clear, I’m not sure what grounds for controversy there could have been as a disciplinary as opposed to pedagogic matter.
Physicsguy: Professor Bulworth! I watched the whole 14 minutes:
The guy’s a flake. He may indeed be unhinged. But his record at Ferris State suggests that this act–and it is an act, apparently–is a longstanding part of his beginning-of-semester teaching shtick. Here’s FIRE’s write-up:
Gotta say I’m with FIRE on this one. Also, I found his foul-mouthed riff on the absurdity of academic life curiously refreshing. It’s like Catch-22, but about college. I’m sure you didn’t conduct your classes in this way, but c’mon: is the guy wrong? Your experience at small-pricey-New-England-college-on-the-Thames wasn’t exactly edifying, was it?
I’ve supported FIRE for years, but I don’t agree with them on everything. Their craven practice of handing out green-light free-speech ratings even to institutions that have “bias response teams”, for example. That ought to be an automatic fail, in my view. Had some words with them about that. Strong words, such as: “See here! See here! See here!” Also “Not on, chaps!” And “Harrumph!”. To quote a late colleague: I gave them a tongue-lashing they shall not soon forget! Had zero effect, of course.
Some cheerful meditations upon the Coming Kali Yuga:
“..Dutton sees the whole thing as analogous to the life cycle of an organism, with inevitable senescence and decrepitude. Spengler compared it to seasons with the Kali Yuga being winter. From Dutton’s point of view, there is no point in getting too caught up with conspiracy theories nor with thinking things like “if only we could get rid of critical race theory,” not least because anti-white hatred will still be in the minds of many teachers no matter what you do. The Romans too had grain surpluses and distributed them to the poor allowing them to multiply, lowering IQ and health. Once a civilization becomes very successful it can afford to be generous and general level of wealth is high. Without mortality salience, and with dysgenic breeding, people lose their natural religious impulses. The rich and smart use contraceptive methods and stop having children seeing them as a barrier to hedonistic self-indulgence and even higher standards of living. Without religion giving a vision of transcendental values, of eternity, moral realism, and the conviction that creation is good and life worth living, people sink into depression and nihilism which also contributes to not having children. Evolutionary psychology itself is “science” and thus embodies a materialist, non-religious metaphysic. Science cannot identify intrinsic value and thus has a black hole of nihilism sucking in everything. Science can only be the handmaiden of the religious. Once it becomes totalized, the Kali Yuga is only decades away.”
Dear Snow on Pine,
All that technology being trained on these objects for so many decades now and yet, strangely, none are in focus.
Why is that?
Asking for a friend.
When I attended the U of I the head of the Classics department was Dr. Richard T. Scanlon. A brilliant classicist, expert in Latin and Ancient Greek and the rare professor who was as good at instruction as he was at research. Along with various upper level and graduate level classes, each year he taught a Classical Mythology 101 course. He was so popular it was held in a 900 seat auditorium.
It was a serious class and not an easy A and along with being very entertaining he was also strict and demanding. I was proud to tie with a handful of other students several times as the high scorers on the weekly exams. On Friday classes before home football games he would spend the last 7 minutes of class dressed as Apollo using his talent of prophecy as an oracle predicting the outcome of that weekend’s game. There were always lots of funny jokes and puns, especially at the expense of the opposing team and school, and, of course, Apollo (a.k.a. Dr. Scanlon) always favored the Illini to win (and, back then, they often did!).
If someone taped one of those in costume performances as Apollo and showed snippets of it with no background information I suppose he could have been made to appear like a raving lunatic.
So, if the Ferris State professor is joking, good on him for mixing things up, even if it fell flat.
If he’s serious, he ought not to be teaching students.
Ace has a post on Howard Stern and Tucker did a rant on him yesterday (did Gutfeld also?).
I don’t like what I’ve heard of Stern lately, but I didn’t like him ten years ago, or twenty years ago. It seemed odd to me that so many famous people, including Donald Trump, would kiss his ring and sit for his abuse. His humor is the level of junior high boys.
We had two DJs in Chicago (Steve Dahl and Jonathon Brandmeier) who were much more clever and funny, and of course there’s Phil Hendrie out of L.A. (and Miami). Those three guys have more talent in their pinkies than Stern has in his entire, egotistical, narcissistic body.
It made me think a bit less of New York’ers when he rose to prominence in the ’80s and ’90s. He would have never lasted in Chicago.
Okay, so I’ve looked at the FIRE website about the case. I guess they’ve got a point, if one views the entire video and considers his consistent teaching approach.
I still would not appreciate his language, but then, I’m from a different era.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Didn’t Stern have somewhat of a national following, too?
Rufus: Foellinger Auditorium on the UIUC quad? I saw talks by Antonin Scalia and John Updike there in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Updike was there to pay tribute to his mentor William Maxwell, a UIUC alumnus and the longtime fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Think of the prof at Ferris State as the academic equivalent of a drill instructor. Behind the profanity and the over-the-top behavior are some hard truths about the world. The students seem to get that.
Not my fixation, nor anyone I wanted or want to listen to. It was called being a “shock jock” sort of like someone you are intimately aquainted with.
There are other shock jocks out there in US radio, it’s called a genre, or market. Has your vast knowledge of all things American failed you?
Hello. Have folks been having cold weather? We’ve had some zero-degree days or nights lately, without much snow.
Stocking in our local main grocery stores of late has been showing some gaps. I’ve been keeping an eye out particularly among what I consider the Capital Region’s big three, Price Chopper, Hannaford and Shop-Rite. Would like to check in at one or two of the local Aldi stores to see how they’re doing, but the thing is that I’ve never been in the habit of shopping there, so have to go a bit out of my way for that.
Some of the lacunae that I’m seeing lately are merely continuations of trends going back months, such as in meats. There have been intermittent and sudden scarcities in certain specific types of produce. I remember reading at Conservative Tree House that one sign of supply-chain problems to look for is potatoes and things made from potatoes. I did note certain weaknesses in the frozen potato products, so that could be something to watch.
Is anybody doing journaling this year?
@Philip Sells:
Peter Grant at Bayou Renaissance Man posts fairly regularly about current supermarket shortages and has an active commenting community. You might get some advance warning and extra data points from there — although he’s somewhere in Texas at the end of different supply lines.
Here’s a weird one. Through some oversight the entire island of Sri Lanka ran out of propane for cooking in December. Many people had to go back to cooking with wood and of course got the then natural speculation in propane plus people getting blown up or burned due to gas adulteration.
Have just been chatting with the part time maid. Her part of the Philippines was in the path of a late season typhoon which hit just before Christmas. They still don’t have electricity a month later. We got to talking about how her father used to make ham and bacon back when she was young before anyone had refrigerators.
Zaphod, I read Peter’s blog every day, so I get all of those updates. That’s one reason why the topic is on my mind, in fact.
@PhilipSells:
Courtesy of The Other South African (Kim du Toit) posting a link this morning:
Realise it’s more than likely you’ve seen this already, too!
Re Journaling: I use Day One which gives a daily reminder of what I had to say for myself on this date in past years. Two years today since I first decided to write something about Covid as chatter had been building. Wuhan locked down the next day.
My Southern grandmother (born 1893) called that a “Clabber-milk” sky. Buttermilk. It was a sign that snow was on the way….
Ruth:
I learned about buttermilk sky from this ole song. Hoagy Carmichael is his own perfection.
Gerard vanderleun—Why we have seen no crystal clear, closeup images of UFOs is a good question.
I have read of several theories as to why no crystal clear, detailed, and close-up images of actual UFOs, taken by the average Joe, have ever appeared in the public domain.
The first is that it appears that there is some sort of field around UFOs–perhaps as a byproduct of their propulsion method, perhaps as a deliberate attempt at camouflage–which blurs their image.
The second is that UFOs may have the ability to interfere with technical means of observation such as cameras.
The third is that the closer in proximity you get to a UFO, the more they apparently have the ability to manipulate human perceptions and consciousness, making it unlikely that a human witness would be able to have the presence of mind to take a camera along, or to take any or good pictures.
From what I have read, for the last 70 years there has apparently been an off again on again battle within our government between those who favor keeping information on UFOs closely held and not releasing it to the public, and those who favor some level of more openness and disclosure, with those favoring nondisclosure the usual winners.
The three blurry leaked videos which the government has recently, and apparently reluctantly authenticated as being real, were all that former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Chris Mellon was able to pry out of/get from a sympathetic government insider who favors more disclosure.
However, as I wrote above, Lou Elizondo, who ran AATIP for several years, has said that he has seen, and that the government has many and far more convincing images—one specific item he has recently mentioned is what he says is a very convincing 53 minute closeup video—plus lots of other corroborating technical surveillance data on UFOs–apparently including corroborating data from surveillance satellites–which the government is, so far, unwilling to release.
Snow on the Pine: or consider the falsifiable question, can expert sky observers like pilots, weathermen and astronomers get fooled and misidentify what they see “up there”?
My decade in amateur astronomy taught me that the answer was “yes” and surprisingly often.
In addition to Snow on the Pine’s question about the lack of high quality images of the UFO, there is the over a decade’s dearth of such images after the cell phone with cameras first became widely and internationally used.
What no great…avalanche of reveal, if the “Truth is Out There?” Or is Truth about people seeing what they want to see? (cf, “liberals.”)
Or consider, that for some, UFOs have become, the Flying Spagetti Monster?
TJ and om–
Just to take the cases of the three released Navy videos of objects which have been confirmed by our government as being of true UFOs–you have the eye witness reports/testimony of very highly trained observers–pilot’s and their weapons officers–corroborated by the video evidence and surveillance instruments on their aircraft, further confirmed by ship based radar, backed up, as well, by Hawkeye surveillance aircraft–all of the same object or objects–I’d say its pretty certain that they were all observing objects that were real.
Real objects that had no observable control surfaces, propulsion systems, or exhaust, but yet managed to do things like drop, under control, from 80,000 feet–at the edge of space–to sea level in a second, fly against a 120 knot wind, could do high speed, abrupt, sharp turns which would exert G-forces far beyond what any human or current aircraft could survive, and then speed off, to reappear 60 miles away within 5 seconds–well, you’re can’t lay those observations to rest with any of the usual dismissive memes of–“reflections,” “scratches on aircraft windshields,” “misidentified planets,” “swamp gas,” “mass hallucinations,” “a drone,” or “ball lightning.”
You’ve got real objects there, which very clearly demonstrate capabilities far beyond what any Earthly nation has.
—
Not really, you have three videos that the Navy released and the observations of a few pilots/observers. The rest is largely speculation. Sorry, that’s my opinion, you have your opinion. 🙂
Real objects that had no observable control surfaces, propulsion systems, or exhaust, but yet managed to do things like drop, under control, from 80,000 feet–at the edge of space–to sea level in a second, fly against a 120 knot wind
I’m wondering if there’s an aspect of the 1970s we’re not condemned to relive.
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Question for Neophiles: I got into a bit of a spat regarding FIRE. You may have seen the video of the prof in the ridiculous space helmet going on a profanity laced rant, calling his students among other things, co.cksuckers. He’s been suspended, but FIRE has taken up his case. For the first time in forever I disagree with FIRE. I don’t think this is a 1A/academic freedom issue, as much as an issue of totally inappropriate and unprofessional behavior towards subordinates. Some people disagree… ? What do you all think?
Is Althouse our guest blogger today?
“Bows and flows
of angel hair
and ice cream castles
in the air ….”
You get the picture. Things of beauty, passing by.
J. Mitchell
RIP Marvin Lee Aday
My Southern grandmother (born 1893) called that a “Clabber-milk” sky. Buttermilk. It was a sign that snow was on the way….
Look to the skies!
What is the actual state of play/lay of the land with regards to UFOs? *
Well, if you believe that some irreducible percentage of UFOs that are sighted are real (as the government has finally admitted) and that the government has been covering up their reality and the importance of UFOs for 70 years, and doing so through a masterful, systematic “long game” campaign of disinformation, ridicule, intimidation, and stigmatization, “Men in Black” apparently included—their campaign has worked.
Many who say they have observed, or even interacted with UFOs or Aliens in various types of encounters have been silenced, made afraid to come forward with their testimony for fear of the consequences to their jobs, estimates of their mental state, or their standing in the community.
“Serious” news sources (see your local tabloid for coverage–with pictures–of Aliens at the White House, the latest woman who claims to have been impregnated by an Alien, etc.) and scientific researchers have been scared off.
The result?
By now the waters are so muddied that its hard to discern what might be true, and who or what to believe, which was the objective.
However, as one possible motive for such a long-standing and elaborate campaign of disinformation and suppression, it stands to reason that if some group of people or nation does have possession of Alien technology that appears to be hundreds or even thousands of years more advanced than our current technology–and it can be reverse engineered–those who succeed in doing so would have an immensely valuable, decisive, and perhaps unbeatable advantage over everyone and every nation on Earth.
As has been said,“once you know that something can be done, that is half the battle to finding out how to do it.”
See for instance, the recent, very suggestive Navy patents on advanced space propulsion systems, etc. at https://www.weaponstechnology.news/2020-12-19-navy-patents-suggest-military-possesses-alien-technology.html
(Apparently the existence of exotic Alien technologies becomes much more thinkable and likely when viewed through the lens of newer quantum mechanics rather than older Newtonian physics.)
Some say that what may have happened is that while our military initially legitimately took charge of the UFO issue starting with Roswell in 1947, in the decades since, some small, shadowy, and very secret rogue group within government/the military/private contractors has come into being, and seized control over UFO material and the UFO issue—moving further and further away from oversight, and burying knowledge, physical items, and research so deeply within government Black programs and civilian aerospace contractor’s Secret defense research projects that those in government who would normally have knowledge of, oversight, and control over this issue—Presidents included–reportedly have none of these things.
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Chris Mellon—who sat on the board that monitored all DOD Black programs, and who, thus, should know–recently said that to his knowledge UFOs were not secret US craft, and that any UFO material and research is buried so deep within government Black programs that he was not able to find it.
According to Lou Elizondo–once head of the Pentagon’s formerly secret AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) which studied UFOs–there are also factions within the DOD which don’t want UFOs studied because they see them as “Demonic,” and/or others who have been very successful in keeping information on UFOs bottled up within DOD who don’t want public disclosure of any of that information. These are the people within the DOD who fought—every step of the way–Elizondo’s efforts to broaden research and to get more disclosure and who continue to do so today.
As evidence of this struggle over UFO research and disclosure Elizondo has pointed to the recent dueling UFO research organizations–the DOD’s hasty creation of their own limited in scope UFO research organization (with no mandate for public disclosure of its findings) done before Congressional passage into law of the FY2022 DOD Defense Authorization Act, as a way to regain control over and limit disclosure vs. the Act, which directs DOD to create a permanent, more robust, and wide-ranging UFO research organization, one with a mandate to make periodic reports of its findings to Congress and to the public.
Over the decades since Roswell in 1947 the “zeitgeist”—the spirit of our age–has increasingly been saturated with innumerable books, movies, TV series, cartoons, artwork, comics, events, lectures, and products which feature UFOs and Aliens, and which sometimes have tantalizing bits of what might be truth embedded, here and there, within them—examples of which may perhaps be found in things like movie “Independence Day” and “The X-Files” TV series.
Overall what we see is Aliens who are portrayed far more often as out to do us harm, than as being benevolent.
I view this spreading of the memes of UFOs and Aliens as preparing the battle space; getting us “ready” for some sort of eventual “Disclosure,” whether accidental or deliberate.
From the outside looking in to the very “colorful” UFO community, there are all sorts of different takes on what is happening, what is true, and who is involved; many UFO researchers and groups are serious and trying to discover or spread the truth as they see it, some people are apparently out to make a buck or to attain fame, there are some who are suspected of being disinformation agents, and there are some apparent whack jobs, muddying the waters even further.
Some discern a number of different Alien species/civilizations involved in visiting the Earth, now and, perhaps, in the past–each supposedly with its own agenda—the Grays, the Reptilions, Insectile Aliens, Aliens which are reportedly very human looking, and look like they could be of Nordic origin, etc.
Some see Aliens as helpful—our Guides and even Saviors–out to “elevate” us, to lead us upward to a higher state of consciousness, or to save us and the Earth from nuclear or environmental destruction.
Some see them as malevolent.
(Incidentally, there is evidence emerging that those humans who have had close encounters with a UFO–in the air or on land–often suffer from measurable physical damage to their health due to this proximity.)
Cattle mutilations have also often been associated with the appearance with UFOs, and there have been many tens of thousands of such bizarre mutilations reported, apparently all over the world.
And, then, there are the many people who say they have been Abducted.
Its hard to square either cattle mutilations or Abductions with Aliens being benevolent.
But–to add to the confusion–there are some who claim that Aliens are not responsible for either of these actions, but that they are “false flag” operations being staged by some secretive government organization, as a way to convince people that Aliens are a threat, and to prepare the public for a war on them.
There are blurry images of UFOs seemingly everywhere—many obviously everyday objects, misidentifications, or hoaxes, and some images now acknowledged by the government to be real, and said to be “unidentified.”
Meanwhile, Lou Elizondo is saying that the government has many more photos and videos, many of them far clearer, one a very convincing closeup video 53 minutes in length, and some images showing not only UFOs but their occupants.
Then, there are all sorts of “leaked” documents floating around, and people who claim to have inside knowledge and information. See, for instance, the “MJ-12” documents.
Some assert that the government has been in communication with Aliens, meeting them, and coming to agreements with them.
Some even claim that such agreements permit Aliens to conduct some number of Abductions and cattle mutilations they want to/need to, in return for which permission these Aliens are giving the government some of their advanced technology.
There are those who claim that, in the far past—hundreds of thousands of years ago—Aliens may have tinkered with our genetic makeup, or that Aliens were the Gods or culture heroes of the first ancient human civilizations, and were responsible for their rise.
Some people claim to be able to communicate with Aliens, and there are claims of current day Alien bases on the Moon, underground and undersea bases here on Earth, and even elsewhere in our solar system.
Some claim that reverse engineered UFO crash debris has led to the “invention” of or breakthroughs in things like lasers, computer chips, and fiber optics.
One Astronaut, Gordon Cooper, says he witnessed a UFO land at Edwards Air Force Base in 1957, that a camera crew he had with him to do some other filming on base that day filmed it, and that subsequently someone “from Washington” flew onto the base, took the film away, and it just “disappeared.”
When, at Presidential direction, Chris Mellon, Deputy Director of the Department of Defense for Intelligence, tried to find that specific footage, he says he was told by an Air Force officer something to the effect that “oh, that old stuff was thrown out when we were cleaning up.”
There are also reports that radar and other technical surveillance records of the now famous 2004 U.S. Nimitz carrier battle group encounters with UFOs were similarly taken into custody by two officers who flew in, and who had enough authority to order all the recorded technical data gathered up and given to them, all data wiped from these various surveillance and recording machines, and who then took all the bagged up material and flew away.
One might ask, who were these “officers,” what location did they come from, from where did they get their overriding authority, what official organization within the military or government were they a part of, and who did they report to?
These obvious questions are never answered.
So, there you have it, a bountiful and very colorful sampling—a smorgasbord of ideas, assertions, and information that is floating around, just crammed full of all sorts of unusual, disparate, and exotic items we have to sift through, evaluate, and mine, to try to find out what is really going on, and where the truth lies.
A spectrum starting from–we now admit that some of the lights in the sky are real but we haven’t a clue what they are, to we’ve got good pictures but you ain’t gonna see ’em, to yeah, we might have some UFO crash debris and we’re working on reverse engineering it, to yeah, we’ve reverse engineered a few things and you’re using some of our work right now, and ending with yeah, we know who the Aliens are, we’ve met ’em, and made deals with them.
Take your pick as to where you might think the truth might lie along this very broad spectrum.
Good luck!
* (For an excellent overview of the UFO issue check out the 1 hour 41 minute 2020 documentary, “The Phenomenon,” available for viewing free on ROKU or TUBI. )
Could be worse, could be flat earth.
physicsguy, free speech does not preclude asking professors to be professional and respectful with their students. That prof is way out of line. He could easily have expressed concerns about viral infection without being abusive. I’m with you.
Snow on Pine, thank you very much.
@physicsguy, I generally agree with your assessment. I don’t believe this (clearly unhinged) Professor’s freedom of speech is being exactly curtailed by his being “put on leave”, although I guess I could see the argument. It’s not as if he’s being put on leave for expressing an overt political opinion… although some might infer or impute that he is since Covid has been so deeply conflated with politics these days. It seems like he just insulted all his students for 14 minutes straight.
On another thread someone was commenting on choice, freedom, vaccinations, and of course the Constitution. It seems the fat lady is still singing in the USA:
https://redstate.com/jeffc/2022/01/21/breaking-federal-judge-plunges-rusty-dagger-into-bidens-vax-mandate-agenda-n510437
physicsguy ~ Wow, professor space helmet going on a profanity laced rant is kind of interesting when the whole video is viewed and maybe he was trying to be clever with satire and crude language however what I saw was a smart alec 13 year old in a frightened 70’s body who could never gain the respect of students he roasted. At times I almost enjoyed his cutting humor and reference to his Calvinist grading system but at the end his left leaning disregard for those who disagree was about enough to gag a maggot, using a crude metaphore. In the context of a professor addressing his class his choice of words and disdain for his students was reprehensible and his verbal assault of students who are paying for an education, paying customers, was weapons grade stupid. I am older than that old goat and I don’t mask up unless it is going to the VA for my hearing aids and have not for the last two years and I don’t live in fear.
And and add on for the ‘mad professor’, I liked the Camel commercial and have fond memories of smoking unfiltered Camels when I was in the ARMY in the 1960’s, overseas they were about $2.00 for a carton of ten, no tax and they were mild with a good taste. I know smoking caused a lot of health problems for some folks yet I think overall we were a better, calmer, more friendly bunch of people and perhaps all the stuff folks use now to feel better might be worse for our population than tobacco. I am probably wrong and gave up smoking cigarettes in 1970 when I came back to the USA, never had one since.
@ Physicsguy,
I went to the FIRE web site and read their argument.
They agree that anyone seeing the edited viral video, minus his introductory comments and the context would agree that he was unhinged.
I personally think his language is out of order regardless.
But their argument that an injustice is being perpetrated is based on the facts that:
– The video is edited and out of context.
– That his methods are well known at the university and popular with students
– That prior to the viral edit release, the administrators had looked with approval on his performance as meritorious , both in this instance and in the past generally.
(Frankly, I at first glance thought I was looking at Alan Dershowitz clowning around in a space helmet, and thought I had the wrong page.)
If all that is accurate, then it seems wrong to change the rules, tacit or otherwise, ex post facto. I suppose that there an argument for preserving some modicum of academic decorum and professionalism however, and that the university would be right to broach the matter with him.
But had he not been using the extreme vulgarity, and were the context of the performance clear, I’m not sure what grounds for controversy there could have been as a disciplinary as opposed to pedagogic matter.
Physicsguy: Professor Bulworth! I watched the whole 14 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrOzY86YcEM&t=3s
The guy’s a flake. He may indeed be unhinged. But his record at Ferris State suggests that this act–and it is an act, apparently–is a longstanding part of his beginning-of-semester teaching shtick. Here’s FIRE’s write-up:
https://www.thefire.org/before-it-suspended-professor-over-profane-syllabus-skit-ferris-state-praised-it/
Gotta say I’m with FIRE on this one. Also, I found his foul-mouthed riff on the absurdity of academic life curiously refreshing. It’s like Catch-22, but about college. I’m sure you didn’t conduct your classes in this way, but c’mon: is the guy wrong? Your experience at small-pricey-New-England-college-on-the-Thames wasn’t exactly edifying, was it?
I’ve supported FIRE for years, but I don’t agree with them on everything. Their craven practice of handing out green-light free-speech ratings even to institutions that have “bias response teams”, for example. That ought to be an automatic fail, in my view. Had some words with them about that. Strong words, such as: “See here! See here! See here!” Also “Not on, chaps!” And “Harrumph!”. To quote a late colleague: I gave them a tongue-lashing they shall not soon forget! Had zero effect, of course.
Some cheerful meditations upon the Coming Kali Yuga:
https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2022/01/21/hegemons-of-the-bankrupt/
“..Dutton sees the whole thing as analogous to the life cycle of an organism, with inevitable senescence and decrepitude. Spengler compared it to seasons with the Kali Yuga being winter. From Dutton’s point of view, there is no point in getting too caught up with conspiracy theories nor with thinking things like “if only we could get rid of critical race theory,” not least because anti-white hatred will still be in the minds of many teachers no matter what you do. The Romans too had grain surpluses and distributed them to the poor allowing them to multiply, lowering IQ and health. Once a civilization becomes very successful it can afford to be generous and general level of wealth is high. Without mortality salience, and with dysgenic breeding, people lose their natural religious impulses. The rich and smart use contraceptive methods and stop having children seeing them as a barrier to hedonistic self-indulgence and even higher standards of living. Without religion giving a vision of transcendental values, of eternity, moral realism, and the conviction that creation is good and life worth living, people sink into depression and nihilism which also contributes to not having children. Evolutionary psychology itself is “science” and thus embodies a materialist, non-religious metaphysic. Science cannot identify intrinsic value and thus has a black hole of nihilism sucking in everything. Science can only be the handmaiden of the religious. Once it becomes totalized, the Kali Yuga is only decades away.”
Dear Snow on Pine,
All that technology being trained on these objects for so many decades now and yet, strangely, none are in focus.
Why is that?
Asking for a friend.
When I attended the U of I the head of the Classics department was Dr. Richard T. Scanlon. A brilliant classicist, expert in Latin and Ancient Greek and the rare professor who was as good at instruction as he was at research. Along with various upper level and graduate level classes, each year he taught a Classical Mythology 101 course. He was so popular it was held in a 900 seat auditorium.
It was a serious class and not an easy A and along with being very entertaining he was also strict and demanding. I was proud to tie with a handful of other students several times as the high scorers on the weekly exams. On Friday classes before home football games he would spend the last 7 minutes of class dressed as Apollo using his talent of prophecy as an oracle predicting the outcome of that weekend’s game. There were always lots of funny jokes and puns, especially at the expense of the opposing team and school, and, of course, Apollo (a.k.a. Dr. Scanlon) always favored the Illini to win (and, back then, they often did!).
If someone taped one of those in costume performances as Apollo and showed snippets of it with no background information I suppose he could have been made to appear like a raving lunatic.
So, if the Ferris State professor is joking, good on him for mixing things up, even if it fell flat.
If he’s serious, he ought not to be teaching students.
Ace has a post on Howard Stern and Tucker did a rant on him yesterday (did Gutfeld also?).
I don’t like what I’ve heard of Stern lately, but I didn’t like him ten years ago, or twenty years ago. It seemed odd to me that so many famous people, including Donald Trump, would kiss his ring and sit for his abuse. His humor is the level of junior high boys.
We had two DJs in Chicago (Steve Dahl and Jonathon Brandmeier) who were much more clever and funny, and of course there’s Phil Hendrie out of L.A. (and Miami). Those three guys have more talent in their pinkies than Stern has in his entire, egotistical, narcissistic body.
It made me think a bit less of New York’ers when he rose to prominence in the ’80s and ’90s. He would have never lasted in Chicago.
Okay, so I’ve looked at the FIRE website about the case. I guess they’ve got a point, if one views the entire video and considers his consistent teaching approach.
I still would not appreciate his language, but then, I’m from a different era.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Didn’t Stern have somewhat of a national following, too?
Rufus: Foellinger Auditorium on the UIUC quad? I saw talks by Antonin Scalia and John Updike there in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Updike was there to pay tribute to his mentor William Maxwell, a UIUC alumnus and the longtime fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Think of the prof at Ferris State as the academic equivalent of a drill instructor. Behind the profanity and the over-the-top behavior are some hard truths about the world. The students seem to get that.
Brief clip from the Paris Metro:
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/095/994/167/original/3094afdbf374d71b.mp4
All those Frenchmen. Inspiring!
Not my fixation, nor anyone I wanted or want to listen to. It was called being a “shock jock” sort of like someone you are intimately aquainted with.
There are other shock jocks out there in US radio, it’s called a genre, or market. Has your vast knowledge of all things American failed you?
Hello. Have folks been having cold weather? We’ve had some zero-degree days or nights lately, without much snow.
Stocking in our local main grocery stores of late has been showing some gaps. I’ve been keeping an eye out particularly among what I consider the Capital Region’s big three, Price Chopper, Hannaford and Shop-Rite. Would like to check in at one or two of the local Aldi stores to see how they’re doing, but the thing is that I’ve never been in the habit of shopping there, so have to go a bit out of my way for that.
Some of the lacunae that I’m seeing lately are merely continuations of trends going back months, such as in meats. There have been intermittent and sudden scarcities in certain specific types of produce. I remember reading at Conservative Tree House that one sign of supply-chain problems to look for is potatoes and things made from potatoes. I did note certain weaknesses in the frozen potato products, so that could be something to watch.
Is anybody doing journaling this year?
@Philip Sells:
Peter Grant at Bayou Renaissance Man posts fairly regularly about current supermarket shortages and has an active commenting community. You might get some advance warning and extra data points from there — although he’s somewhere in Texas at the end of different supply lines.
Here’s a weird one. Through some oversight the entire island of Sri Lanka ran out of propane for cooking in December. Many people had to go back to cooking with wood and of course got the then natural speculation in propane plus people getting blown up or burned due to gas adulteration.
Have just been chatting with the part time maid. Her part of the Philippines was in the path of a late season typhoon which hit just before Christmas. They still don’t have electricity a month later. We got to talking about how her father used to make ham and bacon back when she was young before anyone had refrigerators.
Zaphod, I read Peter’s blog every day, so I get all of those updates. That’s one reason why the topic is on my mind, in fact.
@PhilipSells:
Courtesy of The Other South African (Kim du Toit) posting a link this morning:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/01/13/vaccine-passports-food-insecurity-and-the-law-of-unintended-consequences/
Realise it’s more than likely you’ve seen this already, too!
Re Journaling: I use Day One which gives a daily reminder of what I had to say for myself on this date in past years. Two years today since I first decided to write something about Covid as chatter had been building. Wuhan locked down the next day.
My Southern grandmother (born 1893) called that a “Clabber-milk” sky. Buttermilk. It was a sign that snow was on the way….
Ruth:
I learned about buttermilk sky from this ole song. Hoagy Carmichael is his own perfection.
–Hoagy Carmichael – Ole Buttermilk Sky…. (1953)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5LQhNGWS8
Gerard vanderleun—Why we have seen no crystal clear, closeup images of UFOs is a good question.
I have read of several theories as to why no crystal clear, detailed, and close-up images of actual UFOs, taken by the average Joe, have ever appeared in the public domain.
The first is that it appears that there is some sort of field around UFOs–perhaps as a byproduct of their propulsion method, perhaps as a deliberate attempt at camouflage–which blurs their image.
The second is that UFOs may have the ability to interfere with technical means of observation such as cameras.
The third is that the closer in proximity you get to a UFO, the more they apparently have the ability to manipulate human perceptions and consciousness, making it unlikely that a human witness would be able to have the presence of mind to take a camera along, or to take any or good pictures.
From what I have read, for the last 70 years there has apparently been an off again on again battle within our government between those who favor keeping information on UFOs closely held and not releasing it to the public, and those who favor some level of more openness and disclosure, with those favoring nondisclosure the usual winners.
The three blurry leaked videos which the government has recently, and apparently reluctantly authenticated as being real, were all that former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Chris Mellon was able to pry out of/get from a sympathetic government insider who favors more disclosure.
However, as I wrote above, Lou Elizondo, who ran AATIP for several years, has said that he has seen, and that the government has many and far more convincing images—one specific item he has recently mentioned is what he says is a very convincing 53 minute closeup video—plus lots of other corroborating technical surveillance data on UFOs–apparently including corroborating data from surveillance satellites–which the government is, so far, unwilling to release.
Snow on the Pine: or consider the falsifiable question, can expert sky observers like pilots, weathermen and astronomers get fooled and misidentify what they see “up there”?
My decade in amateur astronomy taught me that the answer was “yes” and surprisingly often.
In addition to Snow on the Pine’s question about the lack of high quality images of the UFO, there is the over a decade’s dearth of such images after the cell phone with cameras first became widely and internationally used.
What no great…avalanche of reveal, if the “Truth is Out There?” Or is Truth about people seeing what they want to see? (cf, “liberals.”)
Or consider, that for some, UFOs have become, the Flying Spagetti Monster?
TJ and om–
Just to take the cases of the three released Navy videos of objects which have been confirmed by our government as being of true UFOs–you have the eye witness reports/testimony of very highly trained observers–pilot’s and their weapons officers–corroborated by the video evidence and surveillance instruments on their aircraft, further confirmed by ship based radar, backed up, as well, by Hawkeye surveillance aircraft–all of the same object or objects–I’d say its pretty certain that they were all observing objects that were real.
Real objects that had no observable control surfaces, propulsion systems, or exhaust, but yet managed to do things like drop, under control, from 80,000 feet–at the edge of space–to sea level in a second, fly against a 120 knot wind, could do high speed, abrupt, sharp turns which would exert G-forces far beyond what any human or current aircraft could survive, and then speed off, to reappear 60 miles away within 5 seconds–well, you’re can’t lay those observations to rest with any of the usual dismissive memes of–“reflections,” “scratches on aircraft windshields,” “misidentified planets,” “swamp gas,” “mass hallucinations,” “a drone,” or “ball lightning.”
You’ve got real objects there, which very clearly demonstrate capabilities far beyond what any Earthly nation has.
—
Not really, you have three videos that the Navy released and the observations of a few pilots/observers. The rest is largely speculation. Sorry, that’s my opinion, you have your opinion. 🙂
Real objects that had no observable control surfaces, propulsion systems, or exhaust, but yet managed to do things like drop, under control, from 80,000 feet–at the edge of space–to sea level in a second, fly against a 120 knot wind
I’m wondering if there’s an aspect of the 1970s we’re not condemned to relive.