This renewed interest in UFOs – excuse me, “UAPs” – is honestly pretty fascinating.
It’s clear that a nontrivial amount of UFO reports over the years have been “real” in the sense that there was really something there to be seen, but I’d figure most do have a completely mundane explanation – anything from prototype aircraft to weather balloons (har har.) Then there’s a few that seem to completely defy explanation, which is the fascinating part. Lately there’s been more official clips released, so it seems like it’s not quite as taboo of a subject and likely to kill your career as a pilot or whatever as it has been.
I have sort of a particular skeptical opinion on recent UFO disclosures. I’ve published it here:
- https://computer.rip/2023-02-14-something-up-there-pt-I.html
- https://computer.rip/2023-02-17-something-up-there-pt-II.html
It’s important to understand that we managed to get into a situation where the military performed essentially no collection or analysis of reports of unusual aircraft for nearly 40 years. I don’t think we should be too surprised by a significant revelation about advanced technology possessed by foreign governments after this period of time. At the same time, it remains very possible that these reports are mistaken. I expect that recent investment in UAS-detection technology will lead to a lot more empirical evidence in these kinds of situations, and then we’ll have a lot more to go on.
It’s a very interesting phenomena. I really don’t know what to think about it personally. But whatever it is we might soon have more scientific data on it thanks to the Galileo Project: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/home
Oh interesting, I hadn’t heard of Galileo. Looks to be a more or less new project, but they’ve already got a bunch of publications out, and they’ve got some pretty ambitious goals, including building “new telescope systems to infer the nature of UAP” (from the Overview of the Galileo Project paper)
Yup. I love Avi Loeb because he’s one of the few well respected scientists that won’t straight up dismiss the possibility of something being of extraterrestrial or non-human origins. Which, IMO, is how science should handle cases like this. Leave all possibilities open until science points in a certain direction. I highly recommend listening to his appearances on the Event Horizon podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@EventHorizonShow/search?query=Avi Loeb
