[UFOs] Pentagon has 'off-world vehicles'

[xerx]

The astrophysicist Eric Davis, who consulted with the Pentagon’s original UFO program and now works for the defense contractor Aerospace Corporation, told the Times that after he examined certain materials, he came to the conclusion that “we couldn’t make [them] ourselves.” In fact, Davis briefed a Department of Defense (DOD) agency as recently as March about retrieving materials from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”

* https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ials-vehicles/

* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/u...reid-navy.html


I'll wait it out till everything goes public.....

[Metamorph]

I wish it were aliens because I would like to live in a movie with aliens, but really it's humans being secretive.

[marooned]

It's great they finally came out with the we-don't-know-what-these-are things.

[Grendel]

Light barrier == unbreakable, false even if true.


Interdimensional psychic vampires, on the other hand...

[Metamorph]

Light barrier == unbreakable, false even if true.


Interdimensional psychic vampires, on the other hand...

There's already stuff that can travel faster than light but it's not really regular moving when you're going faster than light.

[timber]

False flag, another level of control.

Same with the comet astroid 'soon to hit'.

[timber]

We've got the History Channel doing predictive programming for ancient Aliens for what, nearly a decade now?

Long enough where at the subconscious level, people combine Aliens with ancient technological achievement, even if they know it to be false. God this is such basic psychology, you don't need to go to Uni to get this stuff.

Do I personally believe in Aliens, yes. But no, I don't think they are transporting themselves through physical space as we know it today. It's apparent there is another facet to physical reality we are not yet privy to.

I wager it will take another upswing in our collective ability to precieve "something", in similar eurka moments throughout history that changed humanities perceptual awareness so completely that we take those epiphanies for granted now.

I would be curious what the James Webb telescope does for civilization. Seeing the beggining of all time is a much needed pick-me-up for mankind.

All this technological Alien crashed space craft stuff is... It's imho silly and to blunt. Physical, biological creatures can't overcome expanding space, time, and the light barrier. So, imho, if Aliens are visiting Earth, they did not get here via a space craft.

History Channel would , unfortunately, want us to believe Aliens have always been here throughout all time, shaping our destiny. So, God then, the other, in a modernly accepted modality.

[Tallmo]

I need to read Jung's book on UFOs.

[marooned]

I have no idea what the mysterious "objects" are and don't assume they are even craft. I think that human perception only picks up a range of reality that it can comprehend. The brain probably fields out things it can't make sense of because the mammalian brain didn't evolve to be an objective seer, it evolved to survive in its environments. It doesn't care about the truest perception of reality. It only cares about/uses what it needs. All else is a waste of energy, and in the wild energy counts for everything (the brain already uses a high amount of energy, and the bigger/more sophisticated it is, the more energy it requires). As soon as the brain is exposed to phenomenon it can't understand and can't sufficiently categorize or house in concepts, it probably will just field it out, especially when that information has no consequence on survival. It can't be recognized sufficiently even as a threat. I've heard there's also a strange connection between these "UAPs" and nuclear sites, which in part made me wonder if they are some kind of consequence of nuclear fission. However, if they are actual craft it would be utterly ridiculous to deny their existence, if nothing else for the sake of national security or international security.

As perhaps a poor example of fielding out inconsequential things, there are a lot of examples of humans entering wild spaces to study animals like wolves or chimpanzees and if they keep a particular distance and do nothing that interferes with the lives of the animals they are observing they become part of the background. The animals pay no attention to them, almost as though they are not even there. I found this especially interesting with chimpanzees as some live so deep in the forest that they've probably never seen a human before. They are incredibly curious. But they field out this human presence as though it doesn't even exist. This is an analogy though--the way I think the brain is fielding out other aspects of reality would involve not being able to even sufficiently recognize something as an object, as a "thing," because it fits in no known categories, it doesn't have any conceptual matches, and there is no practical way of interacting that the brain can process.

[Adam Strange]

The image on the green screen looks a lot like a electron beam dwelling on the screen. I believe that image was taken from a Kaiser Heads-Up Display, and the early ones used a CRT with a special green phosphor, chosen for it's spectral purity to function with the holographic combiner, etc. etc. But the phosphor was painted with a beam of electrons, and if the analog scan circuits had a glitch, the beam could dwell on one part of the screen, and then could take off at "high speed" across the screen to make it appear that the "object" was racing through the air.

Or it could be our new insect overlords. Dunno.

[Metamorph]

We've got the History Channel doing predictive programming for ancient Aliens for what, nearly a decade now?

Long enough where at the subconscious level, people combine Aliens with ancient technological achievement, even if they know it to be false. God this is such basic psychology, you don't need to go to Uni to get this stuff.

Do I personally believe in Aliens, yes. But no, I don't think they are transporting themselves through physical space as we know it today. It's apparent there is another facet to physical reality we are not yet privy to.

I wager it will take another upswing in our collective ability to precieve "something", in similar eurka moments throughout history that changed humanities perceptual awareness so completely that we take those epiphanies for granted now.

I would be curious what the James Webb telescope does for civilization. Seeing the beggining of all time is a much needed pick-me-up for mankind.

All this technological Alien crashed space craft stuff is... It's imho silly and to blunt. Physical, biological creatures can't overcome expanding space, time, and the light barrier. So, imho, if Aliens are visiting Earth, they did not get here via a space craft.

History Channel would , unfortunately, want us to believe Aliens have always been here throughout all time, shaping our destiny. So, God then, the other, in a modernly accepted modality.

1. If "aliens" aren't physical beings, why not just call them spirits? I know there's lots of New Age stuff about advanced aliens that are spiritual, but those still just seem like space spirits. Creatures like that existing and aliens who are biological animals like humans existing aren't mutually exclusive. Also, space spirits aren't very interesting if material aliens don't exist. If spirits existed, I'd expect for them to be able to travel across space easily. If angels, devils, djinn, faeries, or whatever decide to live in space instead of just on Earth, that doesn't suddenly make them into aliens. If there were material creatures on other planets and they interacted with different spirits, then that's interesting, like there are different angels watching humans and watching aliens so the angels who watch aliens are alien angels. If it's the same angels in charge of every planet like planets are local levels and celestial beings are the federal level, that's interesting, but it doesn't make spirits aliens any more than someone from Washington D.C. is a foreigner in the United States.

2. Matter can move faster than light. It doesn't even have to be a special kind of matter. Anything can move faster than light with enough energy. Things moving faster than light doesn't get documented in most popular science magazines or "hard" sci-fi (I say most, not all) because that kind of stuff is designed to appeal to cynics who think they already know everything except for "filling in the details." Not being able to travel faster than light is quite cynical even if you believe the Earth is flat and you're going to get to go to Heaven with Jesus, but especially if you're a hardened "scientific skeptic" and you don't believe you're going to Heaven and your only hope is in your physical life. It's like Clarke's book Childhood's End: "The stars were not meant for Man!" Of course, Childhood's End is from the perspective of devils and their allies, and Clarke added an explicit disclaimer saying he didn't agree with the book because he did think humans could go to the stars. However, I do think its portrayal of how weird interstellar space is is accurate. None of this information is common knowledge, but if you're genuinely interested, it is knowledge indeed. Do you know how some people think the Earth is flat? There are other perspectives from which common scientific beliefs are the equivalent of saying that the Earth is flat. There are always people who are "ahead of the times" and know more than average, and always people who are "behind the times," and also people who learn things that most people will just never know, and people who have ridiculous ideas that most people have never had. Progressivism and knowledge-seeking really don't mix, because progressivism looks at the progress of average people, and average people are always stupid.

[Metamorph]

I have no idea what the mysterious "objects" are and don't assume they are even craft. I think that human perception only picks up a range of reality that it can comprehend. The brain probably fields out things it can't make sense of because the mammalian brain didn't evolve to be an objective seer, it evolved to survive in its environments. It doesn't care about the truest perception of reality. It only cares about/uses what it needs. All else is a waste of energy, and in the wild energy counts for everything (the brain already uses a high amount of energy, and the bigger/more sophisticated it is, the more energy it requires). As soon as the brain is exposed to phenomenon it can't understand and can't sufficiently categorize or house in concepts, it probably will just field it out, especially when that information has no consequence on survival. It can't be recognized sufficiently even as a threat. I've heard there's also a strange connection between these "UAPs" and nuclear sites, which in part made me wonder if they are some kind of consequence of nuclear fission. However, if they are actual craft it would be utterly ridiculous to deny their existence, if nothing else for the sake of national security or international security.

As perhaps a poor example of fielding out inconsequential things, there are a lot of examples of humans entering wild spaces to study animals like wolves or chimpanzees and if they keep a particular distance and do nothing that interferes with the lives of the animals they are observing they become part of the background. The animals pay no attention to them, almost as though they are not even there. I found this especially interesting with chimpanzees as some live so deep in the forest that they've probably never seen a human before. They are incredibly curious. But they field out this human presence as though it doesn't even exist. This is an analogy though--the way I think the brain is fielding out other aspects of reality would involve not being able to even sufficiently recognize something as an object, as a "thing," because it fits in no known categories, it doesn't have any conceptual matches, and there is no practical way of interacting that the brain can process.

A brain cares about what its owner cares about. There's a good reason you can't generally just turn invisible to humans by standing a few feet away from people even if that works on chimpanzees. I really don't think we're finding alien spaceships but I think experts tend to know what they're looking at, and the guy who said we're looking at alien spaceships is an expert in astrophysics and not in chemistry, aside from being an alien spaceship enthusiast. Scientific American is better than Popular Mechanics any day since I haven't read any stupid trash in Scientific American out of all the popular science magazines, and Popular Mechanics isn't even a popular science magazine but a mechanics magazine.

[Grendel]

There's already stuff that can travel faster than light but it's not really regular moving when you're going faster than light.

Are we talking macroscopic objects exceeding the cosmic speed C, macroscopic objects in a vacuum moving faster than light in a fluid, wormholes, or spooky particle entanglement? I want to believe it, but I've never heard of the first one before.

[Metamorph]

Anyways, even if the Pentagon has contacted aliens (and I'm sure they haven't contacted aliens with a human-esque civilization or there'd be no way to conceal it, weird airy-fairy aliens maybe but that's the equivalent of talking to angels, djinn, or elves, and if you don't think there's a government conspiracy to conceal angels then airy-fairy aliens aren't going to be a conspiracy either, just a few people in the government who might talk to angels and a few people who might talk to airy-fairy aliens) there's no reason they'd make it public. The Pentagon doesn't even make all the activities of the Chinese and the Russians public, and interacting with space is way less relevant to most people's lives than that. If you want to know if humanity has contacted aliens, you're going to have to get up off your bum and look yourself, not just wait for the government to say "oh, there are aliens" when the government won't even tell you what the Chinese are doing.

[Metamorph]

Are we talking macroscopic objects exceeding the cosmic speed C, macroscopic objects in a vacuum moving faster than light in a fluid, wormholes, or spooky particle entanglement? I want to believe it, but I've never heard of the first one before.

Macroscopic objects can exceed the cosmic speed C, but when that happens it's barely even recognizable as things moving. Also, you can't really see things moving faster than light, because they don't reflect light. We know that things move faster than light because the Universe is expanding faster than light and that isn't all empty space.

https://www.space.com/33306-how-does...han-light.html

I also think that's what dark matter and dark energy is, just regular "baryonic" matter moving faster than light and the gravitational effects of it. While that's not a popular theory, I didn't invent it as some obnoxious armchair physicist who just wants to go to space really badly so you can look into it. Honestly I think it's not popular because people want the entire Universe to die so they can prove how tough they are like Bertrand Russell since even though I don't have an expensive telescope it definitely follows the law of parsimony. So, faster-than-light travel should be easy if you have enough energy but it should involve a lot of weird mathematics and weird perception just to navigate.

[marooned]

A brain cares about what its owner cares about. There's a good reason you can't generally just turn invisible to humans by standing a few feet away from people even if that works on chimpanzees. I really don't think we're finding alien spaceships but I think experts tend to know what they're looking at, and the guy who said we're looking at alien spaceships is an expert in astrophysics and not in chemistry, aside from being an alien spaceship enthusiast. Scientific American is better than Popular Mechanics any day since I haven't read any stupid trash in Scientific American out of all the popular science magazines, and Popular Mechanics isn't even a popular science magazine but a mechanics magazine.

Going back to the chimpanzees, I did mainly mean it as an analogy as I have no idea what's going on there. Everyone tunes out things that don't matter and also animals I think normally tune each other out in the wild if they aren't really threats to one another and their life patterns don't really intersect (no contact, no interference). For all I know the chimps all get a sense that the observing scientists mean no harm and there's this subconscious deal that has been made that they won't disturb one another while being in proximity. Obviously as soon as the observing humans get too close and start interfering, the chimps will know they are there and will respond. But that's why it's more of an analogy.

Anyway, I haven't read enough on the UAP/UFO subject, but if the evidence is strange images on camera or flashing lights or whatever... I feel like we need more evidence. If it moves in ways that seem to defy physics (as "we" understand it), then perhaps it is not actually a physical object, etc. But my speculations end here where my ignorance begins. I wouldn't rule out that they are not objects at all though. I'm not saying they aren't objects either. I just don't know what they are.

What category to assign something that is largely unknown too is tricky I think... When people saw lights in the forest and thought they were fairies they could be the same lights of these UAP, but depending on what one knows, their culture etc. they end up getting classified completely differently by the brain. This is because the brain is having difficulty pinning them down and can only use the frameworks already in place to try to understand it. There's a conceptual stairway to climb to reach the objects but much of the staircase hasn't been built yet. So we can't get there. These things defy human understanding in some ways. It's all the more reason to investigate them as much as possible. But because of the difficulty in understanding what they are, assumptions should all be questioned, otherwise you can be building the wrong staircase.

Then the other matter is grouping all UAP together as though they are all the same thing. They may be... they may not be. For now they are, simply because we don't know what they are...

[Metamorph]

Going back to the chimpanzees, I did mainly mean it as an analogy as I have no idea what's going on there. Everyone tunes out things that don't matter and also animals I think normally tune each other out in the wild if they aren't really threats to one another and their life patterns don't really intersect (no contact, no interference). For all I know the chimps all get a sense that the observing scientists mean no harm and there's this subconscious deal that has been made that they won't disturb one another while being in proximity. Obviously as soon as the observing humans get too close and start interfering, the chimps will know they are there and will respond. But that's why it's more of an analogy.

Anyway, I haven't read enough on the UAP/UFO subject, but if the evidence is strange images on camera or flashing lights or whatever... I feel like we need more evidence. If it moves in ways that seem to defy physics (as "we" understand it), then perhaps it is not actually a physical object, etc. But my speculations end here where my ignorance begins. I wouldn't rule out that they are not objects at all though. I'm not saying they aren't objects either. I just don't know what they are.

If things appear to defy physics as you understand it you should probably just expand your understanding. If aliens came and presented "supernatural" phenomena and the human race decided to grovel stupidly and worship them I wouldn't join the human race, and I wouldn't take offers from the aliens either. However, that would never happen. Too many people would be wary, like poor Catholics from Argentina who would be like "ah, the Devil, nothing to see here," and probably even the whole nation of China because as everyone knows aliens aren't Han and Chinese folk gods have magic anyways. If aliens are about to come out and do a bunch of thaumaturgical stuff to try to conquer humans who have made a superstition out of science it's no wonder China and Russia are going to lead us.

[marooned]

If things appear to defy physics as you understand it you should probably just expand your understanding. If aliens came and presented "supernatural" phenomena and the human race decided to grovel stupidly and worship them I wouldn't join the human race, and I wouldn't take offers from the aliens either. However, that would never happen. Too many people would be wary, like poor Catholics from Argentina who would be like "ah, the Devil, nothing to see here," and probably even the whole nation of China because as everyone knows aliens aren't Han and Chinese folk gods have magic anyways. If aliens are about to come out and do a bunch of thaumaturgical stuff to try to conquer humans who have made a superstition out of science it's no wonder China and Russia are going to lead us.

If it isn't an object like a craft, that doesn't mean it must be supernatural (although perhaps in a way it is because what is supernatural just means we don't understand it as part of nature). My main point is make no assumptions while continuing to investigate thoroughly. For something difficult to classify because so little is understood, assumptions can lead to less comprehension rather than more.

[Metamorph]

If it isn't an object like a craft, that doesn't mean it must be supernatural (although perhaps in a way it is because what is supernatural just means we don't understand it as part of nature). My main point is make no assumptions while continuing to investigate thoroughly. For something difficult to classify because so little is understood, assumptions can lead to less comprehension rather than more.

I'm assuming by object you mean solids then. We already see a lot of strange things in the atmosphere that aren't solid objects and aren't alien spaceships either. I have a tendency to think of anything discrete that's not a person as an object. I would say phenomena or events rather than "not physical" if I didn't want to imply something supernatural. Light is physical, darkness is physical, energy is physical, and even things that are purportedly supernatural tend to involve a lot of physical objects and phenomena like statues crying, sicknesses healing, and glowing lights.

[marooned]

I'm assuming by object you mean solids then. We already see a lot of strange things in the atmosphere that aren't solid objects and aren't alien spaceships either. I have a tendency to think of anything discrete that's not a person as an object. I would say phenomena or events rather than "not physical" if I didn't want to imply something supernatural. Light is physical, darkness is physical, energy is physical, and even things that are purportedly supernatural tend to involve a lot of physical objects and phenomena like statues crying, sicknesses healing, and glowing lights.

Sure, but I mean take something like a "ghost" and it falls into the same trap. Something has been observed, sometimes people have strange evidence, it is categorized to match an idea in culture (ghost, usually drawing from religions). It's called "supernatural" because it's seen as beyond what can be observed/understood in nature. It's assumed to be "not physical" in any sense that can be proven so this idea that it's from another realm or something factors in... I suppose that I am of the view that everything can be explained and there isn't anything "supernatural." It's all natural, it just isn't understood. Even if a ghost is an actual spirit of someone, that is natural. Anyway, I don't know that we're saying that different of things, just that I'm hesitant to call these "objects" anything at all, including craft. They are "something" however and there are explanations to be found/made.

[Metamorph]

Sure, but I mean take something like a "ghost" and it falls into the same trap. Something has been observed, sometimes people have strange evidence, it is categorized to match an idea in culture (ghost, usually drawing from religions). It's called "supernatural" because it's seen as beyond what can be observed/understood in nature. It's assumed to be "not physical" in any sense that can be proven so this idea that it's from another realm or something factors in... I suppose that I am of the view that everything can be explained and there isn't anything "supernatural." It's all natural, it just isn't understood. Even if a ghost is an actual spirit of someone, that is natural. Anyway, I don't know that we're saying that different of things, just that I'm hesitant to call these "objects" anything at all, including craft. They are "something" however and there are explanations to be found/made.

Well, ghosts are kind of supernatural. All the physical properties of ghosts are basically natural things but I don't think what's generally referred to as a soul or consciousness is really natural. Even if you could make a soul like some sort of Frankenstein's Monster that soul would still be considered responsible for itself. If you program a robot a robot isn't considered to be responsible for itself, and I mean robots that actually exist, not I, Robot. So no, I don't think spooky unexplained phenomena are "the supernatural," but I think things that are actually more metaphysical than physical are. For example, moral naturalism always fails and ends up with Nazism and other dumbness. You can't get from people not liking being murdered to murder being bad, and murder being bad is a pretty obvious conclusion. In fact, liking murder works out the same as the utility monster problem. Dead people feel nothing if you don't believe in an afterlife, and people who want to murder for sport feel happy taking their lives, so if you're a utilitarian who doesn't believe in any kind of afterlife, why not support murdering for sport? So, I don't believe in ethical naturalism, though I do think thaumaturgical stuff like curing blindness, shooting fireballs, and floating is basically natural by definition.

(If you don't know the word thaumaturgy, or you only know it from Final Fantasy or Dungeons and Dragons, it's a very useful word to be familiar with. Basically, it means wonder-working, but it isn't really specific as to whether you mean the miracles of some particular religion, evil demons, mechanical magic, or any other potential source of inexplicable things.)

[marooned]

Well, ghosts are kind of supernatural. All the physical properties of ghosts are basically natural things but I don't think what's generally referred to as a soul or consciousness is really natural.

Why not? "Natural" just means we understand it as part of nature. "Supernatural" just means we don't understand it as part of nature and it is somehow beyond nature -- but it's circular because the only reason that is is because we don't understand it. Granted, there are things we can't really get evidence for... but still even if it's this person who claims to be psychic and there is evidence of this person a high percentage of the time predicting things or knowing things about someone's recently deceased loved one they seemingly couldn't possibly know... there is still evidence (that is the evidence). If there were "another realm" superimposed upon this one that most people can't see, it's still part of nature, it's just most people can't see it. It's mainly I feel like the difference hinges upon what humans can understand, and since that's where it starts it ends up defining how everything is thought of thereafter.

[Metamorph]

Why not? "Natural" just means we understand it as part of nature. "Supernatural" just means we don't understand it as part of nature and it is somehow beyond nature -- but it's circular because the only reason that is is because we don't understand it. Granted, there are things we can't really get evidence for... but still even if it's this person who claims to be psychic and there is evidence of this person a high percentage of the time predicting things or knowing things about someone's recently deceased loved one they seemingly couldn't possibly know... there is still evidence (that is the evidence). If there were "another realm" superimposed upon this one that most people can't see, it's still part of nature, it's just most people can't see it. It's mainly I feel like the difference hinges upon what humans can understand, and since that's where it starts it ends up defining how everything is thought of thereafter.

I already said I think things like clairvoyance and other realms aren't beyond nature. I do think things like consciousness and morality are beyond nature, however. There's a good reason to call ghosts and things like that supernatural even if ghosts are largely physical because how do you become a ghost? You're a restless spirit, you don't want to move onto the afterlife, you want revenge or a proper burial or something. Floating, glowing, and going through walls isn't supernatural, but the whole ideal of revenge and ultimate destinies and good vs. evil is. You can split the atom and square the circle, but you still aren't going to find the type of restlessness of the human spirit that creates literal restless spirits.

[xerx]

This announcement would vindicate every schizophrenic homeless man who spouts gibberish. I believe that someone is owed an apology.

[Metamorph]

This announcement would vindicate every schizophrenic homeless man who spouts gibberish. I believe that someone is owed an apology.

It wouldn't any more than the US government having satellites would vindicate every homeless schizophrenic who thinks the US government is torturing them personally with satellites.

Even if the US government contacted aliens, it's not going to be common knowledge until most people have to deal with aliens. Most Americans don't even know every country on this Earth. Why would the government try to also force them to learn space geography?

[xerx]

It wouldn't any more than the US government having satellites would vindicate every homeless schizophrenic who thinks the US government is torturing them personally with satellites.

Sweetie, you got a lot to learn about the US government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

[Metamorph]

Sweetie, you got a lot to learn about the US government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

That's not the worst thing the US government has ever done, and it doesn't vindicate schizophrenics who think satellites are putting voices into their heads.

[Metamorph]

That being said, if schizophrenics really were having voices put into their heads by the government, aliens, or Satan, I'm not sure they'd be victims. Going to prison is pretty horrible, yet there are obvious reasons why no one takes prisoners seriously when they say "Let me out!" Also, of course schizophrenic hallucinatory voices come from the government, aliens, and/or Satan. Hallucinations with causes besides schizophrenia aren't usually paranoid.

[Metamorph]

This is really old news but some supposed treatments for schizophrenia really do involve involuntarily and/or covertly inserting microchips into people, spying on them, and trying to control them. Whenever I'm reminded of that I always think that's kind of funny. So, I do tend to think schizophrenics are generally right about the things they say people are trying to do to them, but my response is, so what?

[ouronis]

I want to be lifted into technological utopia as much as anybody, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[Metamorph]

I want to be lifted into technological utopia as much as anybody, but I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't think aliens giving people a utopia is even a coherent idea. People want to do things that matter and people want to know how things work, and both of those are such strong drives I don't think a scenario like Childhood's End would even be able to happen in the first place. Yes, "aliens come and fix everything" just makes me think of the space devils story. The fact that I'm not alone in that is probably a lot of why it would never happen.

[Tallmo]

The question is what the Aliens really want. Why do they appear at this point in history when religion is dead? If we can listen to and assimilate this fantasy, we can get an answer.

It's also interesting that this modern myth appears at the frontier of technology. We think of myths as something old, like creatures in the forest or old gods, but these are now dead and the living myth is now in space and advanced technology, the last frontier. It's like the unconscious is sneaking in were we least expect it.

[Metamorph]

The question is what the Aliens really want. Why do they appear at this point in history when religion is dead? If we can listen to and assimilate this fantasy, we can get an answer.

It's also interesting that this modern myth appears at the frontier of technology. We think of myths as something old, like creatures in the forest or old gods, but these are now dead and the living myth is now in space and advanced technology, the last frontier. It's like the unconscious is sneaking in were we least expect it.

Religion is not dead. Institutional religion like in the Middle Ages is dead unless you live in a poor country, and even America is not poor and "backwards" enough for medieval or tribal institutional religion. Most people still believe in God, Jesus, angels, Heaven, Hell, Mohammed, Buddha,and things like that. Most people also think UFO worshipers are weirdos looking for an ersatz religion, even if they don't know the word ersatz.

The book Childhood's End wouldn't happen today unless the aliens used a lot of brute force because most people would be against it. We would have to be in the actual situation of the Biblical apocalypse for people to really accept the Devil openly taking over the world, or anti-religious aliens who don't have literal horns and tails, which would be close enough for most people to still be devilish.

[Tallmo]

Religion is not dead. Institutional religion like in the Middle Ages is dead unless you live in a poor country, and even America is not poor and "backwards" enough for medieval or tribal institutional religion. Most people still believe in God, Jesus, angels, Heaven, Hell, Mohammed, Buddha,and things like that.

The direction of development seems to be that as people get educated and more relativistic, it gets harder or impossible to have a religion. Or maybe people have more a "philosophy" nowadays. At some point people realize that it's all made up. Then we have depth psychology that has re-discovered the gods as psychic complexes, but that doesn't seem to help.

At least were I live I only hear some watered-down version of Christianity in the public discussion. It's all about the moral message, stripped of all real spiritual content. Some confused thoughts about the historical Jesus and knowledge vs belief.

Most people also think UFO worshipers are weirdos looking for an ersatz religion, even if they don't know the word ersatz.

UFO is a living or almost living myth though (or was, some decades ago). Maybe not a religion, but is has developed spontanosly from people's fascination with space and the unknown. The UFO myth is so interesting because it happens right now, not in ancient Egypt for example. We can study myth in real time. And even I as a secular and reasonable person has some feeling or relation to UFO, I can feel the eeriness. There is something active in the unconscious. I have never dreamed about Jesus, but I have had dreams about UFOs.

[Rusal]

I will not go into the detail of it because I just don’t feel like writing at the moment, but I came upon this thread and, as someone who was interested in the topic a few years back, I will succinctly state that:

1. There are no aliens.
2. The idea of human possession of alien technology had a previous existence, but surged with the likes of Karla Turner in the 80s-90s, thanks in part to the documentation she kept of several cases of women who stated that the military was an involved party in their alien abduction. This is the fringe belief of the UFO ‘religion’. The rest are curious people interested in the nuts-and-bolts side of it.
3. But the women in Turner’s documentation were not lying. There’s a thread that connects divergent characters from Dion Fortune to Turner and the women she interviewed.
4. Most of the phenomena about alien abduction are hallucinatory in nature. Forget about those. The corollary is the really ‘meaty’ part: real influence on some aspects of reality.
5. This influence can spring from two sources: natural inclination in a person and a natural glitch (see: The Mothman Prophecies, the book), but some part of it can be manufactured (google: the Poltergeist Machine).

[Mila]

Religion is not dead. Institutional religion like in the Middle Ages is dead unless you live in a poor country, and even America is not poor and "backwards" enough for medieval or tribal institutional religion. Most people still believe in God, Jesus, angels, Heaven, Hell, Mohammed, Buddha,and things like that. Most people also think UFO worshipers are weirdos looking for an ersatz religion, even if they don't know the word ersatz.

The book Childhood's End wouldn't happen today unless the aliens used a lot of brute force because most people would be against it. We would have to be in the actual situation of the Biblical apocalypse for people to really accept the Devil openly taking over the world, or anti-religious aliens who don't have literal horns and tails, which would be close enough for most people to still be devilish.

I don't think most ppl would be against evil aliens. Ofc aliens should pretend that they are good guys. Demons are basically aliens in religion. They are extraterrestrial or extra dimensional (probably both) beings who play to be your side but they truly aren't. And talking about apocalypse, this is a text from the book of revelations:

12And the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings of the East. 13And I saw three unclean spirits that looked like frogs coming out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. 14These are demonic spirits that perform signs and go out to all the kings of the earth, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God, the Almighty.…

Then, according bible prophecy its likely these are the last days.

[consentingadult]

I think it's pretty lame of these aliens to send their high tech space vehicles over to Planet Earth, travelling the vast distances of the Milky Way (or perhaps even beyond) at speeds staggering to humans (or perhaps using technology to bypass the limitations of time and space), only to crash in the US of A, of all places.

And why do aliens look different in the US of A compared to those that visited Norway? Why are there lots of haunted houses in the UK, but none in the Netherlands? Why do people in the Western World meet Jesus in Near Death Experiences, while in the Middle East they meet Muhammad, or Buddha in East Asia?

[xerx]

Is Klingon-face racist now?

[marooned]

Ugh it's all so tiring. When everything is racist one just feels like being insular. Stick with anything that can be called "white people things" until those things are arbitrarily not white people things anymore. Sharing is dangerous. Ideas from white people are dangerous because they're all secret racist metaphors. But ideas not from white people are dangerous because it's white people stealing other people's stuff. Meanwhile there is no such thing as "white people" as a demographic.

[xerx]

If humanity is the 1st interstellar civilization to evolve, we would literally be The Ancients or The Precursors.