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krferriter
Several of these look like balloons and birds.
Two of them have already leaked before. Both of those are missiles being viewed with an infrared camera. One of them shows a missile passing through the field of view rapidly with a motion blur streak behind it. The other shows a missile performing maneuvers and a camera artifact showing a star-like diffraction+aperture artifact around the bright IR light source.
None of these pieces of imagery look like something doing something particularly interesting. What happens is a military personnel records a video. They don't know what it is in the moment. It gets labeled "unknown" and put on a DoD file server, and then either they or someone else who stumbles across it clips out part of it and starts to spread rumors about this amazing video of a UAP they saw. There are people who work for the DoD who appear to spend a great deal of their free time scrolling around internal DoD file servers looking for anything they can portray as proof of aliens, and sometimes they leak their stories and even clips to public UFO influencers like Jeremy Corbell.
krferriter
I'll add that I had the impression that the star-shaped one resembles a distant missile but could even be something even less interesting than a missile, given that at a few points later in the video, a parachute is visible and the heat source appears to be attached to it, suggesting that it could be a parachute flare.
Couple frames: https://imgur.com/a/MyGZj3x
Original video: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1006088/dow-uap-pr38-unresolv...
Loquebantur
That's very obviously not a parachute?
The "star shaped" object moves relative to it akin to a reflection actually.
The interesting question here is, whether that is "white hot" or "black hot" imagery. The trail the object leaves is white. If it was a flare, that would mean white is hot. Then the object would be cold.
You cannot have a "camera artefact" from a cold spot in the sky.
krferriter
I think it is very likely a parachute. It moves in a swinging relation to the heat source because the heat source is hanging from it. It doesn’t exhibit reflection across the center of frame like you’d expect from a lens flare, and you can see frames in the video when the partially IR-translucent parachute overlaps itself showing that it’s a physical material moving around and which IR light can partially pass through.
It is black hot. We know this for sure because someone in the DoD previously leaked a single screenshot of the video, which did not have the on-screen data elements redacted, and you can see the BLK indicator. That person believed the star shape was the physical shape of the object, not a lens artifact, and told this to the UFO influencer they leaked it to. That’s how this particular video eventually ended up included in this data dump.
The smoke trail must cool rapidly and be colder in temperature than the flare itself and the parachute above it. The ambient air temp and time of day may be relevant to this (direct sun could contribute to warming the parachute). Since it is infrared footage, the colors are all based on a dynamic range, so the smoke only needs to be slightly colder than the parachute in order to appear lighter in color.
keepamovin
What kind of birds are cold in black-hot imagery? What sort of missiles don't have an exhaust but a "ghost shell" trailing behind? What sort of balloons show up as contrast instead of neutral?
Your comment is all certainty, and the thread has rewarded that. People are seeking definite answers - seems proportional to the uncertainty they sense. Do you really feel qualified to provide that? Seems a big responsibility to take on, sort of like a public Explaining influencer lol.
Your idea that gossip enriches mundane with magic is unnecessary here, because the media themselves are 'unexplained' (if we remove your certainty).
It can be compelling and attractive to fill the silence or the unknown with an invention of certainty - sort of like a prophet or shepheard - but the edge of known demands more curiosity and wonder for an honest approach.
krferriter
Birds tend to be well insulated so when they fly at altitude in cold weather they don’t lose all their body heat.
The color it appears on infrared footage depends on the other pixels in frame. It uses dynamic ranges to map infrared values to a visible light spectrum. If the rest of the frame was ice, or you were looking up into space, a bird would probably be rendered as very warm.
If the rest of the frame is a warm ocean surface and warm wind turbines, then a flying bird may be rendered as cold relative to those pixels.
Balloons can also show up as a different temperature than the background of the frame depending on what the balloon is made of, altitude differences (ambient temp at high altitude is colder than at the surface), etc.
keepamovin
Could you find some videos for those cases? Would be interesting to see this in action.
Morromist
This is one of those things where an objective person shouldn't start out with a completely neutral attitude. Have you ever heard that phrase "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"?
For example, If I take a blurry photo of something I see outside on a full moon that's probably a raccoon and proclaim its a photo of the elder god Nug, spawn of Azathoth, the Lord of All Things, and someone points out that its probably a raccoon but the photo is so bad there's really no way to ever tell the right attitude isn't to say:
"It can be compelling and attractive to fill the silence or the unknown with an invention of certainty - sort of like a prophet or shepheard - but the edge of known demands more curiosity and wonder for an honest approach."
discreteevent
This is even more true when there are so many blurry photos. It's as if Nugs acolytes keep putting up photos and making claims but not a single photo clearly shows his three heads or single pogo stick leg. The more photos there are, the more likely it is that at least one of them should clearly display Nug.
undefined
sandworm101
>> What kind of birds are cold in black-hot imagery? What sort of missiles don't have an exhaust but a "ghost shell" trailing behind?
IR imagery can be flipped between black=hot or white=hot. These systems are about creating contrast to aid visualization, not recording scientific data.
>> What sort of balloons show up as contrast instead of neutral?
A hot air balloon? Any balloon that has recently changed altitude? Any reflective balloon reflecting sunlight (Mylar is common). Or, in thin air, a non-reflective balloon absorbing sunlight and warming faster than it can dissipate that heat.
keepamovin
Right - but the white dots I was referring to were shown on black hot imagery calibrated by "streetlights are black hot", "car engine are black hot".
andsoitis
What do you think are more likely to explanations?
keepamovin
I feel it premature on the data to offer any at all. Also inappropriate for me to explain because I don't want the role, nor to bias any. I am content with the mystery and will see what shows up. Re this latest "drop" - I am in the absorb and observe phase, analysis is only passive background, if at all, I think.
I'm grateful for the entertainment and the sense of "gov't doing something people want/revealing something they lied about" tho. Restores confidence in the big system. I'm really curious to see what comes next :)
tootie
Of course, everything is just something boring. The chances of us espying extraterrestrials in our atmosphere by chance are essentially nil. People looking for secret photos and buried evidence will absolutely positively never find it. People inside the DoD are just as crazy and irrational as the general public if not moreso. If a flying saucer lands in your front yard and little green men come out and say "take me to your leader" it's still infinitesimally likely that it's actually aliens. Meeting aliens will be nothing like any movie or book ever written (except maybe Contact).
cookiengineer
I mean, there is still people who think that a UFO was sighted in Roswell at the radar testing site of Area 51.
Imagine that, 70ish years later there is people that cannot grasp how modern the A-12 prototype was. [1]
In my opinion the US has a real scientific education problem. So much so that people still think that alien life that built machines so advanced that they can bridge distances over lightyears travel time... just the belief that they will remotely resemble our appearance anyhow is statistically so close to 0 that I have no words to express how unlikely it is to happen. You have a greater chance getting hit every millisecond of your life by a lightning strike than this being the case.
api
If we are being visited we would never see them unless they decided to show themselves, and if they did it would be absolutely unambiguous.
Someone with the tech to travel the stars (or something weirder like between dimensions) could make probes the size of bugs, sand, or dust. They could also image us at incredible resolution from afar, receive all our signals, and so on. They might be able to do even weirder and crazier forms of surveillance we don’t even understand yet, like high resolution imaging with neutrinos or gravity waves.
They could study us all they wanted and we’d never know.
Look into how advanced some of our spy tech is, and we have barely left our planet.
pyinstallwoes
The star one kind of reminds me of the kill vehicle: https://youtu.be/KBMU6l6GsdM?si=O1jl4aQfaX_POY4T
krferriter
That's interesting but that's not what this video is. The star shape in the DoD video is a camera artifact. Just a really bright source of infrared light.
keepamovin
It doesn't look like artifacts look: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/a-gimbal-glare-explainer.12... tho it still might be.
This theory is the one of yours least easily dismissed, but requires further evidence to be more convincing, I believe.
sandworm101
At this point, I would dismiss every image of anything that shared symmetry with any part of the camera taking the photo.
In the 90s there was a wave of diamond-shaped craft in Europe. All were taken by cheap disposable cameras with four-bladed aperture. The current trend now is fuzzy moving images. They are fixed points like stars and the "motion" and color changes comes from the digital camera's algorithm trying to make sense of a one-pixel signal from the ccd. (See flat earth videos claiming that stars/planets are actually spotlights.)
esbranson
> balloons and birds
> missiles
> diffraction+aperture artifact
Uh if the US military cannot identify birds, balloons, light, and more importantly missiles after thorough cross-agency review, I think you're not seeing the forest for the trees.
krferriter
This is not about “the US military cannot identify”.
These case reports happen often because one person filmed something and perhaps that one person didn’t know what it was. The video then gets saved and catalogued as unidentified. The video is then so lacking in information and context that it is literally impossible for people to later figure out exactly what object it was. AARO (and before them the UAP Task Force) has been investigating a lot of these case reports and many of them get resolved as “balloon-like objects” or “objects consistent with a balloon”, because the video is consistent with it being a balloon but they want to avoid stating definitively that they know the object was a balloon. If I recall correctly something half of the imagery that gets reported as UAP in the US military ends up falling into the “likely/definitely birds and balloons” bucket.
It is foolish to dismiss this, it’s simply a fact that balloons and birds are a common underlying cause for sightings which are reported to AARO as UAP. There have also been other cases where videos recorded of airplanes have been reported to AARO and they were able to figure out that it was airplanes. It’s not that “the US military doesn’t know what airplanes look like”, it’s that one person operating an IR camera in the military recorded a video and didn’t know what it was, so they reported it as being an unidentified aerial sighting. And then it gets put in this bucket of reports called “UAP sightings”. And maybe never gets resolved because there’s not enough information there to do anything with it.
esbranson
No, these releases are UFOs as of now, after extensive cross-agency review. Your premise of "one person didn’t know what it was" is demonstrably false. This is not a release of identified anomalous phenomena or IAP or IFOs.
glenstein
Unique observation conditions definitely can and do make those difficult to identify in some cases. Omniscience in all cases does not follow from success in routine cases.
esbranson
The Pentagon, White House, &c are not unusual or unique observation conditions. These are not just UFOs at the time, they are UFOs now after going through extensive review regimes.
mrandish
For anyone else who has a UFO-crazy uncle, I've found Mick West's YouTube channel to be invaluable https://www.youtube.com/c/mickwest. Mick is a retired video game programmer (Spider Man, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk), who does extremely well-researched videos analyzing UFO claims.
He's not flashy or trying to be entertaining, just thorough, evidence-based and scientifically rigorous. He'll even do controlled experiments, recreations and 3D models to validate what's going on. And he's unfailingly respectful no matter how unhinged the claim. His work explaining the "Gimbal Video" is a good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7jcBGLIpus
cubefox
He doesn't seem to explain the recently popular "transients" though.
mrandish
I think it takes time. I can only imagine the hours required to research, develop and shoot such well-evidenced explanations, given that part of his audience is true believers searching for any gap through which they can sustain their beliefs. But look at his website: https://www.metabunk.org. A quick search there for "Transients" returned several pages of posts, some from Mick himself.
Frankly, I don't follow it these days as I have nowhere near Mick's saintly level of patience to so calmly endure a never-ending game of whac-a-mole. Rational, evidence-based skeptics like Mick are doomed to Sisyphean toil because even after they've resoundingly explained a hundred vague claims, UFO (and Chem-Trail, Flat Earth, etc) true believers will always find a new one to hitch their belief to. Because, apparently, a consistent trend of 100 consecutive falsifications implies nothing about the likelihood of #101. And at the end of the day, it's impossible to conclusively prove a negative.
glenstein
>Rational, evidence-based skeptics like Mick are doomed to Sisyphean toil because even after they've resoundingly explained a hundred vague claims, UFO (and Chem-Trail, Flat Earth, etc) true believers will always find a new one to hitch their belief to.
Right. And I do think that meticulous effort is invaluable because it heightens the cost of cognitive dissonance which can be important to reaching people on the sidelines.
But it makes you wonder if the debunking community should be a bit more intentional about intercepting whatever these psychological processes are that make people immune to evidence-based correction, and target those mechanisms the same meticulousness in patients of a debunk.
Although obviously I think the trouble with that is such a task would amount to helping steer such people into a fabric of social and cultural connectedness that's more valuable to them than the conspiracies are. Which seems a tall order. But maybe engineering an alternative psychological virus that crowds out the conspiracies in favor of something else is a more efficient option.
hnfong
> Because, apparently, a consistent trend of 100 consecutive falsifications implies nothing about the likelihood of #101. And at the end of the day, it's impossible to conclusively prove a negative.
That's right. Not sure why you sound a bit unhappy with this.
In particular, a source can become more untrustworthy over time if the source is repeatedly proven to lie or be reckless about the truth. I'm not sure you can apply the same logic to "categories of claims". What is the rationale behind your implied frustration that people are not "learning" that some "categories of claims" tend to be untrue? (not to mention the arbitrary grouping of totally disparate ones like Chem-Trails and Flat Earth)
keepamovin
Sounds like you've already decided and are trying to work backwards - as in the supposition "UFO-crazy" seems more like you're trying to wrangle some analysis to prove your inter-family ad-hominem than following the evidence to illuminate a mystery, and Mr West's work is abused for that lol
jibal
What remarkable projection.
marshray
As used here "UFO-crazy" wasn't a supposition, it was a constraint.
"UFO-crazy uncles" are known to exist. This is not an extraordinary claim. The existence of such uncles provides no evidence for or against extraterrestrial visitors or other aerial phenomena.
keepamovin
In context seemed more like a smear for any who don't dismiss as unremarkable. But I'm glad you took it as the narrow case, tho - do they really "exist", or might they have just been right all along? Lol
ks2048
We will know when aliens are here when a new Polymarket account bets $10M on "aliens about to be discovered".
nycdatasci
MostlyStable
According to the resolution criteria, I would say that that market should trade much much higher than OP's hypothetical market. Any governmental agency stating that "Extraterrestrial life exists" would count. NASA/Seti finding evidence of algae on an exo planet or Io or something counts.
krferriter
I agree, it needs to be more specific. Like:
"NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos all confirm definitive concrete proof, and publish this proof, for the presence of organisms, or technology created by organisms, which originated from outside Earth's atmosphere, and was present within Earth's hill sphere at some point since 1900."
sandworm101
Which has already happened. Clinton basically announced the discovery of life on mars back in the 90s.
keyle
The truth is out there! One cent at a time.
noisy_boy
Payout denied on the grounds of what "about to be" means.
gosub100
I want a polymarket for "epstein files released"
kilroy123
I hate how true this is.
andyjohnson0
So with The War having ground to an unsatisfactory halt, they're now releasing distraction #2. I wonder how many will be needed between now and November?
Convince me I'm wrong.
qup
What are they distracting us from?
giarc
I think the idea is to distract from the Epstein Files. Or maybe it's the Iran "excursion". Or the gerrymandering...
Loughla
It's absolutely gerrymandering.
Trump is running candidates against any incumbent who doesn't vote for redistricting to gerrymander the map.
I'm willing to bet he starts "joking" about how Roosevelt got more than two terms and the amendment to limit terms is a deep state crime.
bigyabai
Correct answer, carry on citizen.
gosub100
Epstein Files
dzhiurgis
the government wants to control the people so they can control the government /s
hakrgrl
The amount of coordination it takes to release these files, coupled with the incompetence of government.
The prosaic explanation is the more likely one, meaning the events are unrelated.
staplers
You've mistaken indifference with inability. The government can absolutely get something done very quickly if certain people wish. There are numerous examples.
Hikikomori
[flagged]
pear01
They will never release them. The distraction will morph into all the electoral subterfuge they will attempt as they increasingly fear losing power at the polls. They know what's in those files and what will happen to them if they lose in 2028. Thus they will be even more incentivized to behave badly.
If gas prices double from here it will be less stupid distraction and more overt authoritarianism... the ICE question has not been settled. ICE is still violating your neighbors and making a mockery of what is supposed to be a society of free people. They merely thought the overt city takeovers and shooting Americans in the head had become a bad look that wasn't worth it politically. The persistence of this calculus is not inevitable.
Hikikomori
It's a joke.
jatora
[flagged]
lenerdenator
That actually wouldn't be a distraction.
More than anything, that's the one thing that they want to avoid. That's something that's radicalized at least one person into doing something rash and could radicalize more.
vkou
The distraction is not releasing them. If there was enough shit in the files for a conviction, the previous administration would have prosecuted. They were sealed from the public not from the DOJ.
The reality is that there's no shortage of dirt in them (that likely doesn't pile up to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt), but his base doesn't care, and will never care.
tardedmeme
It's possible releasing the files would have negative consequences on both the current and previous administration, which is why neither of them did it.
jazzyjackson
secret third option: the dirt is still effective as blackmail and thats more valuable to powers that be than prosecution. the fbi acquired all the videos on disc from a safe in wexlers 5th ave mansion, yet no one was arrested for sex crimes, weird!
lenerdenator
There's likely enough for more convictions, but two things:
1) Maxwell was under prosecution at the time, so some of it was related to that.
2) The kind of people being mentioned as potential indictees are the kind who can do something about it.
gosub100
> If there was enough shit in the files for a conviction, the previous administration would have prosecuted.
not so fast. There is new info coming out about Kerry being implicated.
keepamovin
You sound invincibly unconvinceable - but the way I see that argument is the media power of the narratives against the admin are all currently weak, there's no tidal wave of pressure from which to distract - and even if there were, it's not like Trump has ever needed that, he's always been able to dispatch wave after wave of narratives, undefeated.
Would you like to know more? The timing is viewed more naturally I think in a trajectory from the 2017 NYT article, through the series of congressional hearings, whistleblowers and attempted UAPDA legislation, to recent statements by Obama and Trump re "classified info", that seemed to lead directly to here. Through all this, the chorus of increasing public interest and demands.
More starkly - it's odd to see this issue in anyway partisanly or linked to a particular administration, or even news cycle. It's a persistent topic of human interest, across cultures and decades. The Trump intersection I think can be explained because he's the most "renegade" (yes, a pun), least controlled and most effective. These latter claims themselves are deeply controversial for some, and may contribute to making it hard for such folks to see any such prosaic explanations of the timing and reach for something a little more out there.
marshray
Conspicuously missing in your argument is a link to a credible source with any evidence (or even 1st person testimony). It should be easy.
Instead, I just see elaborate narratives about political motivations and garbage evidence like that laughably low-effort fake video presented in Congress by Representatives.
keepamovin
Lol, what? Reads as zany non-sequitur in context - did you reply right? Your frame that any timing of this drop is disputed and requires evidence, I reject. If you say precisely which phrases you felt that about, your comment might be better.
stevenhuang
This is the correct understanding. Thank you for voicing it.
It is unfortunate how many have succumbed to Trump derangement syndrome and are rendered unable to discuss this topic critically, moving to complete dismissal because of the controversy surrounding the messenger.
The UAP disclosure movement has been decades in the making. Trump was simply the one willing to push it, exactly because of his counterculture, renegade nature as you put it.
Are we alone? Is there other intelligent life in the universe? What's the meaning of life? They've robbed themselves of the ability to engage with these questions, and it's a shame.
jibal
TDS = Trump Devotion Syndrome.
rapnie
We eagerly await release of the second batch of Unpublished American Pedophile (UAP) documents and videos, for justice to be finally served.
ahmetcadirci25
The US Department of Defense has published a CSV dataset containing UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) observation records. It appears to include structured entries that can be used for independent analysis and research.
Dataset: https://www.war.gov/Portals/1/Interactive/2026/UFO/uap-csv.c...
Mirror: https://gist.github.com/ahmetcadirci25/e4edb7d30109fdb8ff14b...
Could be useful for anyone interested in data analysis, anomaly detection, or open government datasets.
kittikitti
Thank you for the links. I was able to find the CSV too by taking a look at the network sources from the webpage. I find that the dataset is messy, with missing data. For example, 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_153 has a link that doesn't work either in the CSV nor the webpage.
On the other hand, there is no link in the CSV for NASA-UAP-D3A, Gemini 7 Audio Excerpt, 1965 but the link in the webpage does work. It utilizes https://api.dvidshub.net/ to request the content.
Another example are incident dates like with DOW-UAP-PR36, Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, May 2020 that are N/A in the CSV but have an incorrect one inside the snippet (5/1/20 as opposed to 5/14/20). It also seems like there are duplicate incidents just with different media. By the way, the video in this incident is compelling.
I look forward to dissecting the dataset but it's far from perfect. There is definitely a massive amount of potential here.
qingcharles
There are also fakes going around. Here's one I came across earlier:
Which people claim was posted at this URL:
https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/memo_jcs_admiral...
(the dates of the ship's movement don't align with its actual movements, and the C/O name is wrong)
booleandilemma
Their site has a bad link.
The file for "65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Serial_153" is here:
https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/65_HS1-834228961...
nolok
I'm pretty sure they renamed it the departement of war, for some reason
ethagnawl
There is. They're insecure man-children who played too much Call of Duty.
XorNot
I'm not unconvinced Hegseth bought wholesale into the book version of Starship Troopers, since Heinlein complaining about calling it the Department of Defense is one of his stand-in character rants. But that is my personal bias since I forced myself to suffer through it recently.
dingaling
I think it's accurate.
"War" is the application of violence for political ends. "Defense" is only a subset of that.
nolok
Yeah, the idea is that we wanted to move focus from might make right to deterrance and international law. It's why the UN charter prohibits agressive war but allow self defense, and why the US renamed its departement of war to department of defense in 1947.
So yeah, sure, in the current attitude and action that are very much "hey let's go back to that great time where we openly agreed war of conquest are a good thing" they have it makes sense.
GolfPopper
>I'm pretty sure they renamed it the daprtement of war, for some reason.
Nope. Actually renaming it was too long and complicated a process, so instead they're pretending they renamed it.
dragonwriter
> Actually renaming it was too long and complicated a process,
Specifically, actually renaming it requires an Act of Congress, since it is specified in law.
daveguy
Exactly this. Corrupt frauds through and through.
They're weak and ineffective, so they cosplay with letterhead instead.
tzs
Polling I saw says only about 18% of Americans are calling it that, with 72% sticking with the actual legal name (Department of Defense). Even a majority of Republicans are still calling it the Department of Defense.
The other name changes by the Trump administration are also not catching on.
70+% also continue to call the Gulf of Mexico "Gulf of Mexico".
A large majority also continue to call Mount Denali "Mount Denali".
A significant majority is still calling the Kennedy Center that instead of "The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts".
jibal
Only Congress can rename it.
Terr_
*sigh* No, it wasn't not renamed, in the same way that a cape-wearing 4-year-old isn't actually changing his legal name to SuperBadguyKillerMan.
nolok
I mean, apparently they didn't legally but he did sign an executive order, and they do use war.gov ; so it's a de facto versus de jure situation.
mcswell
Umm...when we lived in Colombia, my son decided to re-name himself Martillo Veneno. For those who don't know Spanish, that's Hammer Poison. You have something against that?
CMay
It used to be named the Department of War and Palmer Luckey suggested naming it back. People agreed, so they did. It's just another part of changing the posture to match the philosophy that the best defensive is a good offense. It seems to be working pretty well, if you know what we're defending against.
dragonwriter
> It used to be named the Department of War
No, it didn't.
For a few years before it was the Department of Defense it was the National Military Establishment (with an initialism with a very unfortunate pronunciation given its function) and before that it didn't exist at all.
Now, before the National Military Establishment was formed to unify the nations military bureaucracy, there were two separate cabinet level departments, the Department of War (which oversaw the Army) and the Department of the Navy (which oversaw the Navy, including the Marine Corps.) When the NME was created, the Army was split into the Army and the Air Force, and the Department of War was likewise split into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. Both of these new Departments and the Department of the Navy remained (briefly) cabinet-level departments with their own Secretaries, while the NME was headed by the new Secretary of Defense.
Very quickly, though, further reforms were adopted in law and the NME became the Department of Defense and the service secretaries were formally subordinated to the Secretary of Defense and were now subcabinet positions (which is how the DoD got its unique, within the US executive branch, Department with its own cabinet level Secretary with subordinate Departments headed by a subcabinet level Secretaries organization.)
TLDR: The Department of War was not an earlier name for the Department of Defense, it was the name for the Department of the Army before the Air Force was split out from it.
> Palmer Luckey suggested naming it back. People agreed, so they did.
Well, again, it couldn’t be named back to “Department of War”, because its only previous name was “National Military Establishment.” And while some people obviously agreed that it should be called “Department of War”, they didn’t actually rename it. The name in law of the organization named “The Department of Defense” in 1949 by amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 remains “The Department of Defense”. It hasn’t been renamed. The present executive branch leadership has adopted nicknames for the department and the titles of its officials ("secondary titles” in the language of EO 14347 which formalized the system of nicknames [and also recounts as if true the false history that “Department of War” was previously the name of the Department of Defense].)
daveguy
You clearly don't.
david-gpu
According to US congresswoman Luna this is the first of several releases that will be coming out in the following weeks.
Edit: I had a look at a bunch of the videos and didn't find anything remarkable, in my opinion. The witness testimonies read like so many others.
bredren
They may read like so many others, but what I don't understand is why special agents in the FBI would take it upon themselves to report strange phenomena.
This seems like it would be a CLM, as the authority of their testimony is central to their function as federal LE.
For example, see this document: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/western_us_event...
(from series of documents from incident data 9/1/23)
BobaFloutist
Talk about nominative determinism!
krferriter
Luna also represents the House district in Florida that is home to the Church of Scientology Flag Service Org headquarters.
cestith
So the US government is, in fact, capable of large drops of files at once? Asking for an Epstein.
jazzypants
[flagged]
vjvjvjvjghv
That’s what she wants to be. I am always shocked how many intelligent and capable people are happily joining the Trump person cult.
mandeepj
They are hopping on for endorsements, election funds, and votes from his followers.
angelgonzales
This is so cool. For instance the asset FBI SEPTEMBER 2023 SIGHTING - COMPOSITE SKETCH indicated that “Actual site photo with FBI Lab rendered graphic overlay depicting corroborating eyewitness reports from September 2023 of an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously.”
https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/2024-04-30-compo...
I wonder if there’s satellite imagery of this event, or maybe if in the near future we’ll have greater satellite coverage so we can corroborate these claims with imagery.
Arodex
>I wonder if there’s satellite imagery of this event, or maybe if in the near future we’ll have greater satellite coverage so we can corroborate these claims with imagery.
The more cameras we have (in everyone's pocket, in the streets, in the sky), the less "sightings" we have (of UFO and cryptids).
Tells you something.
tzs
It might just be telling you that people spend so much time staring down at their phones they don't notice anything happening in the sky anymore.
GolfPopper
Lots of gorgeous images as a result, though:
arcastroe
I remember being amazed when I saw this as a kid and told everyone I had seen a "rainbow around the sun". I've never seen it again in person. Maybe I've learned not to stare in the direction of the sun. But thank you for teaching me it's called a sundog!
ComplexSystems
People can and do see unidentified things and take plenty of photos of them.
sethammons
And still no good photos of the moon from our pocket cameras
sandworm101
Mandatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1235/
6stringmerc
Yeah, that an advanced intelligent entity, like me, is averse to having their photo taken by any old yokel who will post it online for clout.
That’s the correct interpretation, yes?
nolok
No the interpretation is that the more we could prove it if real, the less we do
Sailors saw mermaids all the time too, I don't think they're all hiding under a rock since we invented the camera
wredcoll
Wait, your argument is that aliens and bigfoot are just camera shy?
carlosjobim
> Tells you something.
It would tell you that they are not of this world. The same way as you can't photograph (other) spiritual experiences.
ks2048
> This is so cool.
"cool" is not the word that comes to mind looking at this image.
ptaffs
...more comical. Word Art was used to create the rendering. I guess the original comment was sarcastic.
booleandilemma
da bomb, phat, dope?
aduffy
I think I'm missing the excitement. This is an artist's rendering of a supposed massive orb in the sky? I am more impressed by the actual UAV footage that has been released previously.
SunshineTheCat
I feel like increasing each day, I cannot help but hear Squidward's voice when reading HN comments.
fnordpiglet
The entire site is meant to distract you from asking where are the other files they’ve been required by law to disclose but have refused to. Mixing artist renderings with photography is just par for course MAGA conspiracy stuff.
z500
I'm confused. Aren't these supposed to be photos, or are we expected to be agog with 3D renderings?
carlosjobim
It says SKETCH, what is confusing about it?
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anigbrowl
This is pure propaganda. It's been astroturfed on 4chan and mainstream social media for weeks, though to great skepticism on the former. The UFO nut community (people who make their interest/belief in UFOs into their entire personality, to the neglect of all other considerations) is being weaponized for political leverage, just like the anti-vax and chemtrail communities were.
kevin_thibedeau
It's the next distraction. They have a new one queued up every week until November.
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lotsofpulp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone
Very effective tactic. Only solution is to ignore all non local stuff until just before elections.
ethbr1
Ooh, like an advent calendar of crazy!
Me? I'd rather just keep reading through mentions of Trump in the Epstein files.
reaperducer
Or as one late-night host put it: "The Trump Files, featuring Jeffrey Epstein."
wizardforhire
As wild as this is, its very true… idk about till November as I think their playbook repeats too often. Regardless, I have friends that run mobile studio vans for on-air guests whose major client is fox news… they get schedules two weeks in advance of guests. Locations… scheduling, production, logistics all takes time and planning obviously… the studios and powers at be absolutely have already thought in advance what stories they’ll be pushing! Not to say random last minute events don’t happen constantly throwing a wrench in things… but regardless the over arching narratives and news cycle are already mostly planned out.
estebank
> The UFO nut community is being weaponized for political leverage
Always has been, at least since 1947.
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tardedmeme
Probably settles some large polymarket bets as well. "Government will announce UFOs are real" has been a popular one for a long time.
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thegrim33
Ah, a commenter claiming something is propaganda .. let's go look through their submissions to HN and see their posting pattern .. Let's see ..
- Trump-related political posts
- China-related political posts
- Iran-related political posts
- DOGE-related political posts
- RFK-Jr-related political posts
- Covid-19 related posts
- Economy-related political posts
- Election-related political posts
- Anti-Russia/anti-"nazi" political posts
My oh my, with that post history, I surely trust you to decide for us what's "propaganda' and what's not. Surely you yourself aren't a huge propaganda account.
lagrange77
They really made a sci-fi themed webdesign for this. Can't say that i don't like it.
drowntoge
The in-house web design team (if there is one) must've had the time of their lives.
bigyabai
[flagged]
seemaze
I was under the impression that the DoD was not a big fan of Claude.. Codex perhaps?
dvfjsdhgfv
> DoD
I still can't wrap my head around the fact that the guy who made his campaing on ending wars the first thing he does after being elected changes the name from DoD to DoW and starts new wars.
lagrange77
Yes, i don't know why, but i can literally smell that its generated, but it doesn't matter.
Is there actually a term for every discussion about something code related turning into a debate about LLMs, just increasing the signal to noise ratio on the topic at hand?
I'll throw 'second order AI slop' into the ring.
ssalka
I feel like this is a symptom of AI psychosis
amarcheschi
It has that ai je ne sais quoi
bigyabai
> Is there actually a term for every discussion about something code related turning into a debate about LLMs
Having standards? I'm an American taxpayer, this slop is being published on my dime.
AndrewKemendo
Sounds like incredible progress if a middle schooler can do what took a team of professionals (or one focused adult nerd) less than two decades ago
squigz
A bunch of middle/high schoolers could probably build something that looks like a bridge.
I don't know if I'd want to drive on it.
bigyabai
You'd hope so, but no, the website is ugly and immediately reeks of LLM boilerplate.
I miss the days when 18F made bespoke sites from scratch.
all2
This is literally the Whitest Kids You Know moon bears skit. If you haven't seen it, watch it.
It's a distraction, a means to control the narrative. That's it.
russfink
In the same vein - the Roswell Museum and Research Center - the library portion is underrepresented in its ads. It is a library about the size of an elementary / middle school library filled with supposed accounts and testimony, academic-style papers and reports. One could spend days admiring this collection. (I’m not shilling for it, just pointing out the best part is not the latex cadavers in the other room.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_UFO_Museum_and_R...
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https://apnews.com/article/trump-ufos-uap-aliens-pentagon-re...
https://www.war.gov/UFO/#release