UFOs: are they really just a fictitious phenomenon?

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924 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#493297 14-Jul-2011 12:46

The original founders and elite thinkers of America, Walter Lippmann being one of them & the Rockefellers for instance, new this and understood how the system worked "to manipulate & control the masses" in their words, and their books and teachings have been used since long before settlement in America.

that should read MISQUOTED and MISREPRESENTED
Research the qoutes used and the context they were said in.
You will find it's very different to what is thrown about by the NWO fans

cgrew

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#493306 14-Jul-2011 13:09

TheUngeek:
that should read MISQUOTED and MISREPRESENTED
Research the qoutes used and the context they were said in.
You will find it's very different to what is thrown about by the NWO fans

Lippmann said the herd of citizens must be governed by a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality." This class is composed of experts, specialists and bureaucrats. The experts, who often are referred to as "elites," were to be a machinery of knowledge that circumvents the primary defect of democracy, the impossible ideal of the "omnicompetent citizen". Later, in The Phantom Public (1925)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Public

You should read his book? I think you'll find it's not the case.

TheUngeek

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Ultimate Geek
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#493307 14-Jul-2011 13:12

Yeah that wiki link supports what I am saying....

" Lippmann’s book is a forceful critique of what he takes to be mistaken conceptions of “the public” found in democratic theory: that the public is made up of sovereign and omnicompetent citizens (21); that “the people” are a sort of superindividual with one will and one mind (160), or an “organism with an organic unity of which the individual is a cell” (147); that the public directs the course of events (77); that it is a knowable body with fixed membership (110); that it embodies cosmopolitan, universal, disinterested intuition (168-9); that is a dispenser of law or morals (106); and so forth. Lippmann counters that the public is none of these things; rather, it is a “mere phantom,” an abstraction (77) embedded in a “false philosophy” (200) that depends on a “mystical notion of Society” (147). Democratic theories, he argues, vaguely assert that the public can act competently to direct public affairs and that the functioning of government is the will of the people, but Lippmann dismisses these notions of the capacities of the public as a fiction."

He is right you know.

Ragnor

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#493318 14-Jul-2011 13:25

Humans evolved tribally on this basis any empire that gets too large tends to fail and fall apart.

Winston Churchill I think famously said: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried"

xpd

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#493320 14-Jul-2011 13:28

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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BurningBeard

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#493323 14-Jul-2011 13:33

All my mates who are into UFO's are always posting UFO videos and photos on facebook. Always easily debunked, or fake, but to them it's "OMG LOOK AT THIS!!!!!!"

To the true believer, alternative options just don't factor into it... yet they're always telling us heartless skeptics to be more "open minded" (apparently that means lowering my standards of evidence.) A bit like when Derren Brown fooled a bunch of "psychics" or when James Randi fooled paranormal reasearchers with a couple of mentalists he'd trained... NOT ONE person said, "is this fake?"

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TheUngeek

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#493324 14-Jul-2011 13:35

I had a flat mate once who had a book that proved there were alien bases on the moon.
It was full of old black and white pictures with smudges on them that were said to be dust clouds from spaceship engines.

I moved out soon after he showed me that.

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gzt

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#493439 14-Jul-2011 17:28

cgrew: [...] world government [...] [etc]

Ok, most of your post was about world government. I could give you my many and varied opinions about that, but..

Essentially your explanation didn't really explain or otherwise help me to understand how the supposed use or appearance of these symbols in film, media, etc will or possibly can lead to or influence towards one world government (or even anything beyond fashion really).

oxnsox: [...]

Gee whiz! That was almost poetry : ).

cgrew

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Ultimate Geek
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#503182 8-Aug-2011 07:43

Most recent UFO sightings from 2009-2011

A few here no doubt could be a hoax but the one sighted over China & Russia haven't been classified as of yet - China had to shut down their airport and a lot of eye-witnesses caught the UFO on camera.

One to watch out for: The guy at the end of this clip who called in to a popular radio station claiming he's from Area 51 ;)

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#503231 8-Aug-2011 10:11

Laughing at news anchor woman comment: "That's UFO if I've ever seen one. It's undeniable" (00:54).

Interesting how those UFO all have light beams pointing up directly at them... Or are they trying to illuminate something?

gzt

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#503275 8-Aug-2011 12:29

Favorite quotes:

Media scientific accuracy fail: "a blue light growing into a spiral and then disappearing into what appeared to be a black hole" - @1:57

Media assessment success!: "Jeff, what's this all about? Well Shadi, we don't know!" - @4:55

Really enjoyed that! Great music direction ; )

Great video, lots of material. Even so, my view is that 'Aliens' are in fact the least likely explanation. It just happens to be the most convenient explanation.

When you take out the only common link between these events (the 'alien' explanation itself) then you are left with individual events to look at and the circumstances in which they occur.

Btw, the 'immanent announcement from the government any day now' meme/theme/claim is one which comes up every couple of years or so at least.

ScottStevensNZ

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#503333 8-Aug-2011 14:09

cgrew: Most recent UFO sightings from 2009-2011

A few here no doubt could be a hoax but the one sighted over China & Russia haven't been classified as of yet - China had to shut down their airport and a lot of eye-witnesses caught the UFO on camera.

One to watch out for: The guy at the end of this clip who called in to a popular radio station claiming he's from Area 51 ;)

OK, so how do 'They' know where we are? 'They' might be able to travel faster than light, however the main indication that we are here is limited by light speed. We've only been broadcasting radio since the 20's, and now our broadcasts are becoming less frequent with increase in fibre utilisation. So now 'They' have to be looking, and if you are looking that hard, then why only appear to people who can only take blurry photos or of dubious reliability? Would it not make much more sense to announce yourself? You've come all this way after all...

If 'They' are trying to be stealthy then I find it very difficult to believe that 'They' can evade everyone else except the people 'They' appear to..

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UnrealWarCheek

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#503400 8-Aug-2011 15:59

It's a shame I discovered this discussion towards the end of it's life. I've always enjoyed a good UFO story and blurry video clip to fire my imagination.

Do UFOs exist? Yes! (until we identify them as planes, birds, or other natural explainable phenomenon).
Do Aliens exist? Yes! (When you consider the vastness of the Universe etc).

Have Aliens visited Earth? Personally, straight up, and honestly... no they haven't. I don't have enough information to say either way of the debate. It's one of those things like ghosts, I'll believe when I see it (and see it again after shaking my head and closing my eyes!). But having said that, there is a lot of witness testimony from reputable sources like doctors, police officers, and ranking armed forces personal that suggest there is something happening. I guess I'm an open-minded sceptic, not quite a 'Mulder', and not quite a 'Scully'.

Ok, that's my introduction done on where I stand.

I think one of my favourite debunks I did was that UFO that was supposed to have flown over Washington DC during Obama's inauguration. It was so clearly a bird flying from the close right to the far left, you could even see its wings when you paused the video.

I think that's the problem with YouTube/internet video, it's full of obvious fakes and some clever ones too; any actual UFO video will be written off unless it's live TV.

L.

BurningBeard

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#503669 9-Aug-2011 08:34

cgrew: Most recent UFO sightings from 2009-2011

I'm familiar with a few from that video. The stuff that looks like balloons... yep, balloons. The Jerusalem one was a hoax, the Russian one is a cloud(!!!!) and I'm surprised they bothered to include the Norway "portal" (explained) - but this is testament to how credulous some UFO enthusiasts can be. Adding illuminati symbols and spooky music doesn't help with credibility either, lolz.

One to watch out for: The guy at the end of this clip who called in to a popular radio station claiming he's from Area 51 ;)

Yeah, he also called back and admitted it was for a giggle. He'd been assuming whacky characters and calling the guy for a while by then. Tool used it in one of their songs and it sounds really, really cool.

___

In other news:

MUFON head quits, calls UFOlogy “humans deceiving humans”

I decided to examine the data collection and investigative practices in Ufology, and after poring over thousands of historical case files from MUFON, NICAP and APRO investigators in the MUFON archives, what I found, was inconsistent investigation with a total lack of evidentiary standards. I also found a paper trail of disinformation and misinformation that has kept Ufology in check through infighting and red herrings, rabbit holes and elaborate deception operations....

...All of this has led me to where I am at today – squarely outside of Ufology – away from the polarized beliefs, the three ring circus of sideshows and illusion acts that has created nothing but a hall of mirrors and dead ends and which has produced no definite answers despite 60 years of accumulated investigation.

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BurningBeard

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#503671 9-Aug-2011 08:40

It's one of those things like ghosts, I'll believe when I see it (and see it again after shaking my head and closing my eyes!). But having said that, there is a lot of witness testimony from reputable sources like doctors, police officers, and ranking armed forces personal that suggest there is something happening.

The reality is, regardless of your job or intellect, the all-to-well-known failings of human perception can affect anybody, "I know what I saw" is really "I know what I THINK I saw."

Case & point, a more skeptically inclined poster on another forum I lurk at talked about how when he was driving out late one night in the country and saw a strange glowing triangle following him in his rear view mirror. Sometimes it changed shape.

Turns out it was a light on a hill, and it was reflecting in his loose and wobbly rear view mirror, and depending on his speed, it would rattle differently and change from a triangle to circular shape.

People with "doctor" or "officer" before there name aren't necessarily immune to BS too. Take "doctor*" Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project. He just flat-out makes up stuff and has been quite hostile to people who don't agree with him, I suspect it's just a money making scheme like so many other "alternative thinking" websites.

*He's an osteopath, apparently.

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