Congress ponders underwater alien civilizations, human hybrids, and other unexplained stuff

The US government has known about aliens since the 1940s, but kept the truth from us all, according to testimony offered at a Wednesday session of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. The two-hour hearing – titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth" – included claims that the US is secretly …

[jake]

So let me get this straight ...

Aliens come who knows how many light years, at an unimaginable cost of energy. On arrival, the only Government that notices is the US.gov, and said aliens don't make themselves known to any others. Somehow, everybody concerned has managed to keep quiet about it since the 1940s. Today, the only people who seem to believe it are known wackjobs in Congress ... and even Donald "loosest lips of the Century" Trump hasn't babbled about the news in the eightish years since he became Idiot In Chief ...

And I'm supposed to believe it?

C'mon, we have more important things to talk about.

[veti]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

To be fair, the wackjobs in Congress are only doing their job - viz, representing the wackjobs in the wider population by asking the questions they would want asked.

[Yorick Hunt]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

"viz, representing the wackjobs in the wider population"

You still believe that politicians actually represent the people? Oh, you sweet, innocent child.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

You still believe that politicians actually represent the people?

All too accurately.

[nautica]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

"Reader..imagine yourself a member of Congress. Now imagine yourself a blithering idiot. But I repeat myself."--Mark Twain

[jake]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

If pro is the opposite of con, what would the opposite of congress be?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

Maybe they should just be put out to gress.

[drankinatty]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

If they stayed in what has become the silly-show congress, that's one thing, but now apparently "America First" means putting the "best people", including the kiddie-diddler, a Putin suck-up, a foreigner and a fox-news commentator at the head of the DOJ, DOI, FBI and DOD. Not to mention the "worm ate my brain" guy in charge of HHS and vaccines. (ask Samoa how that went...) What could possibly go wrong in the states?

And you though Boris was an imbecile... unfortunately, he looks swimming by comparison. The race to the bottom continues. Who knew duping supporters out of $20 and $100 recurring payments was the way to win support and dedicated followers. An I thought integrity mattered... Let's all pretend to "Have Fun" to "Make Time Fly" -- it's seems our only hope... because as a majority proved beyond reasonable doubt in the last election, "You just can't fix stupid".

[nautica]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters, he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand.”

“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

--H.L. Mencken

----------------------------------------------

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

Ever since I was a child, I have been disappointed in the seeming lack of diversity of humanoid life forms on this planet. No wolf- or eagle-headed people, no human/amphibian "frog men", etc.

As interesting as I think it would be for extra-terrestrial beings to exist, I think it's extremely unlikely that they exist, let alone are visiting Earth.

Considering the various governmental scandals which have -- despite security classifications around many of them -- been incontrovertably exposed, I can't see how a government could effectively keep this one a secret.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

I'm convinced that sentient alien life exists in our vast, nearly infinite universe.

However, I don't think they're visiting Earth.

As Asimov noted in one of his essays (and Jake above), the energy required for interstellar travel is staggering, making it extremely impractical, if not nearly impossible.

The idea of a teaser visiting earth to buzz the humans seems highly unlikely due to these enormous energy constraints.

mabey one day it will be possible that advanced civilizations could identify habitable planets and send automated colony ships.

But without groundbreaking breakthroughs in physics, particularly in harnessing energy from matter, I think the most we can hope for in the next 300-500 years is detecting a distant 'hello world' radio signal from the void.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

sentient alien life exists in our vast, nearly infinite universe.

FTFY

Sarcasm aside this is a statement for which we have evidence and, if you want to insist, you can remove the word "sentient" but with the word "alien" is in there there is no supporting evidence and something I find very unlikely.

[tiggity]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

@Doctor Syntax

I think supporting evidence for alien life is obviously going to be a problem (certainly with current technology).

However, given life has occurred here*, & the huge number of possible planetary systems out there, we have to assume a high likelihood of alien life elsewhere (but the same maths of huge size / numbers of planetary systems & likely extreme difficulty of a civilization surviving and developing interstellar travel also makes visits unlikely as, if such a thing has occurred may be a huge distance away).

.. Though if there are alien races capable of traversing those huge distances, I wonder if "disaster tourism" is an alien thing, if it is they will be flocking here in their droves to watch a species do its best to trash its planet /environment.

*albeit our planet has advantages such as plate tectonics, temperature allowing liquid water, magnetic field to ward off lots of nasty radiation, etc. that have made conditions (relatively) stable for many hundreds of millions of years (so helpful to complex life development) but that may be relatively rare (but big numbers so will still be lots of earth like planets**)

** We only have life on earth to work on, but cannot ignore possibility that very different (not necessarily "carbon based") forms of life may develop on non earth like worlds***

*** Boltzmann brains enter the mix .... not even going to dream of opening that can of worms

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

"However, given life has occurred here"

Were it not for the counter-example you'd have to consider so unlikely as to be impossible.

Consider the number of different systems integrated to compose life. You have the RNA-protein synthesis system which depends on having not only the RNA template but also the amino-acid specific transfer RNAs and the amino-acid/RNA specific activating enzymes.

I'll concede that the ribosome might not be necessary and could have evolved later and the same applies to DNA. You still need some mechanism to replicate all that RNA.

That's a lot of proteins, all of which have t be coded for in RNA. Given that RNA itself can catalyse peptide bond formation it's still a fearsome boot-strapping problem if you're powering it by thermal energy and an even bigger bootstrapping problem to find some naturally-occurring chemical energy source that can link to it. If you want to see it evolve beyond consuming whatever stocks of organic chemicals that non-life processes can provide you also need some form of photosynthesis to evolve.

You also have to have the planet not only become suitable for life at some stage in its development, it's got to stay that way whilst all this unlikely bootstrap happens. Given that photosynthesis is going to involve photolysis of water that's going to require a means of dealing with the release of something as thoroughly nasty as oxygen.

It's the improbability of all those things being strung together successfully that you have to set against the number of planets.

It's a big ask and, I think, reasonable to discount until a second example is found. It's also possible to understand the thinking behind the "life arrived in a comet" style of thinking about lefe on Earth - it's a throwing the problem over the wall solution.

[StudeJeff]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

Well... if something like the Alcubierre drive really is not only possible but practical for an advanced enough civilization there very well may be alien starships wandering the cosmos.

As any technologically advanced civilization almost certainly had to pass though a phase something like we are now, with technology advancing at an exponential rate and all the challenges that go with that they would likely find us fascinating to study.

We are also making ourselves known, as for most of the past century if you look at our solar system with a radio telescope the brightest object in the system isn't the Sun, it's the Earth with all our broadcasts. (and if they can actually make those out I'm not sure I want to know what they think of them!)

[Denarius]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

radio transmissions detectable range? Not for a great distance. First speed of light, then back ground noise swamping any signal. Humans detect mostly huge events or low level signals from vast volumes such as molecular clouds, not mere megawatts single point broadcasts. (microwave ovens downstairs in Observatory excepted :-) As for technological progress, see Sabines latest videos about the dysfunction of science research. The greatest period of technological change was in middle of 19th century. Nothing new in physics for 100 years.

[Homo.Sapien.Floridanus]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

They do exist and are living among us, you just need the right sunglasses…

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

Considering the various governmental scandals which have -- despite security classifications around many of them -- been incontrovertably exposed, I can't see how a government could effectively keep this one a secret.... An_Old_Dog

They can’t, An_Old_Dog. Prepare for Troubles.

[Kane]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

"Aliens come who knows how many light years, at an unimaginable cost of energy. On arrival, the only Government that notices is the US.gov, and said aliens don't make themselves known to any others. Somehow, everybody concerned has managed to keep quiet about it since the 1940s. Today, the only people who seem to believe it are known wackjobs in Congress... and even Donald "loosest lips of the Century" Trump hasn't babbled about the news in the eightish years since he became Idiot In Chief..."

Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets that haven't made interstellar contact yet and buzz them, meaning that they find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one's going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises.

All rather silly, really

[nautica]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”--

Calvin, speaking to Hobbes (Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, 8 Nov '89)

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: So let me get this straight ...

What boggles my mind is that these aliens can fly, teleport, or otherwise cross untold amount of space and (perhaps) time, and the first thing they do when they get here is crash.

Perhaps we're just the dumping ground of the galaxy, the Fintlewoodlewix of the universe, and these are all just B Arks, offloading "useless thirds of their populations on us.

Which, now that I consider it, would explain an awful lot.

Oh, well, never mind. I must be off, where's my towel and sub-ether thumb? I should get along to Barnard's star before the Vogons arrive.

[Omnipresent]

life is a meme

it's like living in The Purge.

[nautica]

And it ain't gettin' any better, either...

Paraphrase of a comment made by the Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, Martin Rees--

"Man and the banana have ninety-eight percent of their DNA in common, a characteristic which is extremely evident in some people..."

[Anonymous Coward]

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (hit "Translate" if you don't understand)

Stories of intercourse with Aliens/Satan/Demons/Gods/Animal spirits are as old as humanity. And that should be taken literally. All people in all of human history did have such stories and did believe in them one way or another.*

Then there is the question why Congress considered this to be the most urgent question to spend its time with. We could also ask why the Catholic church went crazy about witches in the decades around Columbus? Or Soviet newspapers about UFO visits in the late 1980's.

Anyhow, you know you went Through the Looking-Glass whenever Laura Boebert is involved.

*You know, some poor virgin gets impregnated by God. Pick your virgin and God, any God.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (hit "Translate" if you don't understand)

"Stories of intercourse with Aliens/Satan/Demons/Gods/Animal spirits are as old as humanity. And that should be taken literally. All people in all of human history did have such stories and did believe in them one way or another."

"That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." Genesis 6:2 KJV

Looks like the three branches of US federal government are now being scripted by Chris Carter and whoever wrote Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

In any case it's obvious that the phenomenon in the Navy's "go fast" video is nothing other than a rabid effing penguin on mission from Linus. (Probably the creator of bcachefs was about to receive a not so angelic visitation.)

[veti]

Re: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (hit "Translate" if you don't understand)

The Catholic church never "went crazy" with witches. Only isolated cases.

Witch hunting mania, such as occurred briefly in Cromwell's time or most famously in Salem, was a very Protestant innovation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (hit "Translate" if you don't understand)

The Malleus Maleficarum was a Catholic book. It appeared before the Reformation. Witch hunt crazes happened in Catholic France Bask, 1609, and in many Catholic lands in Germany around 1600. These German witch hunt crazes in the Catholic SW Germany are considered the worst in history.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_Holy_Roman_Empire

But you are right about the Protestant who were quick learners and very fanatic witch hunters too. Also, in the Catholic heartlands of Italy and Spain they rather burned heretics and considered witches a needless diversion that slowed down the "war on herecy".

[collinsl]

Re: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (hit "Translate" if you don't understand)

They only didn't happen in the UK to the extent of Europe thanks to the intervention of James VI and I who basically insisted that the witches be tried properly in a court of law, and the rules of evidence dictated that most of them were let off thanks to there being no evidence of any wrongdoing. James VI and I I believe actually interviewed some of them himself, which reinforced his belief that there wasn't actually anything occult about them, most of them were just people with dementia, mad people, or outcasts who the locals took against for whatever reason (mostly women but some men were accused too).

The witch trials of Cromwell's time later on were mainly the invention of Matthew Hopkins, the self-titled "Witchfinder General", who, along with one other, essentially set off a witch panic which was fuelled mainly by the distrust and division occasioned by the English Civil Wars and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms stoking tensions inside and between communities. Hopkins took advantage of this, and whilst he may personally have believed he was doing "God's work" and was right in his assertions, his victims were essentially the same people as above, old people, the mentally infirm, and outsiders. He extracted confessions by torture (the most common one was depriving people of sleep for days on end until they started hallucinating, which was proof of witchcraft of course), or by pricking them with needles or cutting them with a blunt knife (the idea being that if they did not bleed they were a witch). "Ducking" was also used - a suspect was bound and lowered into a pond, if they floated they were a witch as the "water rejected them" (water being holy). This was however declared illegal without the victim's permission so was removed as a test fairly early on.

The witch trials by Hopkins only really lasted a few years, but it caused such an outcry from the judicial profession that it was suppressed everywhere that he wasn't and most people accused were set free or fined for other crimes rather than being hanged. Hopkins himself was very well paid for his work, which some have argued was a motivating factor for him to continue to discover witches.

[Denarius]

Re: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (hit "Translate" if you don't understand)

Catholic Church hung witchfinder generals in Italy and Spain to successfully stop the hysteria spreading . Mostly secular events starting along Rhine River which has historically been a hot bed of heresies and strange beliefs. I'm happy to go along with the priest of Egypt who told a Greek historian that the stories of the gods were probably exaggerations of stories about ancestors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lauren Boebert is an alien

She’s just trying to distract us with all this flying saucer nonsense.

[amanfromMars 1]

:-) Listen carefully, ... although this has been said many more times than just once

Your earnest disbelief is the aliens’ impenetrable invisible shield and the Trojan horse delivering the hordes and their hosts within.

And furthermore, just so y'all know about it too, but you can continue to try to not believe and thus constantly deceive yourselves, and in so doing excuse yourselves from engaging positively and having to deal constructively with something alien and until very recently completely unknown and unrealised as being extremely active and remarkably effective in stealthy operations and applications you have zero prior knowledge or experience of, advanced technologies not made by our government – or any other government – are in possession of some of your adversaries.

Admit it, for clear evidence freely shared for no small time and posted for comment on El Reg is ready available to destroy any attempts at denial, you have been sleep walking into the future without the faintest of ideas about where you going or whether you can actually do anything yourselves to steer and empower the journeys available.

However, and some may consider it very fortunate, the same cannot equally be said of that and/or those beings in the guise and gift of A.N.Others who certainly do know all that one needs to know to never forget about such matters and are prepared to share with you how it is done .... and the part[s], if any, you are able or are to be enabled to play in it.

[jake]

Re: :-) Listen carefully, ... although this has been said many more times than just once

And as I've replied more than once, I'm a scientist, amfM, not a sheep.

Don't TELL me, SHOW me.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Listen carefully, ... and this needs to be said many more times than just once more

But, jake, telling is showing without the need for the physical presentation of an imagined body of work of virtually real sensitive and secretive creative substance ... effectively surreal proprietary intellectual property with information for further intelligent human processing to a deeper and wider understanding of the vast nature and multiple phorms of reality and beings available for present exercise in future entertainments .... practical existences ideally planned and presented for pleasure and treasure, joy and reward.

Are you content with your past and current proprietary intellectual property providers and pleased with the supply that the further intelligent processing of that human information seeds and feeds ...... or as is surely most definitely the case, for such is clearly recognised and seen from here, room for vast improvement and changes of sad and bad direction are sorely needed.

And quite whether that be an opinionated view with intelligence of an advanced or artificial or alternative or artistic or autistic or Aryan or alien nature does it not really matter a jot whenever so many bases are covered and included as being possibly responsible but non-accountable. Que sera, sera.

[Pascal Monett]

Not even going to waste my time watching that video

I'm sure it's just a bunch of accusations, declarations and hookum without any single demonstrable fact.

That this has gotten as high as Congress demonstrates just how low the US has sunk.

No wonder Trump got re-elected.

[SnailFerrous]

Darn'it, they're on to us. Still, 84 years was a good run keeping us all secret.

[Quenda]

Mick West has done a great job analyzing the Go Fast (and other videos). Go Fast is consistent with it being a balloon based on triangulation etc. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyEO0jNt6M

[nautica]

Greetings, all carbon-based lifeforms...

"klaatu barada nikto"

[Doctor Syntax]

'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' is a perfectly respectable term. Trying to explain such things is a perfectly respectable undertaking. What isn't respectable is doing so while ignoring Occam's Razor, even worse is going as far as possible beyond it.

[Andrew Scott]

It's April first and i somehow missed Christmas and the other seasonal holidays. right?

[jake]

"i somehow missed Christmas and the other seasonal holidays"

If true, you lucky, lucky bastard ...

[Axelrodgunarson]

How far we've fallen

And yet we still have 4 years and a few months to go. I've often wondered when the first Roman's at the height of their empire said "this $#!T is about to go off a cliff".

I didn't originally say this, but it is a good one

"All empires fall, without exception".

November 5th, 2024 the US said "hold my beer"

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe

maybe they aren't aliens, but a much more advanced humanoid from earth, that sees us as stupid creatures that may pose a threat to their planet (they were here first)

and is coming to the realization we may need to be -removed- to save the planet. I wouldn't blame them at all.

[nautica]

Been waiting, but it hasn't been mentioned, so...

The Fermi Paradox: "Where is everyone?"

------------------------------------------------------------

Somewhat loosely related to Fermi's paradox is the Drake equation. Notice that the Drake equation (historically) concerns itself only with the number of planets in the Milky Way galaxy, while present-day estimates put the number of galaxies (galaxies; not planets) in the entire universe at approximately 200 billion.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Been waiting, but it hasn't been mentioned, so...

The real paradox is that we're here.

[nautica]

Re: Been waiting, but it hasn't been mentioned, so...

If you mean "The real paradox is that we're still here", you get ten up-votes.

[SP2000]

Boebert gets away with it again

Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) breathed a sigh of relief after her question as to whether non-human DNA is being combined with human DNA was answered to the negative. Yet again her status as a walking, talking human / cave troll has remained unchallenged. She lives to troll another day.

[HelpfulJohn]

They should watch more TV.

There's ten years of "Stargate: SG1", a prequel movie, five years of "Stargate: Atlantis", two years of "Stargate: Universe" and at least two "SG-1" movies that the USAlien Congresscritters could be using as "evidence" in this hunt for THE TRUTH.

Should they need more documentary evidence, there are many years worth of "Doctor Who" files that they could catch up with. Those even relate some of the activities of the very important United Nations Intelligence Task-force, U.N.I.T. which has protected the world and the human species since the 1970's.

And they could ask for copies of the super-secret filmed documentaries collected under the project name "U.F.O.", which discusses some of the background of the S.H.A.D.O. planetary policing agency.

There are others, including the "Secret Wars" paper-copy documents, excerpts of which, amended and rheavily redacted, were once published by the Marvel Corporation but those first three should be enough to give the Congresscritters sufficient expert testimonies to begin their highly vital work.

Getting the Goa'uld or the Aesir (the badly named "Asgard") to sit in on a Senate Hearing, even a closed-door, top-secret one could be difficult and sending a subpoena ad testificandum and a subpoena duces tecum to the lifeform called The Beyonder, which, as an aspect of the Cosmic Cube may not even have an email address, would be problematic but some of the human agents are still among us.

And I'm sure Hydra and A.I.M. would be delighted to testify.

.

.

.

I need to get out more.

[david willis]

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth

all together now -

"You've gotta hope there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, cos there's bugger all down here on earth!"

(C) Eric Idle and John Du Prez.