back to article The CIA's 'entire' collection of UFO records has been made available for you to sigh at

Everyone needs a hobby, and for one John Greenewald Jr that's archiving declassified US government documents on his website, The Black Vault, which has this week published what the CIA claims is everything it has on UFOs. Though Greenewald is quick to point out there's no way of verifying that assertion, the collection is …

  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Alien

    multipage .tiff files

    My format of choice for OCR image files... you can do a whole book in one go that way.

    natch. --->

    1. Down not across

      Re: multipage .tiff files

      Talking to Motherboard, Greenewald blasted the CIA for making it "INCREDIBLY difficult to use their records in a reasonable manner" due to the documents' "outdated" format (multipage .tif) and "text file outputs, largely unusable, that I think they intend to have people use as a 'search' tool. In my opinion, this... makes it very difficult for people to see the documents, and use them, for any research purpose."

      Oh FFS. You got what you wanted and now you're complaining they didn't format it the way you wanted?

      Not to mention multipage .tiff sounds about right for original scans so surely better than some other format. It is not exactly rocket science to convert formats.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: multipage .tiff files

        I think if they really wanted to piss him off they would have mailed him a box of photocopies.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: multipage .tiff files

          I'll say this, if he did NOT receive even a single piece of Microfiche, the whole thing is a joke. Furthermore, it could just be me but I'd much prefer film negatives to .tiff files as a .tiff file increases the probability of Photoshoping.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Alien

            Re: multipage .tiff files

            Check the "full stops" just before the pdf in the file name. You might be surprised.

            1. jake Silver badge

              Re: multipage .tiff files

              Not in this screen font.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Addanc

        Re: multipage .tiff files

        <trolling=on>Must be using windows</troll>

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: multipage .tiff files

      I fail to see what's "outdated" with using an open image encapsulation format which can support the vast majority of image formats and compression mechanisms along with big or small-endian hardware. TIFF is far from dead or outdated.

      Let me guess, he would have preferred the scans as PDF files? Something that is far less friendly or flexible than TIFF.

      1. brotherelf

        Re: multipage .tiff files

        Well, I can see how he'd prefer PDFs with redacting rectangles just superimposed over the text that is still in the file.

    3. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: multipage .tiff files

      Fantastic, I was worried I was considered outdated for prefering multipage tiffs to PDF's

  2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    The problem with UFOs isn't the unidentified bit. It's attempts at identification by those who've never heard of Occam.

    1. BenM 29 Silver badge
      Joke

      #USE "course.lib"

      PROC hello.world(CHAN OF BYTE screen!)

      out.string("Hello World!*n", 0, screen!)

      :

    2. Mark 65

      It would be interesting if someone with the relevant knowledge could tie some of the historical "sightings" in with development/testing of military/spy kit. Things like the B1, SR-71 etc. Pretty sure a lot of these things can be attributed.

  3. chivo243 Silver badge
    Alien

    pic?

    A nice man giving the aliens flowers?

    1. don't you hate it when you lose your account

      Lego

      Or it didn't happen

  4. Mike 137 Silver badge

    A matter of interpretation

    I remember a neighbour once telling me she'd seen "a genuine UFO". I'm still not sure whether she meant she genuinely couldn't tell it was a flying object or that she knew it was a flying object but couldn't identify what kind it was, but I couldn't help feeling that "genuine" and "unidentified" were somewhat contradictory.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: A matter of interpretation

      > she'd seen "a genuine UFO"

      That's "genuine" as opposed to all those fake UFOs you see all the time.

    2. Steve Kerr
      Coat

      Re: A matter of interpretation

      Being a little pedantic she was right, she did see a genuine UFO.

      It was a flying object she genuinely couldn't identify, doesn't necessarily mean it was an object from another world not of our own.

      I know most people would think of a UFO as coming from somewhere else but it's fun to argue semantics

      1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: A matter of interpretation

        Years ago I knew one of the air accident investigators sent to the MU Munich air crash. In part of the report he recorded that the tail-plane had hit "an unidentified flying object". Of course he meant that the plane had hit something not on the ground, he knew not what.

        He changed it on the grounds that he was just asking for trouble.

    3. Danny Boyd

      Re: A matter of interpretation

      I recall reading about "a column crowned with a life-size sculpture of an angel" and being a bit baffled.

      1. Fading

        Re: A matter of interpretation

        I guess you need to know how many can dance on the head of a pin before you can determine the associated dimensions.

        1. Kane
          Boffin

          Re: A matter of interpretation

          "I guess you need to know how many can dance on the head of a pin before you can determine the associated dimensions."

          16, if it's an ordinary house pin.

      2. Mage Silver badge
        Black Helicopters

        Re: A matter of interpretation

        Maybe they meant human sized.

        Greek and Assyrian deities were depicted with wings.

        I think Cherubim and Seraphim are described as having wings.

        The bible mentions Angels: (a) Looking like men, (b) Not being sexed, no male or female, (c) No mention of wings. (d) Occasionally create feelings of terror. Read about visits of Angels to Abraham and Lot.

        Mediaeval depictions of Angels are very like those of Nemesis and related Greek entities as well as Sumerian and Akkadian 3D relief wall sculptures.

        So while there may be UFOs mentioned in the Bible, none are Angels.

        UFOs may be variously electrical phenomena, metrological effects, weather or other research balloons, meteorites, mirages of distant aircraft, actual known aircraft, secret aircraft, drones, rockets etc. Or deliberate fakes. Sometimes lens or radar artefacts. You can get a bunch of UFO shaped objects on many cameras if the lens is a certain angle to the sun or some other object much brighter than the desired view.

        Reports start about the time of publicity about balloons, increase with airship deployment and peak at the time of each Cinema or TV new release of related content. The reports of crypto-zoological creatures and UFOs have dropped with widespread phone cameras and dash cameras, but verified sightings of rare birds or animals (in that locality) or Meteorites have increased.

        Previously rarely reported electrical phenomena include earthlight, ball lightning and sprites. Sprites are common and regularly seen now by satellites. Earthlight and ball lightning are not understood, except they are natural events.

        Even one UFO being actually an Alien visitor is extremely unlikely. If a Flying Object has no explanation it's Unidentified, not automatically an Alien craft.

      3. mcswell

        Re: A matter of interpretation

        The Expanse?

  5. alain williams Silver badge

    If there is nothing there ...

    why did the CIA just not hand all of what they had over when first asked ?

    Is it part of some CIA mindset ?

    1. ChrisElvidge

      Re: If there is nothing there ...

      There's nothing there NOW!

    2. AMBxx Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: If there is nothing there ...

      I don't think Elvis had finished reading it.

    3. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: If there is nothing there ...

      Just speculating, but maybe they were worried they'd accidentally recorded secret military test flights.

      Another possible reason is that they didn't want to go to the expense and hassle of digitising something so useless.

      But well all know the real reason...

    4. mcswell

      Re: If there is nothing there ...

      It takes time to redact.

  6. Chris G
    Alien

    UFOs are not the problem

    It's all the Identified ones the aliens are fliiting around in that I want to know about.

  7. Dr_N
    Alien

    Yesterday's Conspiracy

    Clearly we've moved on from little green men and crop circles to more demented brain viruses.

  8. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    It's all real I tell ya...

    “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.”

    “Buzz them?” Arthur began to feel that Ford was enjoying making life difficult for him.

    “Yeah,” said Ford, “they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one’s ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises.”

  9. Swiss Anton

    With every person and their dog / cat now having a smart phone with a camera, why isn't the internet awash with new UFO videos?

    1. Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?
      Alien

      They've improved their cloaking devices, obviously.

      1. Muscleguy

        Since the ‘50s we have developed radar stealthed aircraft and at least the idea of adaptive camouflage. Aliens would have FTL travel, life support, radiation screening, all kinds of very hi tech but not cloaking.

        So they must have nicked it from us.

        Either that or alien tech increases in line with our scifi which means they’re fictional.

        1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

          To be fair, there is the sci-fi trope of UFO's causing electronics to lose power ( eg: causing a car to roll to a stop ).

          Old fashioned analogue cameras might be better for such a task

    2. Muscleguy

      Perhaps because mobile footage comes tagged with metadata and there are now tools which can tell if the footage has been ‘worked’ on.

      This has stymied the fraudsters. The toss the UFO model in the air and film with handheld 8mm brigade have given up.

      I recall two UFO incidents from my time in NZ. One was a of a light which kept ‘following’ experienced airforce pilots. Turned out to be the planet Venus.

      Another was a scam by former residents of my uni Halls who being from all over the country worked out timings and slightly varying descriptions (to make them real) of an object travelling very fast all along the length of the country. It was regarded as the best attested UFO sighting in NZ.

      At a college reunion in my time the plotters came clean including to the media. The UFO nuts refused to believe a ‘bunch of students’ could have cooked it up and carried it out. Some got their parents to call the report in to add verisimilitude. UFO nuttery appears to be a combination of wish fulfilment and faith.

      1. imanidiot Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Stupid people will be stupid and try to refuse evidence when shown they're stupid. No surprise there then

      2. Mooseman Silver badge

        I used to work for a laser display company. One of our outdoor gigs was to do advertising for a new nightclub, so we set up on the roof of a nearby building and did the show. Growing bored we fired some of our standard patterns over the nearby hill (20w laser) and then went home. Local newspapers later carried the story of some old boy who was cycling home from the pub only to be bathed in a mysterious green light and then saw a saucer shape flitting overhead (also in virulent green)....

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Maybe because the aliens got all the data they needed in the 50s, and so most of them have swanned off to research some other planet and species?

      Think of how we research animals today: A bunch of researchers fly in, abduct a few specimens, take samples and measurements, attach a tracker to some, and then release them back into the wild to tell wild tales to their mates.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @AC - You mean a tracker ?

        Oh, My God! What's that thing on my back ? We're domed I tell ya!

        1. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

          Re: @AC - You mean a tracker ?

          Stop rolling your eyes Fraser...

      2. Danny Boyd

        One of my two favorite bumper stickers: "Beam me up, Scottie, there ain't no intelligent life on this planet."

        (The other being "Make love, not war. See the driver for details.")

    4. Mage Silver badge

      Re: smart phone with a camera

      Also dash cams.

      Funny the cryptozoology sightings have massively dropped too!

  10. imanidiot Silver badge

    I have yet to see ANY even remotely convincing evidence of anything ACTUALLY exhibiting impossible speeds or accelerations or movement. Not to mention the people usually claiming to have been abducted by aliens are the sort of people who would have been less interesting to said aliens than the average non-human primate. (Though I could see why they'd want to kidnap a human over a chimp or gorilla. Those things are murder machines if provoked)

  11. Chris G

    Some years back, having missed my flight ( in a conventional airliner) I ended up with about twelve hours to sit around before the next connection, so I had a look for something to read. I ended up buying a book of tales from alleged abductees, not one of whom could produce a reasonable account of what happened to them that made any sense at all.

    I am fairly certain the vast majority of them were attention seekers and one or two of them were genuinely ill and in need of therapy of some description.

    I wish I could remember the title but is was a dozen years ago and I left the book on the seat when my flight was called.

    I think life of some kind is highly likely somewhere out there but any life form that is advanced enough to have a practical form of interstellar transport will almost certainly not need to creep around the skies of Earth flashing lights and pissing off jet pilots.

    As for the 'We are not ready for them' meme, a good percentage of humanity is still unprepared for walking upright.

    1. Manolo
      Alien

      Reminds me of that beautiful Calvin & Hobbes cartoon:

      https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/11/08

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

      From the book "Scientific Progress Goes Boink" I think.

      See also Carl Sagan - The Demon-haunted World.

    2. steelpillow Silver badge
      Holmes

      Parapsychologist Dr Susan Blackmore was once visited by a man who claimed to have been abducted to a UFO and there had had a pellet embedded in the roof of in his mouth. She sent the pellet for analysis. Back came the verdict; dental amalgam. The man remained convinced of his experience, though he confessed to having no clue as to why the aliens would use such a material.

  12. Keven E
    Holmes

    Title-ation

    ...available for you to sigh at (...)

    I really feel some*thing was lobbed off the end of that title.

  13. steelpillow Silver badge
    Facepalm

    These documents prove nothing...

    "Hey, what a letdown! Not the slightest evidence of a genuine UFO (sic) sighting!"

    "Of course not you dummy, you didn't think they'd release those photographs, did you? They're still in the vaults at Area 51. Are you coming on tonight's alien hunt or aren't you?"

  14. jake Silver badge

    I was once handed a couple of ...

    ... pieces of "alien" technology. Fearsome, spiky things they were. They came complete with the story of how they were obtained. Hot, moonless desert night, deserted highway, bright light in the sky, road lit up for miles, car motor stopped for no real reason, extreme silence, rush of wind, object landed a couple hundred yards off the road, you get the drill. The guy spun it out for at least nine or ten paragraphs.

    Long story shorter, after the object took off again, he walked over to the landing site and found the objects. I hefted them in my hand and agreed that they didn't look or feel like any normal earthly objects, and handed them back.

    To this day I wonder if he actually found the custom made titanium chainsaw felling spikes out in the desert, and if so, how they got there.

    It was probably aliens wot put them there, innit.

  15. Sanctimonious Prick
    Black Helicopters

    We Saw Nothing - Obviously

    Going by the comments here, what I saw with about 5 other family members, just didn't happen, or what we saw was an experimental aircraft of some kind.

    That was 45 years ago, and whatever that experimental aircraft was, it still hasn't been approved for production.

    A massive dense red triangular object slowly moving across the sky in the early evening.

    I've read reports of a similar object appearing from time to time in other parts of the world.

    I have no idea what it was we saw, where it came from, where it went to, or anything, but what we saw was real (i was six years old, so little chance of mind altering substances being involved).

    Bring on the downvotes, motherfuckers!synchronic

    1. steelpillow Silver badge

      Re: We Saw Nothing - Obviously

      Thank you for posting, and my congratulations on your strength of character. (Do you know the hippie classic Argent song "Hold your head up"?) I was not there, but it is clear that you guys saw something exceedingly unusual.

      On that basis, as Kurt Goedel pointed out, there are more unpredictable truths than there are predictable ones. I'd hesitate to draw any of the rather small number of obviously predictable ones, either way. Though I do like the theory that the US Military painted the odd Stealth prototype bright red so as to hide it in plain sight, just as they originally spread UFO rumours around their secret test base we all know as Area 51.

    2. jake Silver badge

      Re: We Saw Nothing - Obviously

      No downvotes from me ... You described what your memory says you saw as a 6 year old, and didn't go into baseless flights of fancy about it.

      I created one of those triangles in a campground in the Sierra by stringing three little dim lights about 40 feet up, in an open space between some pine trees. Come later in the evening, we were all telling tall tales around the camp fire, as is typical in such situations. I told a story similar to yours, and at the opportune moment had my Wife turn on the lights and point up with a "Just like that one?".

      The lights were just bright enough to fool the eye into thinking that there were no stars showing between them .... Presto, huge dark triangular shaped "craft" over our camp fire. When the wife shut them off after about 5 seconds, I yelled "Shit! Did you see how FAST that thing was?". One of the guys not in on the trick commented that it made it over the next ridge (about four miles away) in under a second. Strangely enough, almost everybody agreed with him. At this point, some people were claiming they thought it was redish.

      The oddest thing is that when I collected my wire and lights the next morning, several people asked what I was doing. I told them. They did not believe me! So I told everybody the truth about the hoax over breakfast. Most of them refused to listen, and today many of them still tell the story of the huge triangle craft hovering over our camp that disappeared like a bat out of hell when we all looked up at it.

      I never messed with that kind of mass illusion again. Too much room for error.

      1. steelpillow Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: We Saw Nothing - Obviously

        Fascinating.

        Sorting the idiot witnesses from the idiot analysts seems to be a lost art.

        1. Sanctimonious Prick

          Re: We Saw Nothing - Obviously

          I don't know what you mean by that. My English skills are not the best.

  16. Danny 2

    I saw one, naturally

    The terrifying tale of the 'A70 incident' - Edinburgh's own alien abduction case

    That's not me, but I lived nearby and had a similar experience nearby a few years later. I rarely talk about it because I ken fine well it destroys your credibility, one explanation is that aliens only appear to people who have no social standing. Locals started putting up 'low flying UFO' signs, humorous but also because a fair few locals had seen something.

    I worked at airports and was driving home in a clear, dark night. There was a car parked at the top of a hill I was driving up, fairly common because of the nice view. Except when I got to the ridge the headlights were still thirty feet above me and I was about to drive under them. At that point the adrenalin kicks in, and I slowed down to get a better view. I nearly stalled the car and if I had stalled the car I would've panicked and could easily have passed out. Instead I revved the engine and drove under it accelerating, then instantly regretted it and turned hard to go back but it had vanished apparently at high speed.

    It was a black, flat triangle about 20 foot long, blocked out the stars in my sunroof as I went under it, made a weird, low noise unlike any plane or copter. I've seen all sorts of weird aircraft especially in that job. I was raised on Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind so naturally that is where my mind went. I quickly suspected a prank though, because the lights were just like car halogens and surely extraterrestrials would have better illumination than Halfords. I guess it was an inflatable drone that disappeared simply by turning off it's lights and rising, but it may have been from a nearby RAF base.

    [A friend asked me if I lost any time later that evening. "Aye, I had a dram and a joint, just the any other evening". I've still never been anally probed - at what age are we supposed to ask for a prostrate exam?]

    1. steelpillow Silver badge

      Re: I saw one, naturally

      @Danny2 The kind of prank my nephews and their pals sometimes get up to. They live very near Edinburgh. I wonder...

      1. Danny 2

        Re: I saw one, naturally

        It was definitely something I could have shot with a shotgun, so I briefly considered applying for a shotgun licence. But 'Reason for Application : to shoot down a UFO' would've had me sectioned.

        Maybe this was your relatives. In the same area a piece of string appeared overnight over a distance of at least 15 miles in a straight line through (not over) fences and fields. It fascinated the locals who started to ball it up. They wanted to know why and how. I was just amazed that you could get a single piece of string that length.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: I saw one, naturally

          "I was just amazed that you could get a single piece of string that length."

          You can get bailing twine that long. It's usually sold in 20,000 foot lengths (two still connected 10,000 foot spools in a single box (this one measures 8.5x10.25x16 inches)), but the factory will ship 100,000 feet (5 boxes, just under 19 miles) or more in a single length. I have seen a pallet with 45 still connected boxes. That's over 170 miles of the stuff.

          Cost? US$25 for 20,000 feet at retail. Always in stock at the local Tractor Supply Store. Far cheaper per foot for bulk orders. Just make sure you ask the factory not to cut the string between boxes.

          1. Danny 2

            Re: I saw one, naturally

            Ta much Jake.

            I always knew somebody would be willing to traipse though fields just to create a local mystery, I just couldn't grasp where they'd get a string that long. Before that the longest string I'd encountered was maybe 200 yards tops. I was perturbed by the fact I couldn't do it, so it was impossible, yet it had been done.

            I am genuinely going to contact some of my old neighbours with your info just to put the mystery to bed. I am tempted to buy 170 miles of string and recreate the prank on a bigger scale, but due to covid legislation and my lack of fitness I couldn't walk for more than 20 miles.

            Were you a buyer at some point in your career? You repeatedly have good info on materials. How long is a piece of string? Here to Dundee if you pay for it.

            1. imanidiot Silver badge

              Re: I saw one, naturally

              Charter a plane (must be front engine) and

              have it fly in a straight line just before dusk, let the twine spool out in flight.

              1. jake Silver badge

                Re: I saw one, naturally

                The OP said the string went through (not over) fences. What is the lowest altitude aircraft are allowed to fly in your jurisdiction? Crop dusters[0] excepted.

                More likely it was a couple drunk kids from the nearest Uni with the largest roll of baler twine they could find, stuffed into a backpack (or backpacks) and trailing out behind.

                Come to think of it, they probably found it on the side of the road[1]. Now, what can we do with 15ish miles of string in a single long length? Wrapping the village Bobby is too obvious ...

                [0] "Aerial Applicator" is the new PC term, but I always forget to use it.

                [1] Honest, Guv, it fell off the back of a tractor!

            2. jake Silver badge

              Re: I saw one, naturally

              I never really thought about it, but I guess I've kind of been my own buyer since the 1960s. Chasing down parts and prices is half of what makes restoring old stuff fun ... and growing up in Silly Con Valley, building stuff from scratch on a budget was normal. Normal in my circle of friends, anyway. I've had a pile of cross-reference books (like you used to see at automotive shops) for auto, bike, truck, aircraft and farm equipment for about as long as I can remember.

              The twine is something I know about because I have a couple of balers. We grow our own hay and alfalfa, and I do custom baling (mowing, raking, conditioning ...) for the neighbors. It's fairly easy money when you have good equipment[0], cuts down on fire risk in "unplanted" european oat-grass fields, and they are happy not to do the work themselves. Win-win-win.

              [0] "Good" in this case is not synonymous with "new". Instead, it means "reliable". I'd rather have a 1960s tractor & implements that give me a week of downtime per year than brand new John Deere kit that keeps me waiting on parts for a month per year ... and after I get them, I need to get an appointment at the dealer, who has to do all the work (including oil and filter changes!) or I lose my warranty. And of course I have to (pay to) transport the kit to the dealer and back, a three hour round trip. Fuck that ...

              1. Danny 2

                Re: I saw one, naturally

                My apprenticeship involved being rotated around each part of the chip-manufacturer. That included a month with the buyer, which I was dreading as it didn't seem techie. It was fascinating though. An engineer would look up a price in a catalogue and accept it and the spec. The buyer would demand a better spec and a lower price and would phone around 'til he got both.

                I've never harvested anything I planted but I got into permaculture when I was blacklisted. A lot of scammers but some great stuff.

                You sound like you have a good life. ('The Good Life' is a funny '70s BBC sitcom but inadvertent choice of words). If you've seen it what do you think of 'Kiss The Ground' on Netflix?

  17. FuzzyTheBear
    Mushroom

    Time wasted

    I opened up a bunch of the files and most of them are a total waste of time being nothing about ufo's at all

    but reports of no interest whatsoever.

    There's nothing to learn here .. but if you like waisting your time . great read ..

  18. redpawn
    Boffin

    Modern Fakes

    Sharpies that good for blacking things out weren't invented til 1984. Unless they are blacked out using alien technology that is... Further proof!

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Modern Fakes

      The modern Sharpie brand indelible marker was introduced in 1964.

      Permanent markers in general were invented in 1953 by Sidney Rosenthal. He called his version the Magic Marker. You may have heard of it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Modern Fakes

        "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Rosenthal calling his advanced technology "Magic" is a dead giveaway for alien technology hiding in plain sight QED and Checkmate Skeptics.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Modern Fakes

          Nah. Magic is one of the ways that James Randi attempted to teach critical thinking.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Modern Fakes

          That is MAJIC' with a J.

  19. Claverhouse Silver badge
    Angel

    Too Little, Too Late

    Had Hillary, a devout believer, in correspondence with ( American ) UFO fan groups, won the election, she was planning to set up a Commission to investigate and evaluate Alien contacts --- and maybe, to find out what they wanted.

    Perhaps expecting to be Earth's Representative in any Take Me To Your Leader scenario.

    She would thus have forced all American agencies and forces to spend time and reveal everything they had on these interesting little visitors. Lacking that legal clout, many fascinating accounts by credible American witnesses in the cornfields may have been disappeared down the Memory Hole.

    .

    .

    Her admired role model pressie Reagan once saw a UFO.

    1. Steve C#

      Re: Too Little, Too Late

      I think you are thinking of Jimmy Carter, he claims to have seen a UFO.

      1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

        Re: Too Little, Too Late

        Churchill was a believer in them.

  20. First Light

    Time travellers . . .

    They're coming from the future, innit. Giving some free healthcare. Don't know what that does to *their* future, though.

  21. Captain Boing
    FAIL

    everything is explainable...

    ... just not yet. Give it a minute.

    I remember seeing a documentary about UFOs years ago. There was a guy working on a North Sea platform who was ex-forces - Royal Observer Corps or similar. Anyway he was a trained observer and could identify absolutely any aircraft. He related seeing a "black triangle" being re-fueled by a flying tanker and escorted by two conventional fighter jets, high up over the North Sea. He underlined his impressive credentials and concluded by saying it was not of this earth because otherwise he would have been able to ID it... I remember thinking "why would a UFO need refueling?" sometime later the F117 stealth fighter became public knowledge... I remembered that documentary - there's your black triangle and it explains the escort and refueling.

    I personally saw something very weird - like two cylinders of slightly different diameter stacked on top of each other and it was darting in and out of a cloud. I don't have an explanation but I know there is one that doesn't involve "alien" tech.

    The gulf between us and the nearest star is mind blowing (Sun the size of a pea, Proxima Centauri 200Km away https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCSIXLIzhzk). It is my firm belief that yes there are other civilizations out there, probably even in our galaxy but we are all in gilded cages. Not interested in debates about generation ships, dimensional travel, FTL etc. There has never been one shred for anything approaching that tech... but give it a minute.

    1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

      Re: everything is explainable...

      I don't believe in visitations, but the things that we have now that were definitely physically impossible not all that long ago.

      There were things we couldn't even imagine that are now normal. Go back not too long ago and electric light bulbs were science fiction. Nevermind the Internet, probes leaving the solar system, powered flight, nuclear weapons, etc.

      I think it's arrogant to say that something will never be possible, regardless of what our current understanding of the universe tells us.

      I think we probably haven't been visited. Like 99.999999%. But I don't think it's impossible.

    2. David Hicklin Bronze badge

      Re: everything is explainable...

      e=mc2 is your enemy here to any aliens appearing here.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: everything is explainable...

        It's worse than that ... as everybody knows, you can't ever travel faster than 30MPH because your will suffocate trying to breathe the air rushing past so quickly.

        1. Dr Dre

          Re: everything is explainable...

          That's only true if you are riding a Harley....

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon