Althouse: The C.I.A really wasted our time (and disturbed the mental stability of an awful lot of people).

January 2, 2015

The C.I.A really wasted our time (and disturbed the mental stability of an awful lot of people).

"CIA Behind UFO Sightings in 1950s and 1960s."

56 comments:

George M. Spencer said...: "But the agency never revealed to the terrified people the truth behind the mysterious flying objects, until this year.'

Who exactly was "terrified"?; 1/2/15, 11:21 AM
mikee said...: Those whose mental stability was disturbed by UFO issues, I suggest, must maybe, might have been equally disturbed by anything else that caught their attention at the time.

A loaded, cocked gun without any safeties will usually go off with a bang when the trigger is pulled, whether it is a finger, a woodland twig, or a Labrador retriever's paw doing the pulling.

Don't blame the CIA for the mental instability of the citizenry. That problem is on the citizens to own.; 1/2/15, 11:24 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: Lies! All Lies!

I saw Close Encounters and ET. Those were not U2 missions, but unmistakeable contact with aliens flying real alien spaceships.; 1/2/15, 11:26 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Hmmm.
Well now I can't help but wonder what really happened that time I woke up naked in a field with no memory of last 48 hours.; 1/2/15, 11:30 AM
Fernandinande said...: They were UFO's until they were identified.; 1/2/15, 11:34 AM
JAORE said...: Have they confessed to the anal probes?

I need to know before I waste my time reading the article.

I know, ewwwwwww.; 1/2/15, 11:34 AM
Sigivald said...: If you read the report, it's maybe half the total reports - and then mostly from airline pilots.; 1/2/15, 11:35 AM
Bob Boyd said...: @ JAORE

Studies indicate the vast majority of anal probing is the work of Earthlings.; 1/2/15, 11:40 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: Ah well, we here in Southern California regularly hear a series of "booms" as the Aurora (the existence of the Aurora is denied) comes home to Groom Lake.

And who knows? Maybe the Aurora spy plane isn't real, and it's just a bunch of flatulent Martians flying overhead.

50-50 take your pick.; 1/2/15, 11:53 AM
Jaq said...: @Skeptical Voter.

It's just swamp gas.; 1/2/15, 12:10 PM
William said...: Suppose you're an alien life form intent on keeping your presence secret until the time comes to take over. What better way to hide your presence than by discrediting the very people entrusted to discover your identity. My only question is whether certain CIA agents have been suborned or whether the agents are themselves alien life forms. There's more to this story than meets the eye.; 1/2/15, 12:21 PM
trumpintroublenow said...: Which is more amazing -- that there is other intelligent life in the Universe or that there is not? I don't think there is which prob means I should be more religious than I am.

And the people alive now represent about 5% of the people who have ever lived.

We are quite special -- enjoy the new year everyone.; 1/2/15, 12:25 PM
Big Mike said...: Air Force pilots died chasing those UFOs.; 1/2/15, 12:28 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: OK, but how many people suffered from CIA lies compared to the number that suffered from Newsweek lies?; 1/2/15, 12:33 PM
Dan Hossley said...: It didn't waste our time. It gave us something to talk about.; 1/2/15, 12:42 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: The Soviets knew too. Why else do you think they and their fellow travelers spread the stories?; 1/2/15, 12:52 PM
Lyle said...: It is the government folks. They can do whatever they want to under the law.; 1/2/15, 1:11 PM
madAsHell said...: Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week

Isn't that 25 cents more than it's worth?; 1/2/15, 1:20 PM
traditionalguy said...: After "science" came up with jets and nuclear bombs, not to mention penicillin, the worship of the Men Who Kept Secrets was ingrained in our world view.

That same fantasy life was stoked by the UFO crap.

Today those guys want to take over everything with secret Global Warming secrets.; 1/2/15, 1:29 PM
Real American said...: that's what they want you to think.; 1/2/15, 1:38 PM
Captain Curt said...: I read somewhere recently that one reason the CIA was happy to let speculation of extraterrestrial origins of these sightings continue was to put uncertainty in the minds of the Soviets who were monitoring for possible overflights.; 1/2/15, 1:40 PM
n.n said...: Following the uniformitarian principle of pseudo-science, it is believed that evolutionary creation gave rise to countless alien civilizations. Furthermore, statistical inference suggests that a subset of those civilizations are more technologically advanced than human beings, predated human life on Earth, and may have, in fact, been our progenitors. In any case, it is irrational and unseemly to make statements about universal phenomenon without qualifying them as articles of faith or, generously, philosophical conjecture.; 1/2/15, 1:53 PM
madAsHell said...: Marshall Applewhite was not available for comment.; 1/2/15, 2:04 PM
Titus said...: Althouse, did you get my holiday photos with family and two cavalier king charles?

Aren't they beautiful? They come from a line of champions and isn't my mom pretty? My dad doesn't look bad either for 85!; 1/2/15, 2:10 PM
JAORE said...: Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week

Isn't that 25 cents more than it's worth?

You are about a dollar off.; 1/2/15, 2:11 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: Weren't they involved in some LSD experiments too?

I am not sure that most normal people would have their lives impaired by the CIA's actions, and I suspect that the mentally fragile individuals who were sucked in would have suffered a similar fate regardless. There is always a lot of nonsense around.; 1/2/15, 2:14 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: Bob Boyd - I got a good laugh out of that. Yes, this disclosure does remove certain excuses.; 1/2/15, 2:15 PM
Titus said...: My family, who are very conservative in terms of money and upbringing are huge democrats too!

Although, my sister's husband, who is the CFO at Cuna Mutual is a republican-fiscally. Socially he is a major Liberal-his uncle, who recently moved back to Madison, from NYC, is a ex-Broadway queen. So we like him. Also, he has been married 3 times. Why can't pubes stop licking Christianist ass and vagina? They could actually win national elections if they were not sucking SOCONS little, limp, nonsexual cocks.; 1/2/15, 2:16 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: My sister was close friends with someone back in the 60's whose father was "MIA" and supposedly was a pilot of one of those U2 missions over Russia. Sadly, the family never knew exactly what happened to him.

No one was supposed to talk about this because it was a secret and I've never mentioned it to anyone in all this time. It is a little strange seeing it being reported now fifty years later. I wonder if they are reaching out to the families and letting that girl, who is now in her sixties, know what happened to her father?; 1/2/15, 2:17 PM
Mikec said...: It's too bad that they didn't publish a poll to see how many people believed that flying saucers and the CIA were connected, so that we could find out how many fools there are reading their forum; 1/2/15, 2:18 PM
David said...: That link totally opened my eyes to something I didn't know existed.

Newsweek.; 1/2/15, 2:35 PM
richardsson said...: My family owned desert property near the Giant Rock Airport in Landers, California. The owner of the airport, George Van Tassel, claimed to have been visited by men from Venus who took him for a ride in their space ship. He wrote books about it and had an annual space aliens convention. I went to one of those meetings when I was 8 years old. It was held in his living room, which was building built around the Giant Rock. He said these men from Venus all looked like the British actor Ronald Coleman and they ate what looked like vitamin pills but tasted like steaks. On the way back to my property, I never saw my mother laugh as much as she did that day. In retrospect, Van Tassel got a lot of his material from the 30's movie Lost Horizon. I refer to him in my novel Maki and the Bolide.; 1/2/15, 2:58 PM
richard mcenroe said...: Titus, master of outreach...; 1/2/15, 2:59 PM
richardsson said...: Opps, make that Ronald Colman.; 1/2/15, 3:02 PM
richard mcenroe said...: I put more faith in the 'Unidentified' in UFO than I do in the 'Intelligence' in CIA; 1/2/15, 3:03 PM
jimbino said...: And who was it behind the astrology readings for Nancy Reagan?; 1/2/15, 3:05 PM
richard mcenroe said...: Jimbino: Criswell the Magnificent, Secret Mastermind of the NWO. "Can you prove it DIDN'T happen?"; 1/2/15, 3:22 PM
Wince said...: Why would the CIA blow its own cover now?

If they really were "intelligent" the CIA could have further exploited the UFO craze by flying the U2 over the CIA detention centers and attributed those rectal feeding sessions to alien abduction.; 1/2/15, 3:41 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: You mean Louis Farrahkhan's Mothership is a CIA plot?!?!?!; 1/2/15, 3:43 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: You know how much evidence there is for life on other planets?
Zero. It is all speculation. Might as well believe in ghosts.; 1/2/15, 4:00 PM
retired said...: Sounds like a dying dead tree product's death rattle. Alternatives? Tell the Soviets so a few nutcakes would sleep better?; 1/2/15, 4:02 PM
Chef Mojo said...: After I give lectures—on almost any subject—I am often asked, "Do you believe in UFOs?". I'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not evidence. I'm almost never asked, "How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?"

Carl Sagan
The Demon Haunted World, 1995.

Sagan may have been pretty loopy on some things, such as AGW, but he was very squared away when it came to UFOs and "alien abduction." He understood that the human brain is an unreliable instrument, and can do some weird stuff to itself. He always asked, "Where's the evidence?" His linking of the "alien abduction" phenomenon back do similar pre-technological occurances such as sucubi, fairies, leprechauns, ghosts, etc., is masterful, and a great primer at how our brains interpret what we sometimes "see" and experience.; 1/2/15, 4:03 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Communist Russia was a CIA fraud as well. They just dressed up a part Canada and built a fake "Moscow" there.
The Americans who were investigated for conspiring with "communist Russia"?
Space Aliens.
Wheels within wheels, my friends. Wheels within wheels.; 1/2/15, 4:04 PM
George M. Spencer said...: Inquiring minds want to know whether it was aliens or the Mafia who beat the stuffing out of Harry Reid.; 1/2/15, 4:48 PM
traditionalguy said...: Rember the brand new super secret CIA was aghast at what the Nazis had done not only in weapons but in social manipulation gamesmanship to brainwash the German people.

So they determined to close the brainwashing gap. They nobly did that. And they includes the Bush family and Yale psychologists. If anyone was going to brainwash Americans it was going to be them using the Nazi techniques.; 1/2/15, 5:02 PM
The Godfather said...: I was very interested in UFOs when I was in the 5th and 6th grade (say circa 1952-54), and I thought at the time that there was a plausible argument that they were alien space ships. But they were FLYING SAUCERS for cripes sake! They weren't U-2s, which are slender airplanes with long wings. The CIA could have disclosed every single U-2 sighting, and that would not have reduced my belief in UFOs, or the belief of most believers, at all.; 1/2/15, 5:09 PM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/2/15, 5:19 PM
n.n said...: Chef Mojo:

It is rational to distinguish between statements that can be confirmed or rejected in the scientific domain, and everything else, which includes affirmative statements about universal and extra-universal phenomenon, including, among other things, extra-terrestrial alien lifeforms (not merely jurisdictional aliens). For the latter it is best to preface a statement with "faith" or "belief", or "my experience", in order to establish a proper frame of reference.

The scientific domain is actually very constrained in both time and space, since the accuracy of human perception, whether innate or mechanically enhanced, is inversely proportional to the product of time and space offsets from an established reference. The scientific method describes both a method and process designed to constrain philosophical conjecture to a limited (e.g. scientific) domain, where a hypothesis can be tested and reproduced with physical, not simulated (e.g. model) experiments.

Another nice benefit of constraining affirmative opinions to the scientific domain is that it permits individuals to distinguish and consider possibilities that their contemporaries may consider to be unorthodox, and thus enable them to acknowledge principles and processes, and, yes, alien lifeforms, when they are eventually discovered, or not.; 1/2/15, 5:22 PM
Achilles said...: Aliens have already taken over the CIA and the whole thing is a practical joke to them.; 1/2/15, 6:54 PM
Terry said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/2/15, 7:59 PM
Darrell said...: Every UFO report correlated with a U-2 overflight? Right. Junk reporting. Junk science.; 1/2/15, 11:49 PM
Susan said...: So were they lying then or are they lying now?; 1/3/15, 1:15 AM
jimbino said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/3/15, 10:08 AM
jimbino said...: Right, n.n. But some crazy beliefs, like the efficacy of prayer to a god, can be subjected to scientific proof.

Indeed, there is a $1M prize for anyone who can establish the validity of any paranormal phenomena like ESP, clairvoyance, mental telepathy, telekinesis:

"The James Randi Educational Foundation will pay US$1,000,000 (One Million US Dollars) ("The Prize") to any person who demonstrates any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability under satisfactory observation. Such demonstration must take place under the rules and limitations described in this document. An applicant can be from or in any part of the world. Gender, race, and educational background are not factors for acceptance. Applicants must be at least 18 years of age and legally able to enter into binding agreements."; 1/3/15, 10:11 AM
n.n said...: jimbino:

It can, to a limited extent. For one, we are incapable of distinguishing between origin and expression. This limit is firmly established in the scientific domain as a consequence of our existence inside the system we are attempting to characterize. So, we are capable of observing effects, but we must acknowledge them as a subset. Universal and extra-universal phenomenon may not be reproducible, but this does not preclude their existence.

The scientific domain is utilitarian, which distinguishes it from other philosophical domains. Note that with improved skill and knowledge, those domains may intersect. Scientists should be wary or skeptical of affirmative statements inside the scientific domain; and they should be repulsed by unqualified affirmative statements outside of the scientific domain, including references to universal and extra-universal phenomenon. Unless there is a compelling cause, the latter can be tolerated, and may, in fact, improve human fitness.; 1/3/15, 2:47 PM
ken in tx said...: If the Air Force, or any other part of the Pentagon had any real evidence of alien visitation, they would not keep it secret. They would reveal it to congress and use it to boost their budget. I say this as a retired Air Force officer. During the Cold War, the Pentagon made up Soviet capabilities that did not exist in order to boost the military budget. Defense against an alien invasion would have been an unlimited blank check.; 1/3/15, 4:12 PM