the government

[apollo@pluto]

i think so , how do they come up with all these new improved aircraft ? .


p.s- you guys are realy cool over there in the U.S.A and australia etc..........  .
really really really smart. 

[Bob B.]

how do they come up with all these new improved aircraft ?

Good engineering. 

If one follows the history of aeronautical and aerospace development, one finds a steady and normal technological progression.  I see no evidence of an unexpected introduction of outside technology.  The suggestion that alien technology was needed to get to where we are today, I think, denigrates the work of many brilliant and skilled engineers.  You sell humanity short.

[apollo@pluto]

to be honest i think that aswell but you never know do you. and i love how aircraft have developed over the years it is so fasinating and im glad i can talk about it to you guys because my friends over here in the U.K arent interested in stuff like this.

p.s- it is nice to think that e.t's are out there though. 

[Homo bibiens]

I don't think so.  The government does have some pretty advanced aircraft, but then again, so do the Americans and the Brits and the French.  Did they get their technology from the aliens as well?  If so, why do the different countries have different types of technologies?  If not, did the government share it with these other countries?  I'm not sure why they would do that.  None of the alien scenarios seem very likely to me.

[Johno]

One thing I have always noted about this: the American government couldn't hush up the President having an affair with an intern, and that's a pretty small matter in the scheme of things.  If the US government had already made contact with aliens, I can't believe that it's still secret . . .

[Satanic Mechanic]

Congress is pretty corrupt.  Doesn't matter which party is in power.  Maybe the aliens took the route of lobbyists, they paid off congress!  

[spacecat27]

In reference to a cookout with astronaut Gordon Cooper (Coop) in 1972:

One thing sticks in my mind from that night, as the barbeque crowds thinned out and left maybe 15 or 20 of us telling stories over some beers under the moonlight.  Eventually the topic of UFO's came up... the 5% that Project Blue Book could not explain.... does the government know something?.... etc., etc.  Coop chuckled and in his slow Oklahoma drawl basically said, 'Look, the government will never admit that they do not know something, 'cause it makes them look dumb.  So instead they say nothing and it makes it appear that they're keeping a secret.  Trust me, I had a security clearance level high enough to know- and I can tell you- they don't know anything.'  Ever since- that's pretty much been my personal view of the whole govt. UFO conspiracy myth....   So it has struck me as odd that in later years, especially in his autobiography, that Coop seemed to be at the center of a few UFO conspiracy stories.  Sometimes I wonder if they were his version of a Schirra "gotcha!"

With regard to Apollo 14's Ed Mitchell:

Met him very briefly at an ASF function a few years ago.  No question he's a very smart fellow regardless of his detours into pseudo-science and paranormal.  Personally, I think his somewhat recent statements about a government UFO/ET conspiracy were designed to generate publicity to get him back on the lecture circuit and make some extra bucks on top of his relatively meager pension.

[NeppiTK]

Maybe aliens are the real "terrorists" ... and the gov is covering them,(too)...?!

[DonPMitchell]

A few years ago, a plumber was at my house to fix my kitchen sink.  At some point he said, "I see from the books you are interested in space.  You know integrated circuits and photonic networks all come from that spacecraft they found at Roswell".

Pffft...

Intelligence is multifacited, but so must be stupidity.  Thinking that technology comes from aliens is a pretty good indication of utter and profound ignorance about technology, history and people.

Also a profound inability to weigh different probabilities against each other. People who go on about UFO conspiracies reject one piece of evidence after another, with total scepticism.  Then they turn around and believe something fantastically improbably and will hear nothing against it.

A good example is that the project at Roswell has long since been declassified, spy balloons designed to fly over the Soviet Union.  It was project Skyhook or maybe Genetrix, not sure.  The files aren't even secret anymore, but nobody cares, they don't even want to hear about it.

[Simkid]

There really are a LOT of examples of people's complete inability to gauge probability.  It really does seem to be a basic human trait that we can't do it, although admittedly I'm mostly talking about risk assessment here...

[ijuin]

A good example is that the project at Roswell has long since been declassified, spy balloons designed to fly over the Soviet Union.  It was project Skyhook or maybe Genetrix, not sure.  The files aren't even secret anymore, but nobody cares, they don't even want to hear about it.

I don't know if it specifically was a balloon as claimed, but I'm pretty sure that it WAS a US government secret program. Groom Lake is where they test the bleeding-edge secret prototypes after all. Lots of secret test aircraft have been mis-identified as alien spacecraft, such as the B-1 Spirit stealth bomber.

[dcsugeek]

You mean the B2

[Simkid]

Yeah, as far as I know the B1 was pretty much in the open through development.