NSA releases 29 messages from space?

originally posted by: Riffrafter
a reply to: JadeStar

Hi Jade - not a direct reply to you but as I've been away for a bit, I thought I'd reply to a friendly and intelligent "face"....

On a separate but related note - why do you think that so many excellent institutions of higher learning are crawling with various "intelligence" agencies?

Because where better to recruit the "best and brightest"?

Very smart people are not naturally drawn to working in the intelligence services. They tend to be on the apolitical and atheistic side so the whole "do it for god and country" thing doesn't really resonate with them.

Want to know what DOES resonate with them? Intellectual challenges, funding of their research, etc.

It's actually a very simple quid pro quo situation: - The institutions get a lot of cash and other "considerations". The agencies get access to a decent sized pool of unpolluted very sharp minds.

Well it's not quite that simple. Often these sharp minds are working on dual use technologies. A great example is that the Hubble Space Telescope development was the same as a whole class of spy satellites (KH-11 KENNAN) used by the National Reconnaissance Office. This is why when the NRO had a couple of spares they were going to throw away, they gave them to NASA who didn't even have to budget to equip and launch them in short order. Even today only one of these is being outfitted for flight as part of the 2022 WFIRST-AFTA mission. The other one is still in mothballs awaiting funding.

So its not always quid pro quo, it's sometime 'mutual self interest'.

A good current example of this is much of the work DARPA does with universities. A specific example is MOIRE technology for super massive foldable space telescopes. Astronomy would love a 16-20 meter telescope in space. It would allow us to directly image nearby exoplanets and detect life on any of them. Intelligence would also love this technology, not to point out, but to point down.

The value of a real mind is almost incalculable. It can neither be bought nor created. Yet.

I'm glad you added yet. The singularity is coming.

The agencies have now and always will be, getting the better end of this deal.

Enjoy your day...

I wouldn't be that pessimistic. There are plenty of examples of people who refuse to work with such agencies. This isn't as big a deal in my field (astronomy/astrophysics) but it is in high energy physics where often such research and researchers are funneled into weapons development.

originally posted by: Pharyax

originally posted by: thePharaoh
messages??....so it begins...

Why do they ALWAYS have to add crappy music to all these types of videos.. If a UFO video has a spooky sound track, I stop it right away, and bin it. Sorry, no need for theatrics, when a UFO really being filmed, right?

This video draws out what could have been typed on video lasting 15 seconds. no need for nebulas, flashes, etc..

The whole video is a hoax. No such planet nor message exists other than in the mid of the video creator.

originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: JadeStar

I'm not naive but if you don't see the great amount of interest in astrobiology and the massive telescopes being built to detect life on other worlds you are incredibly misinformed. I've read the papers, proposals, even some project hardware which might be used to detect life on alien worlds. Can you honestly say the same?

No I can't. Papers and proposals mean jack****.

Most powerful institutions of the world...like political establishments and religious ones...DO NOT WANT YOU TO FIND IT....period. I don't doubt you or some scientist want to...but in the end...it's never your call. Even if you do find it...could you go before media and say it ? or would you need to go to your superiors...who would than decide what and if to disclose that info.

While you might not have nefarious agendas as a scientist...those who pay your salaries have them, and they are always bigger than you.

The world is an arena for power struggle. Discovery of exterestrial intelligence would be a paradigm shift...many of our most powerful institutions would not want that shift to happen. Status quo as long as possible. It's about keeping the control of the population, and ultimately...it's about money.

I'm sorry...but I think you're just not seeing the bigger picture here...

Let me ask you a question if I may...

Let's say that there really was an ET craft crash...somewhere in mainland USA...and your military recovered the craft and thus got hold of futuristic technology that's probably thousands of years more advanced than ours...you really feel they would share that with the world ? really ?

Why not than share all the Black Project stuff they do with the rest of the world ? Surely...it's all about progress..no ?

There is a difference between your theoretical UFO crash and recovery and the detection and decoding of an alien message.


While your alien wreckage might be spirited off to some secret location, a signal from space would by its very nature be available to all on Earth to detect with the right sized antenna or optics and receiving set up tuned to the right frequency or frequencies.

Such a signal would be impossible to cover up because the Earth rotates. No one nation would have it in view for 24 hours, couple that with the fact that the largest radio and optical telescopes are not owned by the military, they're owned by science foundations, universities, etc.

The act of verifying such a signal is indeed extraterrestrial would require observations from more than one observatory and the act of trying to decode such a signal would involve everyone from cryptologists to linguists to perhaps even artists and musicians. The number of people who would know about such a signal even before it was announced to the world would number in the hundreds.

It would leak out before the official announcement that we had detected an artificial signal produced by another world. How do I know this? Because there have been several false alarms which leaked out to news services before they could be confirmed as ET or ruled out as interference.

a reply to: SLAYER69

Get adobe reader....its free

Ok so aliens contact us or arrive. They will be so advanced what could we say they would find interesting. They may like our art or music thats it.

a reply to: JadeStar

I'm glad you added yet. The singularity is coming.

You have no idea how right you are.

a reply to: JadeStar

So its not always quid pro quo, it's sometime 'mutual self interest'.

A good current example of this is much of the work DARPA does with universities. A specific example is MOIRE technology for super massive foldable space telescopes. Astronomy would love a 16-20 meter telescope in space. It would allow us to directly image nearby exoplanets and detect life on any of them. Intelligence would also love this technology, not to point out, but to point down.

With DARPA it is almost always mutual self interest.

Here's a classic DARPA interaction with a promising young tech company:

Someone from DARPA goes in and says to their CEO/Board - "we've looked at your company and believe you're pursuing some promising ideas. We believe that over the next 5 years you might generate about $15 million in revenue".

"We'll give you $50 million right now. You retain full ownership of your company and you don't have to change a thing. We'd only ask 3 things:

1 - we may want to look in on your progress from time to time.

2 - we may ask you to speak with some other people from within your industry/area of expertise or a related area of expertise now and then". This one is usually very tough for tech companies due to the value of IP. But DARPA understands that different pieces of the puzzle are often found in different places...sometimes the most unlikely of places.

3 - "If as a result of 1 and 2 you're able to develop something that could be of strategic importance to the USA, we will help you patent it using Subpart 27.2 of the Patents & Copyrights law which covers the patenting of classified material".

DARPA is actually very cool...