Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Making the Grade

The Atacama remains
A recently published paper on the infamous "Atacama humanoid" set off criticisms of poor ethical practices from qualified experts throughout the international professional research community. If you haven't heard by now, the tiny remains featured in a Steven Greer crowd-funded documentary are conclusively human. More at issue have been the research protocols - or lack thereof - observed by those who handled and dissected the six-inch mummified female body. Also of concern is the lack of attention given to such issues by the publishing journal, Genome Research.

Scientists quoted by The Atlantic say the researchers, which included Dr. Garry Nolan of Stanford and (for better or worse) To The Stars Academy, feel the mummified remains were obtained under extremely questionable circumstances. This, they say, makes any subsequent research unethical. The rationale of the researchers - and their facilities and funding entities - is called into question for failure to adhere to established protocols for working with human remains and verifying a proper chain of custody. What's more, so is Genome Research, for publishing the paper absent what scientists recognize as complete documentation.

In layman and UFO blogger terms, if somebody emerges with a corpse or a skull they call alien, a team of educated scientists is supposed to have a better idea of what to do than what apparently went down. I'm far from the first to notice things often go way outside the lines when ufology tries to swerve around real life, but such issues are pretty much why people with credentials and respected reputations often avoid the genre altogether.

There are a number of ideas about what may be taking place when educated and/or what should be competent people seem to suddenly forget how to present a point in a cohesive and documented manner. I'm not going to dive into why that may happen, as there are certainly several reasons, but ambiguity indeed often reigns when speculative UFO talk overlaps into reality. Perhaps most frustrating to those who long for fact-based info, many in the UFO community don't even care about chains of custody and such as long as UFOs get headlines.

To The Stars Academy

Meanwhile, the boys in the band over at TTSA have repeatedly made numerous claims about videos and implications about how they were obtained, yet, as of this writing, remain clouded in much more convoluted confusion than they've served up verifiable information. Several researchers, including this one, filed multiple FOIA requests on the much discussed Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, but are yet to obtain documents. Some requests were submitted to the Defense Intelligence Agency, identified as an overseer of the project.

Sen. Reid
Throwing gas on the fire, Sen. Harry Reid stated there are "hundreds and hundreds of papers" on the project, "80 percent, at least is public," and "the press has never even looked at it." Maybe he'd like to tell FOIA officers where to look, because they're yet to produce any of those hundreds of public papers.

To be clear, the AATIP was confirmed by the Pentagon to have existed. It is much less clear why Sen. Reid and those acting on behalf of TTSA have failed so miserably at presenting proper documentation of their claims, or why AATIP docs have not yet surfaced.

Luis Elizondo, a Pentagon-slash-TTSA name now familiar to those following the narrative, identified the Navy as a source of reports obtained by the AATIP. John Greenewald of The Black Vault made a social media post explaining he submitted an FOIA request to the Navy, specifically citing Elizondo's statement. The Navy responded it's got nothin'.

A lack of ability to present documentation of one's assertions does not bode well. Similarly, when a person's education and career path suggest they should fully well know how to present evidence and follow established norms of research protocols, yet fail to do so, conspiracies are often born because it can be difficult to think them incompetent. Whatever the reasons may be from one instance to the next for credentialed people entering the UFO fray yet failing to present work up to professional standards, it should neither be overlooked nor rationalized. They, of all people, should be making the grade. 

13 comments:

  1. ENOUGH! Can we please just give this unfortunate child a respectful re-burial and move on?

    Her exploitation seems to be never ending - by all sides.

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    1. 20 year old fully grown adult fyi :p

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  2. Jack, you are 100% correct with your observations. However, this situation strikes me more as one where these individuals might be just struggling in the absolute HEINOUS bureacracy of the federal government. I think the pilot in the first video was a Navy pilot so I could see where they might assume the info came from the navy. Thoughts?

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    1. Thanks, Adam, and thanks for your ongoing interest. It's appreciated.

      I don't think bureaucracy exempts researchers and people making assertions from burden of proof, it should be taken into account.

      They haven't even shown a chain of custody for the video you mentioned. Competent, professional researchers understand such scenarios present problems, and expect to be held accountable for them.

      Similarly, Sen. Reid's statements on hundreds of public AATIP documents confounds. These people should know full well their assertions are lacking substantiation. The possibilities look less favorable the longer it continues.

      That's my view.

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    2. Thanks Jack. I didn't mean to sound like I was excusing their poor research methods (although the wording in the post certainly suggests I was heh). But really, I just want to thank you for providing good alternative viewpoint(s) to the UFO phenomena. I purchased your book on amazon a couple of months back after it was recommended to me and I quite enjoyed it. So again, just thank you for your hard work and diligence with your research :-) I will be very interested to see what your FOIR turn up on the 1947 wave.

      Cheers,

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  3. The involvement of the IC with the UFO subject has always been lengthy and extensive; no matter whether the "signal" is actual investigation/research/etc. or prosaic black projects/activities, what better way to bury signal in noise, than to propagate multiple threads, "evidence", and so forth that will engender many wild goose chases, and mire those who might otherwise get close in tinfoil-hattery (as well as the ever-useful sinkhole-dye analogy you mentioned earlier). Why did the TTSA/AATIP stories/videos come out when they did? Who benefits from their gaining traction? Intelligence is like Zen: discerning and accepting reality is not about fulfilling desires, does not come naturally, and takes training...

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    1. Cabbages&Kings,

      I agree with your points. "Why did [these stories] come out when they did? Who benefits from their gaining traction?" Hard to say if those of us without the right security clearances will ever know. As a thought, one could perhaps venture that the CIA and other agencies are the largest beneficiaries from the these stories. If we go with the premise that these agencies have a controlling hand in the phenomena, it certainly benefits them to continue to "support" the notion of the existence of the phenomena.

      Cheers,

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  4. I think I’m responding to this great posting as well as the last regarding fake videos. It boggles the mind how anyone can suspect he’s gotten the truth from intelligence agencies or their personnel. Their history is rife with deception for the good of the country as well as for bad. It’s the most fantastic stretch to see what is being promoted by TTSA for reasons you spell out so clearly, Jack, but I guess gullibility just makes my head spin.

    Eighteen years ago I had a mysterious sighting in broad daylight and I still have no idea what I saw. But the idea of greys piloting something that looked as though NASA should have been displayed on its exterior was ludicrous. When I told the story to friends, they looked at me sceptically of course, but they assumed I believed it was piloted by aliens instead of asking me what I thought. Gullibility works both ways, I guess.

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    1. "But the idea of greys[sic] piloting something that looked as though NASA should have been displayed on its exterior was ludicrous."

      Knocker,

      I am at a stage that I feel all the major UFO reports can now be explained by human technology. But, this is with a benefit of hindsight that we now know more of the research history into such things as ELF, Pulse Microwave, lenticular missile development, etc. The people whom I have known personally who have experienced the phenomena, I try to encourage to take a step back and contemplate, was/is this something that can ONLY be explainable by something as visitors from space. We don't have to necessarily eliminate the most "wonderful" but we should only drive up that road after we have eliminated the more prosaic explanations.

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  5. Thanks, Adam. I’m in your camp on the matter. Rigorous inquiry should be the standard and a large dose of research into what we (plain old humans) have managed to accomplish. Possibilities expand from there, but I still can’t answer my own question, “What was that?” Hope I live long enough to find out. And I want to ride in it too.

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    1. Thanks for sharing that Knocker. Was the object lenticular or delta shapped? Have you seen anything in journals such as Janes which is similar?

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    2. My husband and I were sitting on a porch outdoors when a smooth white cylander appeared mid sky. The sun was shining on it and we could find no noise or what might be seams of any sort. I can’t estimate how far away it was.

      The front of it was cloaked with a mirage effect which to us indicated we might have been able to see inside had it not been cloaked. But we had around 45 seconds to watch it fly by when we could confirm the very round, plain rear end.

      But a red, single engine plane buzzed us twice right before it appeared in the sky. In hindsight, the pilot of the red plane might have been trying to catch our attention, but we can’t know. I remember my spouse commenting that it was probably traveling in our direction at first since the front was cloaked. When it turned we had a nearly 180 degree view of the cloudless sky, but a small cloud suddenly appeared before the craft flew into it and disappeared. After a bit, the cloud dissipated as well.

      We were in Austin, Texas at the time and it did occur to me that three military bases aren’t terribly far from that city, but speculation isn’t proof. Still, I think it’s closer to the truth allowing your comments.



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    3. I’ve only heard of or read about very few cylinders having been spotted. Cigar shapes don’t really fit the description because this looked fatter, if you will. It reminded me of a barrel without seams.

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