UFO

• During the meeting, several military officers testified that unidentified anomalous phenomena – the government’s name for UFOs – pose a threat to national security.
• Their testimony may have raised eyebrows in the chamber, but there’s still no public physical evidence of extraterrestrial life.

1. Whistleblower allegations

• The Pentagon has denied this claim, and it has denied the existence of any program designed to retrieve and reverse-engineer crashed UFOs.
• All witnesses at the hearing advocated for more government transparency around reports of UFOs.
• While having access to more data may help understand what’s going on, as the University of Arizona’s Chris Impey put it, “the gold standard is physical evidence.”

  Read more:
  Whistleblower calls for government transparency as Congress digs for the truth about UFOs

2. Sociological explanations

• People want explanations for ambiguous situations, and they’re easily influenced by others.
• “Poorly documented UFO pics and videos spread on social media, leading media outlets to grab and republish the most intriguing.
• Whistleblowers emerge periodically, fanning the flames with claims of secret evidence.”

  Read more:
  Why people tend to believe UFOs are extraterrestrial

3. Signature detection

• Instead, scientists could potentially pick up signals like radio waves or pollution from some distant galaxy that might indicate extraterrestrial technology.
• The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is a group of scientists all working on the search for extraterrestrial life.
• “However, this approach assumes that extraterrestrial civilizations want to communicate with other technologically advanced life,” Huston and Wright explained.

4. Ethical considerations

• A congressional subcommittee met on June 26, 2023, to hear testimony from several military officers who allege the government is concealing evidence of UFOs.
• By holding a hearing on UFOs – now called “unidentified anomalous phenomena” by government agencies – the subcommittee sought to understand whether these UAPs pose a threat to national security.

UFO oversight so far

• In June 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report on the phenomena.
• In November 2021, the Pentagon formed a new group to coordinate efforts to detect and identify objects in restricted airspace.
• Then in May 2022, a House Intelligence subcommittee held the first congressional hearing in over half a century on military reports of UAPs.
• So the subcommittee is using its overall charge of oversight and accountability to get some answers.

Eyebrow-raising testimony

• Three witnesses, all ex-military officers, gave sworn testimony to the subcommittee.
• Video of the encounter was released by the Department of Defense in 2017 and publicized by The New York Times.
• Fravor testified that the technology he witnessed was far superior to anything human beings have.
• He described objects with no visible means of propulsion carrying out sudden maneuvers that no known technology could achieve.
• He recounted a situation in which two jets had to take evasive action as they encountered a UAP.

Calls for transparency

• Lawmakers from both parties called for more government transparency.
• The push for government transparency will likely intensify, and subcommittee members hope to have a classified briefing to evaluate the claims made by Grusch.
• If Grusch’s claims of crashed UAPs are ever verified, that will be the first UAP hearing with a truly dramatic outcome.

• For some, Barbie is the ultimate “girlboss” – she’s glamourous, successful and owns her own DreamHouse.
• For others, Barbie represents an outdated female stereotype – a “blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world”, according to Aqua’s 1997 hit song Barbie Girl.
• Just ask the man with the megaphone stood outside the press screening of the new Barbie film that I attended in Leicester Square.
• Vehemently protesting the film, he insisted that Barbie is a bad role model and a danger to young women.

Barbie in the real world

• In the real world, Barbie is shocked to find that things are a little different than in Barbieland.
• While Barbie says she feels “ill at ease” in these situations, Ken (Ryan Gosling) feels “admired”.
• Like real women, Barbie is faced with objectification and criticism.

Ken’s rights

• It is not long before Ken’s endearing innocence is tainted by a concept that is novel where he comes from: patriarchy.
• Ken becomes intoxicated by male dominance and the film takes every opportunity to lampoon it.
• In other words, the many faces of radical misogyny in modern society, from men’s rights activists to incels.
• Much like the men who are indoctrinated into these radical groups, the Kens are led to believe that their rights are being eclipsed by women’s and find themselves conforming to toxic male stereotypes to regain a sense of control.
• Barbie makes a point that Leicester Square-megaphone-man really needs to hear: it’s not a Barbie doll that threatens women’s rights, opportunities and safety – it’s the patriarchy.

• NASA recently adopted the term “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP.
• I’m a sociologist who focuses on the interplay between individuals and groups, especially concerning shared beliefs and misconceptions.
• As for why UFOs and their alleged occupants enthrall the public, I’ve found that normal human perceptual and social processes explain UFO buzz as much as anything up in the sky.

Historical context

• Thirty years of polling find that 25%-50% of surveyed Americans believe at least some UFOs are alien spacecraft.
• Today in the U.S., over 100 million adults think our galactic neighbors pay us visits.
• Linking objects in the sky with visiting extraterrestrials has risen in popularity only in the past 75 years.
• The only evidence ever to emerge from this story was a small string of downed weather balloons.
• From there, a steady stream of UFO-themed TV shows, films, and pseudo-documentaries has fueled public interest.

Human factors contributing to UFO beliefs

• The rest base their opinions on eerie images and videos strewn across both social media and traditional mass media.
• There are astronomical and biological reasons to be skeptical of UFO claims.
• But less often discussed are the psychological and social factors that bring them to the popular forefront.
• But so far, the evidence on UFO origins is ambiguous at best.
• People are more likely to accept weak evidence or fall prey to optical illusions if they support preexisting beliefs.

Group factors contributing to UFO beliefs

• But they can go viral on social media and reach millions of users.
• With no higher authority or organization propelling the content, social scientists call this a bottom-up social diffusion process.
• Amateur organizations also promote active personal involvement for many thousands of members, the Mutual UFO Network being among the oldest and largest.
• Mass media spreads UFO content and piques worldwide interest in UFOs.
• Poorly documented UFO pics and videos spread on social media, leading media outlets to grab and republish the most intriguing.