this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
215 points (95.7% liked)

politics

19148 readers
2026 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick had a few choice words for the public on his way out the door of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office

Sean Kirkpatrick was once the man in charge of a D.C.-backed agency tasked with investigating claims into unidentified anomalous phenomena, the new term for what most people still call UFOs. He stepped down from the position in December, and has now published a excoriating farewell letter in Scientific American detailing some of the reasons why.

So why did he stop hunting for UFOs on behalf of the American government? In short: Because congressional leaders believe in conspiracy theories with absolutely no substantial proof. “Our efforts were ultimately overwhelmed by sensational but unsupported claims that ignored contradictory evidence yet captured the attention of policy makers and the public, driving legislative battles and dominating the public narrative,” Kirkpatrick said in Scientific American.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

navigation/position markers on helicopters, or some kind of sUAS, probably. If it's dark enough, you won't see the aircraft itself, especially at a distance, unless it occludes something lit behind it, and helicopters can move in ways you wouldn't necessarily expect. (for example, these are full-collective RC helicopters. The only reasons we don't see full sized birds doing that are the power to weight ratio, human limitations and... the unfortunately boring question of "why")

edit to add: here's the Wildcats demo team, they're a UK based acrobatics team flying. The tictocs, inverted flying, etc, are things you see in rc heli 3d flying; a consequence of the ridiculous power to weight ratio and being able to adjust the throw on the swashplate so that the blades can go "negative pitch" (relative to the aircraft, the rotors would be pushing down instead of up. there's no reason to do that on a full scale bird; besides making passengers vomit. Which is easy enough to do anyhow. Wildcats love taking fighter pilots up...)

ETA2: the UK Chinook demo team, too

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I don't think you realize how big space is.

[–] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

Space is big. I mean, really really big. You may think it's a long walk down the street to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I do, actually. I'm just ignoring that discussion because it usually gets eyes to gloss over. (edit, and there's a lot of handwavium that even JJ Abrams could be proud of there.)

So I'm going with the "would you want to visit a psychotic species that has nuked itself hundreds of times?" (only 2 were done in anger, but there were more than 500 atmospheric tests. Thousands of underground/sea tests, as well.)

Also, for clarification, I'm saying they're seeing human-made aircraft, either helicopters or sUAS's performing in ways that people who aren't quite as familiar wouldn't expect. if you can't see the aircraft body and just guess off navigation markers, you can wind up with some rather wild assumptions.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That’s a relative statement.

[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And you're a relative badger.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

That’s Honey Badger to you.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That is one of the only cases where discussing size is not relative actually. Space is always big. It's big compared to a person, it's big compared to a planet, it's big compared to a star system, it's big compared to a galaxy, it's big compared to a galactic cluster, and it's approximately equal in size to the universe.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

My comment was a humorous play on words, especially if understood in the context of physics and the theory of relativity, which deals with the fabric of space and time. In this context, I’m making a joke about the concept of “big” being relative in the vast and complex expanse of the universe.

[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's like a spastic dragon fly.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

TBH as an RC heli pilot I am no where near that skilled. I can manage to not crash and maybe get inverted a bit and do some funnels, maybe a few ticktocks by accident (where the rotor goes mostly on edge and pounces between slightly not-inverted and slightly inverted)

these guys are phenomenal.

Mostly, I like building whacky things, or like, scale models of sci-fi ships, and doing my best to hide the rotors and stuff. one of my favorites is Klatu's ship from the 1950's version of the Day the Earth Stood Still. I may have fucked around with a cop that was "Catching up on his reports" (aka napping).