I think people deserve to know if they have been gaslit by the government on this issue since the 1940s. We’re moving past a patriarchal society of blind deference to everything the government says and they have lied about many government programs in the past that have caused harm to citizens (LSD experiments in Canada as one relevant to my government).

I’m saying this as someone who believes in science and vaccines, however, I also grew up during the Iraq War and the thinly veiled excuses that the US made for that undertaking. I have a healthy distrust of the government, and I also pay taxes and deserve to know what I’m funding and whether we’re achieving intended results. There’s a lot of money and a lot of need.

I think what the whistleblowers and former government military personnel are alleging is compelling, especially if black programs funnelling money to private contractors are involved.

And from a human perspective, yeah I do want to know if there’s more to our existence because it just might change how I choose to live my life.

I don’t see the harm of the government saying: these videos are advanced technology. Why would they even release the videos of their own advanced technology and pretend they don’t know what it is? Wouldn’t it be tipping off an adversary to even show the video?

I think we’re in a weird space where if they don’t know what they are and they come from a foreign military then we’re in trouble (however, this has been going on for decades). If that’s the case then yeah make that case to the public and I’d want to fund the hell out of it.

Otherwise if we suspect that they’re completely innocuous and there’s a scientific or mundane explanation why not make fighter jet radar data available to scientists with clearance so they can study it? Why not go on the record and refute each and every video and claim? Why not make public the reports that are taken from fighter pilot sightings? Or even extraneous data like the number of military and civilian sightings that have been tracked?

Both things can be true - it could break physics and we can shoot them. Or there might be different types. We don’t know until we take it seriously.

If you pay close attention, I have never once in this thread alleged that they are aliens or interstellar. I don’t think that is a fruitful starting point.

But yes, there have been sightings in our skies for decades. Why would hundreds of people at risk of great personal reputations damage over decades lie about what they see? What is the personal gain?

This is exactly what I’m trying to do - discuss the topic rationally because the stunt this guy pulled is a great disservice to the progress that has been made. First we need to account for what is actually known by experts, and we’ll never get there if people come to the table mocking it before any work is done.

I do wonder if people have a fairly closed world view and refuse to intellectually engage with the topic as the monumental discovery it could be because it could change everything about our understanding of the universe, physics, earth and our place in it all.

Some people would rather stick their heads in the sand than question their current perspective.

If we can figure this out it is the largest scientific discovery of our time on par or surpassing past discoveries like gravity, relativity, the earth is spherical/not flat etc.

Just like you mentioned, I discuss it with friends by saying listen we have to start with the basic evidence on the table. These core observations that are brought up and corroborated by Pentagon-originating video evidence and professionals and move outward from there. Because even the hard evidence that has been presented by professionals at this point is fascinating!