PunchingBag

Great shot! Is it me, or does it have an expression reminiscent of Chicken of Chickenthoughts?

Looks like a wasp pretending to be a fly, really. Might just be the Beedrill shape it kind of has.

Just giving my opinion, but I did not care for the Orville. I'm a big fan of wonderment and adventure in Star Trek, with a healthy dose of exploration and philosophical consideration. In my experience, Orville spent all of its time on trying to be Star Trek: The Snark Generation and trying to make Seth MacFarlane look like a cool space captain. I think around the third or fourth time MacFarlane had said something incredibly offensive to the person he was meant to be diplomatically engaging with, but since he said it in his quick Family Guy aside voice it was apparently okay, that I got pretty tired of the show. It was way too much of a badly written ego trip for MacFarlane and not nearly enough science fiction fun. I was left feeling like the Orville was what would happen if Brian from Family Guy tried to write Star Trek, that it was more of mockery of science fiction than a positive addition, and I never went back.

In my further opinion, Lower Decks, meanwhile, is knocking it out of the park. I've heard a lot of good things about Strange Worlds as well, though I haven't had opportunity to check it out yet.

EDIT: Yeah, I figured this would happen. Hooray the internet.

Man, I had such high hopes for Anthony Mackie. He's been great in everything else. Can't out-act bad writing, though.

While I generally approve of the actions Congress is taking on this topic, and I am very interested in all this UAP business, I actually agree with a lot of his sentiment. I mean, my god, why couldn't it be healthcare or UBI they united on... This might be a good step, but, people are also literally dying right now that Congress could be actively saving, and I'm not referring to anything UAP related with that. We have massive systemic issues, so this UAP stuff can feel like a slap in the face to people that are suffering. For example, my wife and I are being forced out of our home next year due to uncontrolled rent increases in our area. I'd be very inclined to be (more) furious at Congress as well if I wasn't a sucker for scifi.

EDIT: I also couldn't reply directly to him, for whatever reason. Just lemmy things, I guess.

The 4chan UAP larper.

A fun read, even if it's as substantial as smoke. The writer does his best to connect the dots of all the recent UAP news and sightings that have been happening. Still, his posts helped drive a fair bit of the engagement surrounding current events. The air of anonymity from places like 4chan really captures the imagination.

My personal favorite.

Difficult to explain, and the writer shows some fear that seems appropriate for the time period. The writer doesn't speculate as to what they saw out of fear of reprisal from God, and otherwise seems terrified in general. Also written accounts are rare.

I think we should remember, however, that humanity can be pretty creative from our own perspective. Look at Hollywood for the things we're capable of dreaming up, and then bear in mind that humanity has had that creative spark for its entire lifespan. There's a surprisingly good chance that the whole aliens thing is a phantom in the human gestalt, something that enough of us have wished to be real and enough others have hoaxed into life that it now has a life of its own.

Grusch claimed early on that he had tried to reach out to ~~AARO~~ specifically Kirkpatrick, before AARO existed, for years before the whistleblower hotline came available. He also claims he tried repeatedly leading up to his tapping the hotline, and he was routinely ignored. This unfortunately tracks with ~~AARO’s public face~~ Kirkpatrick; they have expressed more than once that they do not follow up on the majority of tips they receive as they discount them as “not credible.”

It’s his word against Kirkpatrick, in this case, and Kirkpatrick has not shown a great deal of willing, or even interest, in this regard.

EDIT: Since this is a repost on this new instance, I'm reposting this comment. Also, in the other instance, someone pointed out some flaws in my remembering, and I have amended them here. AARO didn't exist at the time Grusch claims he was reaching out to Kirkpatrick.

It's much more complicated than that, unfortunately. I've been following this for some time, purely for my own entertainment.

This primarily started with the Nimitz Incident, when the military released official video of what they claim is unknown technology. This received little attention, except for civilians taking interest and making it heard. Fravor, for example, was brought on talk shows to give his account.

Not much was then heard for a few years, until a new whistleblower hotline was implemented, ostensibly for the sake of digging up dirt on Democrats.

David Grusch's story is that he has been working for UAP-adjacent programs for some time, and in his career, has heard a number of very disturbing secrets. Claiming he's a boy scout, he has used this new whistleblower hotline to try and drag this out into the light, and he claims he has names and locations of ET material, as well as direct knowledge of the location of massive amounts of taxpayer money that the Pentagon "lost." To use a metaphor, a net that was meant for minnows may have caught a shark, and Congress has finally taken notice.

Now others are following his lead in using the whistleblower hotline. The other two in the hearing have similar stories and testimonies, and all three have staked their reputations and careers on this, to whatever end that means. According to Grusch, he has already been targeted and is currently being protected from further retaliation.

The purpose of the hearing was to put their testimonies into official record, which is VERY interesting, given how outlandish their claims are. This is the first time such testimonies were given credence.

Also very interesting, during the hearing, Matt Gaetz weighed in with a testimony of his own. Cautiously putting politics aside, Gaetz has, at the very least, said some VERY strange things for any sitting representative to say. He has risked being labeled a full on loon for this, which while not totally devastating for a Republican these days, I don't imagine is exactly preferred.

This is some of the most extraordinary events related to UFOs and aliens in many decades, even if you ignore the endless sea of bullshit that surrounds the UFO community.

When I trawl the net for UFO stuff, what I see more than anything is people hoping for a savior. People hoping that aliens will save us from our economy, from climate change, from religion, from fascism, from war, from nuclear weapons, from disease, from Republicans, from Democrats, from progressives, from regressives, and mostly from ourselves.

I've been speculating that that fear is a driving force for a lot of the current UFO craze. We're in a dangerous time, things are only getting worse, and people are becoming desperate for a superhero to come and save the day.

I think we're more scared that there aren't aliens, sometimes.