• DoubleDongle@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I think I can assume from here that there aren’t any aliens, because they would NOT be touching this for a cheap distraction if there was anything of note to see.

    • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      Oh i don’t doubt its aliens, just… microbial. Literally nothing major to speak of, single celled organisms.

      • ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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        2 days ago

        Why would they classify that information if its just microbial? The motivation for classification is clear if the aliens are flying around in UFOs (so they can reverse engineer their tech without adversaries of the US finding out) but there is no realistic motivation for why they might classify microbial life

        • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Life of any kind on other worlds would upend lots of religious doctrine which insists that this place is special and that life was specifically put here for us.

          But then again that assumes that these religions are logically consistent, so it probably wouldn’t matter.

          • ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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            2 days ago

            Yeah. If they classify microbial life because it conflicts with religious dogma then you’d expect them to classify any scientific finding that conflicts with religious dogma, which doesn’t seem to be the case.

        • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 days ago

          Information being classified doesn’t mean much, people classify all kinds of dumb shit to the point that training had to be implemented to prevent OVER-classification

          • ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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            2 days ago

            Right. But in this particular case it doesn’t make sense. If microbial life were found on, say, Mars then that would be a discovery by NASA, which is a civilian agency. As far as I’m aware you don’t need a security clearance to work at a civilian agency.

            On the other hand if the US  found some unknown craft flying in their sky that would immediately become a military matter and so be classified by default

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        That would be a humongous world-changing announcement in a sane timeline. Half the people in our stupid culture wouldn’t even register it as a blip though.

        In situations like this I like to think of the history students a thousand years from now, assuming the earth is still habitable, etc.

        "So humanity’s first public recognition of extraterrestrial life only happened when it did to distract from the fact that the Big Country at the time had reelected the planet’s worst person AGAIN and they needed to delay justice until they died for… let me double check the text… they needed to delay getting in trouble for being at the top of a global human trafficking and rape operation?

        And I am supposed to believe these people had running water, airplanes, internet, and space programs? They lied about every other damn thing!"

    • FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Yeah this is devastating news for UFO enthusiasts. Even the craziest alien conspiracist probably understands when Trump is wriggling like an eel