Surely you mean Hangar 18.

Now there was a movie. Space shuttle is about to launch a missile out of the payload bay. Flying saucer swoops down and hovers right in the path of the missile. Sure enough, it gets hit and falls out of control, landing in the American southwest. The shuttle crew gets everything on tape, but after they land all the evidence disappears.

I kid you not; that is the beginning of the plot line. See:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080836/

“Jumping to conclusions”. Look into it.

I think that is a really bad idea.
It might be proper for a government to state: For reasons of national security we can neither confirm or deny.
But they should never blatantly lie.
It undermines the public trust.

I suspect this might be one of the reasons why the US military and government have so many more conspiracy theories associated with them then those of other democracies.

They lie.

Has it been established, then, that America is the good guy? I’m not arguing either view, just pointing out that I didn’t think it was a given.

Besides, once everyone became aware of Area 51, the government got sneaky and moved everything to Area 52.

Roswell was indeed a government coverup — of a spy balloon. The weather balloon bit was the standard cover for that operation, you see. The flying saucer thing was a clever bit of ad-libbing by agents on the scene.

It’s amazing the things you learn when you study they real history of covert reconaissance during the Cold War. Way more interesting than this fake alien crap.

Justification: PBFP deny that America behaves like empire doing retarded actions on whim, but later admit that is what he would like (of course, he will not call it “retarded”). Fact: America is already like this. Predictably, it didn’t work and PBFP is veeery surprised that USA is not considered everywhere and by everyone as pinnacle of creation and example for everyone to follow. Oh dear.

“The USA is clearly NOT in the practice of empire building”
Newsflash: they are already empire, and for long time. Something about “world superpower” and things kinda like that.

“and exporting its culture and values to the world. ”
Funny that I see McDonald in half of countries in world, including mine. Ever heard about soft power? Cultural domination? Exporting democracy on bombs? Or “inherent betterness of the American & wider Western way”? USA is not ” exporting its culture and values to the world” in same way that Earth is not round. And again: you deny it, but you like it. Insane troll logic.

“there is much to be said for a stable “Imperialist” superpower enforcing a Pax Romana, Pax Britannnia or Pax Americana on the rest of the world.”
Good news for you: USA already tries this. Question of successfulness are, of course, completely different matter.

Last thought: your whines are funny in a scary way. This is like children that throws stones at each other for fun and later cries because being hit by stone hurts. You want empire that shoot at anything that said empire does not like and you whine that no one likes USA. Someone that is not complete idiot would thought that these things are somewhat related. Or learn a thing or two about “consequences of own actions”. Ah well.

Pluto, try a thought experiment. It’s called empathy. Try it some time.

Just imagine for a moment that you are an Iraqi or an Afghan.
Would you be totally loyal to the United States? Why?

Imperial powers can never understand why the locals aren’t grateful.The Chinese are baffled the Tibetans don’t understand that civilisation is being brought to them.

Yes, the US is a far more benign power than most. But that does not seem to stop imperial behaviour at times, eg Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and have you seen the Wikileaks video?

Power is dangerous, even for Americans.

No, but you won’t stop them by invading another countries (that’s exactly what Osama wanted!) Only way is counterintelligence and infiltration into the terrorist groups. And in some cases, a surgical strike on the terrorist cells if the intelligence is good enough.

Do you think North Korea and Iran and China are all generous, kind, soft-hearted nations with the interests of the world at heart?

Do you really think North Korea or Iran is going to attack US? What could they achieve by that? Suicide? North Korea has huge army, but do you really think it is well-equipped? Iran’s military forces are comparable to that of Jordan! And it would be totally insane for China to threaten you military. They’d rather do business with you. It won’t be your next cold war enemy, unless you really try to make it one.

All of that is hype to keep the military industry running.

No, the USA is NOT an imperialist brute power or the globe’s bad guy.

Please tell that to Iraqis and Afghans, whose standard of living is even worser today than before. Or to Vietnamese or Philippines. Or to native Americans. Sure it has been nicer than some, but that’s not an excuse.

Sometimes (as Israelis know all too well) pre-emptive strikes are required for a better more peaceful world.

Well, Israelis are not exactly bringing peace to this world.

From Wikipedia:

“Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed the first patent for a transistor in Canada in 1925, describing a device similar to a Field Effect Transistor or “FET”.

If someone could transport a ram jet powered drone back to this same period(1925) and the scientists of that time tried to reverse engineer it, they would likely never figure out how a kerosene fueled piece of pipe with no moving parts could have ever flown, since they have to get up to about 400 mph/ to generate compression and containment for the ram jet to work. That’s only 85 years in our past, so how do you think we could ever reverse engineer tech from a couple of centuries ahead of us?

Reverse engineering only works if the stuff you’re working on is in the same knowledge ball park as you, meaning it’s based on the same basic knowledge as the person doing the engineering. If your tech requires a new paradigm to be understood, we would never understand w/o the new paradigm in place. W/o the theory of quantum mechanics we’d never be able to understand or be able to copy LSI circuits or even SEE the circuits. They’re deposited these days with ion beams. IF you can’t see what a device is made of, you can’t copy it.

That said, I hope the US Air Force is taking Leik Myrabos Light Craft seriously. That would be so cool!

Gary 7

Methinks the world could do with a more muscular and pro-active US that was more willing to take aggressive pre-emptive military action and was less willing to put up with all the sh .. er, stuff .. that Iran and North Korea and China get up to.

It may be Politically Incorrect & untrendy to say so but there is much to be said for a stable “Imperialist” superpower enforcing a Pax Romana, Pax Britannnia or Pax Americana on the rest of the world. Empires need not be all bad news. In fact they’re often termed civilisations and enable Humanity to flourish and achieve remarkable, wonderful things and make lives better for almost all their citizens.

Lets assume Roswell “happened” on July 2, 1945 how many huge leaps in technology happened shortly afterward?

1946 Mobile Telephone Service (predecessor to Cellular Service)
1947 Transistor (Predated by the Vacuum Tube)
1947 Pocket Calculator (Mechanical)
1948 Holography

There were not small leaps from their predecessors they were huge leaps and all happened in a short period of time. I’m not saying it was from reverse engineered Alien Technology but you have to admit it gives people an excuse for that theory, even your 1960′s spy planes were a huge leap considering Jet Propulsion didn’t kick off until WWII less than 30 years prior.

If you ask me, what I think? Aliens have become to many the Zeus, Athena, Helena, and Aphrodite of our time, we explain things we can’t understand or explain on UFO’s and Little Green Men, long ago people heard a story of a strange event they couldn’t explain rationally and the gods did it. Now it’s Aliens, doing it. Does this mean I think there is no possibility that there are intelligent life forms out there? No I firmly believe there is and they are all smart enough to keep away from all the idiots on planet earth.

“Like it or not, there are bad guys out there who would love to see America fall.”
Exactly! There is no room for any nuance here. It’s statements like this that give the rest of the world the impression that Americans are a bunch of trigger-happy cowboys.

Um what part of that quote is so untrue or objectionable actually?

Do you think Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaida don’t exist?

Do you think North Korea and Iran and China are all generous, kind, soft-hearted nations with the interests of the world at heart?

Just how blind or foolish are you?

What the BA said there is entirely correct &, if anything, the problem with the US military response to the bad guys of the world is too weak & too reluctant to take action.

Look at what Rome did to Carthage – it destroyed the city utterly and sowed the ground with salt so it could never be rebuilt.

Look at how the Mongol empire dealt with cities that were just a bit too slow to surrender, they got stomped out of existence and their inhabitants massacred and turned to pyramids of skulls or slaves.

Or if you aren’t willing to learn from history look around today at what China is doing to the Tibetans or what Russia is doing to the Chechens.

Compare that with America that rebuilt (West) Germany and Japan post WWII. That did so so generouslyand sowell that these natiosn are now major world leaders and economic powerhouses that still choose to rely onUS military aid. That puts up with Iran and North Korea’s violent & hateful trash talk, that is now backing out from Iraq after liberating its people from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and hands that oil-rich country back to its ungratefuland civil-war fighting population without even asking them to pay the bill.

No, the USA is NOT an imperialist brute power or the globe’s bad guy.

No, not everybody in the world can be negotiated with rationally and accepted as legitimate international actors.

Sometimes military strength *is* needed for self-protection.

Sometimes (as Israelis know all too well) pre-emptive strikes are required for a better more peaceful world.*

The USA is clearly NOT in the practice of empire building and exporting its culture and values to the world.

Some would say that’s rather a pity given the nastiness of the alternatives & the benefits and inherent betterness of the American & wider Western way.

—-

* Iraq was building nuclear WMD’s – back in the 1980′s . Israel took care of that potential nightmare for the world & was widely condemned for its trouble. Imagine how much worse things might have been had Saddam had nukes in 2003. Yes, his WMD’s were a bluff – but at the time the fear & threat was genuine and no one should shed any tears that that murderous dictator was overthrown. The world could do with less dictators and more democracies.