No evidence that UFOs are aliens — NASA attempts to make conversations about aerial phenomena more scientific::NASA attempts to make conversations about aerial phenomena more scientific.

  • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Seems like a dumb pr move from them tbh. Everyone is more likely to give them money if everyone thinks that they’re studying aliens.

    That doesn’t mean they should lie and say they are studying aliens, but they should have just let people run away with their imaginations.

    • Jojo@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      They are studying aliens, it’s just that when they think they might be looking at aliens it’s “organic molecules detected in clouds on Venus” and not “weird thing in the sky one time, iunno”.

    • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Strong disagree. NASA is fundamentally a scientific organization, it’s absolutely their duty to bring a dose of scientific rationality to conversations about UFOs. And besides, NASA absolutely is studying aliens. They’re constantly doing observations of exoplanets for signs of life, as well as all the numerous missions across our solar system looking for non earth based life.

      If people for some reason think that using some of the most advanced observation equipment ever developed to look for actual aliens is less exciting then tinfoiling over grainy video footage and talking about little green men, then that’s their own problem, not NASA’s. And giving into that kind of populism would just lead to public pressure on them to waste time and money chasing down conspiracies instead of doing actual science

      • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Where did I say they should use their equipment for tinfoil stuff? I just said they should shut up and let dumb people give them money

        • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Except those “dumb people” vote, and the people they vote for are the ones that determine which projects get funding and which don’t. I’d rather NASA continue to get funding for real science than getting all their funding funneled into investigating “tinfoil stuff”. NASA isn’t an autonomous organization, they ultimately can only do work on what congress gives them money to do