Differentiating UAPs from Military/Gov Tech

[SimpleFlyingTch]

I’ve been diving into Joey Florez’s recent work, The Psychology of UAP, and it raises a fascinating question for those of us who spend time tracking aerospace developments. Florez (a Florida Tech alum) argues that the history of UAP reports isn't just a timeline of unknowns, but a mirror of our own aerospace evolution.

His core theory is that as our tech (and NASA’s) advances, our psycho-cognitive templates for what an anomaly looks like shift accordingly. He highlights a specific cognitive trap: Hyperactive Agency Detection. This is our brain's survival instinct to assume an ambiguous stimulus, like a sensor ghost or a high-altitude drone, is an agent with intent rather than a natural or man-made object.

Q: Given how much black project tech is currently being tested (hypersonics, signature management, etc.), how do we differentiate between domestic military/gov tech and UAPs/psychological anomalies? What indicators exist based on publicly existing information??

sources:

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Joey+Florez%2c+author+of+%27The+Psychology+of+UAP%2c%27+explains+historical...-a0800323602
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Psychology_of_UAP/Fb87EQAAQBAJ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_perspectives_on_UFO_claims#Cognitive_psychology_and_UFO_claims
https://spacecoastdaily.com/2024/06/joey-florezs-book-the-psychology-of-uap-explores-unexplained-airborne-sightings/

[Jim]

I’ve been diving into Joey Florez’s recent work, The Psychology of UAP, and it raises a fascinating question for those of us who spend time tracking aerospace developments. Florez (a Florida Tech alum) argues that the history of UAP reports isn't just a timeline of unknowns, but a mirror of our own aerospace evolution.

His core theory is that as our tech (and NASA’s) advances, our psycho-cognitive templates for what an anomaly looks like shift accordingly. He highlights a specific cognitive trap: Hyperactive Agency Detection. This is our brain's survival instinct to assume an ambiguous stimulus, like a sensor ghost or a high-altitude drone, is an agent with intent rather than a natural or man-made object.

Q: Given how much black project tech is currently being tested (hypersonics, signature management, etc.), how do we differentiate between NASA tech and UAPs/psychological anomalies? What indicators exist based on publicly existing information??

The issue that discredits this is that NASA does not deal with "black project tech".  That is the military and 3 letter agencies.   

[SimpleFlyingTch]

The issue that discredits this is that NASA does not deal with "black project tech".  That is the military and 3 letter agencies.

False. See below how AI fact-checks your misleading statement:

" NASA has a complex relationship with black budget programs. While NASA is a civilian agency, its missions have often served as a "mask" for classified military and intelligence operations, sometimes leading to famous UFO sightings or crash & retrieval rumors.

Between 1982 and 1992, NASA flew 11 fully classified Space Shuttle missions (such as STS-51-C and STS-27). These missions were black budget.

Declassified documents from the National Security Archive show that NASA has provided 'cover' for intelligence activities since its inception. For example, U-2 Flights: In the 1950s and 60s, NASA’s predecessor (NACA) and early NASA provided "civilian weather research" cover stories for U-2 spy plane flights.

In the 1950s and 60s, the US military and NASA (via its predecessor NACA) used "weather research" as a cover for high-altitude spy flights. When pilots or civilians saw these silver, sun-glinting crafts at 70,000 feet—altitudes thought impossible at the time—the government often allowed UFO reports to stand rather than admitting they had aircraft operating in those restricted zones.

Another notable example of the overlap occurred in 2012 when the NRO donated two space telescopes to NASA. These telescopes were originally built for a classified surveillance program (likely the KH-11 Kennen series) that was canceled or superseded. One of these black telescopes is now being repurposed as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, proving that hardware developed under secret budgets eventually makes its way into the civilian world.

One of the most enduring "alien satellite" myths originated from a NASA mission.

During mission STS-88 in 1998 (the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station), a dark, angular object was photographed orbiting Earth. Conspiracy theorists claimed this was the "Black Knight," a 13,000-year-old alien satellite monitoring humanity.

The Reality: The object was a thermal blanket that had slipped away from astronauts Jerry Ross and James Newman during an EVA (spacewalk). Because the blanket was part of a high-stakes construction mission, the footage was scrutinized by enthusiasts who mistook the drifting debris for a structured alien craft.

While NASA is a civilian space agency, its name frequently appears in UFO crash and retrieval incidents. These reports usually fall into two categories: instances where NASA was used as a cover for military recovery teams, and instances where classified space debris was mistaken for alien technology.

One notable instance: In 1965, witnesses saw a fireball land in the woods of Kecksburg, PA. They described an acorn-shaped object the size of a bus with 'hieroglyphic' markings. Witnesses reported seeing 'men in NASA suits' or personnel identifying themselves as NASA officials cordoning off the area and hauling the object away on a flatbed truck. In 2005, after a lawsuit by journalist Leslie Kean, NASA released a statement claiming they had examined fragments from the site and determined it was a Soviet satellite (likely Kosmos 96) that had re-entered the atmosphere. Skeptics, including space historian James Oberg, suggest the 'NASA suits' were actually military personnel using NASA as a more palatable civilian cover to avoid panic while recovering sensitive Soviet hardware. "

[Jim]

False. See below how AI fact-checks your misleading statement:

1.  " NASA has a complex relationship with black budget programs. While NASA is a civilian agency, its missions have often served as a "mask" for classified military and intelligence operations, sometimes leading to famous UFO sightings or crash & retrieval rumors.

2.  Between 1982 and 1992, NASA flew 11 fully classified Space Shuttle missions (such as STS-51-C and STS-27). These missions were black budget.

3. Declassified documents from the National Security Archive show that NASA has provided 'cover' for intelligence activities since its inception. For example, U-2 Flights: In the 1950s and 60s, NASA’s predecessor (NACA) and early NASA provided "civilian weather research" cover stories for U-2 spy plane flights.

In the 1950s and 60s, the US military and NASA (via its predecessor NACA) used "weather research" as a cover for high-altitude spy flights. When pilots or civilians saw these silver, sun-glinting crafts at 70,000 feet—altitudes thought impossible at the time—the government often allowed UFO reports to stand rather than admitting they had aircraft operating in those restricted zones.

4.Another notable example of the overlap occurred in 2012 when the NRO donated two space telescopes to NASA. These telescopes were originally built for a classified surveillance program (likely the KH-11 Kennen series) that was canceled or superseded. One of these black telescopes is now being repurposed as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, proving that hardware developed under secret budgets eventually makes its way into the civilian world.

One of the most enduring "alien satellite" myths originated from a NASA mission.

5. During mission STS-88 in 1998 (the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station), a dark, angular object was photographed orbiting Earth. Conspiracy theorists claimed this was the "Black Knight," a 13,000-year-old alien satellite monitoring humanity.

The Reality: The object was a thermal blanket that had slipped away from astronauts Jerry Ross and James Newman during an EVA (spacewalk). Because the blanket was part of a high-stakes construction mission, the footage was scrutinized by enthusiasts who mistook the drifting debris for a structured alien craft.

6.  While NASA is a civilian space agency, its name frequently appears in UFO crash and retrieval incidents. These reports usually fall into two categories: instances where NASA was used as a cover for military recovery teams, and instances where classified space debris was mistaken for alien technology.

Wrong.   AI does not know crap

1.  Just the clueless public equating anything space related to NASA.  NASA HAS

2.  Meaningless.  NASA was only the transportation provider.  The missions and the hardware were funded and provided by military.  I worked all those missions. 

3.  wrong.   NACA/NASA was the cover story when Gary Powers was shot down.  There was no U-2 association with NASA/NACA before then.

4.  This has no bearing on the matter.  We all use hardware developed under secret budgets.  CCD in cameras is a prime example.   The first amateur radio satellite flew on a classified launch.   NASA uses excess military and government hardware all the time.  Nothing new here.

5.  I never hear of it

6.  there are no such teams - NASA or military

Again, NASA does not deal with "black project tech"

[SimpleFlyingTch]

False. See below how AI fact-checks your misleading statement:

1.  " NASA has a complex relationship with black budget programs. While NASA is a civilian agency, its missions have often served as a "mask" for classified military and intelligence operations, sometimes leading to famous UFO sightings or crash & retrieval rumors.

2.  Between 1982 and 1992, NASA flew 11 fully classified Space Shuttle missions (such as STS-51-C and STS-27). These missions were black budget.

3. Declassified documents from the National Security Archive show that NASA has provided 'cover' for intelligence activities since its inception. For example, U-2 Flights: In the 1950s and 60s, NASA’s predecessor (NACA) and early NASA provided "civilian weather research" cover stories for U-2 spy plane flights.

In the 1950s and 60s, the US military and NASA (via its predecessor NACA) used "weather research" as a cover for high-altitude spy flights. When pilots or civilians saw these silver, sun-glinting crafts at 70,000 feet—altitudes thought impossible at the time—the government often allowed UFO reports to stand rather than admitting they had aircraft operating in those restricted zones.

4.Another notable example of the overlap occurred in 2012 when the NRO donated two space telescopes to NASA. These telescopes were originally built for a classified surveillance program (likely the KH-11 Kennen series) that was canceled or superseded. One of these black telescopes is now being repurposed as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, proving that hardware developed under secret budgets eventually makes its way into the civilian world.

One of the most enduring "alien satellite" myths originated from a NASA mission.

5. During mission STS-88 in 1998 (the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station), a dark, angular object was photographed orbiting Earth. Conspiracy theorists claimed this was the "Black Knight," a 13,000-year-old alien satellite monitoring humanity.

The Reality: The object was a thermal blanket that had slipped away from astronauts Jerry Ross and James Newman during an EVA (spacewalk). Because the blanket was part of a high-stakes construction mission, the footage was scrutinized by enthusiasts who mistook the drifting debris for a structured alien craft.

6.  While NASA is a civilian space agency, its name frequently appears in UFO crash and retrieval incidents. These reports usually fall into two categories: instances where NASA was used as a cover for military recovery teams, and instances where classified space debris was mistaken for alien technology.

Wrong.   AI does not know crap

1.  Just the clueless public equating anything space related to NASA.  NASA HAS

2.  Meaningless.  NASA was only the transportation provider.  The missions and the hardware were funded and provided by military.  I worked all those missions. 

3.  wrong.   NACA/NASA was the cover story when Gary Powers was shot down.  There was no U-2 association with NASA/NACA before then.

4.  This has no bearing on the matter.  We all use hardware developed under secret budgets.  CCD in cameras is a prime example.   The first amateur radio satellite flew on a classified launch.   NASA uses excess military and government hardware all the time.  Nothing new here.

5.  I never hear of it

6.  there are no such teams - NASA or military

Again, NASA does not deal with "black project tech"

From AI (on why your response is not valid) :

"AI is trained on astronomically enormous, diverse collections of objective text and data, more than a typical human. For science and complex questions, these sources include datasets derived from published scientific papers, medical journals (like PubMed), technical reports, and research repositories. A substantial portion comes from broad internet scraping (e.g., Common Crawl), which includes high-quality, reliable content like encyclopedic articles, educational websites, and digitized books (including textbooks and scholarly works). High-quality, organized datasets used in machine learning research, such as those found on platforms like Kaggle or Google Datasets.

The AI system doesn't just memorize the text; it learns the patterns, relationships, and underlying concepts within the data. For science, this means it learns how facts connect, what constitutes a valid argument, and the typical language used to express scientific ideas. AI is a superhuman tool for information synthesis and retrieval, often achieving higher predictive accuracy in highly structured scientific tasks without human-oriented emotions and cognitive biases."

[Jim]

From AI (on why your response is not valid) :

My response is 100% valid.  The AI response had more errors than facts.
My knowledge is from first hand experience* and not a summary of non factual web material. 

9 years Air Force space systems (supported all DOD Shuttle missions)
23 years NASA -  25 unmanned spacecraft launches
8 years McDonnell-Douglas/Boeing - 15 Shuttle missions

[zubenelgenubi]

Moderator:
We're not here to argue how wonderfully or dismally AI operates at this moment.  It is often wrong regarding spaceflight facts and concepts.

Jim is one of our numerous resident spaceflight experts.

Try and learn from our experts.  That's why they post here.

[SimpleFlyingTch]

Moderator:
We're not here to argue how wonderfully or dismally AI operates at this moment.  It is often wrong regarding spaceflight facts and concepts.

Jim is one of our numerous resident spaceflight experts.

Try and learn from our experts.  That's why they post here.

The point Jim makes is perfectly valid. AI systems are limited in some aspects on this. When a civilian agency 'appears' to be concealing or accepting some responsibility for non-civilian activities, the public automatically makes that association. The fact that few projects are never disclosed to Congress or the President (the appointers of heads of 3 letter agencies and civilian gov agencies) only makes it harder for some to effectively disprove any alleged involvement.

[Jim]

. The fact that few projects are never disclosed to Congress or the President (the appointers of heads of 3 letter agencies and civilian gov agencies) only makes it harder for some to effectively disprove any alleged involvement.

How is that a "fact"?

[Blackstar]

The issue that discredits this is that NASA does not deal with "black project tech".  That is the military and 3 letter agencies.

False. See below how AI fact-checks your misleading statement:

I've been internetting for a long time, and this is a classic case of newbyism--person joins a forum and instantly decides to pick an argument with somebody who has been on the forum for twenty years and has made... (let's check) thirty-eight thousand posts.

I'd say that it's entertaining, but it's not. I've seen this show before.

[JulesVerneATV]

Opening Remarks
https://web.archive.org/web/20230613141222/https://science.nasa.gov/science-red/s3fs-public/atoms/files/Dr.%20Sean%20Kirkpatrick%20Remarks%20for%20NASA%20Public%20Meeting%20on%20UAP.pdf
NASA Public Meeting on UAP May 2023

Phenomena Study Team Members
https://web.archive.org/web/20230614212855/https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-announces-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-study-team-members/

[SimpleFlyingTch]

The issue that discredits this is that NASA does not deal with "black project tech".  That is the military and 3 letter agencies.

False. See below how AI fact-checks your misleading statement:

I've been internetting for a long time, and this is a classic case of newbyism--person joins a forum and instantly decides to pick an argument with somebody who has been on the forum for twenty years and has made... (let's check) thirty-eight thousand posts.

I'd say that it's entertaining, but it's not. I've seen this show before.

The initial forum board post was AI generated with aggregation of resources. I do not believe UAPs exist more so than Jim does. The pareidolia-apophenia hypothesis is most accurate explanation. I think Jim would be perceived as an extreme conspiracy theorist on other boards though.

[Jim]

The initial forum board post was AI generated with aggregation of resources. I do not believe UAPs exist more so than Jim does. The pareidolia-apophenia hypothesis is most accurate explanation. I think Jim would be perceived as an extreme conspiracy theorist on other boards though.

It has nothing to do with whether I believe in UAPs.  My issues is the association of NASA with "black project tech".

[SimpleFlyingTch]

The initial forum board post was AI generated with aggregation of resources. I do not believe UAPs exist more so than Jim does. The pareidolia-apophenia hypothesis is most accurate explanation. I think Jim would be perceived as an extreme conspiracy theorist on other boards though.

It has nothing to do with whether I believe in UAPs.  My issues is the association of NASA with "black project tech".

One of the archived sources AI used to challenge your statement: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040013-3.pdf (See first page, paragraphs #7 and #8). It specifies black budget allocations to NASA but not about any specific tech. I'm more fascinated though by the Rolls-Royce/hot air balloon project that DEA sleuths experimented on; seemed like a great use of taxpayer dollars.

[catdlr]

The initial forum board post was AI generated with aggregation of resources. I do not believe UAPs exist more so than Jim does. The pareidolia-apophenia hypothesis is most accurate explanation. I think Jim would be perceived as an extreme conspiracy theorist on other boards though.

It has nothing to do with whether I believe in UAPs.  My issues is the association of NASA with "black project tech".

One of the archived sources AI used to challenge your statement: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040013-3.pdf (See first page, paragraphs #7 and #8). It specifies black budget allocations to NASA but not about any specific tech. I'm more fascinated though by the Rolls-Royce/hot air balloon project that DEA sleuths experimented on; seemed like a great use of taxpayer dollars.

Moderator:

Is this your way of having fun, playing tennis with AI on one court and experiencing it on the other? You are not capable of standing by your own convictions if you rely on AI to find documents for your defense. That is a testament to how weak an individual you are. I've seen many cartoon villains who are better than this. I am considering closing this thread and categorizing it as inactive. Please base your opinions on factual information and engage in discussions with other members on an equal footing. Using AI on this forum, especially to find or interpret questions or information, is not permitted.


Tony

[SimpleFlyingTch]

Moderator:
We're not here to argue how wonderfully or dismally AI operates at this moment.  It is often wrong regarding spaceflight facts and concepts.

Jim is one of our numerous resident spaceflight experts.

Try and learn from our experts.  That's why they post here.

As the OP, it is agreeable that Jim's statements are reliably valid. This discussion board thread is not to exchange discourse about how wonderfully or dismally AI operates, nor about whether Jim is factually inaccurate, but how AI challenges the assertions made by Jim, who is an expert. The initial thread post was AI-generated, as were subsequent responses. I stand by Jim's assertions about the AI prompts and also don't see how civilian entities (aside from academic contributors) have association with "black project tech." The information presented in the AI sources are merely speculatory in that regard.

I think for the sake of inhibiting misinformation, confusion, or any opinionated back-and-forth tennis, I agree that the thread should be ceased.

[catdlr]

Moderator:
We're not here to argue how wonderfully or dismally AI operates at this moment.  It is often wrong regarding spaceflight facts and concepts.

Jim is one of our numerous resident spaceflight experts.

Try and learn from our experts.  That's why they post here.

As the OP, it is agreeable that Jim's statements are reliably valid. This discussion board thread is not to exchange discourse about how wonderfully or dismally AI operates, nor about whether Jim is factually inaccurate, but how AI challenges the assertions made by Jim, who is an expert. I stand by Jim's assertions about the AI prompts and also don't see how civilian entities (aside from academic contributors) have association with "black project tech." The information presented in the AI sources are merely speculatory in that regard.

I think for the sake of inhibiting misinformation, confusion, or any opinionated back-and-forth tennis, I agree that the thread should be ceased.

Comment well taken and understood.  I appreciate your understanding.

I believe the thread serves as an illustrative example of how artificial intelligence may mislead the general (and less educated) population, particularly when contrasted with the forum's most distinguished expert. It is akin to Garry Kasparov competing against Deep Blue, except Jim wins this round. This is why we condemn its use in this forum and hold accountable those who employ it to make their points or answer inquiries. We highly value our experts' guidance in seeking the ultimate truth, informed by years of experience, rather than MIPS based solely on search patterns.

Thread Lock.