Alien Response Team

This would be the area that would need to have at the least some knowledgeable people to spot the fakes. I'm sure that if a photo came in that I could spot, it would be so obvious that a third grader could do it. Yet, our resident expert couldn't be expected to drop everything to look at many photos, so it would require some mid level-semi-expert photo aware-people to make a decision on such.

Also, we would need to bear in mind that not all of this would be photos. Some items could be documents. Some could be electronic.

I was thinking of a small core group that could work as a team to screen the incoming accounts, and using something like a point system, decide if a report needed further scrutiny. Then, if a majority thought there was merit to it, we could call on the experts in whatever field was needed.

Then, if the expert opinion was for still further investigation, we could muster a response team from the membership to do an on site interview, taping, or whatever was called for to verify or discount the report. This team could then return the evidence to ATS and the group would take the next step of going public in whatever manner seemed best.

Just ideas I have, nothing in stone at this point. That's why I'm trying to get as much input as I can on how this could all be done.

Well why don't you show this to the admin, like now.

Done. I sent a U2U to staff/ownership, though how long it will take for them to notice it is an open question.

Meanwhile, I will put some ideas on paper that can be discussed if we get the "go ahead" with this. I would ask that you and any others who wander onto this thread to do the same.

It might also be good to list a few candidates to contact that might be interested in joining such a project. I would think that we would need at least five or so people willing to invest some time and energy in working on this.

I do hope more people will post here, and flag, to show the level of interest we could expect for such an endeavor.

Hmmm, the obvious issue I see is the "elite group" problem that always comes up whenever we try to establish a "core group" for anything...

Certain people will disagree with this or that and denounce the "core group" as elitist or question their qualifications.

I suggest getting together via U2U and email and simply doing it yourselves. The minute we put an "ATS" stamp of approval on it we have lost our total agnosticism and that's something we can't do.

We can however (and already do) pay attention to the stuff that comes in and I pretty much forward that which seems to have garnered Member interest to the proper "experts" anyway.

I could CERTAINLY use a hand in that process as I am buried with site business and may very well miss a nugget.

I am open to the idea of those who are interested U2Uing me when they come across something of value or potential value. I will be honest and say that if someone continually U2Us me with obvious "junk" I tend to ignore it after a while (you'd be shocked how much of that I get in a week!) so PLEASE work amongst yourselves to get at least a majority on what is worthy of further attention before sending it.

I would also like to point out that we have new features in the works that will present a much more formal and direct way to bring the "goods" to our attention.

Springer...

It is not even a question what i would do if i encountered and alien. If they do exist (intelligent space aliens) and they have visited us, our governments know about it, and if they are not telling us about it, the aliens are probably not exactly benevolent.
If I saw an alien while driving I would try to run over it, and if that failed, the 9mm out the window, south LA style comes to mind.
If an alien rang my doorbell, I would grab a rifle, (ak-47) or shotgun and attempt to shoot it. If I turned on the TV, and I saw aliens speaking to the President on cspan or something, and then an alien came to my door, I would still shoot it.

If it was proven that they were benevolent I would attempt to "get along" with the aliens, unless i was provoked in some way by one.

To prove the benevolence of aliens, I would have to see their home planet, and the state of affairs there. I would need to make sure that they did not have any human farms for their own personal consumption or pleasure. Also they would have to provide some sort of reason for contacting us, and in some way prove their agenda is purely benevolent.

If you rely on the gov't for your personal protection you might want to think again for just this type of scenario. However chances are really good that if the "aliens" wanted to exterminate humans, they would not come down here and have a ground war with us, they would probably lazer, nuke, burn, or starve us from a comfortable distance.

OK, to address downtown436- we're not at the point of deciding the issue of ET living in your neighborhood, so the Rambo thing can stay on hold for a while. Oh, and I bet you don't get many trick or treaters, huh? I'm just glad you're on the side of the humans.

Springer, I'm not wanting to set up an approval board here, or in any way put the threads for UFO reports under some seal of being certified genuine. As a matter of fact, I think this would work best if reports were posted and discussed in the usual manner, without any 'elitist' input.

I am interested in forming a group that would look at potential posts and decide if there was enough merit to them to be worth further investigation, and then undertake to evaluate the evidence presented to determine further action. I think more productivity would be found by not interfering with a thread at all, and simply chose those that could be of interest to see if more information could be found. This would work best with an informal group.

My only reason for seeking the cooperation of ATS was in not violating any standing protocols in doing this. Working as a team would be all outside of the threads anyway.

Thank you for addressing this.

Now, those that post here. I will start shortly using U2Us to contact those that show an interest in this. I would be interested in having a skeptic or two on board, a couple of people with a fair amount of photoshop experience, others with a background in UFO lore, and at least one with some media experience. Really though, you each know best what your qualifications are for this sort of thing. This would be a cooperative effort done on an intellectual basis, and I would hope that it would remain as an effort to learn.

I will attempt to keep this thread on the boards for a day or so to give everyone a chance to see it, and decide if they would like to participate. A simple post of interest will do, as most everything else could be talked about using U2Us.

And any ideas, even by those who felt inclined to not be a part of this, will be appreciated.

I have made a basic outline of how something like this could work, and what steps seem evident for the process. I'll refine it some tomorrow, as I am not at my best when the witching hour grows near. Hopefully I will get more input on how this needs to be handled.

Maybe the 'new' item Springer talked about will benefit this effort. This idea might even be a good pilot program, who knows.

It would be nice if the night owls out there came up with a load of ideas for this project while I'm getting my beauty rest.

I'm all for this idea. Reporting of UFO's goes on all the time and no one really listens--that's what boggles me is that there is no large scale, in depth iinvestigation going on that garners media attention. To me, this is an indirect indication that the government indeed already knows and is well involved to whatever extent and the kabosh is put on media reporting of UFOs. Heck, why not delve into the multitude of fascinating and unexplainable photos, documents and reported cases that have already occured? There's certainly no shortage of them. The Phoenix Lights case is a perfect example. Anyone here live in Phoenix and witness the event? In the meantime there is also the National UFO Reporting Center. Here

Springer... I miss the old avatar

If we take anything from the recent years of UFO "stuff", I'd say about the best there is is the Disclosure Project. Before any "boos and hisses" let me say that just like here at ATS, there are some people that you can believe, and some that are far outfield. If we consider what Dr. Greer said, when he stated Aliens are here, are there, time travel, etc., then this day and age makes total sense. I do not think it's "the government" that is hiding THE information from us. I think it's the Aliens that control the information flow. Obviously these craft do incredible things, you've all read incredible abduction stories, so do you really think it impossible for these highly advanced beings to simply slip in and out of time?

Scenario for the slow.... Billy out fishing, snaps a beautiful daylight photo, 5 meg, perfect focus shot of a UFO. Billy calls CNN, it's all over the news. Mr. UFO guy sees, pops back to the time the photo was taken, and flys a different route, history altered, all is well in UFO land.

I know that some may say insane, impossible, silly, etc. However, it makes a lot more sense that these beings HAVE this technology and ability than to argue they don't. To me there is no question aliens exist. The question I always come back to is who are they, and why don't they make themselves known to us. Obviously there are reasons, otherwise they would simply land and say hi to all of us. So, I think the obvious is THEY don't feel we need to know.

Most of us here wind up here at ATS because we saw something other than an airplane in the sky. Some have seen the full monty, while others have seen lights shoot off and make a turn at silly speeds. Some have been violated. Whatever the story, the bottom line, the "Alien Rule Book" so to speak, appears to be "A few witnesses are OK, but hard evidence must be handled". Men in Black, time travel, mind wipe, whatever they do, it appears to work. We have seen ZERO pics or video that can be proved 100% to be of Alien origin. ZERO. However, we have you, me, and thousands of others all over the world that have witnessed these crafts and beings, for literally thousands of years, since recorded time. I think that we may need to come to terms with the reality of we, our UFO community, with it's stories, witnesses, abductees and such, being all we may ever have, ever. I hate to get all science fiction thriller on you, but consider the reasons "why" they would not want to be known. Are we the "Human Experiment", an Alien childs ant farm, a crop to be harvested? It really doesn't matter, since, well, we don't know!

When and IF they are ready for disclosure, it will be done by them, not us. Of course I am just a man, and can only give my opinion on my observations and surroundings, along with my life experience. I continue to try and put two and two together, and when I do, I always arrive at the conclusion that we're the pawns in the chess game.

If you're looking for ideas how to coordinate a lot of people to get a rapid response, I'd suggest a system that pings a persons cellphone/PDA when/if they're in the area of a recently reported UFO.

The first problem to deal with is getting people to opt-in. How is this solved? Simple, do what businesses do, market it!

With iPhones coming out the system could easily be designed to "push" an alert to the users phone. The "Wow" part would come in the form of an applet that maps the alert through to Google Earth, immediately pin-pointing the persons location and showing the quickest path to the UFO. Somewhat similar to ufomaps.com

Once the UFO-tracker starts to make waves a bigger problem will emerge - pranksters and con men. The best way I can think to deal with this is filter by sheer number of submissions. If there's a situation like the December 31, 1982 Hudson Valley sighting, with 100's of people witnessing the event, the volume of unique users all reporting from the same location would act as a barometer of the truthfulness of each of the individual reports.

Another obvious mechanism that would help validate the authenticity of a report - have the person take a snapshot of the UFO with their 2.0 megapixel iPhone camera!

Of course standard "trust" measures could also be employed. Perhaps implementing a system where a person submits themselves to a web service that aggregates "karma" across numerous websites. So if the person has a Slashdot account they could log in through the "karma-rater" and it would measure number of posts and the persons overall rating. You might ask, what if the person doesn't bother? Well then that's karma against them.

If the person wants to be taken seriously they should have to identify themselves in some manner where their integrity is on the line, even if it is only in some small virtual way.

On the other hand why not use the carrot as well the stick? I say reward first responders when an audience corroborates the event. This is tricky though. How do outsiders know that the people aren't acting in concert to defraud the system?

There are a lot of half-measures that could be taken, but all of them ultimately fail to establish trust. The best way I can think to do this is to use a semi-trusted third party, don't laugh, professional reporters. If a NY times writer corroborates a sighting, he's putting a lot more on the line then Billy Bob the farmer. It's still abusable, yes, but if the reward is small enough, say a $1000 bucks, the NY Times writer isn't going to potentially sacrifice his career and reputation on what in the grand scheme of things amounts to nothing.

This system actually works for any person of high-public standing. The point is to measure how much an individual has to gain as well as what they stand to lose. If the person stands to lose more than they gain, it's a good indicator the person is telling the truth. In this instance a panel could be setup to determine if these variables line-up and then dispense the funds as appropriate.

So to recap, the point is to:

1. Make this FUN for the average joe.
   
   Pitch it as an adventure.
   
   Hell even mock the "crazy UFO nutzos." When the phone receives an alert print, "Crazy UFO junkie WizBangTinMan reported a UFO a mile away from your current location. Do you dare go see the crazy UFO man in his natural habitat?!" Sensationalize it to the point where the average joe gets involved, perhaps, at first to poke fun, with the hope that the sightings will expose the situation for what it is, something very real.
2. Establish trust in every aspect of the system. If the system has chinks people will lose interest, become disillusioned, and move on to the next fad. Think of this like BitTorrent for UFOs, everyone participates, but for it to work trust has to be transparently obvious.
   
   And,
   
3. Incentivize it!

Extaeme, I commend your gusto and do not seek to disuade you or anyone else on this forum from pursuing these idea. However, you know you could take any kind of picture you want, including a saucer sitting in your back yard with little green men running about, and no one would believe it, bashing it as some kind of "amature" hoax. I'm saying, these pics have come out thousands of times and I'm convinced some are the real thing, but did it ever do any good? Sorry for being so negative. Go for it.

Hey Corbin, you're absolutely right people aren't going to believe it, but the point here is to get people to travel to the location where someone else reported a UFO (say it's two minutes away) so they can see it for themselves. The more people that have UFO encounters the more mainstream the UFO subject will become. If you get enough people who have seen UFOs, well then, it's no longer taboo.

It may even force the government to disclose more information to address the change in public opinion.

Corbin, there should be a lot of evidence out there on some of these. But people keep waiting for the "big one" to come along. I think that is the main reason many of these fade out so fast.

knows_but_doesn't, While you may be right in your understanding of things, for who am I to say what is or is not possible, such a scenario leaves us at 'their' mercy. I'm too pro-active to allow myself to think that we humans are helpless, so I seek answers.

xtraeme, when you think outside the box, you really do climb all the way out! I like that. But since I lack a way to convince anyone to put such an idea to use in the new iPhones, I don't know how much of this idea can be used at present.

But good ideas all. We need to explore the possibilities of this, and once we see ways, then try to accomplish them.

NGC2736 said,
But since I lack a way to convince anyone to put such an idea to use in the new iPhones, I don't know how much of this idea can be used at present.

The guys who created UFOMaps.com are already halfway there. Why not talk with them to see if they'd be willing to port their app to the iPhone? Even if they decide not to there's no reason you shouldn't be able to find programmers happy to spend their spare time working out the details of the system.

Hell, if I weren't already committed to three other projects, and work, I'd do it myself. Actually, let me rephrase that, even though I am overcommitted, I am willing brainstorm the idea through to its end to help other developers you bring on board nail down the design details, protocols and technical specifications.

To start I'd recommend that the team develop the application using Brew so the software reaches the widest number of phones possible.

Believe me there are plenty of channels you can go through to find people to work on this idea. For instance, head over to Sourceforge, create a new project, and look for assistance in the Help Wanted section of the website. Or post around ATS and BTS. I really don't think you'll have that hard of a time finding programmers willing to take up the torch.

Or hop on IRC, the newsgroups or join any other forums where programmers congregate and pitch the idea. The only limitation here is your willingness to pursue the project to the bitter end.

I really feel this idea has more merit than any other project that's come before it, because the idea isn't to prove that UFOs exist, but rather to convince each person one at a time.

In the absence of tactile evidence, this is really the best anyone can hope for.

I hope you're willing to run with this - best of luck!

[edit on 19-6-2007 by Xtraeme]

xtraeme, you're a good salesman! I'm game. Except a computer illiterate like me is the wrong person to pitch such an idea to these people.

See, there are good ideas out there. By tomorrow evening, I'll start trying to assemble a team to work on some of these projects vis U2Us, and this idea will be one of the very first we'll be looking at I would think.

xtraeme, volunteers are always needed for a new project like this, even if only part time. *cough,cough*

I knew that all people here at ATS needed was to start thing about ways, and some great ideas would roll in. This is the smartest bunch of misfits I have ever had the pleasure of being around.

now you guys are talking my language!
Ok check it out, as for a guideline...

1. We will first have to validate each claim.
( The "trust" system is good, but if we can coordinate a certain number of members in the "ufo hot spots" that would be a start to investigating some of these claims ) on a rating of believability (sp), whether it was a hostile contact or not ect.

2. We would need a central database other then these forums to organize and catalog sightings contact & ect.

3. Response Alert Applet. now this is a great idea, it should definitely be marketed sort of how AIM and or Y! is now on phones maybe a free download from the central database site? ex. google mail


hmmm... i'll be back with more

Originally posted by NGC2736
xtraeme, you're a good salesman! I'm game. Except a computer illiterate like me is the wrong person to pitch such an idea to these people.

Software projects need a person who can deal with things from a much higher level. Most teams are brought together by a designer and a producer. The programmer is there simply to tell you what's possible and then to make it happen.

So don't underestimate yourself. If you can get behind the idea and trumpet it to any person, programmer or otherwise, you're the perfect person for the job!

See, there are good ideas out there. By tomorrow evening, I'll start trying to assemble a team to work on some of these projects vis U2Us, and this idea will be one of the very first we'll be looking at I would think.

When I said "market it" I meant it. You're going to need people that know how to attract attention through viral marketing strategies. Also come up with a time line to release information about the project to news syndication sites like Digg, Clipmarks, and Slashdot to name a few. Really you should be thinking of this project like you would a startup business. The goal here is to sell the idea to the public. That's no short order, especially seeing as how the whole idea is to "hunt down and track UFOs." It's absolutely critical that you have people on board that know how to keep this idea in focus 100% of the time. If the project gets too bogged down in its own "seriousness" you'll lose the public and the project is already doomed.

xtraeme, volunteers are always needed for a new project like this, even if only part time. *cough,cough*

Like I said I'd be happy to sit down and write the design and technical document, but that's really as far as I can go. I've just got way too much on my plate.

But this is really something you should be excited about!

This idea is dramatically different from every other attempt that's ever been put out there to validate the existence of UFOs. The technology is here and I believe it could really shake things up for the UFO community.

[edit on 19-6-2007 by Xtraeme]

Originally posted by NGC2736
I'm just wondering who do you call? The Air Force? The cops? Who?

The Pope, obviously.

His mob have a lot of experience dealing with imaginary things in the sky.

Unless its like ID4 where they overtake the whole world & everyone sees it you/i don't have to contact anyone ..but as long as i see something and even have witnesses to back my story up i will be only telling or sharing my story on ATS ,not to any authority as they already prob know & will deny it & waste your time/money..and you be labeled as a loon or paranoid ufo freak by some.

As i said in another post ..An alien craft can land in my backyard and i can capture it on dvd cam & people will respond in saying great fx hoax man! ..Of course there are some that will take it more serious and will listen and want all details.

Prob end up thinking did i really see it ,thinking you are losing it ..or if its really something you know or saw or "advanced" evidence you have your family will hear you died in a car crash or some "suicide case" ..

I don't believe SETI would tell us if they have evidence..not cause they don't want to maybe cause they just not allowed ..you work @ SETI & get THEE EVIDENCE ..would you tell if your family's life could be in danger ..so who has authority ..just my opinion but i won't tell someone about an alien craft which they already know about ..they just maybe wanna see how much you know and write you off as "People gonna say this guy is crazy" or if you can be a threat an any way.

But i am no "expert" in anything ..just my opinion here..

Originally posted by downtown436
It is not even a question what i would do if i encountered and alien... aliens are probably not exactly benevolent.

If I saw an alien while driving I would try to run over it, and if that failed, the 9mm out the window, south LA style comes to mind.

If an alien rang my doorbell, I would grab a rifle, (ak-47) or shotgun...

If it was proven that they were benevolent I would attempt to "get along" with the aliens, unless i was provoked in some way by one.

To prove the benevolence of aliens, I would have to see their home planet, and the state of affairs there. I would need to make sure that they did not have any human farms for their own personal consumption or pleasure. Also they would have to provide some sort of reason for contacting us, and in some way prove their agenda is purely benevolent.

If you rely on the gov't for your personal protection you might want to think again for just this type of scenario.

You're American, right? What's your stand on illegal migrants?