Welcome to the BABB.

May I make a suggestion? Read the FAQ, and heed groundrule number 9:

Why do you suggest that we read what's at this URL? Thanks.

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Sure, I'm doing research on UFO's and would like to know what people think.

UFOs are aerial phenomena that the witness(s) are unable to identify. Nothing more .. nothing less.

Bad Astronomy is a scientific site and therefore skeptical of any claims made without solid evidence and significant research (via the scientific method). Now, the extraterrestrial spaceship hypothesis for UFOs, or as we like to call it, the "ETH", has been around for some time. There exists mountains of anecdotal evidence and claims for conspiracy but beyond this...well, there really isn't much beyond this!


Now, sure it's possible that there could be other intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy and my personal opinion is that the concept of alien visitation isn't impossible per say (some here will disagree with me on this, though). But, I've yet to see anything that can stand as *proof* that such visitation has ever taken place. Most of what one sees regarding UFOs is, in my opinion, a sort of modern mythology.

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

The Rumsfeld stuff from the URL is itself pretty much just a list of URLs.

I will note that the Wernher von Braun stuff the linked to site links to is nothing more than hearsay and probably dishonest hearsay. Sound a bit like the flying saucer equivalent of the Lady Hope story. A common gimic in pseudoscience (and pseudo[fill in the blank]) is to make some person into some sort of convert after they are safely dead and cannot defend themselves.

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Click for info on Intelligent Design or the evidence for evolution

Actually, I'd like to know what you think. We've had a history of people posting here for nefarious purposes, which is one of many reasons I do not like the URL post-and-run. Your follow-up was also a bit terse. I strongly urge you to give us more information.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

"I will note that the Wernher von Braun stuff the linked to site links to is nothing more than hearsay and probably dishonest hearsay."

There is second hand testimony by Dr. Carol Rosin and Clark C. McClelland.
But there is also documented testimony that is referenced to it's source by Donald Rumsfeld, Hermann Oberth and Wernher von Braun.

Hermann Oberth:
"we cannot take credit for our record advancement in certain scientific fields alone. We have been helped." When asked by whom, he replied, "the peoples of other worlds."

Source: Collyns, Robin, 'Did Spacemen Colonise the Earth? p. 236, Pelham Books, London 1974.

Wernher von Braun:
"We find ourselves faced by powers, which are far stronger than we had hitherto assumed, and whose base is at present unknown to us. More I cannot say at present. We are now engaged in entering into closer contact with those powers, and in six or nine months it may be possible to speak with some precision on the matter."

Source: 'News Europa' Jan 1959

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
"It's hard for me to believe, but I think it's true that my first visit here was a very long time ago, in the early 1960s, when I was a congressman and serving on the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, and came here with Wernher von Braun."

Source: U.S. Department of Defense

"in the early 1960s, when I was a congressman and serving on the House Committee on Science and Astronautics" -- Donald Rumsfeld
July 29, 1968 Donald Rumsfeld was part of the Symposium On Unidentified Flying Objects headed by The House Committee on Science and Astronautics.

What is interesting is Allen Hynek was also a part of the Symposium On Unidentified Flying Objects July 29, 1968 and was addressed by Donald Rumsfeld as you can read from the transcript.

This coincides with testimony by Bud Hopkins on what Allen Hynek told him:
Source: http://www.presidentialufo.com/donald_rumsfeld.htm

Allen was on a visit, and he got an appointment with Rumsfeld. He had been for many many years a consultant for the Air Force on UFOs phenomena. He actually knew Rumsfeld. He said that they chatted about this and that in Rumsfeld’s office and then he said. "I turned to him and I said, Don I have to ask you something. I have been in this for years looking at the UFO phenomena. I feel like at this point in my life I am in a position of "need to know" what you know or what some agency might know that I don’t know. I have a ‘need to know’ I feel."

He said that Rumsfeld stood up and pointed a finger at him and said, "YOU HAVE NO ‘NEED TO KNOW’ and then sat down again. That was the end of it.

http://www.presidentialufo.com/Rumsfeld_cheney.jpg

Vice President Dick Cheney pictured with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"Well, if I had been briefed on it, I'm sure it was probably classified and I couldn't talk about it." -- Vice President Dick Cheney's reply to Grant Cameron about UFO's on the Diane Rehm show Apr 11, 2001.

Source: http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/.../m13-002.shtml

Just gonna ask you straight out - what are your beliefs on UFOs? Do you believe them to be actual aliens or are they simply natural phenomena?

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Touched by his noodly appendage

By why are these statements credible? I've never heard of either source before, so why should I trust their reporting? I can write a book claiming that Queen Elizibeth spoke to me and acknowleged that I am the heir to the throne of England. Would you believe me just on my say so? Did either source say when and where the statements took place? Did either source claim to have actually witnessed the statments or are they simply reporting hearsay? Can you verify the statements from other independent sources? For that matter, did you read the sources you quoted, or are you relying on third-hand snippets from someone else's web page?

To date, I've seen a lot of the evidence that's been given in support of the theory that UFOs are of extraterrestrial origen.

To date, most of it is obviously contrived, and the remainder falls into the dual categories of being able to be contrived, and inconclusive as is. Still no metal fragments from a crash, no alien DNA, nothing.

Source: http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/newshsty.html

Here's another statement by pioneering German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth. According to Frank Edwards ["Flying Saucers: Serious Business" and "Flying Saucers: Here and Now"], the West German government hired Oberth to head a commission for the study of UFOs following World War II. (This was probably in 1953 or 1954 after he returned to Germany, having worked with the Italian Navy on anti- aircraft missiles from 1950-1953). In 1954, he and his colleagues held a press conference and summarized their findings. Oberth stated:

"[UFOs] are conceived and directed by intelligent beings of a very high order, and they are propelled by distorting the gravitational field, converting gravity into useable energy."

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Source: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/es...oberth/SP2.htm
After 1938, Oberth was involved in a series of research projects concerning rockets for Germany. In 1941, he became a naturalized German citizen, and during World War II he worked for Wernher von Braun in the V-2 development program but never held an important position in the project. At the end of the war, Oberth was interrogated by American captors and then released.
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You haven't responded to my questions; you've simply introduced another 3rd or 4th hand quote.

Yes, I know who Oberth was. If he made the statements you've attributed to him it would be very interesting. But is there any evidence he actually made those statements? I did a bit of research on the web, and the quotes are repeated on a zillion UFO web sites, but never with a primary source. If he made them at a press conference, the press was presumably there, so why not cite a contemporary account? You quoting a web site which quotes a book by Frank Edwards which quotes an unnamed source is not very persuasive.

Good question.
Doing a simple search you find 'Did Spacemen Colonise the Earth?' is in fact a real book.

Extra-Terrestrial Influence? - An International Biography

Did spacemen colonise the earth? / Robin Collyns. - Chicago, IL : Regnery, 1976. - 178 s. : ill.

So was Hermann Oberth part of an Oberth Commission for the German Government into the UFO phenomenon and had an interest into the subject matter?
If in fact he was there's your smoking gun.

You see for a fact our current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was part of a Symposium investigating UFO's.
He knew Wernher von Braun when he was on the Committee on Science and Astronautics back in the 1960s.
Wernher von Braun's mentor was Hermann Oberth.

Dang, I thought he was talking about the British in 1944.

Ok, so let's suppose that Hermann Oberth, Wernher von Braun, and/or Donald Rumsfeld believe(d) that UFOs are from other worlds. Even if Mr Rumsfeld told us that was his belief, or there was proof that von Bruan or Oberth believed this, we would still ask for some evidence from them to support this belief. Issac Newton believed in alchemy, it does not make alchemy true. If Donald Rumsfeld believes in the Tooth Fairy, it doesn't mean I'm going to start expecting quarters to appear under my pillow. :wink:

(editted to fix a sentence)

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The question was not whether this was a "real" book, the question was whether it is a reliable book. You do understand that not all "real" books are reliable don't you?

No, it is not a smoking gun. He could have been on a commission that studied the UFO phenomenon for the German government and issued a statement that no conclusion could be drawn about UFOs. I'm looking for evidence that he actually made the statement you attributed to him.

I didn't challenge whether von Braun or Oberth worked on committees investigating UFOs, I challenged whether they came to the conclusions you ascribed to them.

Can you provide a primary source for these quotes?

I love the arguments from these guys. They use untraceable quotes from people like Rumsfeld to justify their belief while ignoring the fact that if UFOs have really visited earth then these very same people must be concealing the information. If Rumsfeld is lying about UFOs, why should we believe him about UFOs? If Rumsfeld knows about UFO visits how many thousands of others must know? Why have none of these people gone public, even with information made available after death? Conspiracies like this just don’t make any sense. To claim a conspiracy requires proof of the existence of a conspiracy regardless of what the conspiracy is purported to cover up

Like many others, I think there must be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But until someone can make a convincing argument, using physics, as to how ships could travel the distances in a reasonable time, I will remain skeptical of the notion that ETs could have even come here. Until someone produces some very strong physical evidence I will reject the notion that ETs have actually been here.

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I agree that Oberth, von Braun's, or Rumsfeld's beliefs wouldn't be evidence in and of themselves, but given the standing of those gentlemen in aeronautics and the military it would certainly be interesting to hear what evidence informed their beliefs.

I fixated on the authenticity of the quotes because I have a personal bugaboo about folks passing around "facts" without thinking about how reliable their knowledge is. I have no idea whether or not the Oberth or Von Braun quotes are correct, but they seem to have been passed around the UFO community for years with no one bothering to verify them. I wondered if these quotes might be in the same category as the myth of Lady Hope and Darwin's death bed recantation.

Fair point. I don't have a Oberth Commission findings in front of me but it would be interesting if they turn up.

What about Dr. Carol Rosin?
Why would she make up such claims told to her by Wernher Von Braun that are now coming true?

The strategy that Wernher Von Braun taught me (Dr. Carol Rosin):

- first the Russians are going to be considered to be the enemy. CHECK.

- Then terrorists would be identified. CHECK

- Then we were going to identify third-world country "crazies." CHECK

- we would build space-based weapons. CHECK (Reagan & Star Wars in the 1980's and now Rumsfeld)

- The next enemy was asteroids. CHECK (NASA shooting at a comet)

- the last card is the alien card. NOT YET. (The latest War of the Worlds movie)

From: http://www.disclosureproject.org/cosmicdeception.htm

"Dr. Rosin gave her testimony to the Disclosure Project before 9/11."

"As immense as that game is, there is a bigger one: Control through fear. As Wernher von Braun related to Dr. Carol Rosin, his spokesperson for the last 4 years of his life"

And most disturbing revelation due to latest headlines:

"After a period of terrorism - a period during which the detonation of nuclear devices will be threatened and possibly actuated, thus justifying expanding the weaponization of space "

The UN has shot down the weaponizing space (no pun intended) by the Bush administration who has it's lowest approval ratings.

And now you read stories like this on 8/11:
Reporter suggests Brynes discovered plan to turn nuke exercise into staged terror attack

I have a feeling you didn't understand that mission.

This is all a lark to you, right? A movie?

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Well first off many of them take a security oath and it would be a matter of the highest secrecy.
Your only told what you need to know for a specific project.

There have been whistle blowers go to: http://www.disclosureproject.org/

Wow. Some site. Here's a quote from that page:

I have great difficulty believing Von Braun would have said something so utterly stupid. If there are ETs that have come from another solar system, we certainly couldn't stop them from destroying us with a few space weapons. We couldn't stop an all out nuclear attack on earth with a few space weapons either. It is impossible and it is obviously impossible.

Topsecretresearch, it looks like this Carol person doesn't believe in aliens, and you showed a number of obvious predictions (of course the Russians were our enemy during the cold war, of course there are always terrorists, of course there are always third world crazies). Just what is your point with all this stuff?

It could be an early indication.

On weaponizing space I'd rather see the current administration get it's way than something bad happening.

If you followed the Testimony of Dr. Carol Rosin.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Wernher Von Braun knew about the extraterrestrial issue."

Like ... ? Enough of the hints and quotes. What are you trying to get at?

Yeah, who was shaking Bin Laden's hand in the 1980s?

"The room was filled with people in the revolving door game. There were people that I had seen once in a military uniform and other times in a gray suit and an industry outfit. These people play a revolving door game. They work as consultants, industry people, and/or military and intelligence people. They work in the industries and they revolve themselves through these doors and right into government positions."

Halliburton. cough, cough.

Okay, you quoted one of my questions twice, but if there is an answer there, it is far too subtle for me. Unless you can provide some of your own thoughts, I see no point in continuing this silliness.

You must stay vigil and have 100% faith in our trustworthy government.

Let's hope a space based weapon doesn't come crashing down to Earth.