I'm reasonably sure that the people who really run the country have secrets that no one else, not even presidents, ever find out about. Area 51 is just a decoy. It gives people something to wonder about so they don't start thinking about anything important.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

well, the difference is that everyone knows exactly what's going on at those radar stations.

I didn't say that anything was suspicious. I'm really just curious to know if the civilian leadership actually knows everything there is to know about area 51, and with what certainty they can know. So the president gets a briefing on secret air force programs, and he's told, "out at area 51, we're testing some unmanned aerial vehicles." And he says, "that's all you're doing out there??" and they say, "yes sir." And he says, "wait, so this huge gigantic base is needed to test small UAVs?? OK, that's fine, I'm not calling you a liar, but I want to go out and have a look."

It might not be safe for a president to get too nosy. The real holders of power might not like it.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Sure. You're right - it's a decoy. Now that you've figured that out, set your sights on other places, like, uh, Utah, where you might find some real answers that'll decoy you away from what we're doing here...

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

No, ingore Utah. You don't want to know what we're doing here in Utah either. Focus back on Nevada.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

No, no... All we have here are salt mines. If you focus here, we'll put you to work in one of them. Go to sunny, salt-free Utah!

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

Salt-free Utah? The state with the GREAT SALT LAKE and the Bonneville SALT FLATS?

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

that's just what they want you to think all that white stuff is.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

You do know that the world's largest salt mine is in Utah, don't you?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

You're probably thinking of the world's largest copper mine, Gillian, the Kennecott Copper Mine. It's the world's largest man-made excavation at 2 and a half miles wide and 3/4 of a mile deep and it can be seen from space and from all over the Salt Lake Valley.
We don't have the world's largest salt mine - that's supposedly in Ontario.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

They just want you to think it's copper. In fact, they're mining a unique 'ore' which is actually the remnants from the crash landed craft of an ancient and powerful interstellar empire.

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Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

The Cube.

Or maybe even the Time Cube!

(Ducks and runs for cover.)

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Sssssshhshhshhshhhh!

You people are ruining everything, I tell you! Everything!

You know that I know that you know that's just what they want you to think! !!! (had to throw those in...) !! (those, too)

The races were faked, I tell you - faked! It's all a cover-up to portray that area as "salty," when in fact, it's the most salt-free place on Earth!

Had to be, as the alien spacecraft rust at an incredibly accelerated pace due to the negative anti-gravity ions bound in their hull's super-cooled ticarbantalloy matrix.

And whatever you do, don't tell the President! He doesn't have a "need to know," if you know what I mean (hint, elbow jab, wink, wink, nudge, wink).

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

How can you be sure of that? There is no Russian bomber threat, so why are they still operating?

All that power being used and radio waves beaming off into the galaxy....

Maybe they're communicating with someone out there... they don't want you to know about.

Maybe they're running alien teleporters (ala John Carpenter's 1988 "They Live!")

Maybe they're running alien climate converters (ala Twohy's 1996 "The Arrival")

....and now you see how the crazys take a LITTLE information and spin it off into woo-woo-land......

Hi

Area 51 is on a topographical map with S4(Sector 4).

Also on (Google Maps) is Area 51

And Bush can do anything he wants Skull and Bones!! of course...NO ONE can stop him...he IS the most powerful person in the world..he can do and KNOW anything he wants,(Echelon)

Paul

I don't really understand why you even made this objection. Maybe this. Maybe that. Area 51 is *definitely* a secret base. Countering a definitely with a maybe - it's like if I said that my car was making a funny noise and you say that maybe my oven is broken too. What exactly is your point?

My question may be distilled as, "what level of trust does elected civilian leadership have in the military?" Eisenhower warned of a military/industrial complex, and as the wiki article states, "This sector is intrinsically prone to principal-agent problem, moral hazard, and rent seeking."

I certainly do not think there are aliens or anything like that out at A51. I actually think the bigger problem would be that there's nothing at all out there, but it keeps receiving billions of dollars funding. The bigger problem would be that it's a self perpetuating black hole of money. I think that civilian leadership needs to keep a tight reign on the military, and I noticed in the aviantion week article posted in the aurora thread that they claim money was taken from other projects and diverted to blackstar. OK, but does the civilian leadership know that's going on? It seems to me that a competent manager would make an on-site inspection as part of due diligence. That's all.

Uhh...
Excuse me!
You mean a White Hole!

That may be somewhat of an exaggeration. Can he create a stone so heavy that he can't lift it?

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As above, so below