I was surprised to hear Art's Parts were among the things they were looking at. You are right, Thomas, what matters is whether any of the samples they are having tested show signs of being made elsewhere.
I'm optimistic about it. This situation isn't like anything I've ever seen before; these are serious people, and they seem to be very excited about what they've found. Steve Justice is running the materials analyses and he strikes me as the real deal - clearly a brilliant man and with his Skunk Works experience, I can't fathom a mind like his getting worked up over a nothingburger. And Hal Puthoff and Eric Davis have written some of my favorite academic theoretical physics papers, and they've been doing classified government research for decades. These guys are not the kind of people who would compromise their reputations by trying to pull off some kind of hoax, imo. If they're excited, then they have solid empirical reasons to be excited. I'm dying to see what they have - it's gonna be a long two months...
Art was a very talented showman, but I've never really been a fan. He was full of shit sometimes. Some of the things he promoted were obviously bogus, and he treated his fans up in Seattle very badly when they debunked the "alien in the freezer" nonsense. But those bits of metal came from somewhere.
That's exactly the right word, "showman." Art Bell could do more with nonverbal cues than most people can do with a full sentence - it's awesome to listen to. But you're right, he went too far with the credulousness on a number of occasions, and
that goddamn Jonathan Rutter fiasco with his stupid fake story about an alien body in his refrigerator was one of the worst. Art kept interviewing that MFer long after he'd been exposed (primarily by Royce Myers at
UFO Watchdog) as a creepy lying sociopath. Art was also primarily responsible for the rise of Sean David Morton, and several other con artist hacks. But the guy could make an interview with a lackluster or totally gonzo guest, nevertheless an entertaining experience - even when he was clearly convinced that his guest was full of crap, it was fun to hear him ask the right damning questions and subtly express his disdain for the answers, because he was always engaging to listen to. That's a real art form, and Art nailed it.
I would not have sent something like that to him, but someone did. Or he found them in the middle of a big oil stain in front of AutoZone. Who knows?
I think it's unlikely that Art fabricated the whole thing - he was more into the theatrical aspect of the narrative: he didn't need to make anything up - he saw his job as making the things that came to him, interesting to hear about.
And he had a huge and devoted listener base -
millions of people listened to him every night. And he very obviously loved the subject of UFOs, and wanted to get answers. So it wouldn't surprise me if somebody with real samples of recovered alien tech, figured that he'd be the guy to give it to in order to get the ball rolling. At the time, Art was the epicenter of a huge and prominent network of UFO researchers. And with so many stories going around about samples that "vanished" once they were sent to one academic lab or another, sending something like that to Art really wasn't that bad of an idea. After all these years, none of those samples has been lost. And here we are 23 years later, and they're being studied by PhD-level scientists using independent labs to perform an exhaustive analysis. So regardless of what one may think of Art Bell, the fact is, that strategy worked - and by this time in May, we'll know what they've found. Hot damn.
These guys have lots of enemies aside from the usual debunker crowd.
There seems to be a group in UFO community who think this whole TTSA/AATIP thing is some CIA disinfo operation in progress.
Then theres those who think its just some money grabbing scam.
Whos right? I guess well see.
Everybody's so cynical and wrapped up in conspiracy theories nowadays. Look at what we just saw with the insane RussiaGate hysteria: for 2 1/2 years the entire corporate news media establishment has been banging that drum like their lives depended on it...and it all amounted to a molehill of dung beetles.
That's why it's important to offer credible evidence and clear reasoning. The RussiaGaters couldn't do that, and I haven't seen a single TTSA hater come up with a compelling argument either.
All of the evidence I've seen points to the veracity of the story they've presented: they're insiders working to buck the widespread news blackout imposed on this subject for decades. And they're going about it exactly as I would go about it: through intensive scientific analysis of physical evidence - which is the only way to shed light on anything. For decades all anyone has done is flap their lips about this subject - that's not a path forward...and then they complain that there hasn't been any progress...smh.
All I know is that this whole story is either going to blow our minds, or implode catastrophically, within the next eight weeks. I'm good with either result, but I'm anticipating the former over the latter.