Movie: The Age of Disclosure

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Farah Films

If you have questions about UFOs, now fashionable called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) to presumably add some seriousness and move it away from the kooky crowd, you might want to check out the upcoming film The Age of Disclosure. It will be available on November 21 on Amazon Prime as well as at select theaters.

Here is the trailer, which might entice you. It has the draw of many entertainment thrillers, and reminds me of the endless videos on YouTube and even Netflix describing secrets only a few know. It comes across as an updated version of the search for Bigfoot and the Arch of the Covenant rolled into one.

The film description states:

The Age of Disclosure is an unprecedented and revelatory film –featuring 34 senior members of the U.S. Government, military, and intelligence community– revealing a cover-up of the existence of non-human intelligent life and a secret war to reverse engineer technology of non-human origin.

The film exposes the profound impact the situation has on the future of humanity, while providing a look behind-the-scenes with those at the forefront of the bi-partisan disclosure effort.

Amazon Prime’s pitch is just as dramatic:

An explosive documentary that reveals an 80-year global cover-up of non-human intelligent life and a secret war among major nations to reverse-engineer advanced technology of non-human origin. Featuring testimony from 34 U.S. Government, military, and intelligence community insiders, the film exposes the profound stakes for the future of humanity.

One of the officials in the trailer is Senator Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State Rubio. If there is any bit of truth to all of this, we should be asking for these UAP files instead of the Epstein files.

The films creator, Dan Farah, was on Real Time with Bill Maher last week discussing the film. You can find the podcast here. Mr. Farah discusses how these non-human actors live in the sea and seem to have appeared right around the time the nuclear age started. Of course, this is also after World War II when new forms of flight and related spying was underway, but why mess up the story.

Mr. Farah also seems surprised they are seen around our military facilities, as if this would not be a prime target for any outside party, human or otherwise. He then states:

…there’s been a few events where UAP activity over nuclear weapon sites has activated the missiles in some case and then turned them off in some cases. And it’s obviously a display of power of some sort. You know, your guess is as good as mine of what the intention is, but it’s concerning.

All of this sounds pretty amazing, yet I think it is more an amazing paste job of various quotes that are then repurposed to create a more dramatic story. For that reason, it may be better for the uninitiated, or just the regular newspaper readers who do not get their news from social media, to first go through the material from the very group set up to study all of this, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, as well as various congressional hearings on this matter. Then you can make up your own mind.

Here are a few congressional hearings to get you started on your search:

We already have too many conspiracies upsetting the public and breeding mistrust of all government entities. Its time to breath and read up on this material yourself.

We need to remain open minded without advancing straight to empty headed. As Carl Sagan stated in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark:

Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But a kind of Gresham’s Law prevails in popular culture by which bad science drives out good.

Podcast: Winter is Coming? I Hope Not

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you missed this podcast three years ago, you will want to catch it now. I listened to it again and enjoyed it just as much as last time.

The Startalk podcast episode it titled “Nuclear Winter with Ann Druyan and Brian Toon” was first broadcast on August 9, 2022, but it was shared again this past July 4th.

Here is a summary of what you will hear:

Are advanced civilizations doomed to destroy themselves? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice explore the Cold War, The Drake Equation, and Carl Sagan’s work on the nuclear winter hypothesis with producer of Cosmos and Carl Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan and atmospheric scientist Brian Toon.

Learn about the Future of Life award (details here) and how scientists came up with the nuclear winter hypothesis. How close to annihilation were we? Ann tells us about working with Carl Sagan on Cosmos and his research on this world and others. Find out how Carl Sagan’s research on the climate of Venus inspired work on the runaway greenhouse effect in our own atmosphere. Are scientists always supposed to be dispassionate?

What are the long-term consequences of nuclear war? How did they discover nuclear winter? Find out about volcanic eruptions and how the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs helped spark the idea of a nuclear winter. What happened after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? We learn about what smoke does to the atmosphere and what a post-nuclear world would look like. Why haven’t we seen any other advanced civilizations in the universe? Where are they? We talk about the Drake Equation, the fate of the Earth, and the current state of weapons of mass destruction. How much food would be needed to save up to survive a nuclear winter? Is there anywhere that would be safe?

What was the public’s reaction to nuclear winter? How did it impact geopolitics? Discover how Carl Sagan publicized the hypothesis to US and Russian politicians. Has the global amount of nuclear weapons gone down? We discuss the role of science communication and the concerning instability in the world today. Finally, are we safe?

I don’t want to repeat myself here, so you can read my comments in my earlier post.

Given the continued nasty war between Ukraine and Russia, as well as the recent bombing of nuclear sites in Iran, this episode is still sadly relevant. The discussion about the Reagan administration trying to block scientific inquiry also seems all too familiar today as the Trump administration guts our science programs, including NASA.

I just hope we are in a better place three years from now, both domestically and overseas.

Ed Helms and Lunar Nukes

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Grand Central Publishing.

Actor Ed Helms is making his rounds to sell his book Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups.

One of the stories he tells is about the US “planting nukes on the moon.” Is this true?

Yes, it was a top secret effort called Project A119, with the goal of exploding a hydrogen bomb on the Moon. And believe it or not, Carl Sagan was involved in the calculations related to this zany idea.

This was in the late 1950s during the Cold War when the US and Soviet Union were doing everything they could to trump one another. It also was right after Sputnik, when the US felt it was losing the space race. In this case, the US would make a clear demonstration of its power through this distant explosion.

Fortunately, the US decided to take a better route by going into orbit and eventually to the Moon. If we had blown up the Moon, Carl Sagan would have been remembered in a very different way today – less as the educator, and more as Dr. Strangelove.

Just never underestimate the ability of the government to go down some dark roads. We needed guardrails then like we need them now.

You can read more about it in this History.com story.

Podcast: Cool Worlds Considers Communicating with Aliens

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Cool Worlds

You may enjoy this week’s episode from the Cool Worlds Podcast all about leaving evidence of our civilization for alien visitors, or even a future civilization here on Earth. The episode, “Nick Searra – Alien Communication, Golden Record, Future Relics,” covers a lot of ground from the Pioneer and Voyager missions to the idea of placing time capsules about our civilization on the Moon or even within the orbit of Jupiter.

The guest is Nick Searra, who is Founder and Executive Directory of the Interstellar Foundation. The Interstellar Foundation has a clear mission – to create messages that represent the diversity and creativity of humanity, inspire future generations of explorers, and communicate with potential extraterrestrial life.

On the site, you an read about the Foundation’s Aspire One, which was an effort to create a lunar record to preserve Earth’s cultural and scientific heritage on the Moon. Preserved records include UNESCO archives, World Heritage images, and other scientific, historical, and cultural material. This message is already on its way to the Moon via this week’s launch of the Blue Ghost lunar lander.

A second messaging mission, Aspire Two, is now in development.

The podcast discussion and related website basically cover the continuation of work stared by Carl Sagan with the launch of Pioneer 10 back in 1972. I recommend you check out both of them.

Image (Credit): Sample images from Aspire One. (Interstellar Foundation)

Podcast: Crash Course Pods – The Universe

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are looking for another podcast on astronomy with some deep ideas, then you will want to tune into Crash Course Pods: The Universe. It’s a discussion between author John Green (Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars) and Dr. Katie Mack, a theoretical astrophysicist and author of The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). It is not your usual combination for such a show, but it works.

Only one episode has been release to date, but it is enough to keep your head spinning. It may also merit another listen just to be certain you heard what you think you heard. The topic is the beginning of the universe, which is not the straightforward tale I have been hearing for the past number of years. The Big Bang is much more complex, and her statement about hydrogen goes beyond that of Carl Sagan, who said we are all “Star Stuff.” She notes that we are still mostly made of hydrogen atoms that were created in the first two minutes of the universe, so a lot of us precedes the stars.

Dr. Mack noted that her students sometimes find it difficult to follow her stories, so this is your warning that you are jumping into the deep end with this podcast. The only saving grace is John Green’s questions and humor to keep us afloat.

Just try it our for yourself. I think you will want to stick around for the second episode.

Credit: Scribner