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The Government's Secret UFO Program Funded Research on Wormholes and Extra Dimensions (vice.com) 105

Posted by msmash from the x-files-you-want-to-believe dept.
Documents released by the Department of Defense reveal some of what its infamous Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was working on. From a report: The Department of Defense funded research on wormholes, invisibility cloaking, and "the manipulation of extra dimensions" under its shadowy Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, first described in 2017 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. On Wednesday, the Defense Intelligence Agency released a list of 38 research titles pursued by the program in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

The list provides one of the best looks at the Pentagon's covert UFO operation or study of "anomalous aerospace threats." According to Aftergood's FOIA request, the document marked "For Official Use Only" was sent to Congress on January 2018. One such research topic, "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy," was led by Eric W. Davis of EarthTech International Inc, which describes itself as a facility "exploring the forefront reaches of science and engineering," with an interest in theories of spacetime, studies of the quantum vacuum, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
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The Government's Secret UFO Program Funded Research on Wormholes and Extra Dimensions More

The Government's Secret UFO Program Funded Research on Wormholes and Extra Dimensions

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  • Crackpottery to cover up the real work (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Swamp gas or weather balloon? [militaryhumor.net] You decide.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The Soviet Union and Russia could see the new extra no reflective US spy sat attempt in space.
      It was good new and extra dark vs the very well understood bright night sky :)
      But the billions in new mil funding was great over time.

    • Reminds me of when I was playing Star Trek Online. One of my characters got the Lukari flying saucer ship and called it The Light of Venus.

  • Denial (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pr0t0 ( 216378 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @05:14PM (#57984150)

    Col. Jack O'Neill denied any knowledge of the Stargate program or the existence of the SGC, stating "I think you watch too much television."

    RIP Don Davis

    • RIP indeed :(

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      How about something far more logical. To disprove something by analysing it's probabilities you must first set up a research project to investigate it. Stargates, yeah, nahhhhhh, is a star gate research project. Lets not read to much into the research they make 'PUBLICLY' available, it is the stuff they keep secret where we will actually learn something. The biggest reason why they will not admit what they know, the real reason because they know so little and ego demands that must publicly know the answer s

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        The fact that 'Stargates' comes right after 'Traversable Wormholes' in the same project title, to me it simply sounds as shorthand for 'Traversable wormholes and the devices required to control them'.

  • Dimensions (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I thought the extra dimensions were added by physicists when confronted with the fact that their formula/theory didn't work with reality...

    • Re: Dimensions (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tysonedwards ( 969693 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @07:11PM (#57984704)
      It is an intuitive answer to a difficult problem. Namely, within a 3 dimension coordinate system, there are an infinite number of 2d coordinates. Therefore if there is a 4th dimension, itâ(TM)s coordinates encompass an infinite number of 3 dimensional coordinates. And so on, turtles all the way down. What is contained by those coordinates is in dispute, and where science fiction writers have taken some flights of fancy.

      • Re: Dimensions (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Ok, if 4th dimension is time then the infinite number of 3d spaces are just different moments in time. That one is easy. Doesn't mean you can go back in time either, but the math is useful to model where something might have been in the past based on it's trajectory right now.

        Every posting I've read about any higher (5+) dimension always sounds like someone was up late at night drinking a lot of caffeine and they're trying to explain their epiphany to you the next day and end up confusing themselves.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      AI research could use the same budget trick :)
      The AI is busy working in another dimension.

  • Lots of research is funded with titles that relate the work to military needs but which are vastly implausible. The research is good and necessary to understanding scientific issues, and everybody knows the military applications are nonsense.
    I am reminded of a general relativity study of inertial frames of reference near a rotating massive heavy object. Needed some expensive computer time. Justified it by saying you might trick an enemy into swinging a heavy weight on a spring, then sneak up on him with a r

    • We want the military to protect us against threats from outside the country. To do so, it must first identify the threats we face. To do that, it must do enough research in to threats which can be imagined to classify them in to the plausible and implausible. To do that, it must first spend effort identifying what indicators, if found, would allow it to determine that a threat was plausible or implausible.

      Nukes weren't possible until they were. If we want to discover that a new technology based on a new sci

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aquabat ( 724032 )
        I don't know, man. This sounds like someone who needs research funding, sees that the military has lots of money to burn, and therefore comes up with something they will buy into, in order to get the money. Additionally, you can't feel threatened by a threat you don't know about, so why expend effort thinking up new ways to scare people? Funding a bunch of paranoid researchers to run around and think up ways to kill lots of people in New York sounds like a really bad idea to me.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Science makes measurements that lead to more measurements that lead to more machines capable of making more measurements and finding through measurement more things to measure.

  • Well duh! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @05:26PM (#57984234)

    When you are working on the cutting-edge of scientific theory, it's all crazy stuff. This was merely research into the topics in hope of gaining some insight in the possibility. Communication without wires or sound used to be a fantasy but today most carry devices that utilize it constantly.

    • When you are working on the cutting-edge of scientific theory, it's all crazy stuff.

      Not really. Many of the past innovations were based on observations which weren't properly understood. We knew something made people sick, we didn't know what it was. We saw birds flying, we didn't understand the mechanics of flight. Even the eventual invention of the transistor began with the observation of an effect which wasn't understood at the time (the Edison effect).

      Things like wormholes, alternate dimensions, and FTL travel are based on wild speculation, not on something that is presently observ

      • Many of the past innovations were based on observations which weren't properly understood. [...] We saw birds flying, we didn't understand the mechanics of flight.

        There have been enough weird recorded UFO sightings by military personnel/instruments to fit this criteria.

        • There have been enough weird recorded UFO sightings by military personnel/instruments to fit this criteria.

          I didn't include UFOs specifically because that phenomenon qualifies as "an observation which isn't fully understood". It may not turn out to be little green men, but trying to figure out something you've observed and don't have an answer for is what expanding scientific knowledge is all about.

          • I didn't include UFOs specifically because that phenomenon qualifies as "an observation which isn't fully understood". It may not turn out to be little green men, but trying to figure out something you've observed and don't have an answer for is what expanding scientific knowledge is all about.

            Sure reads like you are admitting you made an argument in bad faith.

    • This was merely research into the topics in hope of gaining some insight in the possibility.

      Obviously; why else would it have been handled in such a routine and above-board fashion?? ;) /sarc

      • This was merely research into the topics in hope of gaining some insight in the possibility.

        Obviously; why else would it have been handled in such a routine and above-board fashion?? ;) /sarc

        Uhh... it actually was routine and above-board. If it wasn't both of those then it wouldn't have been included in a FOIA request.

  • Think about that when you're trying to get to sleep tonight.

  • Seriously.

    Now China will realize why we're not worried about their Moon Base.

  • I guess I don't feel so guilty now (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @06:14PM (#57984444)
    I've been in the military industrial complex my whole adult life. I've wasted money. I've bought gizmos it turned out that I didn't really need, done things the expensive way because it was the fastest way, or because I just didn't know any better. I've charged my time for my work on X while skimming a couple of hours here and there for pet project Y, or just screwing around reading the internet when I had a mental block. A few thousand a year here and there, maybe peaking around 10k for the worst of it.

    I wasn't terribly proud of doing that. Still am not. But at least I didn't sell some schmuck who didn't know any better a promise to break the laws of physics with nothing but a pencil and paper (no wastebasket required). Whew. I can sleep soundly again.

    To anyone who wonders how I can have the job I claim to have and be a small-government RightwingNutjob instead of a big-government LeftwingNutjob...stargates and UFOs and EmDrives is your answer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swell ( 195815 )

      RightwingNutjob is on to something.

      My experience is that Dept of Defense, Pentagon, CIA, FBI; all those hard core authoritative, rigid unimaginative types are actually paranoid. They don't understand science stuff, they don't read science fiction, they have no clue. So when some weirdo nerd geek has an idea about aliens or zombies or other fantastic fantasy, the unsmiling badge holders go into defense mode and spend whatever it takes to remove the 'threat'. And that includes conservative politicians who fun

  • Oh for fuck's sake.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Friday January 18, 2019 @07:17PM (#57984734) Journal
    On the one hand: somewhat happy to hear that somebody is thinking far enough ahead to wonder if some of these far-fetched ideas could possibly be real.
    On the other hand: regretting once again that I have this totally inconvenient thing called a 'conscience' and can't just swindle the government out of millions of dollars on what amounts to TV science fantasy writing. Just one multi-million dollar contract and I wouldn't have to work again a day in my life.
    • The DoD is just being systematic. Science cannot prove a negative. You cannot prove that wormholes, or invisibility cloaks, or extra dimensions do not exist. So instead what you have to do is make an honest effort into researching each one. And when that research uncovers nothing plausible, you say that these things probably do not exist, and our research dollars are better spent on other things that we either don't know if they exist, or we know exist and need to study more to refine our understanding.

  • What's really interesting about USA UFO programs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I don't understand why people are thinking that this is the government looking for vehicles from other planets.

    Yes, they have these programs. Why? Because the USA has black projects on airplanes. The SR-71 used to be a big secret. So the government to some extent probably wanted to know what civivlias from teh ground were seeing. Remember those "triangular shaped UFOs" that were so popular in the 90s? Then remember the USA admitting that this thing called the F-117.

    listen, these programs exist because

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