On June 5th, The Debrief published an article making several claims, including on the existence "deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin."
A former intelligence official turned whistleblower has given Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin. The information, he says, has been illegally withheld from Congress, and he filed a complaint alleging that he suffered illegal retaliation for his confidential disclosures, reported here for the first time. Other intelligence officials, both active and retired, with knowledge of these programs through their work in various agencies, have independently provided similar, corroborating information, both on and off the record.
This market resolves to YES if the US government has substantively confirmed the claims in the paragraph above by the end of the year, most notably that they do indeed posess intact crafts they believe to be of non-human origin.
Confirmation must come from a source credibly speaking on behalf of the US government. A whistleblower whose claims are denied or ignored would not count.
Otherwise, resolves NO.
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@DanMan314 nothing of significance here imo, or nothing to update me in any direction at least
@2378 another way to look at this is if superconductors at room temp are possible. Then aliens are not far off.
In my opinion, there’s not a human alive with enough credibility to make that claim, without extraordinary evidence.
@JamesRomeril If it came out of the president's mouth I'd probably believe it? That's probably about it though, it's such a profound historic revelation that that's the only appropriate speaker
@JamesRomeril You wouldn't have to believe it (nor would anyone else) for this market to validly resolve YES.
@DavidBolin Which is why I refuse to participate in this market. “Credibility” is not objective.
@JamesRomeril Why does your belief or not belief of the claim have an effect on whether you participate in the market? If there’s a market for “will Trump claim x” I don’t need to believe him at all in order to estimate the probability he will make the claim.
@JamesRomeril I take the meaning of “credibly” rather narrowly here. If it’s a person 1) currently employed by the federal government and 2) speaking in their capacity as a public representative of the federal government, then that’s “credibly speaking on behalf of” regardless of the credibility of the claims. @Dan Do you agree this is what was meant?
@JamesRomeril "credibly speaking on behalf" means the fact that they are speaking on behalf of the government is credible, not whether what they say is credible or not.
@Ansel, @DavidBolin your narrow definition here is not what is written in the description. It is very open to interpretation.
@JamesRomeril That’s why I used the phrase “I take the meaning” and asked the creator of the market for clarification
@JamesRomeril It is not. The meaning is clear.
"Confirmation must come from a source credibly speaking on behalf of the US government. A whistleblower whose claims are denied or ignored would not count."
Why would the whistleblower's claims not count? There is no judgement about whether the whistleblower's claims would be credible or not. They could be 100% credible, and they still would not count.
The reason they would not count is that it is not credible that the whistleblower is speaking on behalf of the government; if it is credible that the source is speaking on behalf of the government, then it counts, regardless of the credibility of the claim that is made.
@Ansel @DavidBolin @JamesRomeril Yes, confirming that “credibly” refers to someone’s capacity as a representative of the federal government, and not whether I happen to believe their claims.
I think the claim of extra-terrestrially-developed technology is a priori very low probability. If nothing else, where are the englobed stars or the astronomy data for interstellar spaceships (interstellar voyages require massive amounts of energy?) Additionally, even if it is true, the government has no motivation to confirm it when they've kept it hidden for so long. The article claims that congresspeople are pushing for answers, but pushing for answers gives them more spotlight time than finding them will.
Admittedly, this market says "non-human origin" not "extra-terrestrial" but I hope the well known examples of tool use and production by non-human terrestrial intelligences would not count.
@DanMan314 Will you resolve "YES" if the government has collected chimp-made sleds, dolphin breathing helmets, or the like?
@EricMoyer It’s contextually clear in the article that the crafts they are claiming exist are not just primitive tools:
if there is a hidden race of super-dolphins that have designed flying spacecraft, I’ll say that will count - ie, it doesn’t strictly have to be aliens. But simple sleds or helmets would not count.
@EricMoyer will make for a good conspiracy theory. "Look, they confirmed the retrieval of the alien craft and suddenly we know how to make room temperature superconductors."
This only resolves yes on technicalities, see: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.01522.
@Dach Not sure I follow. Are you saying that a captured true alien spacecraft would necessarily be from a "quiet" civilization, and so Robin's paper recommends that we heavily discount that possibility?
Just to play weasel's advocate, the phrase "marine craft of non-human intelligent origin" could technically refer to tools used by dolphins. And "exotic materials" are apparently common on the deep sea floor. Some combination of word-smithing and disinformation seems to me like the most likely source of this leak.
