DaviiB

That's a Charter Broker's website. They don't own or operate their own aircraft. They instead act as a middle-man, sourcing aircraft for their clients, mostly for ad-hoc charters. It's also an incredibly convoluted article. Your original question is really simple: If I'm a busy charter company, and a client asks me to book a trip, but I don't have any aircraft available, what do I do? Don't service the client, and potentially lose them. Ask another charter company for pricing on their aircraft, and offer it to my client. (The client still signs my paperwork for the ad-hoc flight, but I have a secondary ad-hoc contract with the company operating the flight for me) Option 2 keeps everybody happy: The client gets where they want to go, We keep the client (and potentially make a bit of money), The sub-chartered company gets some business. Make sense? DB

I couldn't say, but it sure seems like conflict has become less....vicious? ....over time. Remember when mustard gas was a thing? ...when civilian casualties were an afterthought? If you go back far enough, during times of 'conquering', entire villages and towns would be wiped out on purpose. For the most part, we don't really do that anymore. Exactly, but my point is, we seem to have the restraint (and common sense) needed to avoid using them on a whim. I'm not convinced that restraint was present, or would have been present prior to the end of WWII. Again, let's not project human traits onto another civilization we know nothing about. Also, to my point, yes, some absolutely horrible atrocities were committed in the past on a large scale. The fact that today, we are able to recognize them as-such (and discuss it openly), is a very good sign that we have matured somewhat since then, and gained a level of perspective, respect and humility that prevents us from repeating them on a wide scale. Note: This does not mean we're perfect. Absolutely horrible acts are still committed around the world, but we are now at a place where those actions are condemned by the majority. I believe the average person (on an individual level) would rather learn to co-exist than conquer. If anything resembling a similar evolution takes place "out there", then humans (with our egos, prejudices, fears, greed and general malice) are likely more dangerous than anyone visiting Earth. This does rely on averages though.....and it does leave some room in the tails of the bell curve for some.....spicy outcomes. Here's hoping those folks don't find us. DB

Happens all the time. It's called a subcharter. Company Z just becomes the client, and Company X becomes the operator. Standard charter contract between them. They wouldn't get a cut of the profits really. The (negotiated) price is the price. The fun comes when company X's PC12 (the sub-chartered one) is cheaper than company Z's. Now there's money to be made without doing most of the work (and you're now a broker). As of a few years ago in the USA, there is now a law requiring that you disclose the operator of the sub-chartered aircraft to the client, so they can perform their own due diligence, and potentially refuse the offering if they deem the aircraft / operator to be unacceptable (safety concerns etc.) Hope that helps. DB

That's why I said we still have some lessons to learn. With nuclear weapons we've (sorta) realized that we shouldn't use them (at least not the modern weapons....they're too big). What we have yet to learn is when to stop ourselves from building something. i.e. Should we be doing this vs. can we do this? We may be on the verge of learning one of those lessons with AI, or biological warfare research. I think there's a chance we get wiped out in the process (similar to the chance the first nuclear detonation would ignite the atmosphere), but the odds, to me, are far from overwhelming. Well there is no open contact currently, but there is a lot of evidence that something is here (in modern times). They might even be communicating with someone or something, just not the general public. When we contact remote tribes, we don't send in a huge greeting party. We keep the groups small, and leave them alone for the most part, trying to avoid changing their culture / natural development. Extrapolate that to a planet-wide scale....what would be the odds of non-human craft filling our skies (under the previous scenario?). As for historical contact.....If you step away from mainstream narratives and pay attention to the stories that are passed down in the oral traditions of native cultures all around the world, you'll find quite a bit of information suggesting that some kind of non-human intelligence was here, and interacting with those ancient people. Note that these cultures are much older (sometimes by thousands of years) than the countries and modern cultures we identify with today. They just didn't record their information on the internet. All they had were oral traditions....which they took much more seriously than we would (because we have the internet today). The only thing we don't have right now is publicly available, undeniable physical evidence. We do have mountains of other types of evidence though. i.e., an enormous amount of smoke and heat, but no visible fire yet. DB

I take a different (more hopeful?) approach to this. When we talk about "advancement", we're almost always talking about technological advancement. However, Social, Cultural and Philosophical advancement are just as important, if not more important. Here's an easy way to illustrate this point: If we, as a species, had developed nuclear weapons at any point prior to 1945, we likely would have wiped ourselves out. Earlier in WWII, they would probably have been used in the European theatre, then likely North America and Pacific as part of the active conflict(s). During WWI, they would absolutely have been used in a widespread manner against civilian targets. In conflicts prior to WWI, used liberally to completely wipe your enemy off the map. All of the above scenarios would likely end with most of the civilized world being wiped out.....nuclear winter etc. But, it didn't happen (luckily), and along the way we, as a civilization, decided some things were off the table when it came to war. Treaties, Conventions and agreements were signed, and more attempts were made to resolve conflicts peacefully. It's been (very) messy, but over time, we seem to be maturing as a civilization, and collectively coming to consensus about how we should conduct ourselves. We obviously have a long way to go, but since we've had the power to (really) destroy ourselves, we've also (just barely) had enough common sense to avoid doing it. It's the idea of not letting a child play with matches. We are the child, but we're starting to grow up. All this to say, you need to have means and intent. There needs to be someone willing to pull the trigger. Technology alone won't destroy the world, but combine it with (religious?) fanaticism and / or racism?....now you have the matches and the child. <<This example covers malicious intent, but the same argument can be made for the wisdom and restraint required to not explore certain technological paths because the potential risks are too great....we have some lessons to learn there as well. As it applies to "other" civilizations. I'm hopeful that a similar process happens "out there", where technological advances are accompanied by an increased sense of humility and responsibility....if by no other process than they either wipe themselves out, or burn their hands a little and decide to stop playing with matches going forward. My uneducated guess is the resulting policy would be of non-interference, unless to preserve life on a wide scale, when encountering less-advanced civilizations. Maybe that's not how it works, but we're still here aren't we? EDIT: This is just one scenario, and an oversimplification that leans on luck and a positive outlook to explain the state of things. Evidence can be brought up to point to human history being much older and more complex than is currently understood, with different influences involved along the way. There are also other potential scenarios involving less-than-friendly ETs interacting with us, but still leaving the Earth spinning as-is. So maybe a bit naive, but we are still here after everything that's happened. Miracle, coincidence, or something else? DB

You're assuming they would want us to know they're here. If we (modern humans) decided to remotely observe / study an isolated tribe (on a remote island for example - North Sentinel Island comes to mind), we likely wouldn't leave any definitive evidence of our presence. Would they even know they were being observed...and by whom? If they saw a small boat in the distance, or a Drone / UAV / High Altitude Aircraft in the sky, would they figure out what was going on? All they would have is (the equivalent of) witness testimony about something that made no sense.....and no physical evidence. If someone set foot on the island, they might leave footprints if they weren't careful, but those could easily be explained away. All they would have is anecdotal evidence, and it would come down to "how reputable or believable are the people reporting?". The locals might even have a similar version of this discussion around a fire. I won't comment on what the US Congress has done historically, other than to say I wouldn't use their previous actions as a basis for the validity of anything. DB

I would be very careful not to slap human traits and motivations onto a potential civilization and culture we have absolutely no information about. Zero. No background on how or when they evolved, their cultural norms and practices, how old the civilization is, what they value, like, dislike, motivations etc. There are huge variations between human cultures on this planet that developed separately for only a couple thousand years. Misunderstandings are common, even among those that speak the same language. There's a massive logical fallacy somewhere in there if we're thinking we have any chance of guessing the motivations of beings that did not evolve or develop with / alongside us, and could be thousands, millions or even billions of years more evolved (or "civilized"?) than we are. It would be like a chimp in the jungle trying to figure out how the field scientists studying them are funded. If any of this is true, then to have any hope of understanding it, our perspective needs to shift away from the Earth-centric / human-centric view we've had up until this point. Earth, and the people on it are not the center of the universe, and it's not all about us. That's not an easy thing to do on a whim. Quite humbling as well. DB

In the name of Reason, do some digging into how the US Government and defense contractors operate with respect to black budget projects and special access programs. The list of Senators and Congressmen (and women) who are read into any of it is quite short. Security oaths and non-disclosure agreements for anyone read-in or employed within the system are iron clad, and violations lead to extremely unpleasant consequences (jail, job loss, pension loss, permanent clearance loss) for anyone who releases classified information at any time. They can't even speak, or write a book without getting everything cleared through DOPSER first. If you're clever (or have had lots of practice over a very long time), things can be hidden from oversight. There are compartments within compartments. Giant cover up? Maybe not, but a long-standing one? It doesn't even appear to have worked that well. There is a long history of reputable (read: high ranking) government and military personnel who have attempted to blow the whistle, or made deathbed confessions over the last 70 years. You can even look up the CIA's decision to start ridiculing the UFO topic (to influence public opinion) after a certain series of exciting events in the skies over Washington DC in 1952. With a large enough pile of evidence (even if you just stick to declassified government documents) , reason leads to the idea that there is something going on, and someone, or some group has been working to keep it out of sight of the public (and likely the elected government as well). Also let's be honest, we live in interesting times. The conspiracy theorists are on their way to batting a thousand lately. /sarcasm (kinda). DB

As it applies to the claims made by David Grusch RE: Active efforts to reverse engineer advanced vehicles of Non-Human origin. The technological advances that could come of it could possibly resolve both of the life-threatening situations you mentioned. If the secrecy around the subject (keeping it away from open science) is preventing technological breakthroughs, that is an issue that probably deserves some time and money directed toward it. If breakthroughs have been made (which could address the threats you mentioned) , and they are being sequestered away from the public for some reason, that is definitely an issue that deserves some time and money directed toward it. Also consider potential advances in medicine, biology, material science etc etc, that could be made from the open scientific analysis of the things that have been alleged. We might even be able to finally track down that damned dinosaur in the Congo.... /sarcasm DB

It's worth approximately what you paid for it until the whistleblower comes forward publicly. That said, James Fox has been at this for a long time, and is connected with a lot of people. Add it to the massive (and growing) pile of witness accounts, testimony, secondhand information, circumstantial (and physical) evidence that comes with this topic, then come to your own conclusions. Cheers DB

Mick is attacking the people, rather than the evidence. That's more "debunker" than "skeptic". That said, it seems the people (person?) involved in this are easy to attack (for a myriad of reasons), but that can't get in the way of a proper analysis of the data. They literally brought receipts. Something... something.... scientific method..... evidence...etc We can get back to judging the messenger if all of the evidence proves inconclusive after independent review. Thoughts on this..... if the requisite chemicals to spawn "life" on earth came from "out there" (asteroid impacts while earth was a molten ball?) , why would it be surprising to find out that similar processes happened elsewhere, and life just evolved differently under different conditions? By that reasoning, I'd be more surprised to find extraterrestrial life that wasn't DNA-based. ^^^ that's all subject to which version of universal / planetary history you subscribe to. DB

Fair, but for me that would all be secondary to "Is the organism actually real and non-human?". IMO that is the only relevant question right now. Once you establish that, the question of tool manipulation would be very, very far down the list of what I'd ask next lol. DB

So let's wait for some more reputable people to take a look at the data, and perform independent analysis. The invitation is open apparently. Here we have both the extraordinary claim and what appears to be a body (literally) of extraordinary evidence. (Scientific) skeptics and believers should be jumping all over this to try to verify or debunk it. I'm not going to let the media (with a proven track record of agendas, biases and mischaracterization) decide for me. I'd also wait for the translation of the actual event to see what was really said about the debunked "mummified" bodies from 2017. (Note that these specimen are not mummified, but are apparently perfectly preserved and intact due to a combination of environmental and other factors). DB

I saw that as well. This is exactly why someone with a scientific background should be looking at this. It could just be the Null Hypothesis.....if you were submitting a specimen for analysis, you have to start somewhere.....like trying (and subsequently failing) to prove the specimen is Human (Homo Sapien). DB

Here's some of their data (apparently), published to the National Library of Medicine. I can't 100% verify that it's the correct posting, but they are what I found. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/PRJNA865375 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/PRJNA861322 Would be good to have someone who can decipher this stuff take a look. Apparently, the bodies are being made available for inspection / analysis by 3rd parties. Also, they listed the institutions / organizations that participated in the analysis of the bodies. Harrisburg University and Lakehead University (both in the US) are among them. For those who speak Spanish, here's the full video from the Mexican Congressional Hearing on September 12th. At about 2:35, they compare the (known hoax) 2017 case that's in the news article you posted (I think), to the presented specimen. Translations of the full video are in progress and should be up in a day or two.