US Senator Marco Rubio Speaks Out About UFOs

"NEW INTERVIEW: US Senator Marco Rubio Speaks Out About UFOs." Posted on brian hanley's YouTube channel on July 17, 2020. Duration: 2:12 minutes.

"This interview was conducted by investigative reporter Jim DeFede".

A short, but what may very well turn out to be a historical, interview with Senator Marco Rubio for CBS Miami. Even though the interview is short, and Rubio repeats his main premise ("national security") as to why the US government needs to study UFOs, he also says some interesting things.

These are the most important things Rubio said, in my opinion, and how I understand them within the larger context of the current governmental transparency on the UFO issue.

The Select Committee on Intelligence wants public analysis of UFO reports

A significant development in the wish for more public information on UFOs from the U.S. government may be on the horizon. Senator Marco Rubio, who leads the Intelligence Committee, is pushing for more open information about UFOs by asking the DNI to make a public report about "Advanced Aerial Threats" (i.e. UAP or UFOs).

In that report, on page 11, you can read under the subtitle Advanced Aerial Threats that:

Scepticism, David Hume, and UFOs

"Perceiving Necessity". Legg, C & Franklin, J (2015).

Background

[This post is foundational to my project to create a "sociology of UFO disclosure". Foundational regarding my epistemological stance in trying to understand the UFO issue and the implications of UFO disclosure. - J. T]

What does a Scottish philosopher from the 1800th century have to do with the UFO phenomenon? As far as I know, David Hume (1711 - 1776) was not a believer in UFOs, nor did he in any of his books or essays discuss UFOs.

So, what is my point in bringing up one of the most influential philosophers to write in English? Bear with me for a moment.

David Hume is famous for many contributions to philosophy (also to, for example, history and politics). Still, among philosophers and scientists, he is likely most known for his thoughts on causation and "the problem of induction". Hume's thesis about knowledge and if we ever can justify something as certain knowledge made his contemporaries call his epistemological standpoint "radical scepticism."

Hume was quite shaken by his own discoveries about the limits of human knowledge.

My discussion of Hume's ideas on knowledge and truth is not directly about UFOs. Instead, I am using Hume's skepticism to address people who want the UFO issue to be taken more seriously outside of UFO circles. 

The point of this post is to use Hume's epistemology (or scepticism) as a principled basis for encouraging the epistemic humility that UFO discourse currently lacks on both sides.

We want to know the truth about the UFO phenomenon. Knowledge. Truth. Reasons and justification. Before we move on, let us do a thought experiment.

Ask yourself: What do I know with certainty is true about the UFO phenomenon? Seriously, think about it for a moment before you continue reading. Be brutally honest in your answer.

Disclosure or Psyop: Richard Dolan on skeptiko

"Richard Dolan, UFO Disclosure, Toothpaste Out of the Tube? |438|." Premiered on skeptiko YouTube channel on January 21, 2020. Duration: 2:10:09.

Richard Dolan on UFO disclosure, good versus bad ET, and the consciousness question. For more visit: https://skeptiko.com/richard-dolan-uf...

Introduction

This is a great conversation between host Alex Tsakiris and Richard Dolan. Since some of the most interesting and thoughtful topics in the interview are not always on the UFO subject, I highly recommend everyone to listen to the conversation in its entirety. You can find a transcript of the conversation on the following link: https://skeptiko.com/richard-dolan-ufo-disclosure-toothpaste-out-of-the-tube-438/.

While they talk about different UFO subjects, the conversation between Tsakiris and Dolan mostly revolves around the events following the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA) press conference in October 2017.Was it the beginning of a benign disclosure of the truth of the UFO phenomena, or was it a rollout of a Psyop? Or is something else going on? And what are the arguments for or against those different points of view?

So in the following,  I will reflect upon the principal topic of disclosure or Psyop. Hopefully, I can add something new to Dolan and Tsakiris' conversation about the major topic. My comments and reflections come in Part 2  and Part 3.

What is the lesson of prof. Diana W Pasulka's Twitter-"controversy"?

In the following, I am presuming that the reader is familiar with the professor in religious studies, Diana Walsh Pasulka, her first and latest book on the UFO phenomena, American Cosmic, and how the content of that book has reverberated through the ufo community. In case you are not familiar with prof. Pasulka or her book, you can go to her American Cosmic website here.

So, what is the "Twitter controversy" the title of this post refers to? Again, I will presume that most of the readers of this post are familiar with the tweets that prof. Pasulka shared on January 11, 2020. My purpose with this post is neither to reproduce those tweets nor analyse their content verbatim.

Amendment, 2020-01-12: Today, on January 12, 2020,  several of prof. Pasulka's trusted friends reported that her Twitter account was hacked. Not any of the tweets which caused "controversy" on January 11, 2020, were neither written nor published by prof. Pasulka. I believe that to be the case, and I hope she is alright. Back to the main text. /Janne