Wednesday, 22 September 2010

The Matter of Statistics

There's a story over at AOL today...over UFOs. The story goes....that a group of Air Force officers (all senior guys) are going to meet early next week and lay out the fact that UFO's have been visiting US military nuclear sites for over forty years.

They will all agree that most of this involves simple surveillance, although....some type of probe occurred during some episodes....and the nuclear weapons were then in a malfunction stage.

Most of the major news organizations will skip this Washington meeting of the Air Force officers, or laugh it off.

Years ago, I worked with a guy who was a security policeman in the mid-70's, assigned to nuclear missile silos in the northern tier of the US. I had known this guy for three years when he discussed this story, and had absolute trust over what he shared.

He'd been in the Air Force for a year...providing guard duty at the various sites....when one evening they had a "visit". There were four of the SP's at the ground site....two inside the fence or station next to the missile silo, and two in a truck outside the site.

The UFO dropped down during the evening hours and they sat there and observed it. They called in the report. My associate, in the truck, eased out and they circled the UFO as it hovered. It was a visit that lasted five to ten minutes. The boys in the truck finally started easing toward the UFO, and then it started to rise up, and eventually took off. All four cops saw this.

The shift ended the next morning, and they were supposed to be off-duty by 7AM. The cop station took their report and then turned the four over to a civilian guy.

The guys were isolated and then their report started to discussed with 'peppered' questions. For a good two hours, they stood by their facts. The guy kept coming back....'are you really sure?'

The civilian guy was trying to convince that they hadn't seen much of anything. The guys had finished a all-night shift....and by 10 AM, were tired. One-by-one, they started to fall back on their report, and changed piece by piece. They were not sure of anything.

My associate? He admitted that by 11 AM, he was dead tired and knew that this had to end....so he just started grinning and said he'd change his entire report to a unknown aircraft in the area.

A week passed. Then came another UFO over the silo. This time....it released a beam of light down into the silo, and the officers down below started calling upstairs and all upset. The missile and the control system was going bonkers. Data was going out....and the officers in charge of the system were watching something that was supposed to be impossible.

The cops all watched the UFO, the beam of light, and listened to the officers. The next morning....all were taken down to the central point. Here was the civilian guy who they'd seen the week before.

The guy asked the four cops what they'd seen. They all grinned and said "nothing". Just unknown aircraft flying in the area. The two guys from deep in the silo wanted to write this extensive report detailing everything.

The civlian guy turned to the four cops and asked again if they'd seen anything.....they just grinned and said "nothing". So the cops were dismissed and went home to sleep off their shift.

My associate didn't know what happened to the two officers but figured they wrote the report, and then the civilian guy played the game of challenging every word. They probably stayed there until noon when they figured out the game (officers are a bit more dense than enlisted guys).

My associate refused to ever report anything of a UFO suspicious nature ever again. In his mind, he knows that the US government knows something beyond whatever has been mentioned in the public. For whatever reason, it's necessary to keep things at this level and never say much of anything else.

I'm a statistical guy. I've come to absolutely believe that one planet can't be a product of one accidental circumstance, or some religious belief which fits awful tidy until you ask a question or two.

The government likely knows more than what you'd suspect. They also know that nukes are no threat against these alien guys.

These Air Force officers will meet and discuss their experience next week. It might be covered by AOL News.....and a couple of newspapers, and that will be it. It'll raise your curiosity, but let's admit it....you'd really prefer not to find out that some alien dudes have enormous power and could pose a potential threat to your life. So it's best to just laugh this off, turn on Ice Road Truckers or WWE Wrestling, and just get back to your simple world.

Political Strategy?

The White House unveiled Operation "Michelle" yesterday. They are setting up the travel schedule and getting the President's wife geared to run through several states to help local politicians in their run.

I looked over this list, which is a rather odd group. No southern states. Mostly all stops for Democratic senators in serious trouble and likely not to win:

Wisconsin: Sen. Russ Feingold
Illinois: Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias,
Colorado: Sen. Michael Bennet
Washington state: Sen. Patty Murray
California: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Barbara Boxer

The problem is that the economy tricks people into asking questions...which the Democratic senators can't readily answer.

Things are fairly screwed up and folks ask about how & why the Democratic machine prioritized a bunch of things that had nothing to do with the economy in 2009 and 2010. Now? The best strategy is to bring Operation "Michelle" to shift gears?

This is kinda like when your mechanic keeps telling you about the repair job to keep your 15-year old car running, but avoiding the cost factor. When he finally admits it's $3k...then you go home, drink two six-packs of Pabst to forget your woes and the next day...you junk the old car and smile at the mechanic who kept hinting of better days ahead.