Come on, Keanu. Not you.

  • SolidGrue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    2 days ago

    I say “oh, good!” only because I enjoyed falling asleep listening both to the show and to the many debunking videos that came out on YouTube afterwards. My current favorite is the Miniminuteman analysis, which is hilarious.

    I’ve been looking for some new long-form content to sleep to. Now I have something to look forward to!

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      183·
      2 days ago

      I want to think he’s just been duped. I really want to think he’s not siding with Hancock over indigenous groups.

      • Kiernian@lemmy.worldEnglish
        91·
        2 days ago

        I read some of Hancock’s earlier stuff like, 20+ years ago. There were some interesting theories about the possibility of civilizations more ancient than we were then aware of having actually existed.

        In the time since, as I understand things, we’ve discovered “evidence” that points to civilizations of some kind 20,000+ years ago, which we didn’t seem to have much of back then, and some of which seems to disprove some of Hancock’s atlantis-type sophisticated lost ancient civilizations theories, but it was still a moderately compelling, engaging, and fascinating IDEA at the time even if the magnetic poles flipping opposite every 12,500 years was a little hard to swallow.

        I’m not sure what he’s peddling now, but when he throws out ideas, he’s good at making them seem cool, so it could just be keanu is honestly fascinated by whatever concepts the dude is dishing out.

        (The sphinx was originally a lion statue 100,000 years ago or whatever)

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          113·
          2 days ago

          A man named Luis Elizondo has been banging the “UFOs are real” drum since 2017, claiming that he was the person in charge of the Pentagon’s investigation. Though Elizondo did work in intelligence and had a security clearance, the Pentagon denies he ever led any UFO investigation, according to reporting in the Intercept in 2019.

          https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ufos-are-real-is-the-dumbest-story-of-2021-seriously-were-not-being-visited-by-little-green-men

          Incidentally, the Pentagon doesn’t usually come out with firm denials.

          On top of that:

          To anyone who fancies him or herself a pseudoscience debunker, To the Stars Academy’s website raises all kinds of red flags: “We have access to a global team of research scientists with advanced knowledge to pursue projects, which include Human Ultra-Experience Database, Engineering Space-Time Metrics, Brain-Computer Interface, and Telepathy,” the website explains. As someone with an academic physics background, I’ll tell you upfront that “Engineering Space-Time Metrics” doesn’t mean anything.

          To the Stars Academy also has an entertainment division. “Our content aims to educate and inspire curiosity in scientific possibilities through various media formats like film, television, books, music and art,” the site explains. Appropriately, To the Stars Academy is involved in “entertainment properties” that include book series, including a young adult novel series.

          This all seems bizarre, but note that this kind of press is certainly good for To the Stars Academy; indeed, most startups only dream of a Times report linking your employee to a mind-bending UFO caper.

          The point is, To the Stars Academy — and Elizondo himself — have a vested interest in Elizondo’s efforts to get the Pentagon to disclose these kinds of programs. That doesn’t make the programs any less real, but it doesn’t mean Elizondo doesn’t have a conflict of interest here either.

          https://www.salon.com/2017/12/23/is-the-truth-really-out-there-a-deep-dive-into-the-new-york-times-ufo-report/

          And then there’s the way he claims he’s bound by an NDA any time anyone asks for the slightest bit of corroborating evidence for his claims about Roswell and the like. We know what Roswell was, it was a detector for Soviet atomic bomb tests. Elizondo says it’s aliens and uses his supposed inside information to make that sound credible.