If you recall, in May a number of alleged UFO photos started showing up on the internet. These pics were given coverage here, at Boing Boing and elsewhere. I thought the story had faded away until I encountered this site today: My experience with the CARET Program and Extra-Terrestrial Technology.
The entire affair is, in my own humble opinion, a brilliant hoax. The story that is told is worthy of some of the best science fiction and the document scans and photos that accompany it look and feel "real" for the most part. If there is one standout flaw within the scanned documents it is in the introductory passages in the "QA-86 Research Report" which comes off to this former technical writer as a bullshit vehicle for seeding buzzwords into the story and not as anything truly informative.
Your opinion may differ. What do you think? [Link to site]
[Link to Digg! removed]
So why does it keep coming back from the dead? The viral campaign explains a lot.
Man, that's a lot of BS work for an advertisement.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:32C8jsEi1ZwJ:www.nowpublic.com/ufo_unmasked_marketing_campaign_for_halo_3
Through one of the links on that page, there is a link to this:
http://206.16.223.61/E5h2JK/flash/web/index.html
Which is pretty obvious.
Even this particular neatorama post seems contrived, particularly with the digg link and all. Viral marketing is a wonderful thing, you trick other people into promoting your product for free.
The web site's name is a lot like the last name of the guy who turned on that jesus fellow - or so the bible states. You think the author would pick a different name. Enough with the biblical allusions
looks like a _ _
smells like _ _
Matter of fact, I've removed a few sites from my bookmarks for that reason. If a request for a Digg is made, check into what that blogger gets in return.
A whore by any other name, is still a whore.
Viral marketing for Halo 3 makes sense, I suppose.
Neither I nor Alex placed this post knowingly for viral marketing purposes (although Alex may have exercised some sort of MIND CONTROL over me without my knowledge and manipulated me into posting it from afar - but I doubt it).
What I don't get is how elaborate this whole thing is. I can see coming up with a good story, but somebody has done a huge amount of work trying to make the gullible believe it's true. And for what? A guest spot on Art Bell's late-night radio show, or maybe a book deal that'll sell a couple thousand copies?
I just don't get the motivation for some of this crap.
I'm not convinced that "Halo 3" is the answer here. The discussion you and others have pointed to doesn't make that case a slam dunk. I'm also not convinced that that flash animation thing is necessarily associated with the UFO pics.
As I mentioned before, by no stretch of the imagination do I believe that these UFOs are real or that there was actually a secret company established in Palo Alto to research extraterrestrial technology.
Regardless of the source of all this information, it's a brilliant hoax.
1) The "Quarterly Reports" sounded more like "evidence" and "proof" of said crafts rather than actual reports on the gains made in that period. Meaning, they used the "reports" to make the story work, citing history, technology, etc.
2) The photos show the craft near power poles or satellite dishes, which plays easily into the "disrupted invisibility" thing.
Q.E.D.!