'Non-human intelligence': Schumer proposes stunning new UFO legislation

[TheProle]

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), along with a bipartisan group of five other senators, introduced extraordinary legislation on July 13, suggesting that the U.S. government or private contractors may secretly possess recovered UFOs and “biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence.”

According to the legislation, “non-human intelligence” is defined as “any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform, regardless of nature or ultimate origin which may be presumed responsible for” UFOs.

Given the decades-long stigma associated with the UFO topic, such stunning language is not included in bipartisan congressional legislation on a mere whim, let alone proposed by the Senate’s top lawmaker.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4101345-non-human-intelligence-schumer-proposes-stunning-new-ufo-legislation/

[WestMichRad]

1. The purpose of the proposed legislation...

… is to establish an independent agency to review and declassify (the intended default option) reports on potential sightings and contacts. As the article goes on to note, “The proposed legislation follows explosive allegations by a former intelligence official, David Grusch, that secret UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs were illegally hidden from Congress.”

Brings to mind a tabloid cover page I saw, many years ago, that screamed “Invisible aliens live among us!” … and is smaller print below, “Photos page 5!”

[John1956PA]

6. "Phantom from Space" is an early 1950s independent movie about an invisible alien.

I was frightened when I watched it on late night television when I was nine years old back in the 1960s.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. They've been coming here for a long time according to the tabloid I read

i think it was the Weekly World. They uncovered the real reason why dinosaurs went extinct:
Intergalactic big game hunters.

Seriously, when I was a teen I read every book I could find about UFO's. I few of them seemed credible. There's been a whole lot of smoke for a whole lot of time...

[roamer65]

17. I miss the Weekly World News.

I have no idea how many space aliens Hillary gave birth to…

[MorbidButterflyTat]

31. I remember seeing

the front page of the Weekly World News at the grocery store checkout years ago with an actual, real life, totally legit photo of Prez Bush (can't remember which) shaking hands with an alien, a gray I think, after having reached some kind of human-alien agreement.

It was quite thrilling!

Edit to add: Love my fellow X-Files fans!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. I knew this in the first season.

Source: https://x-files.fandom.com/wiki/Cigarette_Smoking_Man

[milestogo]

5. ...

[yonder]

14. +1.

👽

[milestogo]

3. Shouldn't this go in Creative Speculation?

I'll be glad when discussion of UFO's is no longer treated as crazy talk.

[TheProle]

11. Not when the Senate Majority Leader is a co-signer.

All the guffaws are fine and it's inevitable that it will be lampooned a-plenty.

But this is news.

[obamanut2012]

15. No

[doc03]

4. Senator Harry Reid certainly was interested in whatever they are. nt

[PufPuf23]

8. Cats don't fly. Otherwise, there would be less birds.

smh

[Elessar Zappa]

9. Interesting.

There are certainly some sightings that have yet to be explained. Not saying it’s definitively aliens but further investigation is warranted.

[TheProle]

12. It's almost sad how conspicuous your measured response is compared to much of the thread.

But you and I are in alignment.

[Disaffected]

10. Now taking bets on

this being (another) nothing-burger. And, Schumer? I thought he would be smarter than that.

And how is it that all these UFO/aliens seem to wind up in the US? Maybe they are attracted to Republicans??

[TheProle]

13. "And how is it that all these UFO/aliens seem to wind up in the US?"

They don't. UAP sightings are a global phenomenon.

[Disaffected]

16. OK, most of them.

I was also alluding to the public/media/gov't attention it seems to get in the US compared to other countries. And, the conspiracy theories that always seem to go along with it.

[TheProle]

18. Again you're flying without data... we are not at the top of the list

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/ufo-sightings-by-country

UFO Sightings by Country 2023

Country 2023 Population
India 1,428,627,663
China 1,425,671,352
United States 339,996,563
Indonesia 277,534,122
Pakistan 240,485,658
Nigeria 223,804,632
Brazil 216,422,446
Bangladesh 172,954,319
Russia 144,444,359
Mexico 128,455,567
Ethiopia 126,527,060
Japan 123,294,513
Philippines 117,337,368
Egypt 112,716,598
Dr Congo 102,262,808
Vietnam 98,858,950
Iran 89,172,767
Turkey 85,816,199
Germany 83,294,633
Thailand 71,801,279
United Kingdom 67,736,802
Tanzania 67,438,106
France 64,756,584
South Africa 60,414,495
Italy 58,870,762
Kenya 55,100,586
Myanmar 54,577,997
Colombia 52,085,168
South Korea 51,784,059
Uganda 48,582,334
Sudan 48,109,006
Spain 47,519,628
Argentina 45,773,884
Algeria 45,606,480
Iraq 45,504,560
Afghanistan 42,239,854
Poland 41,026,067
Canada 38,781,291
Morocco 37,840,044
Saudi Arabia 36,947,025
Ukraine 36,744,634
Angola 36,684,202
Uzbekistan 35,163,944
Yemen 34,449,825
Peru 34,352,719
Malaysia 34,308,525
Ghana 34,121,985
Mozambique 33,897,354
Nepal 30,896,590
Madagascar 30,325,732
Ivory Coast 28,873,034
Venezuela 28,838,499
Cameroon 28,647,293
Niger 27,202,843
Australia 26,439,111
North Korea 26,160,821
Taiwan 23,923,276
Mali 23,293,698
Burkina Faso 23,251,485
Syria 23,227,014
Sri Lanka 21,893,579
Malawi 20,931,751
Zambia 20,569,737
Romania 19,892,812
Chile 19,629,590
Kazakhstan 19,606,633
Chad 18,278,568
Ecuador 18,190,484
Somalia 18,143,378
Guatemala 18,092,026
Senegal 17,763,163
Netherlands 17,618,299
Cambodia 16,944,826
Zimbabwe 16,665,409
Guinea 14,190,612
Rwanda 14,094,683
Benin 13,712,828
Burundi 13,238,559
Tunisia 12,458,223
Bolivia 12,388,571
Haiti 11,724,763
Belgium 11,686,140
Jordan 11,337,052
Dominican Republic 11,332,972
Cuba 11,194,449
South Sudan 11,088,796
Sweden 10,612,086
Honduras 10,593,798
Czech Republic 10,495,295
Azerbaijan 10,412,651
Greece 10,341,277
Papua New Guinea 10,329,931
Portugal 10,247,605
Hungary 10,156,239
Tajikistan 10,143,543
United Arab Emirates 9,516,871
Belarus 9,498,238
Israel 9,174,520
Togo 9,053,799
Austria 8,958,960
Switzerland 8,796,669
Sierra Leone 8,791,092
Laos 7,633,779
Hong Kong 7,491,609
Serbia 7,149,077
Nicaragua 7,046,310
Libya 6,888,388
Paraguay 6,861,524
Kyrgyzstan 6,735,347
Bulgaria 6,687,717
Turkmenistan 6,516,100
El Salvador 6,364,943
Republic Of The Congo 6,106,869
Singapore 6,014,723
Denmark 5,910,913
Slovakia 5,795,199
Central African Republic 5,742,315
Finland 5,545,475
Norway 5,474,360
Liberia 5,418,377
Palestine 5,371,230
Lebanon 5,353,930
New Zealand 5,228,100
Costa Rica 5,212,173
Ireland 5,056,935
Mauritania 4,862,989
Oman 4,644,384
Panama 4,468,087
Kuwait 4,310,108
Croatia 4,008,617
Eritrea 3,748,901
Georgia 3,728,282
Mongolia 3,447,157
Moldova 3,435,931
Uruguay 3,423,108
Puerto Rico 3,260,314
Bosnia And Herzegovina 3,210,847
Albania 2,832,439
Jamaica 2,825,544
Armenia 2,777,970
Gambia 2,773,168
Lithuania 2,718,352
Qatar 2,716,391
Botswana 2,675,352
Namibia 2,604,172
Gabon 2,436,566
Lesotho 2,330,318
Guinea Bissau 2,150,842
Slovenia 2,119,675
North Macedonia 2,085,679
Latvia 1,830,211
Equatorial Guinea 1,714,671
Trinidad And Tobago 1,534,937
Bahrain 1,485,509
Timor Leste 1,360,596
Estonia 1,322,765
Mauritius 1,300,557
Cyprus 1,260,138
Eswatini 1,210,822
Djibouti 1,136,455
Reunion 981,796
Fiji 936,375
Comoros 852,075
Guyana 813,834
Bhutan 787,424
Solomon Islands 740,424
Macau 704,149
Luxembourg 654,768
Montenegro 626,485
Suriname 623,236
Cape Verde 598,682
Western Sahara 587,259
Malta 535,064
Maldives 521,021
Brunei 452,524
Bahamas 412,623
Belize 410,825
Guadeloupe 395,839
Iceland 375,318
Martinique 366,981
Mayotte 335,995
Vanuatu 334,506
French Guiana 312,155
French Polynesia 308,872
New Caledonia 292,991
Barbados 281,995
Sao Tome And Principe 231,856
Samoa 225,681
Curacao 192,077
Saint Lucia 180,251
Guam 172,952
Kiribati 133,515
Grenada 126,183
Micronesia 115,224
Jersey 111,802
Tonga 107,773
Seychelles 107,660
Aruba 106,277
Saint Vincent And The Grenadines 103,698
United States Virgin Islands 98,750
Antigua And Barbuda 94,298
Isle Of Man 84,710
Andorra 80,088
Dominica 73,040
Cayman Islands 69,310
Bermuda 64,069
Guernsey 63,544
Greenland 56,643
Faroe Islands 53,270
Northern Mariana Islands 49,796
Saint Kitts And Nevis 47,755
Turks And Caicos Islands 46,062
Sint Maarten 44,222
American Samoa 43,914
Marshall Islands 41,996
Liechtenstein 39,584
Monaco 36,297
San Marino 33,642
Gibraltar 32,688
Saint Martin 32,077
British Virgin Islands 31,538
Palau 18,058
Cook Islands 17,044
Anguilla 15,899
Nauru 12,780
Wallis And Futuna 11,502
Tuvalu 11,396
Saint Barthelemy 10,994
Saint Pierre And Miquelon 5,840
Montserrat 4,386
Falkland Islands 3,791
Niue 1,935
Tokelau 1,893
Vatican City 518

[Disaffected]

26. WTF??

Those numbers are populations of countries.

Are you sure your name is not TheTrole?

[TheProle]

38. Yes, I am sure.

[FreeState]

33. So no data to back up your point?

That list of population totals by country does not mean anything without number of ufos per country.

[TheProle]

37. The population number is superfluous.

It is a rank list of sightings by country.

If you would have visited the link, you would see the context.

Have a great night.

[FreeState]

40. I did visit the URL

Rather than post the actual numbers of claimed UFOs by country you posted a the total population per country.

[TheProle]

42. Correct

It was in ranked list (countries by most sightings) with the complementary data point of population, so that one can parse the relative ranking of that country based on their population.

If it helps you, ignore the population numbers and focus on the ordinal list of countries.

Or not.

[edisdead]

23. wow.

show some data.

[Irish_Dem]

19. "biological evidence of living non human intelligence."

Wow.

I don't understand why Schumer would make this public if he felt it was all a hoax.

[WestMichRad]

24. Maybe he has seen evidence

that TFG is alien spawn.

No, never mind, you said … intelligence. Definitely rules him out.

[H2O Man]

20. Recommended.

I think this is a good thing, and thank the Senator for his efforts.

In the late 1970s, everyone in our rural neighborhood witnessed a relatively low-flying unidentified glying object. It turned out that quite a few people in and around our state saw the same thing. I have no idea what it was, and recognize there is a wide range of possibilities.

[Progressive dog]

21. The aliens always come to the USA

to alert us to their presence. Everyone knows that. Leader Schumer couldn't be doing this just to placate the alien conspiracy people, could he?

[Kid Berwyn]

22. Democracy in action.

We the People should know what UFOs are and, it seems, who is behind them. If they have visitedour reality or monitored earth from way back, we should discuss what to do next. Better us than MAGA.

[Eko]

25. Given the age and size of the universe its highly unlikely that aliens would ever

visit earth while humans are alive.
While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s.

We have only had about 73 years where we actually knew a decent amount of information about space.
How many more years do you give the human race?
Let give it the amount we have already been here, 200,000 years. I think that is wildly optimistic but whatever.
Humanity gets 400,000 years where 200,073 of them have been space faring.
How old is the universe?
Roughly 13.7 billion years old.
Lets see how much of the life of the universe humanity will be space-going. 200,073 divided by 13.7 billion= I think that is .001460386%
Now lets talk about how big space is. to leave our Galaxy, we would have to travel about 500 light-years vertically, or about 25,000 light-years away from the galactic centre. We’d need to go much further to escape the ‘halo’ of diffuse gas, old stars and globular clusters that surrounds the Milky Way’s stellar disk.
At the min 500 light years. That's flying at light speed for 500 years.
Now we have to assume that two species, separated by so much space, would both have to evolve and become sentient at the same time and one of them would have to be so advanced that they can fly faster than the speed of light. Within about .001460386% of the universe's time.
Now someone will say that aliens could have been around for millions of years.
How many?
Say 20 million?
That just .145985401% of the universe's time.
Them be around and us be around at the same time?
And then somehow go faster than the speed of light?
Way faster.
Naw. The sheer age and size of the universe is against this, not to mention that the universe is expanding. You could go much faster than the speed of light and still never get to parts of the universe since it is expanding.
Eko.

[Mr.Bill]

27. Good post.

The time factor is usually left out of these equations, focusing mainly on the numerical possibility of a planet like ours existing.

[Eko]

28. Thanks,

I watched a video where a physicist explained it. Wish I could find that video again.
Think of it like this, take 2 fireflies, put them in a space as big as the US and expect them to find each other.
Not going to happen.
Eko

[ZoltarSpeaks]

29. You have heard of relativity and time dilation, have you not?

You don't have to travel at the speed of light (c) for 500 years to travel 500 light-years.

At relativistic speeds approaching c, distance is not equal to (rate) x (time) for the distances you are citing and for the time as perceived by the traveler.

If you had the energy source to accelerate your spacecraft indefinitely at a comfortable 1g, gravity-like acceleration (not an easy feat, but who knows?) you could travel our own galaxy in less than a lifetime. A human lifetime. But everyone and everything you knew would be long gone should you try to return, including possibly the habitable Earth.

It would be the trip of a lifetime, but you can't go back home.

[Eko]

30. Sure, somehow you would go faster than light.

Light-year is the distance light travels in one year. 500 light years takes light 500 years to get there. Time dilation would just mean the time it took you to travel 500 light years would be different for someone on earth. It doesn't change the time it takes you. Special relativity is just the motion of one thing is relative to something else. Nothing in there would change the time and distance you would experience.

[ZoltarSpeaks]

39. The universe could be within reach even with the cosmic limit of the speed of light.

It doesn't change the time it takes you. Special relativity is just the motion of one thing is relative to something else. Nothing in there would change the time and distance you would experience.

It's far weirder and more interesting than that, and your second sentence in the excerpt is not correct.

Someone in motion at relativistic speeds could cover vast distances in mere years while the world they left behind would age perhaps thousands of years. You can look up any of the online relativity calculators if you want to see how much distance you could cover in just a few years of traveling under a constant acceleration of 1g or at a fixed velocity close to c.

To earth observers, if they could somehow peer out into space and see the relativistic traveler's clock and biological processes (aging), time would appear almost stopped for them as they journeyed toward the distant target that might be hundreds to millions of light years away. However the traveler would see the space before them in their direction of travel greatly compressed due to Lorentz contraction so that by their reckoning they will reach their destination in a reasonable number of years. But the Earth they left behind would be unrecognizably far in its future should they try to turn around and return.

This is a demonstration that time travel into the future is not an abstract science fiction concept. It is limited only by our inability to harness enough energy to make a short round trip out into space at relativistic speeds and return to our starting point, which in our case would be an Earth hundreds or thousands of years in the future.

Of course the energy that it would take to sustain a constant acceleration for years, resulting in velocities very close to c, is beyond us for now. But I think the subject at hand is whether any other possible entities out there, in all of the universe, could possibly have visited us from far, far away.

Relativity is a fascinating subject and will completely change your understanding of time and space. All I wanted to do here is point out that the frequently-used argument that sufficiently advanced beings could not travel vast distances due to the limitation of the speed of light is false. If a human could travel sufficiently close to (but still below) the speed of light they could travel much, much farther than 70 light years in a 70 year lifespan.

[Eko]

45. I did look up some realativity calculators.

I did find one that backs up what you are saying. Did some more research and found that it is considered theoretically possible if one can come up with an almost infinite amount of energy. The closer you get to C the closer you get to needing an infinite amount of energy so I feel pretty safe with my previous position. My analogy of taking two lightning bugs and placing them in 2 different places in the US and having them be able to meet is theoretically possible as well but way improbable. Unless of course they could travel much faster and further than possible. I can understand your argument, but with everything you know and see out of all the species that have been on this planet do you see a species that you think could do this? Obviously the answer is no. Out of all the species that have been on this earth not a single one has been able to do that. Everything that we can see and learn tells us this is not probable. When a species gets too big it uses too much energy for the environment to sustain it. We see that with all animals. All evidence show that that is very improbable. We end with the problem of us and another species lasting long enough and being around at the same time, the other species lasting far longer than us and then traveling in the correct direction to get to us as it is theoretically impossible to search the entire universe due to the fact that it is expanding. You could go in one direction forever and still never get to the end. And having an almost infinite amount of energy to power its ship. Possible? Sure. A small amount of probable, no. You could hook 100 of our suns to your spaceship and still not have enough energy to achieve what you are talking about. So not probable at all.
Eko.

[hatrack]

32. The only extraordinary feature of this legislation is its extrordinary woo . . .

I'm sure Chuck knows plenty of things I don't and never will, but I find this dumbed-down disappointing.

[Johnny2X2X]

41. Thanks for bringing time into the discussion

It's what I try to add in these threads, but you did a better job than I would have.

Humans have been around for the blink of an eye. Even if alien civilizations lasted for millions of years, the chances they're around right now are remote.

It's as if I said, OK, you're standing on the edge of an ocean, a pebble has been dropped in the ocean, somwhere between Alaska and Antartica, go find me the ripples of that pebble before they run out and are invisible due to the surf.

Heck, perhaps aliens passed close by a billion years ago and noted the 3rd planet from the star at the center of our universe was a firy mess incapable of supporting life for billions of years. Or perhaps if we do ever explore the cosmos, the only thing we'd find of other civilizations are fossils of life older than the dinosaurs.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

34. Why not go directly to the source

https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/schumer-rounds-introduce-new-legislation-to-declassify-government-records-related-to-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-and-ufos_modeled-after-jfk-assassination-records-collection-act--as-an-amendment-to-ndaa

rather than an opinion piece from The Hill?

From the Senate press release:

"Washington, D.C. – Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) are leading an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would mandate government records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) carry the presumption of disclosure. The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023 is modeled on the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and will create a UAP Records Collection."

If you feel so sensitively about your subject, you might want to more carefully consider your sources.

[Renew Deal]

36. Wasn't the most sensitive JFK info ultimately withheld?

[TheProle]

43. I don't necessarily feel "sensitively" about it

And the Hill article adequately explained it.

I don't need nannying on how to post on the internet. Thanks!

[Renew Deal]

35. This sounds like it can include robots and time travelers

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

44. "The American public has a right to know about non-human intelligence", X-files was real!

We were being soft programmed to believe