alt Hacker News'Wow, it really worked ': 70s TV show causing worldwide panic today
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After watching Disclosure Day with my kids, we had an interesting conversation on the way home - what would it take for you to believe that aliens are real and visting Earth?
With the advancement of image and video generation, I think I'd have to see one in person!
I read the book (found in a used bookstore) when I was 12 or so. It really creeped me out at the time. Good to know our government is now operating at the level of a 12-year-old.
The 4000 out of 700000 number doesn't seem quite right to me. That seems like maybe an average rate being applied to a cohort that doesn't match the average population. It would be more telling to compare deaths that were suspicious and missing persons numbers than all deaths.
That said, I would assume the government would monitor statistics like this as part of standard counter intelligence operations so they could see any patterns of potential issues as they pop up.
You can watch the TV programme here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNR0Q97TtRU
This article would be more convincing if it focused on debunking the conspiracy instead of spending all but one hand wavy paragraph presenting a new conspiracy.
The single debunking claim says there are 700k "US top secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workforce" so normal mortality rates should be higher.
Were these people all part of the normal workforce or a smaller category? Are those death rates total deaths or deaths under suspicious circumstances?
Anecdotally, Amy Eskridge went on a podcast and texted friends saying she was at risk and had no intention of killing herself before supposedly killing herself. Will McCasland and others disappeared under strange circumstances and Will was clearly not just part of a 700k person workforce, he was a general who directed a largely classified $4B annual research budget.
I'm not saying there is a broad conspiracy here but it's worth exploring. I miss real journalism. What a waste of an opportunity to write a good story.
War of the Worlds did it first. A Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air which broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938.
Originally meant to be aired on April Fool's day, this hoax documentary's broadcast had be moved to a different date, and, as a consequence, many naive viewers thought it was real.
Now, the hoax has taken a life of its own on the Web, with waves of naive people believing its silly made-up claims about scientists working in certain fields mysteriously disappearing.
The hoax has even made the HN front page.
Sigh.
I saw the actual news and the TV correspondent sounded very serious about people going missing. I wonder if they do this on purpose.
I look forward to Trump demanding that his new 'battleship' be made out of the floating/anti-gravity iron from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You (another somewhat later parody, this one from the BBC)
Scientists disappearing? Isn’t that a dream come true, why would the current administration investigate?
This reminds me of a series of recurring stories from the 2000s. These were decently mainstream stories in the media about the untimely demise of prominent microbiologists hinting at conspiracies involving deep knowledge they held in common that few others shared. I don't know if those stories faded or if I just stopped paying attention.
It’s like the conspiracy theorist version of one of the Three-Body problem storylines with those scientists vanishing. I expect theres an entire subreddit for this.
Investigating the disappearances or suspicious deaths of scientists with close ties to nuclear secrets isn't wrong.
The problem is that there are real mysteries that are connected to a bunch of social media bullshit and more than half of the purported "mysterious disappearances" of people are people that aren't even connected to nuclear research. And then people who hate Trump like the media want to make it seem like Trump himself is being duped and is personally directing the investigators. The multiple layers of indirection here is the real problem, let the investigators do their jobs because at least a few of them need to be investigated properly.
Personal anecdote: I was in college when 9/11 happened. Back then, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, radio was still a major part of daily life. iPods, iPhones, and streaming didn’t exist yet.
Morning radio shows often did live prank calls to keep things entertaining. DJs would pretend to be the president or do some other ridiculous bit, and it was usually silly / harmless / funny.
I remember driving to class that morning and hearing the first reports on the radio. My initial thought was, “If this is a prank, it’s not funny.” When I got to class and the professor cancelled because of what was happening, only then did I finally realized it was real.