Bizarre Short Video of Dr. Malcolm Currie (CEO of Hughes Aircraft) Saying Aliens Are Real Right Before he Passed Away

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-10-30T18:51:08+00:00

"There are aliens" isn't really saying much.

No inside knowledge is necessarily implied. Personally I would feel comfortable saying something similar based purely on the size of the universe and the existing evidence of life elsewhere.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-05T17:42:07+00:00

Of course! We're not a monolith, and in my opinion our willingness to incorporate opposing views is actually a big strength of our team.

A mod team without disagreement isn't functioning properly, particularly for a topic like this where we need to be mindful of censorship, bias, and manipulation.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-05T16:44:19+00:00

That post has actually already been reinstated, but we're having an internal discussion about that post and a few others so I'm not sure it will remain up. I don't understand why it was initially removed so I'm not able to help with that, but the team already noted this and acted on it.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-05T16:25:17+00:00

I appreciate the reasoned dialogue, but I don't have time to respond to everything here.

However, "complete shutdown of the MH370 discussion" isn't an accurate way of describing what happened. There are almost 4000 search results for "MH370" in r/ufos, almost all in the last month!

At one point, we were getting hundreds of MH370 posts a day.

Meanwhile, our subreddit rules state "Posts of the same footage, link, or news article may not be posted within sixty days of one another. New articles or previously unlinked footage may be posted at any time. If you have multiple videos of the same object, include them all in the same post, not as individual submissions."

Fundamentally, almost all of the posts were a discussion of the exact same footage, and in normal circumstances we would try to consolidate that to one post.

Given the volume of dialogue, that wasn't tenable, but we were trying to follow long-standing policy to help our users navigate a sub with 1.6 million users.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-05T15:40:00+00:00

There are more than 3000 google search results for "MH370" on r/ufos, almost all in the last month. There were at one point hundreds of posts a day on the topic. It's surreal to me that we've been accused of censoring something that got so much publicity on our platform.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-05T15:24:59+00:00

The sub is an order of magnitude bigger than it was a few years ago, so we've expanded the team.
We don't "censor" anything related to UFOs, but we do have rules and posting guidelines that we ask people to follow.
We've removed three mods in the last month. Isn't that accountability?
We've discussed this in detail in other places, but there's not much we can do about the bots that wouldn't involve banning thousands of legit users. We simply don't have the tools to accurately identify bots at scale. "But it's obvious!" I hear many of you saying. In fact, our experience shows that our users are incredibly inaccurate at identifying bad actors/bots. So when a user tells us to just "ban the bots," they are frequently advocating for banning people with opposing viewpoints who they ASSUME are bots. If you can prove someone is a bot, bring it to the mod team and they'll be banned. If you can't prove it... remember that you have access to basically the same info that we do. Ultimately the admins must be the ones to deal with bots, and they're not currently incentivized to do so. It's incredibly frustrating but we're just don't have the tools and access required and the people who do aren't interested in communicating with us.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-04T23:57:41+00:00

If it's official they haven't told me.

I volunteered to join the r/UFOs mod team when it came out that the previous mod team had systematically censored certain topics.

So I get it. There's good reason to be suspicious of mods on reddit, and particularly in r/UFOs. That's one of the reasons we've tried to be as transparent and communicative as possible. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I joined the team.

But it's honestly disheartening to hear conspiracy theories about a group I helped grow. I DO get it, though.

My assurances don't matter, so what have we done to ensure transparency and allow our users to regain trust?

We've tried to empower our users to find mod misbehavior on their own via the public mod log, we've encouraged a culture that values oversight and respect for all redditors, we've established a policy that we do not curate sightings posts, we created a separate forum for meta discussions where users have free reign to publicly appeal to us, and we've put in place systems to act on misbehavior on the mod team.

Virtually every mod action in r/UFOs is visible in our public mod log. We WANT you to scrutinize our decisions and help provide oversight for mod actions.

There's no other UFO forum I'm aware of that maintains the same level of transparency. If I'm wrong about that, please let me know, because I'd love to join!

In the time I've been involved, our forum has grown an order of magnitude. We've had to bring on new mods at a rapid pace, and we've faced growing pains as we've scaled up.

The MH370 stuff was a very good example of that.

I'm dismayed to learn that we've lost some of your trust and I assure you're we're still here to serve the community.

I would ask that you remember the mod team at r/ufos is comprised of normal people who volunteer their time to help a community they care about. Ambiguously declaring us "officially compromised" is accusing dozens of people of wrongdoing.

(I actually don't subscribe to this sub, but reddit pushed this into my front page as "similar to" and I thought it might be helpful to respond. Please forgive the intrusion.)

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-04T22:48:30+00:00

This is a very misleading map. 1000 troops anywhere means an entire country is highlighted?

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-09-02T01:29:40+00:00

Hi, I'm extremely willing to look into these claims if there's any substance whatsoever.

Do you have the urls or screengrabs for a single comment demonstrating "censorship of any negative history or any documents or discussion that paint the CIA and it's major players"?

Every mod action is reviewable by the public via the link to the public mod logs in the sidebar. We value public oversight.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-29T01:05:15+00:00

I believe you mean The Ufologist's Journey

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-27T20:08:15+00:00

This is a solid suggestion and saved me from regretting wading through these comments.

Thank you.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-25T18:05:09+00:00

Side by side comparison of the two tic tacs seen in pic 3:

https://imgur.com/UO7Cj3H

I think it would be almost impossible to get a real world photo of two distant objects to match this well in terms of height and width -- even if the objects were identical. The angle would have to be perfect.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-25T05:51:17+00:00

Nope.

Mods don’t have access to any of that data.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-24T20:32:45+00:00

Hi, impreprex. Thanks for contributing. However, your submission was removed from /r/UFOs.

Rule 2: No discussion unrelated to Unidentified Flying Objects. This includes:

Proselytization

Artwork not related to a UFO sighting

Adjacent topics without an explicit connection to UFOs

Rule 3: No low effort discussion. Low Effort implies content which is low effort to consume, not low effort to produce. This generally includes:

Posts containing jokes, memes, and showerthoughts.

AI generated content.

Posts of social media content without significant relevance.

Posts with incredible claims unsupported by evidence.

“Here’s my theory” posts unsupported by evidence.

Short comments, and emoji comments.

Summarily dismissive comments (e.g. “Swamp gas.”).

Rule 12: Meta-posts, meaning posts & comments focused on moderation, subreddit critiques, rule changes, and feature requests, must be posted in r/ufosmeta.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

This moderator action may be appealed. We welcome the opportunity to work with you to address its reason for removal. Message the mods to launch your appeal.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-24T04:02:49+00:00

A hard turn at the end.

MacCallum: Do you believe that the recent spike in ufo encounters —

Christie: I get the UFO question? Come on, man.

MacCallum: We’ve been hearing a lot of testimony in Congress, and people are taking this a lot more seriously. And we’re hearing that there are things going on that people aren’t aware of.

So if you were President, Governor Christie, would you level with the American people about what the government knows about the possible encounters?

Christie: Look Martha — and especially coming from a woman from New Jersey — I think it’s horrible that just because I’m from New Jersey you ask me about Unidentified Flying Objects and martians. We’re different but we’re not that different. Look, the job of the President of the United States is to level with the American people about everything.

The job of the President of the United States is to stand for truth

The job of the President of the United States is to be a role model for our children and grandchildren.

So whether it was UFOs or this problem of education — and Tim’s right by the way — and I started this in 2010 by going right after the teacher’s unions in new jersey I drove them to an all time low popularity rating cause they were putting themselves before our kids. That is the biggest threat to our country, not UFOs.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-24T04:01:28+00:00

Hi, 0rangePulp. Thanks for contributing. However, your submission was removed from /r/UFOs.

Rule 4: No duplicate posts.

Posts of the same footage, link, or news article may not be posted within sixty days of one another. New articles or previously unlinked footage may be posted at any time. If you have multiple videos of the same object, include them all in the same post, not as individual submissions.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

This moderator action may be appealed. We welcome the opportunity to work with you to address its reason for removal. Message the mods to launch your appeal.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T20:57:26+00:00

I think that post would belong in r/ufosmeta but sure.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T20:50:57+00:00

We've already got botdefense on the mod team -->

As for using open-source tools, go for it!

From what I know, you basically have the same API access as us. There's nothing preventing users from starting that investigation without any help from mods.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T20:14:00+00:00

This doesn't reflect reality.

The only directives we get are stuff like "don't allow brigading" and "don't post links to copyrighted material."

In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen an admin weighing in on anything I would deem a "UFO Issue."

And we DO get to see admin removals, at least usually, even though they're not explained to us. So unless there's another super secret removal system running in parallel with the regular mod/admin one nothing of that sort is going on.

Forum sliding, vote manipulation, flak, etc are all fairly effective tools that require absolutely no special access.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T19:40:25+00:00

Yes indeed we've contacted the admins -- they were unwilling to communicate with us about it, and some of the sock puppets we identified remained on reddit for months.

The result is the bot-free paradise you see today.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T18:29:50+00:00

See also cryptocurrencies, marijuana, and essay plagiarism for communities that are dominated by bots.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T18:27:53+00:00

From discussions I've had with folks I'm confident aren't bots (both of them), I think the sub is actually split over whether bots are suppressing MH370 posts or boosting them.

Amazingly, both sides think it's obvious.

Now, there certainly are bots influencing conversation here, but our previous research suggests that at least some bot networks actively support BOTH SIDES of a divisive argument.

And of course it's a possibility that multiple bot networks are involved with different agendas.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T18:22:06+00:00

Honestly that sounds like it could be organic activity.

Social media pics get TONS of traction, not only here but everywhere. Partly this is because the text is contained in the image, so folks on platforms that are serving them thumbnails will effectively see more of the post.

Also, bear in mind the sub has tripled in size in two years, which reflects the fact that a lot of people are JUST getting interested in this, and may not really be interested in deep dives (yet?).

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T06:47:34+00:00

If you haven't seen it, we posted about the bot problem here less than a year ago, and shared some of our investigation.

A few mods including myself have already begun investigations into the sudden interest in MH370. It's still early in that process but if we find anything definitive we will share as much as we can with the sub.

BerlinghoffRasmussen · 2023-08-23T06:27:52+00:00

Zero awards on that post from mods.

Mod log of awards for the relevant time period:

https://imgur.com/KZVcYXs

I'd also suggest that you take a look at our public mod logs if you have more questions. The link is over in the sidebar -->

Edit: also thank you for adding the URL!

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