Thursday, May 19, 2022

Crime and Punishment and UFOs

One of the things that came out of the hearing on Tuesday was an idea of criminalizing the misinformation and disinformation in the world of the UAP. Ignoring for the moment that such legislation or law would probably be unconstitutional, who is going to decide what is disinformation… And, would the law apply to governmental agencies as well. What about the Air Force officers who wrote off the Levelland sightings as ball lightning when it clearly was no such thing? Would they have charged with knowingly claiming that ball lightning was the culprit when it was obvious that it was not?

I remember the passage of the Stolen Valor Act that made it a crime to claim military service that you did not have or medals that you had not earned. The Supreme Court decided that lying about military service came under the First Amendment’s right to free speech. The Act was modified to make it a crime if you claimed military service you didn’t have for financial gain. I wondered if that included using fake military credentials to gain a veteran’s preference on a job application. There was no immediate financial gain, but if you were employed because of that fake service over someone who hadn’t made any such claim, did that count?

But I digress…

Curt Collins took the UFO hoax ball and ran with it. He put together a list of some of the bigger hoaxes in UFO history. You can read his article here:

https://thesaucersthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2022/05/ufos-crimes-and-punishment.html

I’m sure this is going to annoy some people, but I find nothing wrong with this analysis. It provides a look at some of the hoaxes and doesn’t really touch on all the fake photographs that have offered as proof over the years.    

1 comment:

Paul Young said...

In the UK, many of these hoaxes would come under the canopy of "wasting police time", where you can be imprisoned for up to six months. (Not that it would ever come to that!)

https://www.inbrief.co.uk/offences/wasting-police-time/

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

As for the US courts hiking back on "stolen valour" (something needs to be done about the "Walter Mitty's here in the UK, too)...I can only shake my head in bemusement at the way your First Amendment gives them, almost, free license to carry on.