Posted on 10/25/2022 6:42:08 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
In the run-up to a government report on UAPs, a former UFO skeptic seems to have made UFO Disclosure his mission.
Eric Weinstein speaking to a UFO conference in San Marino this weekend. [Photo used with permission] Yes, the U.S. Government is expected to release another public report on UFOs by Oct. 31; yes, James Fox’s new UFO documentary Moment of Contact is available to stream; yes, the UAP story was hot last week thanks to the “racetrack” UFOs spotted by commercial airline pilots, first reported by the indefatigable Christopher Sharp in the UK — and let us pause for a moment to acknowledge that a young journalist from England beat the U.S. media on an American UFO flap — and yes, #UFOTwitter is buzzing with the usual heady mix of anticipation, rumor, euphoria, cynicism and rage.
But right now the most interesting public development in ufology is what we might call the Strange Case of Eric Weinstein.
Which is to say: He’s become a ufologist.
It is one thing for a scientist who has not previously displayed the slightest interest in UFOs to suddenly become intensely interested in and even outspoken about the phenomenon.
In this small but rapidly growing camp, we find people like Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb, and Stanford University immunologist and inventor/entrepreneur Garry Nolan. Those are the marquee names, but there are plenty more in virtually every major scientific field who are now working in some capacity with civilian-led efforts on the UAP phenomenon.
But it is quite another thing for a dedicated skeptic like Weinstein to not only renounce his former intellectual myopia and apologize to the UFO community, but then — there’s really no other way to put it — emerge as a vocal and determined UFO Disclosure activist who tells his considerable audience that “some HUGE story” is up.
The Skeptical Inquirer crowd will moan that their comrade has tumbled down the rabbit hole: Farewell, Eric, we hardly knew ye! Such a reaction evades a far more interesting and compelling question: Why is Weinstein exploring this rabbit hole? And why is he diving into it now — at a time one might reasonably conclude that the most urgent issue on humanity’s plate is whether Putin will go nuclear in Ukraine? Weinstein, after all, has provided occasional commentary on that evolving nightmare himself, urging people to pay attention to it.
Which makes it all the more intriguing that on Saturday morning, it was revealed on Twitter that Weinstein spoke this weekend at UFO symposium in San Marino, a tiny nation landlocked by northern Italy.
Luis Elizondo and Eric Weinstein, in an image posted on the latter’s Twitter feed in September. Who is Eric Weinstein, and why does this matter? Eric Weinstein is a Harvard-trained mathematician who is known for having jokingly coined the term “Dark Web,” a loose coalition of what the New York Times in 2018 termed intellectual “renegades” who have carved out a space for themselves in the podcasting world discussing culture and politics in terms that has rendered them unwelcome in “politically correct” circles because they have questioned and criticized what they regard as the “excesses” of the political left, identity politics, etc.
Weinstein isn’t a household name, but he occupies a layer of American intellectuals and opinion-makers who enjoy a considerable audience in Podcastland. He counts the neuroscientist and unapologetic materialist Sam Harris as a close friend; each has appeared on the other’s podcast to hash out religion and other topics.
In June 2021, Weinstein took to Twitter, where he enjoys an audience of more than 696,000 followers, in the wake of the UAP report that had been released earlier that month by the DNI. A research scientist had joked that the 9-page report, characterized as a nothing-burger by skeptics, “basically looks like an Eric Weinstein post.” Riffing off that comment, Weinstein posted a series of comments that amounted to a mea culpa:
A lot of UFO people are nutty. But you the careful community that called balls and strikes as best you could with limited information deserve not only rehabilitation in the minds of the public, but some official recognition that you are to be listened to in the future. Thank you.
I believe you now when you say that there is even much more high quality data available but that it has not been released. At a personal level: You were right, I was wrong. Thanks for letting me join you at the ‘last minute’ in the few months before the report. I’ll listen more.
The rest of his remarks may be found here.
Eric, meet Lou; Lou, meet Eric On Sept. 29, Weinstein posted a photo of himself (above) grinning with none other than Luis Elizondo, the ex-Pentagon spook who is working behind-the-scenes with Congress to pull alleged secret government UFO programs out into the daylight and whose position basically amounts to: I’m not saying it’s aliens … but it’s aliens. Cryptically, Weinstein said he was “trying to figure out what the heck is actually going on. Thanks Lue.”
A couple weeks later, a Twitter user asked Weinstein if he’d care to elaborate on “what you learned from hanging” with Elizondo. He replied the next day:
I decline. My private conversations are treated by me as private. And there are, potentially, *serious* security implications. I may be a fierce critic of government malfeasance, corruption & gaslighting, but I’m also team United States. If that’s confusing, I can’t help much.
Inevitably, that kicked off a stream of questions, many of which Weinstein, to his credit, answered. I’ve included a selection below, and for the sake of clarity, they may not be in the exact order they appeared and I don’t identify the account posing the question. But it’s all there on Twitter for anyone to see.
Do you feel more or less optimistic that the public will anytime soon have a clearer idea what is going on?
But it has to be done by the book. I’m trying.
Do you believe something world changing will happen within your lifetime?
You aren’t going to have to be wait that long.
Another gatekeeper of knowledge recruited.
No. It is not my information. It belongs to others.
Others = humanity. It’s time for this shell game to end Eric.
Totally agree.
Do you consider that you might be part of the gaslighting?
100000000% You should worry about this too. I’m positive I’m being used. Completely.
Did you find it useful?
Quite.
Shouldn’t we be team Human? All working together for a greater purpose?
That is my highest allegiance.
Are we in good hands?
I don’t know. Yet.
Based on what you know, can you speculate a timeframe for further disclosure either from individuals or govt?
Not yet publicly.
Do you find the topic worth pursuing?
It’s infuriating. But I don’t feel I have a choice. I would love to stop. Smoke and mirrors are everywhere and the answer is hidden in a national security funhouse that is no fun at all. But we have zero choice here given what is claimed and what is at stake. Thanks.
Eric, we are just tired of the infinite circle jerk. There are people with answers and those answers need to be made public.
And so on and so forth.
I’ve never spoken or corresponded with Weinstein, and he’s never responded to the occasional question or comment I’ve tagged him with on Twitter. But it is clear, based on what we know, is that Weinstein — by virtue of his reputation and visibility as a respected public intellectual — has been trying to find out whether there’s a “there” there in the world of ufology and that in so doing he’s acquired sufficiently compelling background to convince him that the issue is worth pursuing and that this conversation is worth having.
Remarkably, he essentially echoes here comments made in 2021 by Harris, who said that on three occasions within the space of a few months he had been included in high-level talks about the reality of UFOs. Among his remarks:
I’ve had someone reach out to me and has assured me that I’m going to be on a Zoom call with, you know, former heads of the CIA and Office of Naval Research and people whose bona fide are very easy to track, and they’re concerned about the messaging around all of this to the public …
Harris brought this up repeatedly in 2021 as the release of the first UAP report drew near, with both guests and fellow podcasters; it seemed to nag at him. He couldn’t say much, but he also wouldn’t let it go. The implication was clear: Someone who was, apparently, in-the-know about UFOs he regarded as credible wanted his help with easing the public into what would amount to a historic paradigm shift. To my knowledge he has not raised the subject since. But it is worth recalling that last May, Weinstein on Twitter confirmed on that the “outreach” did happen.
And in the exchanges excerpted above, he acknowledges as much again: “I’m positive I’m being used. Completely.”
So who, exactly, is using him? For what reason?
Talking UFOs in Europe [Note: This section has been updated to reflect new statements by Weinstein]
Flash-forward to Saturday morning, Oct. 22. Several photos of Weinstein on stage in San Marino at a 2-day “World Symposium” on “UFO Disclosure” appear on Twitter, posted there by someone who said he/she attended the event. Two other Americans, Elizondo and Loeb, were scheduled to be among the speakers although the scuttlebutt Saturday afternoon was that Elizondo had to cancel and so he stepped in; sometimes, a rumor turns out to be true.
Writing on Twitter early Monday (Oct. 24) Weinstein said that he had been invited to participate in the press conference for what he termed a “totally separate” project. He said he had come as an unaffiliated observer, “so I politely declined.”
“I was not expecting to speak,” Weinstein wrote. “The guest of honor, Lue Elizondo, became unavailable at the last minute. I was asked to step in. As a courtesy I agreed, and shared some ideas that represent no one but myself as a private US citizen working with publicly available info.”
Projected behind Weinstein on a large screen as he spoke was a series of slides with talking points. Given that he was filling in “at the last minute” for Elizondo, all the material on the slides, which have been subjected to Talmudic levels of analysis on #UFOTwitter, were either prepared by or for him.
A few excerpts:
True Confessions: Ufology is a danger to both National Security and Fundamental Physics. So, What’s the problem?
— UFOlogy is currently both light entertainment and serious study.
— The former is chasing away serious scientists from the latter.
— MOUNTAINS of indirect evidence for existence of something profound. (italics added).
— ZERO solid direct evidence in two years of looking at this topic. ZERO.
— This seems impossible. No story makes the above two facts make sense.
And, further down:
— STIGMA and NONDISCLOSURE chases away the people who could make progress.
On another slide, the text refers to UFOs being equal to “hope,” in the context of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “UFOs,” the slide reads, “aren’t merely interesting or fun to talk about. They may be our best way out.”
Responding to questions on Twitter today (Oct. 24) Weinstein had some interesting things to say, though nothing conclusive. At one point, he speculated that the UFO phenomenon “could sorta kinda maybe be a cover story for advanced tech. But I can’t get that to make sense yet.”
Weinstein, clearly not caring about stigma, appears to have arrived at a place where he believes, for reasons known only to him and those he’s spoken with, that there is something to disclose, and that it is essential that it be disclosed, sooner rather than later.
From Wiki:
Weinstein received his PhD in mathematical physics from Harvard University in 1992 under the supervision of Raoul Bott.In his dissertation, Extension of Self-Dual Yang-Mills Equations Across the Eighth Dimension, Weinstein showed that the self-dual Yang–Mills equations were not peculiar to dimension four and admitted generalizations to higher dimensions.[7]
Weinstein left academia after stints at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[citation needed] Weinstein was invited to a colloquium by mathematician Marcus du Sautoy at Oxford University's Clarendon Laboratory in May 2013. [8] There he presented his ideas on a theory of everything called Geometric Unity. Physicists expressed skepticism about the theory.[8][9] Joseph Conlon of Oxford stated that some of the predicted particles would already have been detected in existing accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider.[8] Science writer Jennifer Ouellette criticized the colloquium in a blog for Scientific American, arguing that experts could not properly evaluate Weinstein's ideas because there was no published paper.
On April 1, 2021, Weinstein released a draft paper on Geometric Unity in a guest appearance on the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. Weinstein qualified in his paper that he "is not a physicist," but an "entertainer" and podcast host. It received strong criticism from the scientific community and was said to have "no visible impact" and "gaps both mathematical and physical in origin that jeopardize Geometric Unity as a well-defined theory, much less one that is a candidate for a theory of everything."
Thx. Sorry for the trouble.
“the most urgent issue on humanity’s plate is whether Putin will go nuclear in Ukraine?”
Hardly.
Aliens no, but UFOs seem to be, the mystery is out there
That was just a stupid little throwaway line. In fact, it was just an imaginary self-conversation some hypothetical member of The Skeptical Inquirer crowd (whoever that is) might have...completely irrelevant to the point of this article.
He believes in what, exactly?
I’m guessing we will be warned that the Aliens will destroy us unless we vote the way they want us to.
Lue is a trained liar. weinstein is either fool to believe Lue and be taken in, or he has been recruited. The kabuki theater is strong with this group.
The Skeptical Inquirer crowd will moan that their comrade has tumbled down the rabbit hole: Farewell, Eric, we hardly knew ye! Such a reaction evades a far more interesting and compelling question: Why is Weinstein exploring this rabbit hole? And why is he diving into it now — at a time one might reasonably conclude that the most urgent issue on humanity’s plate is whether Putin will go nuclear in Ukraine? Weinstein, after all, has provided occasional commentary on that evolving nightmare himself, urging people to pay attention to it.
If you believe he is lying, perhaps you should point out specifically what he is lying about.
Lue is CIA. The CIA is trying to control the narrqative on this phenomenon. Lue is part of their team. You figure it out, or be duped just like this ‘mathematician’.
Some folks have said that by the time we begin to unravel this mystery, we will long for the days of simple aliens and shiny metallic UFOs.
That said, I have drawn no conclusions. Breadcrumbs are being dropped, but we are not being told what it is by anyone who professes to know.
And you know this how exactly?
Again I ask you, exactly what has Lue said that you disagree with? I know what he has said, but I am curious what specifically you find “misleading”?
He is misleading by omission. If you really believe the government is trying to figure out whats with these things then you are already duped. Lue has siad he is ‘ex cia’, which is a laugh.
If juicy facts were being withheld there would be leaks right and left - people can’t keep from talking.
“From Wiki:”
From me: no mention of evidence he’s seen of UFOs. The article is a waste of time.
I don't think Weinstein has indicated whether or not he believes the government is going to "disclose" the truth or whether what might be disclosed could serve another purpose.
It's all still very mysterious. I am just following the story, trying not to just to conclusions, and posting articles that might be of interest to others who are following along.
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