back to article US.gov: We aren't hiding any space aliens

The American government is not in contact with aliens and is not aware of any living on Earth, the White House revealed today in response to 12,000 American citizens who told the government "they could handle the truth". The official statement from Phil Larson, a research assistant from the White House's Office of Science and …

COMMENTS

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  1. IglooDude

    Whew!

    Glad that's sorted, then.

  2. Jon Green
    Facepalm

    No surprise there, then

    "The American government is [...] not aware of living on Earth, the White House revealed today."

    It took a Freedom of Information request to reveal this?

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
      Alien

      No surprise here, then, either .... which does deliver a fabulous stealth facility and ability

      ""The American government is [...] not aware of living on Earth, the White House revealed today."

      It took a Freedom of Information request to reveal this?" ... Jon Green Posted Monday 7th November 2011 12:54 GMT

      Greetings, Jon Green and El Reg ARGonauts,

      Would you be surprised if Europe were equally clueless, even as they scurry and scamper like lemmings and headless chickens to contain the unfolding and quite alien conflicts which are exposing the corrupt workings and fabrications of dodgy markets and crooked criminal enterprises posing as free capitalist states and fully functioning economies, whenever quite obviously they are neither and never have been? Or would you fully expect them to be so ignorant, as it is par for the course as you consider the present?

      And that is all that I would wish to say, for now, but would leave you with the following to ponder....http://www.ur2die4.com/?p=927

  3. Paolo Marini
    Joke

    default

    I guess that their only reason to look for organic life on other planets is to extract fossil resources (oil) then?

    1. Pete the not so great
      Alien

      or

      We can borrow money.

    2. IronTed
      Flame

      The US government is a bloody liar! I have tons of documents, videos and pictures proving there's a cover-up by the US government.

  4. Shakje

    Pointless.

    "We’d as well be 10 minutes back in time, for all the chance you’ll change your mind."

    1. Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT)

      One of Tim's better rants :-)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Load of cods

    Aliens coming to earth my arse! Load of old tosh made up by people with too much imagination and no creative outlets.

    Why bother ragging the government? If you want see aliens, simply head out to the back of beyond for a few weeks, get dressed up as a down-at-heel hick and wait for the saucers to land! Every story, the aliens come down, gang-probe some "hillbilly" and drop them off by the side of the road afterward.

    Sure I appreciate the stories from the abductees, but it wasn't so long ago that the same sort of people, prior to space aliens being in the public conscience, would claim Succubii would come into their rooms at night. They'd "freeze" people in their beds, wide awake and do nasty things to them.

    As George Carlin once said, "50% of Americans believe in angels. What the hell? Are you, fucking stupid or something? A good dose of some illegal drugs will get you some fucking angels my friends!"

  6. Hitcotek
    Alien

    Whaaaaatt?????

    Then give me my Space craft back and let me gooooooooo

    Regards Paul

  7. Tony S
    Joke

    So....

    "the odds of us making contact with any of them – especially any intelligent ones – are extremely small"

    He is therefore not ruling out making contact with the unintelligent ones. These will be the ones that watch the videocasts of "The only way is Betelgeuse 5", "Rigel 4 has got talent", "Celebrity Big Polymorphic Natal Being" etc.

    1. Alien Doctor 1.1
      Alien

      Rigel 4?

      What about Rigel XVI? Certainly some odd talents there.

  8. Anonymous John
    Unhappy

    So Velcro is a human invention?

  9. DZ-Jay
    Joke

    Well, that's just what they would say, innit? Their denial just proves that they are hiding the information.

    -dZ.

    1. Misoriented
      Holmes

      We need to go deeper

      Clearly, the government has already been taken over by aliens and they're just denying their own existence!

      I can't say I blame them. If they came out, Fox News would just complain about them damn aliens coming down here and taking jobs from good, hard-working humans.

    2. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Joke

      No; if they had the information, they would tell everyone. Just like those nasty WMDs ready to go in 45 minutes.

  10. Tchou
    Holmes

    Aliens already...

    ... found us.

    But they were looking for intelligent life forms and went away.

  11. Markus Wallett
    Megaphone

    MAJIC eyes only

    LOl, this story is hilarious and may offer reassurance and comfort to those with IQS of 70. The US government isn't even in control of the information,so why bother to contact them in the first place? Any sensitive information will be part of compartmentalized special access programs. The reason for this: to keep secrets and allow for plausible deniability amongst those in government, as well as maintaining domestic tranquility. Most folks think that secret projects end with black projects entitled TOP SECRET, but there are many compartmentalised grey projects beneath that,labelled CRYPTO, MAJIC, etc.

    1. Richard 116
      Alien

      Classic.

  12. PaulyV

    Then...

    ...who has been probing me every night for the last 3 weeks?

    I'd best speak to the new lodger I've got in the bungalow.

  13. Ru

    Through the SETI project?

    I thought that nearly went titsup due to lack of funding. Given their miniscule budget, Uncle Sam could easily have thrown them a few crusts and kept them running for years without impacting its own budget.

  14. Jim 59

    Memory wiped

    The government got them with that zippy pen memory eraser thing. What was that flash ?

  15. Identity
    Big Brother

    They would say that

    wouldn't they?

    1. Mips
      Childcatcher

      This is an official release by the Alien Party

      Of course

  16. Rich 11
    Alien

    <blockquote>opinion polls stating that more than 50 per cent of the American people believe there is an extraterrestrial presence and more than 80 per cent believe the government is not telling the truth about this phenomenon.</blockquote>

    Presumably that's 80% of 50%, rather than an additional 30% believing the government is covering up an alien presence in which they themselves do not believe?

    1. Oninoshiko

      Actually,

      those 30% could be like me, and think the US DoD uses aliens as a cover for military test flights and covert operations.

      Still a coverup relating to aliens, just not one that requires the aliens exist.

  17. EyeCU
    Black Helicopters

    Cue the conspriacy theorists

    "well they would say that wouldn't they"

  18. SirTainleyBarking
    Holmes

    They would say that wouldn't they?

    Though if you looked at most of the wannabe politicians over there you'd swear that they weren't on this planet

    Pass the bacofoil, my heads getting chilly

  19. Keris
    Alien

    "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, they said..."

    "Million to one chances happen nine times in ten..."

    I for one welcome our alien lizard overlords...

  20. David Webb
    Coat

    "and opinion polls stating that more than 50 per cent of the American people believe there is an extraterrestrial presence"

    That'll be God then!

    1. AndrueC Silver badge
      Alien

      >That'll be God then!

      Is that supposed to make me feel better? It really doesn't, you know.

    2. Beelzeebub
      Flame

      God?

      If he existed he would have created me for some balance.

      But I don't exist and neither does he.

  21. Risky
    FAIL

    Overestimating competence

    I just don't see how anyone can believe that the governent can sucessfully cover-up and keep secret somethign that doesn't matter at all when it is clear that they didn't manage to keep secret much stuff that actually mattered.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well...

    ...what about the Roswell tapes then which show an alien autopsy. Or the hundreds of UFO photos and people claiming to have been abducted?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @AC

      Not sure if you are trolling, but here goes anyway...

      The Roswell tapes show no such thing.

      The hundreds of UFO photos show UFOs. ie Unidentified Flying Objects. Not aliens. Not spaceships.

      The people claiming to have been abducted are wrong. The human mind is an amazing thing.

      There you go. Sorted it all out for you.

  23. Christoph

    Obviously silly

    If they were aliens here they'd be trying to take over. They'd do something obvious like competing to stand as Republican candidate for US President.

    Oh wait ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      well

      Don't blame me... I voted for Kodos!

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    haha

    "50% of Americans believe in angels. What the hell? Are you, fucking stupid or something? A good dose of some illegal drugs will get you some fucking angels my friends!"

    PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    errr, I hope that they know that if there is some sort of an alien coverup, an _elected_ government wouldn't know about it! And for that matter any position that is linked to this _elected_ government wouldn't know about it.

    the people who would know are the people who are _not_ elected, these people will have static jobs that the 'people' won't be able to interfere with. In order to maintain total deniability (?), those who face the people and are questioned by the public, must never know the truth themselves.

    simple, right?

  26. Colin Miller
    Joke

    Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe...

    ...is that none of it has tried to contact us.

    Calvin -- aka Bill Watterson.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If one believes that there is balance in the universe then there must be intelligent life somewhere else if only to make up for us ;)

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Would that be...

    Phil Larson known as Krang to His friends?

  28. Graham Bartlett
    Alien

    @Risky

    Too right.

    Hell, we have entire continents run by people who, on the evidence of current economics, don't even understand that credit card bills need to be paid. This isn't just the elected ones who rotate chairs every so often - it's the ones in a job for life who are supposed to be the country's experts. And as the Queen said, "why did none of you see it coming?" And yet they're supposed to be managing a worldwide conspiracy that's kept this all hushed up for decades?

    Plus this conspiracy is supposed to involve the media too. You know, the papers who are in cutthroat competition with each other, who'd sell their children to get one over on the others, and who are quite happy to ignore government "do not print this story" commands if they think it'll get them more sales. And all the TV stations, including places like Al Jazeera who'd be quite happy for the American establishment to collapse.

    Sheesh.

  29. Eddie Edwards
    Alien

    Waste of time

    I think it's clear reading some of the comments here that if you're in the mindset that believes in this sort of thing, you're not in the mindset to accept any statement from the government about it.

    But the government knows this. So why bother making a statement? It's obviously a conspiracy at the highest level - they're secretly keeping people in the dark about the fact aliens have never landed here by making statements they know won't be believed. Genius!

  30. peter 45
    Alien

    "The American government is not in contact with aliens and is not aware of any living on Earth" SAID THE ALIEN OVERLORD PARASITE LIVING IN A HUMAN HOST.

    Where is the green colored text IN BOLD when you need it?

  31. sisk
    Joke

    Waste of time

    Surely they realize that the tin hat brigade is going to write this off as another is a long string of denials of the truth. I mean it's not like they don't all already know that Barack Obama was born on Alpha Centauri to lizardman parents.

    1. Gobhicks

      Not...

      Obama isn't an alien. He was grown in a vat by the CIA. GH Bush started the program. GW Bush was a first, not very good, effort.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Brave of the spokesman to acknowledge likelihood though

    Not much news in this story, but significant to me that he acked that given the size of the universe it was likely there was life out there. I look forward to "US GOVT SAYS ALIENS LIKELY" being broadcast tonight on Fox News and the various religious talking heads being called on to explain how they are going to cope with the fact that being made in God's image might actually mean God is small and green.

    I know, not gonna happen.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    colour me a cynic

    Shirley there would be better things to petition the government for in the good ol' US of A...

    ..of course none would get the blog-(or as so eloquently put on TED recently "crowd-sourced-news" )-o'sphere distracted enough to buy a couple of days of hassle free politics.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One nation under [...]

    Ask Mr President to confirm the existence of God. Go on i dare you.

  35. Suburban Inmate
    Thumb Up

    People of Earth we come in peace!

    [scene: Independence Day White House destruction]

    See? Peace!

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm

    So which is more likely....

    1) Despite our planet being smaller than a drop in the ocean in the vastness of the universe we are the only place heaving with life in the entire universe.

    2) That despite the vastness of it all we are the only sentient beings and if there is any other life out there is microbial in nature or extinct already and we will be lucky to see traces of any existence under rocks.

    3) That maybe other sentient beings exist but they are all inferior to wonderful us and could never travel in space.

    4) That other sentient beings might exist and might have space travel but would never go and visit a planet broadcasting large amounts of non natural radiation.

    5) The yank police state is lying for a change.

    1. Chemist

      Re : So which is more likely....

      6) The distances are too large and nobody has found a way round that.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    The government is right, they aren't hiding them!!

    Anyone who watches reality TV can tell you the aliens are starring on the tube every night!!

  38. Dave108

    The White House response was an insult to those of us who signed the petition. They did not even bother to do an investigation before sending out the response that there were no known extraterrestrials. All they had to do was to talk to some CIA or Pentagon people. It is the US military/intelligence community that has kept this secret for so long. They think the disclosure will jeopardize US dominance of the world. See ufocoverup.org for more info

    1. BoldMan

      lol I HOPE this was a sarcastic post...

  39. Sorry, you cannot reuse an old handle.
    WTF?

    I guess the only time they'll admit that an alien body touched Earth would be when an asteroid next hits it :-)

  40. Sorry, you cannot reuse an old handle.
    Thumb Up

    In reply to "Anonymous Coward", Posted Monday 7th November 2011 18:58 GMT

    and with all the spatial/temporal evidence that there is, where the heck is the ack?

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