(February 1, 2016 at 12:17 am)Excited Penguin Wrote:(February 1, 2016 at 12:04 am)scoobysnack Wrote: Sure, but something to keep in mind is revealing classified information is illegal, and the threat of jail or in more serious circumstances death, that's reason enough for information not to be made public. Also there are many scientists working on classified projects that don't make it into the public realm. There are people that come forward with bits of information, which this is an example of. Let me know what you think after watching the video. You may change your mind.
I'm skeptical as to whether certain governments would be able to keep information contained despite it not presenting any major risks to its peoples if made publicly available. This is a gray area. The Snowden revelations about government surveillance might be a good example. On its face, he did a good thing showing us potentially orwellian tendencies of certain western governments. How sure are we that this was a good thing, however? Do we know how much harm it did? - Certainly not.
Going from that to cover-ups of evidence of extraterestrial life is a big leap, however. Given what we know about the world, it's really quite the unbelievable assumption that governments might be hiding the fact that we're no longer alone.
I'll let others address this better. I know how absurd your scenario is, but I'm not exactly very well equipped to properly address your latest remarks about how scientific communities might be working in the dark on such a grand scale.
You really need to watch the press conference. Seriously there is some cool info talked about here. I've spent years researching various subjects, and this is one that everyone should watch to at least be exposed to if nothing else. How they keep things secret comes down to compartmentalized security. When you work for the government military or intelligence agencies, you don't get access to everything, you get access on a need to know basis, so what you have access to will be different than your coworkers to an extent. There are many levels of classification, and levels within those levels which helps to ensure the information doesn't get out.
Maybe if you don't have time to watch the whole two hours, check out the part at 55 minutes, John Maynard and the next few speakers. The whole video is interesting, but gets better towards the end. I could tell you about it, but it's better to hear it from these people.