NBC: Former Israeli space security chief says extraterrestrials exist, and Trump knows about it

[vanessa_ca]

42. Could be. I have no dog in this fight, but all indications to the contrary

For the record, I find the assertion of a "secret underground base on Mars" a bit extraordinary.

According to Isaac Ben-Israel, chairman of the Israel Space Agency, Eshed went too far with his claims, which were published in a interview with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, but his seriousness shouldn’t be questioned and his standing as a leader in his field remains intact.
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Ben-Israel said it has become entirely acceptable over the last decade for serious scientists to believe in aliens, as knowledge of space has increased. ““Is there intelligent life outside [Earth]? 10 years ago most scientists believed chances are very low. We now believe chances are significant,” he said.

“This doesn’t mean there’s a ‘Galactic Federation’ and they landed on earth — this is too much — but much of the scientific community believes the chance of detecting life in outer space is considerable, not small,” he said.

Asked for his own view, Ben-Israel said: “I also think the probability is quite large. Still, in my interpretation, I don’t believe there were any physical encounters between us and aliens.”
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While jokes have been made questioning the state of octogenarian Eshed’s mind, Ben-Israel said he has been talking about aliens for decades, and it never compromised his academic integrity. “I’ve known Haim Eshed for 40 to 50 years, and he was always a visionary and very creative.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-space-chief-says-aliens-may-well-exist-but-they-havent-met-humans/

Again, I have no vested interest in this, just curiosity and a willingness to accept that we may not be the sole inhabitants of our vast and complex universe.

Here's from another article:

Speaking in an interview to Yediot Aharonot, Eshed – who served as the head of Israel's space program for nearly 30 years and is a three-time recipient of the Israel Security Award – explained that Israel and the US have both been dealing with aliens for years.
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The 87-year-old former head of the Defense Ministry's Space Division gave further descriptions about exactly what sort of agreements have been made between the aliens and the US, which ostensibly have been made because they wish to research and understand "the fabric of the universe." This cooperation includes a secret underground base on Mars, where there are American and alien representatives.
If true, this would coincide with US President Donald Trump's creation of the Space Force as the fifth branch of the US armed forces, though it is unclear how long this sort of relationship, if any, has been going on between the US and its reported extraterrestrial allies.
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"If I had come up with what I’m saying today five years ago, I would have been hospitalized," he explained to Yediot.
He added that "today, they’re already talking differently. I have nothing to lose. I’ve received my degrees and awards; I am respected in universities abroad, where the trend is also changing."
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https://www.jpost.com/omg/former-israeli-space-security-chief-says-aliens-exist-humanity-not-ready-651405

I added the last article because of what happened a few years later:

A father-daughter duo from the US decoded an 'alien-like' message transmitted through a signal by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a spacecraft of the European Space Agency orbiting Mars, in May last year.
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As the European Space Agency spacecraft beamed a signal in May 2023, it was picked up by three observatories on the Earth, and the raw data was released online, giving scientists worldwide a chance to decipher the transmission, CNN reported.

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While speaking with CNN, the two citizen scientists said they experimented with various ideas for thousands of hours and ran mathematical simulations on computers to decode the message.

The decoded message appears to be clusters of white pixels with a black background. The visualised message has five configurations representing amino acids, the building blocks of life.

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https://www.ndtv.com/feature/how-a-father-daughter-duo-decoded-alien-message-from-mars-6998949

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Their breakthrough revealed that the signal represented five amino acids—the fundamental building blocks of life.

The pair discovered that the message contained movement patterns suggesting cellular formation and life forms.

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https://www.newsweek.com/alien-signal-deciphered-us-father-daughter-team-1979616