Tuesday, February 17, 2026

A UFO intermezzo

Is this the "official" version, so to speak? ChatGPT has the floor...again.

What is the best evidence (or "best" evidence) for the existence of UFOs (as in extraterrestrial space craft) - or the best evidence for UFOs as a genuinely unexplained phenomenon?

There are really two different questions hiding inside “UFOs”:

Are there extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting Earth?
Are there aerial/space phenomena that remain genuinely unexplained by current data?

The evidence for (2) is strong.
The evidence for (1) is not.

Here’s the clean way scientists and intelligence agencies separate them.

1. The strongest evidence that something real and unusual is being observed

Since 2017, several governments — especially the United States — have formally acknowledged that unknown objects are being tracked by military sensors.

The key institutions are:

U.S. Department of Defense
U.S. Navy
AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office)

They now use the term UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), not UFO.

What makes the evidence strong is that some encounters are recorded by multiple independent military sensors simultaneously, including:

radar
infrared cameras
electro-optical tracking
pilot visual observation

The most famous examples are:

the Tic-Tac encounter (USS Nimitz Carrier Group, 2004)
the Gimbal and GoFast videos (2014–2015)

These were released and authenticated by the Pentagon.

They show objects that appear to:

have no visible propulsion
maneuver in ways that exceed known aircraft
move seamlessly between air and sea (in some cases)

This is the best evidence that UFOs are a real observational phenomenon — not mass hallucination or hoaxes.

2. Why this is not evidence of aliens

Here’s the crucial scientific distinction:

Unidentified ≠ extraterrestrial

The Pentagon’s own conclusion (in multiple public reports) is:

Most UAPs are later identified as
- drones
- balloons
- sensor artifacts
- aircraft
A small fraction remain unresolved due to insufficient data

But none show confirmed signs of:

non-human technology
alien materials
extraterrestrial origin

Even the most dramatic cases lack:

physical debris
isotopic anomalies
unambiguous close-range imagery

That is why AARO explicitly states:

No evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft has been found.

3. What is genuinely strange, though

What remains scientifically interesting is this:

Some UAPs exhibit anomalous performance signatures:

extreme acceleration
no visible exhaust
transmedium movement

But every one of these could still be explained by:

sensor limitations
classified human tech
electronic warfare
mis-tracked objects

Radar + IR + pilots sounds conclusive — but modern sensors are not passive cameras. They are complex signal-processing systems that can generate convincing illusions.

Military engineers take this extremely seriously, because misidentification of advanced foreign drones is a real threat.

4. Why scientists stay skeptical

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

For aliens, we would need at least one of:

recovered non-human materials
biological samples
craft with non-Earth isotopes
repeatable close-range measurements

None exist.

What we do have is:

A small set of military encounters that are not yet fully explained.

That is interesting — but it is not alien visitation.

5. So what is the honest bottom line?

The best evidence shows:

✔ Some UFOs are real, physical objects
✔ Some remain unidentified with current data
✘ None are proven to be extraterrestrial spacecraft

UFOs are a sensor-based mystery, not an alien one.

If aliens were visiting Earth, their technology would leave massive, unmistakable physical signatures. We do not see those.

But we do see something else:

The limits of human tracking technology being pushed by fast, distant, ambiguous targets.

And that alone is fascinating — just not sci-fi.

If you’d like, I can also explain why interstellar visitation is so implausible physically, or how UFO culture evolved from Cold War radar confusion into modern mythology.

Is there any evidence that the US government or military are intentionally hiding evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial craft (UFOs)?

Short answer: no — not in the way people usually mean it.
There is no credible evidence that the U.S. government is hiding proof of alien spacecraft.
But there is strong evidence that it hides something else — classified human and foreign technology, which has fueled UFO mythology for 80 years.

Let’s be precise.

1. What would “real alien evidence” look like?

If extraterrestrial craft existed, the evidence would include at least one of:

non-human materials with non-Earth isotopes
recovered craft with impossible engineering
biological samples
clear, high-resolution close-up imagery
repeatable sensor measurements

None of these have ever been produced — not by whistleblowers, not by journalists, not by declassified files, not by Congress.

Every claim of this kind collapses under scrutiny.

2. What the US government has admitted

Since 2017, the Pentagon has openly admitted:

UAPs exist
Some are not immediately identifiable
They are investigated seriously

This work is now handled by AARO under the Department of Defense.

Their public reports state clearly:

No evidence of extraterrestrial technology has been found.

Congress has reviewed their classified data and reached the same conclusion.

3. So why do UFO cover-ups feel so real?

Because something is being hidden — just not aliens.

What is classified:

experimental aircraft
stealth drones
electronic warfare systems
radar spoofing technology
hypersonic vehicles
foreign spy platforms

From the 1940s to today, many UFO sightings later turned out to be:

U-2 spy planes
SR-71 Blackbirds
stealth fighters
secret drones

When people saw them, the military said:

“We don’t know what that is.”

Not because it was alien — but because it was secret.

This created the impression of a cover-up.

4. What about whistleblowers like David Grusch?

Grusch testified that people told him about alien craft — not that he personally saw them.

Every time such claims are examined:

no physical evidence
no documents
no verifiable chain of custody

This is hearsay inside classified systems — not proof.

Congress investigated these claims in 2023–2024 and found no corroboration.

5. Why a real alien secret could not be kept

A functioning extraterrestrial program would require:

thousands of engineers
materials labs
transportation
storage
funding
testing

That would leave:

budgets
contractors
supply chains
scientific anomalies

None exist.

Secrets that big leak.
Aliens would be the biggest leak in history.

The true situation

The U.S. military does hide things.
But what it hides are:

human technologies and foreign surveillance systems.

UFO mythology is the shadow those secrets cast on the public imagination.

Final verdict

There is zero verified evidence of a government alien cover-up.

There is overwhelming evidence of:

secret aircraft
radar misidentification
intelligence secrecy
Cold War mythology

Which is exactly what you would expect if UFOs are human-made mysteries, not visitors from the stars.

If you’d like, I can show how specific famous UFO cases were later explained — or why the laws of physics make alien visitation extraordinarily unlikely.

Our Pontecorvo predicament

Credit: Jacques63

Credit: Sodacan

Not sure how ChatGPT can know anything about obscure points of Swedish history and heraldry, so you probably have to do your own research on this one - not sure how, though. Still, an intriguing conversation! The problem: the greater coat of arms of Sweden (not shown above) include the French imperial eagle associated with Napoleon...which is very strange for a number of reasons. Or is it? The AI has the floor!

Is there any formal rule in heraldry saying that a coat of arms, once recieved or created, can never be changed?

Short answer: no — there is no such universal rule in heraldry.
In fact, throughout heraldic history, arms were frequently altered, differenced, quartered, augmented, or even completely replaced.

The idea that “a coat of arms can never be changed” is a modern myth.

Here is how it actually works.

1. What heraldry really is

Heraldry is not one international law system.
It is a group of regional legal–customary traditions, mainly:

England & Wales
Scotland
France
Holy Roman Empire
Iberia
Italy

Each has different rules — but none include an absolute rule of immutability.

2. Arms were designed to change

Medieval arms evolved by:

Reason	What happened
Marriage	Quartering or impaling
Inheritance	Adding other arms
New titles	Augmentations
Cadency	Marks for younger sons
Royal favor	New charges added
Politics	Arms modified to show loyalty

If arms were immutable, none of this could exist.

3. Even kings changed arms

English royal arms changed repeatedly:

Norman lions
Plantagenet lions
French fleurs-de-lis added
French arms removed

Each reflected political claims.

So if the King can change arms, so can anyone.

4. What is fixed

What is fixed is:

A specific grant of arms defines one legal coat of arms.

You may not change that one specific design and still call it that same grant.

But you are allowed to:

receive a new grant
have arms differenced
combine arms
abandon arms
adopt new ones

Heraldry is a system of identity, not frozen art.

5. Where the myth comes from

The idea of immutability comes from:

Victorian antiquarianism
20th-century hobbyist heraldry
a misunderstanding of legal identity

People confuse:

“you cannot falsify arms”
with
“arms can never change”

Those are very different things.

6. The real rule

The true rule of heraldry is:

You may not misrepresent arms — but you may lawfully change, add to, or replace them through proper authority or custom.

That has always been the case.

In one line

Heraldry is a living legal language of identity, not a fossilized logo.

A coat of arms is meant to grow with a family — just like a name, a title, or a history.

If you want, I can also explain how this works differently in English, Scottish, and continental heraldic law — they handle change in fascinatingly different ways.

The crown prince Karl Johan, later king of Sweden and Norway, kept his coat of arms as Prince of Pontecorvo - which showed the French imperial eagle - even after breaking with Napoleon and joining the anti-Napoleon Coalition. This even after he had relinquished any formal claims on Pontecorvo itself.

Yes — and that case is one of the best real-world demonstrations of why heraldry is about legal identity, not current political allegiance or territorial claims.

You are referring to Karl XIV Johan, born Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who had been made Prince of Pontecorvo by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806.

Let’s unpack why he kept the eagle.

1. The Prince of Pontecorvo arms were his personal identity

When Napoleon created Bernadotte Prince of Pontecorvo, he did two things:

He gave him a title
He gave him a coat of arms

That coat of arms — with the French imperial eagle — was not a claim to the territory.
It was the heraldic sign of a Napoleonic princely dignity granted to him personally.

Even after Bernadotte:

broke with Napoleon
renounced Pontecorvo
joined the Coalition

he did not cease to be the person to whom that dignity had once been granted.

Heraldry records what you are, not whom you serve today.

2. Why keeping the eagle was actually correct heraldry

If Bernadotte had removed the eagle, he would have been falsely rewriting his own legal identity.

He was:

“Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, formerly Prince of Pontecorvo”

That fact remained true forever.

Heraldry does not erase past legitimate honors — it accumulates them.

So his Swedish royal arms became:

Swedish kingship plus Napoleonic princely honor

This is exactly how heraldry is supposed to work.

3. This is not unusual — it is medieval logic

European dynasties are full of this:

English kings kept:

French lilies
long after they no longer ruled France

German princes kept:

Polish eagles
Italian crowns
Burgundian devices

long after the lands were gone.

Because arms do not mean:

“I rule this land”

They mean:

“I hold this dignity in my lineage.”

4. Why it mattered politically

Karl XIV Johan keeping the Napoleonic eagle sent a subtle but powerful message:

I am not Napoleon’s puppet —
but I am his equal.

It said:

I did not reject my past
I integrated it into my kingship

This made him a legitimate European monarch, not a Swedish puppet-king.

The deep principle

Heraldry is genealogical memory, not current propaganda.

You cannot undo:

a lawful title
a lawful grant of arms

by changing alliances.

Karl XIV Johan’s arms were telling the truth about who he was —
a Napoleonic prince who became a Scandinavian king.

And that is exactly what heraldry exists to preserve.

If you want, I can show you how Swedish heraldic law treated this and why the Riddarhuset accepted it without controversy — it’s a fascinating case.

Yes, please.

Great — this is where the Karl Johan case becomes really illuminating, because Swedish heraldry handled it in a very principled, very medieval way.

We are dealing with Karl XIV Johan, formerly Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who brought into Sweden a coat of arms that included a Napoleonic imperial eagle — the personal emblem of Napoleon Bonaparte — even after he became Napoleon’s enemy.

Why was this accepted?

1. Sweden had no doctrine of “political purity” in heraldry

Swedish heraldic law, administered by the Riddarhuset (House of Nobility), follows the continental rule:

A coat of arms is a legal sign of personal dignity, not a declaration of political loyalty.

Once a person has legitimately received arms, they are:

hereditary
inalienable
permanent

unless revoked by a lawful authority.

Napoleon was the lawful sovereign of France in 1806.
His grant of the Pontecorvo arms was therefore valid forever, even if Napoleon later became Sweden’s enemy.

Sweden had no legal right to erase that.

2. The Swedish crown actually validated the Napoleonic arms

When Bernadotte was adopted into the Swedish royal house in 1810, his foreign princely arms were:

not deleted
not replaced
not subordinated

They were quartered into the Swedish royal arms.

This was done officially when he became Crown Prince and later king.

In other words:

Sweden recognized the Napoleonic dignity as part of his lawful personal identity.

This is why the French eagle appears on:

Swedish royal standards
royal seals
Bernadotte dynasty heraldry

even after Napoleon’s fall.

3. Why this was politically safe

By 1813, Bernadotte was fighting Napoleon — but he was doing so as:

a sovereign prince of European rank.

Keeping the Pontecorvo arms said:

I was not a usurper
I was not a deserter
I am a prince who changed alliances

That made him diplomatically legitimate to:

Austria
Britain
Russia

They dealt with princes — not turncoats.

4. Why Swedish nobles had no objection

At the Riddarhuset, nobles are registered by:

lineage
arms
legal dignity

not ideology.

Bernadotte’s arms were impeccable by European law.

Whether Napoleon was later hated was irrelevant.

Heraldry is not moral.
It is archival.

5. The deeper European rule

This reflects a very old principle:

A legitimate grant of arms can never be invalidated by later politics.

Only:

the original granting authority
or a lawful superior

can revoke arms.

Napoleon fell.
No one inherited the legal authority to cancel his grants.

So Bernadotte’s eagle was untouchable.

Why this matters

Karl XIV Johan’s coat of arms is a fossil of history.

It tells us:

where he came from
how he rose
what powers once recognized him

That is exactly what heraldry exists to do.

If you want, I can also show you how this same rule explains:

British kings still bearing French lilies
Russian tsars keeping Mongol symbols
Habsburgs keeping Burgundian lions

It’s all the same medieval logic.

But was Napoleon really accepted as the legitimate ruler of France by the Coalition?

Short answer: yes — grudgingly, conditionally, and legally — until 1814.
And that is exactly why Bernadotte’s Napoleonic arms remained valid.

Let’s be precise.

1. Napoleon was not treated as a “mere usurper”

From 1804 (when he crowned himself Emperor) until 1814, the European powers did not treat Napoleon as an outlaw regime in the legal sense.

They:

signed treaties with him
exchanged ambassadors
recognized his titles
married into his dynasty

For example:

Austria married him to Marie Louise
Russia negotiated with him at Treaty of Tilsit
Britain signed peace treaties with him (Amiens, 1802)

This is full de jure recognition.

They hated him — but they accepted that he was the Emperor of France.

2. This is why his titles were legally real

Because Napoleon was recognized as sovereign, he had the lawful right to:

create princes
grant coats of arms
establish noble houses

So when Napoleon Bonaparte made Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte Prince of Pontecorvo, that act had international legal validity.

Other states were not free to pretend it never happened.

3. Even after they fought him, they still accepted his acts

This is the crucial legal point.

When Napoleon was defeated in 1814:

the Allies restored the Bourbons
but they did NOT nullify Napoleonic titles or marriages
they did NOT declare his acts void

Why?

Because that would have meant:

France had no legitimate government for 15 years.

That would have collapsed:

treaties
property rights
borders
marriages

So instead, they treated Napoleon as a lawful but defeated ruler.

4. That’s why Bernadotte’s eagle survived

By the time Karl XIV Johan became king of Sweden (1818), the European system had already decided:

Napoleon = lawful former emperor
His grants = valid historical facts

So Sweden was not “honoring Napoleon”.

It was recognizing legal continuity.

5. The key distinction

Europe did not say:

Napoleon was never legitimate.

They said:

Napoleon was legitimate — and we defeated him.

That distinction is why his heraldic and dynastic acts survived.

Final truth

The Coalition denied Napoleon’s right to keep ruling.

They never denied his right to have ruled.

And that is why the French eagle still sits quietly inside the Swedish royal arms today — not as a political symbol, but as a legal fossil of European history.