July 2023

As of writing this essay, the Korean research group’s paper on LK-99, a purported ambient pressure room temperature superconductor, has not yet been publicly replicated. Prediction markets currently give a 17% probability of replication.

Another recent event which has garnered great interest is the U.S. Congress’ UAP hearing of an ex-intelligence officer David Grusch. He claims that during his time working in the government’s UAP task force, he heard credible first-hand reports of certain agencies salvaging real non-human (technically non-animal) bodies and even fully intact craft.

LK-99

I am not a materials scientist. Before the reveal about the superconductor discovery, my notion of the significance of superconductors was flimsy at best. I do not have the tools to readily analyse the Korean paper, nor do I believe I could do any better job than the tens of thousands of trained eyes that have been trying to get to the bottom of the truth for the past couple of days. Since no decisive results have yet come up, I will completely forego the contents of the paper and focus on the surrounding facts.

Three options seem to exist for the Korean paper.

(1) LK-99 is not a superconductor, and the authors are fraudulent.

(2) LK-99 is not a superconductor, and the authors are mistaken.

(3) LK-99 is a true superconductor, even if not a perfect one.

The research paper ends in a lofty declaration: “We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind”. Clearly the authors were aware that their discovery would not be quietly accepted and instead invite much scrutiny. The apparent ease of making the material means that replication or bust will be swift. Furthermore, the previous room-temperature superconductor “discovery” very recently ended up in retraction and shame for the author.

This is all to say that when publishing, the Korean authors were very aware that their work would be heavily scrutinized and quickly replicated. Deliberate fraud, then, seems very unlikely, though not impossible. We can reasonably assume that the authors truly believe that they have discovered a superconductor.

The name LK-99 comes from the initials of the researchers and the discovery year 1999. This means that the authors have been working on this material for a long time. The number of names in the paper is relatively small, 3 or 6, but this seems to be an irrelevant metric in analysing the validity of the paper, for the retracted superconductor paper had 9 authors.

The fact is that if LK-99 is not a superconductor and instead elicits similar properties for other reasons, it has deceived the authors for 24 years. This is plausible and cannot be ruled out. Still, 24 years is a long time to be deceived when empirical research on the material can be carried out.

We can sum these simple facts. The authors believe that they have discovered a true superconductor. If they haven’t, the material has been deceiving them for two decades.

Resultantly, my prediction is that the probability that the team discovered a true superconductor is significantly greater than 17%. The risk of mistaken attribution of the effects is still high, so from these facts I’d estimate the probability of true superconductor to be somewhere around 43%. It’s a lame prediction, granted, but such is the nature of attempting to know the unknown.

Congressional UAP Hearing

There have been many individuals in history who claim to have secret information about the existence of extraterrestrials. The ones which I have looked at have not aroused my confidence. It is a fact that, in the correct setting, claiming in public to be in-the-know about the subject is an easy way to fame. No official denials can dent your claims since everyone expects officials to deny you. Most of the time, it requires extraordinary evidence to be able to properly refute you, which often simply isn’t available. Looking at the case of David Grusch in isolation, the likeliest explanation is that he is simply making it up for whatever reason people do.

Let’s delve a bit deeper into the story of David Grusch. Note that all of the facts presented rely on the single strong assumption that Congress has done its homework and that the information presented is not called into question either by the Congress or Pentagon itself. Therefore we can reasonably assume the following information to be indisputably true.

Grusch served as the National Reconnaissance Office’s representative to U.S. Naval Intelligence’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force from 2019 to 2021. From late 2021 to July 2022 Grusch was the co-lead for the UAP analysis at the National Geospatial Intelligence and its representative to the Task Force.

This means that Grusch has, as a fact, come into contact with information about UAPs from various entities and individuals within the U.S. government and intelligence community. It is also a fact that such information and such witnesses exist, even if we make no assumptions about the origin of the phenomena.

Then we arrive at the facts which cannot be verified at this time. Grusch claims that, over his four years of working with UAPs, he interviewed 40 credible individuals who claim to have first-hand information about certain governmental entities harbouring technology and biological matter which originates from non-human intelligence. I will not delve into the specific claims here, but they are a grim read. Grusch has repeatedly emphasized that he has not personally witnessed the evidence, and that his information comes from the interviews.

So, this seems to leave us with three options.

(1) Witnesses deliberately deceived Grusch.

(2) Grusch is deliberately deceiving the public.

(3) Both witnesses and Grusch are telling the truth.

It’s possible that the witnesses are deceitful. The U.S. National Intelligence Program (the three-letter agencies) alone have over 100 000 employees, and it’s not a stretch that some 40 of them would have odd motivations to lie to the UAP Task Force. The probability of this is decreased by the fact that the Task Force would very likely have had access to the backgrounds of the individuals, thus significantly narrowing down the pool of plausible witnesses who could have worked on the subject matter. Additionally, the pool of plausible testimonies of witnesses is further narrowed by the fact that their stories would have to fit together and not contradict each other. Thus, I’d estimate that the probability of all the most important witnesses to have deceived Grusch is relatively low, but not implausible.

Then it’s possible that Grusch is deceiving the public. His background is spotless. To my knowledge, his claims about the witness testimonies have not been denied by the Task Force, where assumedly multiple people were present during the testimonies. It would seem that, if Grusch was making the testimonies up, the Task Force would have clear incentives to deny his claims immediately and absolutely. As I said, to my knowledge, they have not. This decreases the probability that Grusch is deceitful.

Another seemingly rare aspect of the claims is that they’re corroborated, at least to an extent, by another verified individual who would have had access to the same data. Karl Nell, a retired Army Colonel who was also in the Task Force, verified Grusch’s claims of the government possessing crafts of non-human origin. There is also a third official, but since they’re using a pseudonym, we forego their corroboration.

Thus, we reach unsettling odds. There are relatively few individuals who can be verified, without a doubt, to have worked on the government’s official UAP Task Force or similar entities. I can’t say about the numbers for a fact, but I doubt they have exceeded 100 names.

Of these relatively few individuals, two have come forward with their own name, with a shared story. Even if there were a bias in individuals who apply to the Task Force, it seems relatively unlikely that the small pool of people would be able to produce more than one military personnel who were willing to take part in active fraud for questionable fame. Unlikely, though not impossible.

The space of possibilities in the subject of UAPs is too wide for me to speculate on the probabilities for the larger question at this time. Looking at Grusch in isolation, he would most likely be a fraud. However, looking at Grusch in the context of his background, corroborating witnesses, and the general story, him being fraudulent seems unlikely. More probable, yet still seemingly unlikely, is that his witnesses were fraudulent.

Altogether, as things stand at the moment, Grusch is the most solid UAP whistleblower we have seen so far, and his claims are plausible given his position. The trend in both the U.S. Government and the Grusch saga are towards increased public exposure, so it seems likely that events will continue to unfold. I, for one, will be following them with an open yet critical mind.