Reverse Engineering alien tech or just a continuing technical evolution?

This is mainly about Lieutenant Colonel Corso's claims that many of todays technology, from lasers to integrated circuits are due to alien reverse engineering.

I've heard this likened to DaVinci trying to reverse engineer a nuclear submarine, and I'm wondering what the general consensus on this board is. I'm certainly open to the idea that some of the black ops projects lately have alien inspired metallurgy and propulsion, but it seems like quite a leap without a LOT of help- and in Corso's case, I just don't see how integrated circuits could advance far enough ahead to be something begotten from a crashed saucer.

Is it possible that some of these advances we're seeing today- even the possibility of anti gravity drives could be human designed? Or even that a race provided technical assistance for some reason?

I have read the book and will have to agree with the critics on this one. Lt Colonel Corso seems like a very nice man, but his book is co-written by someone who may have taken too many liberties to what was said to him. Many of the inventions that LtC Corso takes credit for have been invented by other people. There is also his statement that he walked into an unguarded tent and saw alien bodies. Now such a place would of been quite heavily guarded, but this was not. There is also no bibliography to cite what is stated in the book, a big no-no for those who want to be credible.

I also have problems with it as he states he was in charge of Research and Development, which would of been a job of a higher ranking flag officer or senior colonel at the least.

Personally, I was upset at the lack of any bibliography, as I use that section to look up more names and books on the subject. Still, it is a good read, just not very credible.

Having been a child of the fifties, I have read a lot of information put out there. I have been going back even before I was born and the extent that the government went to to quiet the public roar is very fascinating. If you really want to quiet someone, kill their credibility. Not only will you silence them but what ever cause they stand for will dissipate as well. People have been planted to claim wild and unbelievable feats with some sort of evidence. Then you find out that the evidence is faked and that person is no longer credible. Do it enough times, and pretty soon no one can be believed. This has been going on for centuries and I have seen some well know reporters get sucked in and destroyed. I spent 10 years of my life having to prove everything I said or did in a court of law. It was my job to prove that other people were not telling the truth or that they committed a crime. I have made mistakes in listening to someone tell me they were innocent only to find that the evidence showed otherwise. If a person is telling the truth, then there should be evidence to that. Now I also realize that we are dealing with some very unique situations here when it comes to UFOs and what we can find out, vs what we can't. I also know that one of the best lessons that I learned as an investigator was look at what is missing. Things that should be there that are not.

Col. Corso aside, the thing that does it for me, is history.. I went to electronics school via Uncle Sam's Navy. I always found it curious that the transistor showed up in 1947, same year as Roswell.
If that wasn't strange enough it's the history of it's evolution. The vaccume tube (which was replaced by the transistor) started out back in the late 1800's. It reached it's peak in the late forties in the sub-miniture 9 pin vaccume tube. There is no direct corollation between a vaccume tube and a transistor to show it evolved from the tube. It's like the car, compare a Ford model T to
a Dodge Viper. You can see a progression. Now compare a Ford model T to your flying disk??? There's no comparison. This is why I find the idea of back engineered alien tech. plausible.
Bill Thomas/Saberjet