UAP/UFO |OT|

Forerunner · Apr 1, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/ChrisKMellon/status/1774944351304454492

The recently released AARO Historical Report suggests secret government programs and stealthy aircraft account for a high percentage of civilian UAP sightings. Yet, they seem unable to provide a single example. More to the point, what about the military's own sightings of UAP that they know full well are not attributable to secret government programs? Why is that not fully examined and discussed?

Here's a recent case, which only became public because of an unusual "protected disclosure" by a citizen to Congress. Even then, Air Force officers refused to let some members of Congress visiting the base see the imagery of the object taken by the pilot.

Why do these Air Force officers think they have a better right to see that information than those we elect to Congress? Meanwhile, in just the last few years, the military has logged over 1,000 new UAP reports. Yet nobody in Congress, not even the Chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, seems to know the details. How many other cases are there like this?

https://twz.com/air/air-force-pilots-bizarre-encounter-with-capsule-like-craft-off-florida-declassified

Forerunner · Apr 4, 2024

Western US residents report the most UFO sightings — what are they actually seeing?

"It's difficult to explain why we have this many more sightings in the West."

www.space.com

The study, based on about 98,000 reports over 20 years as cataloged in an open-source, online dataset maintained by the National UFO Research Center (NUFORC), modeled how reported UAP sightings coincide with environmental variables such as light pollution and cloud cover, as well as things like proximity to airports and military installations. The results reveal the majority of reported sightings originate in the western U.S., along with a smaller hotspot in the northeastern U.S.

"It was completely unexpected," Richard Medina, a geographer at the University of Utah who led the study, told Space.com. "It's difficult to explain why we have this many more sightings in the West."

Pinning down the environmental context of these sightings is important when considering explanations for presumed UAP occurrences; it can also help scientists differentiate between non-results and truly anomalous sightings that may be a legitimate threat, said Medina.

He and his colleagues posit that the large number of sightings in the western U.S. can partly be explained by its wide-open spaces and all-year temperate weather, which draw people outside for recreational activities. "People are out and looking skyward," Medina said in a statement

"We make no hypotheses about what people are seeing, only that they will see more when and where they have opportunity to," the researchers write in their paper. "The question remains, however, as to what these sighting reports are of."

In this dataset, Medina and his co-authors analyzed two factors for sightings in each U.S. county. The first had to do with sky view potential, which includes the region's light pollution, cloud cover and tree canopy cover; the second dealt with the likelihood that objects in general are in the sky, which considers things like proximity to airports and military installations.

"There's more technology in the sky than ever before so the question is: What are people actually seeing?" Medina said in a statement. "It's a tough question to answer, and it is an important one because any uncertainty can be a potential threat to national security."

When the researchers started their analysis, they expected the number of UAP sightings to increase relatively slowly over time, thanks to advances in the internet that improved the ability to report. "But that's not what we see," said Medina. "We see these really unique patterns and we're not sure how to explain those."

For instance, UAP reports across two decades peaked in 2014, when 8,000 sightings were entered into the NUFORC database. Additionally, in a stark contrast to the high number of UAP sightings in the West, the Central and Southern U.S. remain woefully empty. "We really don't know at this point why there are fewer sightings in the south," said Medina. "The results we're getting are supported by the research, but we could still be wrong too," he added.

Ongoing work by Medina and his team is exploring whether there are temporal patterns in the NUFORC data. Other variables such as drone activity, science balloons and other sociocultural aspects, will also be examined to see whether they correlate with the reported sightings, Medina told Space.com.

"We're just barely getting started."

Forerunner · Apr 4, 2024

View: https://x.com/DoD_AARO/status/1775952937153368301

Forerunner · Apr 5, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/ChrisKMellon/status/1776295832347984169

Working in the US Intelligence Community for decades, aware of its immense and sophisticated global sensor networks, I longed to see what we might learn if we took the UAP issue seriously and began to use these powerful sensors to study UAP. I knew that we operated the most advanced and extensive sensor apparatus in the world, and therefore were more likely than any other nation or organization to solve this enduring enigma if we could just overcome the paralyzing stigma surrounding the issue. This JCS memo to the services and commands is the latest evidence that this is at long last happening.

As expected, once we began tasking military personnel to report UAP a few years ago, the reports started pouring in. This directive will help to further facilitate and systematize UAP reporting going forward. There have been over 1000 military UAP reports in the last few years, involving anomalies in the air, under the sea, and perhaps in space as well (no admissions from AARO yet, but we know the Air Force is concerned about unidentified objects in space). This is huge progress.

I recognize that drones and other conventional, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) account for a great many of these reports. However, there is nothing more urgent than understanding the capabilities of rapidly advancing UAV technologies and developing effective tracking systems and countermeasures. As we can see in Ukraine, even inexpensive, mass-produced UAVs are proving extremely formidable on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the general public, UAV/drones/UAP are already disrupting major military activities, not just overseas, but stateside. For example, in December, operations at Langley Air Force Base (AFB) were disrupted for weeks by unidentified UAV. The impact was so disruptive that I understand an entire fighter squadron was relocated from the base to Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana. Similar incidents in recent years have occurred at Anderson AFB Guam, various military training ranges off the East Coast, Palo Verde and other nuclear power plants, in Colorado, over a number of US warships underway at sea, and elsewhere.
This document is a testament to the fact that today's military increasingly recognizes the importance of these issues and is working to implement Congressional guidance. At a minimum, we'll be in a better position to understand the latest developments regarding UAV/UAP going forward. And if any of these anomalies prove to be evidence of major technological breakthroughs, we'll have a better chance of understanding and replicating them (in the event that allegations we are already reverse engineering such technology prove to be untrue). The alleged recovery of off-world materials is a valid but distinct topic that we can't let detract from these badly needed efforts to improve UAP/UAV collection and analysis.

Forerunner · Apr 8, 2024

A Harvard professor is risking his reputation to search for aliens. Tech tycoons are bankrolling his quest.

Avi Loeb thinks the public has a right to know the truth about UFOs. He hopes his controversial ideas backed by tech tycoons will help shed light.

www.businessinsider.com

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb thinks it's time for the scientific community to get over its bias against UFOs.

Several of Loeb's peers are galled. They say he's overreaching, repeating the axiom that an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence.

"Loeb is on a mission to find aliens. He believes he sees something in the data hundreds of experts don't, and he wants to make you believe too," Steven Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University, told Business Insider.

Loeb argues that while we haven't yet found any evidence of aliens, this may be precisely because scientists have been so reluctant to look for them.

"Obviously, they will never have extraordinary evidence if they're not seeking it," Loeb told BI. "The question of whether we are alone and whether we actually have a partner out there, a neighbor, is perhaps the most fundamental in science," he said.

"I do believe sometimes he steps a little bit too far," said Charles Hoskinson, a cryptocurrency magnate and mathematician. But this boundary-pushing is exactly why he's backed Loeb's research. "That's what you take when you take a very passionate, very aggressive type A personality that's constantly working and thinking and who wants to be right — you have to accept that every now and then they're just going to make bold statements."

This "unfortunately created a bit of a schism in the astrophysics community," said Hoskinson. He went from "one of the most respected, highly cited and loved astrophysicists" to people alleging that he was "hurting astronomy," Hoskinson said.

Rather than recant, Loeb decided he would seek more evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. "I wrote more than 1,000 papers in theoretical astrophysics. As I got older, I realized that it's more important to pay attention to evidence than to opinion and theoretical ideas," he said. In 2021, he announced that he had secured $1.75 million in funding to launch the Galileo Project, an institute devoted to seeking signs of extraterrestrial technology on and near our planet.

NASA and AARO recently scrutinized available UAP data. Both agreed that there's no proof that extraterrestrial beings or tech have ever visited the Earth.

Loeb agrees. But he also thinks government agencies are in a bad position to analyze this information. UAP reports are generally of very poor quality, and defense organizations have little incentive to push for a more thorough investigation, as they tend to be more concerned about national security than little green men.

Because these are collected as part of military operations, these reports are also mired in secrecy, which only fuels conspiracy theories, he said.

Loeb believes that to best serve the public's interest in UAPs, scientists should be at the helm. They should be collecting independent high-quality data that can be shared openly without concern for military defense. And now they have the technology to do it, between high-quality telescopes and AI that can sort through hours of video. UAPs, Loeb argues, are "low-hanging fruit" in the search for alien intelligence.

"The whole point is to bring it to the realm of science. I'm trying to change the narrative," he said

To date, The Galileo Project raised some $5 million, per Loeb, the majority of which came from private donations from multi-millionaires that he says were unsolicited.

Loeb's quest to find aliens may only just be beginning as the enthralment of anti-establishment elites is unlikely to fade in the face of growing criticism. As he plans more extravagant expeditions to prove the origin of the interstellar meteor, Loeb likens his critics to crows pecking at the neck of an eagle.

"Rather than fight the crow off, the eagle rises to greater heights where the oxygen level is too low for the crow, and so the crow drops voluntarily off the eagle's back," he said. "Similarly, I strive to rise to the greatest heights of data collection and scientific analysis where my critics will not have enough oxygen to survive."

Demon Lizardman · Apr 8, 2024

So, I guess there was an update on those "Alien Bodies"

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBodies/comments/1byavol/attorney_for_us_forensic_doctors/

Forerunner · Apr 9, 2024

View: https://x.com/RepRobertGarcia/status/1777694723781599400

Forerunner · Apr 10, 2024

View: https://x.com/ddeanjohnson/status/1778072668014563742

Forerunner · Apr 11, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/MattLaslo/status/1778590642584666375

Sen. Kelly:
"So often we don't know who these drones belong to. My suspicion is a lot of its hobbyists," Sen. Mark Kelly tells Ask a Pol. "But some of it is also very likely to be foreign nationals that are doing surveillance with low-cost systems that are somewhat expendable. And it's hard to track 'em. It's also hard to take them down."

Matt Laslo: "Hey, how are you, sir?"

Mark Kelly: "Hi."

ML: "I was struck by your questioning the other day on the persistence of — intrusion of the US airspace above sensitive military sites — were you pleased with the response?"

MK: "With drones around bases?"

ML: "Yeah."

MK: "Yeah."

ML: "How'd that get on your radar? Are you guys having those? Like I heard…"

MK: "We've had this problem in Arizona around Luke [Air Force Base in Maricopa County] and on the Barry Goldwater Range. Y'know, it's one of the bigger restricted airspaces."

ML: "Cause [Sen. Tim] Kaine brought it up with Langley. Here…"

MK: "Yeah, that happened too recently."

ML: "…and he was saying the rules of engagement in suburban areas would be different. It seems like — has that ever come up, the rules of engagement out there? Or do they not even know what they're looking at?"

MK: "So often we don't know who these drones belong to."

ML: "Yeah?"

MK: "Y'know, my suspicion is a lot of it's hobbyists."

ML: "Yeah?"

MK: "But some of it is also very likely to be, y'know, foreign nationals that are doing surveillance with low-cost systems that are somewhat expendable. And it's hard to track 'em. It's also hard to take them down."

ML: "How do you know they're drones and low-cost? Like, have they retrieved some of those?"

MK: "In some cases they have."

ML: "Yeah?"

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1778585862143455553

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1778586486796865630

Forerunner · Apr 12, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/Debriefmedia/status/1778766448761954316

...this is the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading during or after decades of government service. We all make mistakes, but this report is an outlier in terms of inaccuracies and errors. Were I reviewing this as a graduate student's thesis it would receive a failing grade for failing to understand the assignment, sloppy and inadequate research, and flawed interpretation of the data. Hopefully, long before it was submitted, the author would have consulted his or her professor and received some guidance and course correction to prevent such an unfortunate outcome.

Akira86 · Apr 12, 2024

just go ahead and torch that dude's private sector career. you think you just left an organizational turd blossom and ran for it all to be someone else's problem, Sean?

Lets watch every public servant who touches this make it an example of how NOT to leave your post when you're the org lead. Make it an example of how NOT to deliver an ordered report to Congress, and an example of how not to do government work.

bitch saw that they ordered pizza and decided to deliver a 'none pizza with left beef'. Like so many made to order hearing reports for contentious issues, he figured he'd "fill" the requirement with some busywork, go through all the motions to the fucking hilt, follow every general rule and regulation without breaking the surface, and they would let him go home.

He's probably shocked that they didn't just take his report, file it away, and put all of this UFO\UAP stuff back to bed, because he, in his opinion, certainly gave them more than enough room to do just that. Provided that no one looked to closely or questioned his methodology or his results or his conclusion.

unfortunately...people have been paying some attention...so that didn't go so well.

Forerunner · Apr 12, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1778940189756248183

SCENE: After voting on the floor of the US House of Representatives, Moskowitz was walking across the Capitol grounds on the way back to his office across the street.

Matt Laslo: "How you doin, sir?"

Jared Moskowitz: "What's going on, how you doing?"

JM: "Living the dream? It's a f'n nightmare!"

ML: "Right?"

They laugh.

ML: "Did you hear about the AARO briefing next week?"

JM: "Yeah, I'm going."

ML: "What do you hope to get out of that?"

JM: "Well, first of all, I'm glad they're doing it."

ML: "Yeah?"

JM: "I think that it's important. Look, I think I'm going to have a lot of questions on UAPs — that's what they're in charge of. We'll talk about some of Grusch's accusations, but also, you know, disclosure to the American people, right? Some of the UAPs they're able to explain, they're on their website, right? Other UAPs they're not able to explain. And they're not able to explain them away, like weather, right? I have questions about why they can't do that."

ML: "Right? Well, it seems like they've focus the conversation on what they can explain, but it's, like, no one has questions about that."

JM: "Right. Okay. If it doesn't fit into a box — like, it's this, it's a weather balloon, it's a weather anomaly — then what is it? What is it, right?"

ML: "Yeah?"

JM: "Now, we're filming these things more and more and more. People are seeing with their own eyes. Why can't they explain what they are? I think there's going to be a lot of focus on that."

ML: "Have you been a part of any discussions about David Grusch's and his security clearance?"

JM: "So that's something that's been discussed previously, right?"

ML: "Yeah?"

JM: "Because we've been trying to get him into a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility], and the reason why they were not able to do a SCIF is because, one, it won't get approved, but two, because they took his security clearance away."

ML: "But no resolve on that?"

JM: "No resolve on that."

ML: "But you're hoping for a follow-up on that next week?"

JM: "That's why we need the select committee. That's why I'm supportive of a select committee."

ML: "Was it a monetary issue? Some people said there was like $20,000 needed to get his clearance, but it sounds like this is more procedural?"

JM: "That I don't know."

ML: "Yeah? And that wouldn't make sense to me."

JM: "Yeah. That I don't know."

ML: "Yeah? Preciate you. Have a good one."

Moskowitz turns to enter the Longworth House Office Building.

JM: "Preciate ya."

Laslo to himself, repeating what Moskowitz said off mic as he entered the office building.

ML: "Preciate ya."

Akira86 · Apr 13, 2024

I appreciate the gritty multimedia experience that is an askapol interview. it sounds like he's chasing him through a parking garage, a train station and finally a subway sub shop, just to ask about UAPs and senate hearings and spy meetings, and you get the feeling like this doesn't happen often.

Its like some weird grainy holdover from a bygone era or something, asking questions. I even imagine he's holding an analog magnetic recorder, not just simply recording with his smartphone. It's not Watergate but it beats the whole Apple news, cool kids in fleece pullovers, centralized news with all the answers, sort of feeling I get from main stream mediums like WaPo and NYT and the rest of the "real big expensive" platforms.

It's interesting that the Hill and News Nation have been taking a different track to almost everyone else too, even that short period when people thought the NYT had flipped over into disclosure being a respectable topic for the mainstream. I hope it works for them and they make their bones and establish themselves in ways that Politico could only dream.

Forerunner · Apr 15, 2024

The shocking history of UFOs and nuclear weapons

A series of alarming incidents occurred at key nuclear weapons facilities in the United States.

thehill.com

But interactions between UFOs and ultra-sensitive U.S. nuclear assets date back nearly eight decades. New Mexico, ground zero for America's nuclear weapons development programs, is the site of a remarkable number of baffling, unsolved UFO incidents.

In late 1948, for example, dozens of pilots, defense personnel and scientists associated with the famed Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear weapons programs began seeing mysterious "green fireballs" in the sky. Such objects were frequently observed flying on a perfectly horizontal trajectory, often moving directly toward nearby aircraft. In 1949, two major Los Alamos conferences on the incidents, which drew the likes of famed nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller, failed to identify the source of the phenomena.

Lincoln LaPaz, then one of the world's leading authorities on meteorites, observed the "fireballs" personally and, in partnership with the Air Force, conducted a thorough study of the mysterious phenomena. As Time and Life magazines reported contemporaneously, LaPaz "blasted" the notion that the objects were meteorites, bolides or other naturally occurring phenomena.

Nearly a decade after the first "green fireball" sightings, an extraordinary UFO incident was reported at Kirtland Air Force Base, a key nuclear weapons testing and storage facility in New Mexico.

On Nov. 4, 1957, two control tower operators with more than 20 years of combined experience said they watched from a remarkably close range as an elongated wingless and engineless object descended slowly over the runway and hovered over the base's nuclear weapons storage area. The craft then shot off at a remarkable speed. Radar confirmed the presence of the unknown object, which was ultimately lost from scopes as it shadowed a departing cargo plane at an uncomfortably close distance of half a mile.

A few years later, on April 24, 1964, Socorro, New Mexico, police officer Lonnie Zamora reported observing a similarly strange, elongated UFO, this time on the ground. Upon seeing Zamora's approaching cruiser, he said, two small human-looking beings beside the UFO entered the craft, which then rapidly departed. Amid a national media frenzy, authorities mounted a sweeping investigation of the incident.

Army and Air Force officers, FBI agents and meteorite expert LaPaz all vouched for Zamora's credibility and reliability. Moreover, a passing motorist corroborated his account, stating that he had briefly observed the craft, along with Zamora's vehicle. A fellow Socorro police officer, arriving moments after the UFO would have departed, discovered a visibly shaken Zamora as well as smoldering vegetation where the craft would have been standing.

During the Cold War, British air bases RAF Lakenheath and Bentwaters hosted U.S. forces and nuclear weapons.

Over several hours on the night of Aug. 13, 1956, radar stations at Lakenheath and Bentwaters tracked multiple unidentified objects conducting extraordinary maneuvers, often at astounding speeds, in the skies above these two key nuclear-equipped bases.

The bizarre radar tracks were corroborated visually by witnesses on the ground and via radar and visually by pilots in at least two aircraft. Perhaps most remarkably — and disturbingly — radar operators watched in shock as the mysterious object outmaneuvered and subsequently chased the first of two British fighter jets scrambled to intercept it.

Twenty-four years later, it happened again. In a series of startling incidents in December 1980, the deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters and several Air Force personnel reported observing mysterious objects at close range in a forested area just south of the base. According to the deputy commander, the UFOs were also observed via radar.

The unnerving events have notable parallels to allegations by former Air Force missile officers, that UFOs had rendered nuclear weapons inoperable at Minot Air Force Base in 1966 and Malmstrom Air Force Base in 1967.

In recent years, a weeks-long series of bizarre "drone" incidents observed by dozens of individuals in rural Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming left federal and state officials stumped. Notably, some of the strange sightings were "clustered in an area that has quite a few [nuclear missile] sites."

In one instance, a Nebraska deputy sheriff reported "observing 30 to 50 [objects] flying independently of each other with a larger 'mothership' hovering for hours."

Some witnesses and media outlets undoubtedly observed planes and hobbyist drones during the 2019-20 incidents. But one of the objects passed just 200 feet above a Kansas Highway Patrol officer, who said that the brightly lit craft "made absolutely no sound at all, even though the wind was calm."

In an astounding historical parallel, over the course of three nights in 1965, more than 140 Air Force personnel stationed at the same nuclear missile silos in Wyoming and Nebraska had reported nearly 150 mysterious craft exhibiting the same characteristics — "flashing lights," "no sound" and only flying at night — as the unknown objects during the 2019-2020 incidents.

Forerunner · Apr 16, 2024

If Alien Life Is Found, How Should Scientists Break the News?

At a recent workshop, researchers and journalists debated how to announce a potential discovery of extraterrestrial life

www.scientificamerican.com

If one day scientists discover evidence of extraterrestrial life, how will they tell the world? How certain will they be of their discovery, and how will the public know what sense to make of it? Will the news cause fear, existential agony, dancing in the streets or merely a worldwide shrug? And how much will that reaction depend on the news's delivery?

During four days in February and March astrobiologists, journalists, science communicators, communications scholars, ethicists and artists got together digitally at a NASA Astrobiology Program workshop to discuss those questions.

The motley crew at the event, called "Communicating Discoveries in the Search for Life in the Universe," spent their four sessions together hashing out the lessons astrobiology could take from the past and the ways they might be applied to the future—a future in which, perhaps, scientists will find evidence of extraterrestrial biology.

But here's the problem with the future: no one can foretell it. Will a discovery of alien life ever happen? Is there any alien life? What forms might that life and its discovery take? And what will the headline writers of 2028 (or 2058 or 2888) do with all that information?

No one knows answers to those questions, but because scientists love to predict, they and the other workshop participants made educated guesses and gamed them out with an eye toward relaying information about aliens to the rest of this world. As with the question of extraterrestrial life itself, though, concrete answers and plans were hard to come by.

Scientists at the workshop and throughout history have worried that readers of news stories can't hold that uncertainty or grasp the idea that follow-up research will be required. Some are not convinced that the public is scientifically literate enough to know or be shown that science is a process. But that's perhaps an unfair assessment: often people see science as a set of settled results because that's how it's presented in public—in news stories and sometimes by scientists themselves. "At some level, we sort of hobble ourselves a bit in assuming that people can't follow along, and I think that's unfair," Meadows says. In the workshop discussions, journalists called for agencies such as NASA to be more forthcoming, candid and timely—which would allow reporters to access the information and scientist sources they need to write about potential discoveries in a nuanced way. Many (though not all) scientists agreed, expressing frustration with the many levels of permission required to do public interviews and with statements carefully crafted by committee much too slowly for the news cycle.

At the conclusion of the workshop, participants tried to sum up their conclusions in shared Google docs, to mixed success. If there was one takeaway, it was that attendees of all sorts thought news of potential alien discoveries shouldn't shy away from the caveats: good public reporting should talk about uncertainty, include criticism, discuss the arduous process of confirmation and be honest about how far in the future a yes or no to the "aliens?" question is likely to be. That kind of communication demonstrates transparency and gives important context, even if a headline doesn't.

Much of the workshop's discussion, somewhat contradictorily, was nonetheless about how scientists and agencies such as NASA could coordinate messages that reach the public about those same discoveries. Crafting a message so tightly, though, doesn't typically engender trust or read as transparent—something journalists pointed out in discussions. And besides, it rarely works: Plan a big, choreographed press conference for your best biosignature candidate for Tuesday at 8:14 A.M. EDT, and someone can leak the results Sunday at zero dark thirty. If you write an understated headline for your press release, be prepared for a tabloid (or digital publication hungry for traffic) to run with "NASA Finds Aliens!!!"

Another communication complication, according to the Zoom meeting attendees, is that a significant proportion of the public thinks that we already have found aliens. And who can blame people? Headlines have suggested as much over and over for years for titillating false alarms or inconclusive results. If a statement includes the words "found aliens," that's, sensibly, the part that sticks, even if it also says "might have," and "possibly"—especially if it meshes with a reader's, watcher's or listener's existing worldview.

To nobly convey uncertainty, the nature of the scientific process and ongoing debate, then, means to first debunk incorrect information. The fact that that incorrect information is out there, though, also suggests that maybe the discovery of extraterrestrials wouldn't actually be that Earth-shattering. After all, people who think aliens are among us have just gone on with their life

No matter how scripted a press conference is, people are going to think what they're going to think—and people being people, they're going to think a cornucopia of things. We have to "be real," Rugheimer says, about how the next potential alien discovery might go down. "Someone is going to find something they think is cool. They're going to try to publish it first. They're going to be overinflated in what that discovery is," she says.

Forerunner · Apr 16, 2024

https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/UAP_RECORDS_RESEARCH/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf?ver=BjOpTzFISPc0LWMw5uAzzw%3d%3d

View: https://twitter.com/blackvaultcom/status/1780293436647841855

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) first learned of the KONA BLUE program from interviews conducted as part of its historical review. Multiple interviewees identified KONA BLUE as a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sensitive compartment established to protect the retrieval and exploitation of "non-human biologics." AARO researched the information provided by the interviewees and learned KONA BLUE was a Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP) that had been proposed to DHS leadership but was never approved or formally established. KONA BLUE never received any materials or funding, and there is no information beyond the proposal presentation marked with the KONA BLUE name.

AARO traced the origin of the proposal for KONA BLUE to the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program (AAWSAP)/Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) program, which was managed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from 2009-2012 and funded through congressional earmarks. Bigelow Aerospace, headquartered in Nevada, served as the primary contractor executing funds for the program and delivered multiple reports during the period of their contract. DIA terminated the program due to a cited lack of merit and lack of utility in the products Bigelow produced for DIA's mission.

When DIA canceled AAWSAP/AATIP, several individuals involved with that program advocated for DHS to take the effort over and fund a new version of AAWSAP/AATIP under the code name "KONA BLUE." According to the proposal, KONA BLUE would continue the work previously undertaken by DIA's AAWSAP/AATIP to investigate, identify, and analyze sensitive materials and technologies, to include advanced aerospace vehicles. In 2011, the DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology (S&T) established KONA BLUE as a PSAP based on claims that relevant information and material existed and required this level of protection. The Under Secretary (S&T) also cited congressional interest in the subject and possible impacts on
homeland security as part of the justification for the program. Six months later, however, the Deputy Secretary of DHS disapproved KONA BLUE as a Special Access Program (SAP), and further directed its immediate termination citing concerns about the adequacy of justification for the program, and sufficiency of information central to the proposal development, including personnel and budget requirements.

It is critical to note that while some DHS personnel believed that relevant information and material would be delivered to DHS upon establishment of the SAP, no data or material of any kind was ever transferred to or collected by DHS under the auspices of KONA BLUE. Information associated with the activities conducted under the auspices of AAWSAP/AATIP remains within DIA's archived holdings.

This archived PSAP proposal and associated documents have been declassified in partnership between DoD and DHS and are being released to the public in accordance with both agencies' commitment to transparency.

Other than a single instance of Attorney-Client material redacted from page 38 by DHS, all redactions were made by the Department of Defense.

Demon Lizardman · Apr 16, 2024

So, how big of a deal is this?

Akira86 · Apr 16, 2024

seems like a mix between proof that they have a kitchen and that they DO in fact cook, and also a dead end that it seems they expect people to see and just turn around to stop looking because "UFOS and the idea of flying saucers are ridiculous, so you should expect to see a failed attempt at a project...and here it is because of course, and oh look, they rejected it because it stinks"

So Kona Blue was about to be a new classification subsection, cut out for "unidentified phenomenon" programs and projects to sit under?

Top Secret\KB\NOFORN? how often has that happened and can they find other examples or was this pulled out for people to see specifically? Like is this a good example to look at for how they might structure a hypothetical ufo\uap recovery SAP? Or is it possibly just dust and fluff people don't mind going public?

Forerunner · Apr 17, 2024

SETI chief says US has no evidence for alien technology. 'And we never have'

"The idea that the government is keeping something like this secret is just totally absurd. There's no motivation to do so."

www.space.com

"We don't have any evidence of any credible source that would indicate the presence of alien technology in our skies. And we never have," said Bill Diamond, president and chief executive officer of the SETI Institute, headquartered in Mountain View, California. "The idea that the government is keeping something like this secret is just totally absurd. There's no motivation to do so."

Diamond said that, while we should not outright rule out the possibility that we might someday discover evidence of alien technology in our skies, "we should equally not jump to the conclusion that UFOs are alien technology in the absence of any compelling evidence to that effect. And there is no compelling evidence," he contends.

Lastly, the SETI Institute leader said if the government actually believed in ET buzzing our planet, where's the study money?

"The lack of government funding to study UAP/UFO is evidence of either the government being quite certain that there's nothing to these accidental observations — or — the government preferring that we not use available technology to closely watch our skies because of our own human technologies that are being developed — in secret," said Diamond.

"I think that's the most compelling bit of evidence against the idea that we've got visitors in our skies," Diamond concluded.

mrbogus · Apr 17, 2024

Forerunner said:
SETI chief says US has no evidence for alien technology. 'And we never have'

"The idea that the government is keeping something like this secret is just totally absurd. There's no motivation to do so."

www.space.com

Par for the course for SETI. They ignore any and all UFO reports regardless of the quality.

Forerunner · Apr 17, 2024

View: https://x.com/JoeKhalilTV/status/1780588975314424239

TheBee · Apr 17, 2024

AARO surely just going to toe the line of their recent report?

Forerunner · Apr 17, 2024

View: https://x.com/RepRobertGarcia/status/1780641947104793027

Forerunner · Apr 17, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1780661703375553017

Forerunner · Apr 17, 2024

lol

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1780735211199705432

Forerunner · Apr 17, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1780755022889771449

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1780760794675761442

"It was a nothing burger," Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)

"There's no reason any of that stuff was told in a SCIF," Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN)

Elevator opens: Luna and Burchett, confused, exit.

Luna: "How do we get outta here?"

Laslo: "Back to your office or [the House] floor?"

Luna: "Back to my office."

Laslo turns to Ogles.

Laslo: "See? Told you I was gonna beat em up there!"

Laslo points their way out, as they laugh.

Laslo: "Nothing?"

Burchett: "Ask her."

Luna: "It was literally — it was a nothing burger."

Laslo: "Really?"

Luna: "Yup."

Laslo: "So now how do you guys — what's the next step?"

Burchett: "There's no reason any of that stuff was told in a SCIF."

Laslo: "Yeah?"

Ogles: "Other than we just can't talk about it."

Luna: "Yeah. It was a nothing burger."

Laslo: "Have any of you been able to look at that Kona Blue? Declassified?"

Burchett: "I just saw it just today, I haven't looked at it."

Luna: "I have to check it out."

Laslo: "Do you guys feel like AARO's delivering on their congressional mandate?'

Luna: "I mean, they showed up, yeah."

Laslo's in back closer to Burchett and can't quite make out what Luna's saying…

Burchett: "Of disinformation?"

Laslo: "I mean, if you guys funded em, started em two years ago — before some of y'all were here — you guys, ultimately, are their bosses?"

Burchett: "It was tucked into another bill. It wasn't what we had. I mean, it wasn't in the bill we [woulda] funded."

Laslo: "What do you make of their Senior Technical Advisory Board?"

Burchett: "I don't think anything of anything."

Laslo: "Yeah?"

Burchett: "Because it's just. I just don't get a lot of information from them."

Laslo: "I mean, over on the Senate side, now, we're getting a ton of complaints about incursions over US military bases and nuclear sites."

Burchett: "We're not getting anything."

Laslo: "Yeah?"

Burchett: "I'm sorry."

Laslo: "What's you make it their report though? Because they think that's definitive."

Some guy in the Longworth Tunnel does a quick introduction of Miss America — who's walking the opposite dingy direction in the tunnel — to Rep. Luna, who he says she's meeting with tomorrow am (so. why'd. you. interrupt. the. congresswoman. fleeing. Ask Pol. questions. now. bro…).

Burchett: "I'm just — once again. Once again, I just feel like the whole thing is disinformation. I mean, it's so compartmentalize that we're not going to get information and we're told stuff in the SCIF that shouldn't be classified and it is."

Laslo: "Do you feel like part of it's they don't know?"

Burchett: "Yeah. That's where the compartmentalization aspect is."

Laslo: "So that makes them useless?"

Burchett: "I mean, that's federal government in a nutshell."

Laslo: "Yeah? So now how do you guys for the next public?"

Burchett: "We got to have a president that just says: 'Release it all.'

Laslo: "Yeah?"

Burchett: "Yeah, that's the only way it's gonna happen."

Laslo: "I was talking to Rep. Glenn Grothman earlier…"

Forerunner · Apr 18, 2024

Rep. Tim Burchett on UFOs: ‘Yeah, I think there’s a cover up’

Following a classified briefing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as UFOs, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) suggested Wednesday that the U.S. government may be intentionall…

thehill.com

Following a classified briefing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as UFOs, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) suggested Wednesday that the U.S. government may be intentionally concealing information on these objects from the American public.

"I think there's a cover up," Burchett told Blake Burman on NewsNation's "The Hill."

"There are tens of millions of dollars that we've spent investigating these things. We've had departments tell us that they have recovery units, but they won't release full reports. Everything's covered up," Burchett added.

When asked why he suspected a "cover up", Burchett pointed to the vast financial and technological gains that could be made, should evidence of extraterrestrial life become public, asserting that the American people would be able to "handle" such knowledge.

"It might be the fact that it's just plain arrogance—they don't think we deserve it," Burchett said.

"I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with high-ranking officials that have told me that America really can't handle this stuff. It's not their position to tell me who or what I can handle. We're Americans, we ought to be able to take it, give it to us," Burchett continued.

Forerunner · Apr 18, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/blackvaultcom/status/1780946022145130550

Timeline of AARO's Attempts to Engage David Grusch:

June 8-13, 2023: Initial contact was made with known associates of Grusch, urging them to have him speak with AARO. These efforts were clarified during dialogues between AARO's Director and individuals close to Grusch.

June 26, 2023: AARO staff reached out directly for Grusch's contact details and extended an interview invitation, which Grusch declined.

June 28, 2023: After Grusch's congressional testimony, AARO sought any verifiable information he might have shared with Congress.

July 27, 2023: Further attempts to arrange an interview through another associate of Grusch, who was meeting him the following day.

October 6, 2023: A secure call was made to encourage Grusch to participate in a formal interview.

November 10, 2023: Grusch agreed to be interviewed on November 14, after Congressional staff urged his cooperation.

November 14, 2023: Grusch failed to appear at the scheduled interview, expressing doubts about AARO's authorization to handle classified information.

November 19, 2023: AARO contacted Grusch again, reiterating their authorization and inviting him to discuss his claims, which he declined.

January 8, 2024: AARO provided additional documentation to address Grusch's concerns about confidentiality and classification handling, maintaining a standing invitation for an interview.

As noted in the above email also released in the records, there was a scheduled meeting with Grusch after he finally agreed to meet. However, he never showed, and seemingly even left them waiting in the lobby at the agreed meeting time and location.

Grusch later apologized in an email, but alluded to his no-show being tied to what he felt were unanswered questions that he wanted addressed prior to the meeting.

One example of the latter were text message exchanges between Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the Director of AARO at the time they were written, on the encrypted text messaging system known as Signal. These messages reveal Mellon attempting to mediate between Grusch and AARO to clarify misunderstandings about AARO's legal capacities.

Note: Mellon's texts are in the grey/white and Kirkpatrick is in blue/white.

Through Mellon, Grusch was asking why AARO just did not get their information from the Inspector General's office, as Kirkpatrick then explained due to the "criminal investigation" aspect of the material, they would not have access to it until the IG decided to release it. However, Kirkpatrick explained that Grusch still was able to give his testimony and evidence to AARO directly, outside of the criminal investigation.

Kirkpatrick labels Grusch's assertions and Mellon's response to him as "absurd and false" during the exchange.

Another exchange showed how Kirkpatrick told Mellon he was "… defending and adjudicating, and [Mellon was] undermining the very organization [he]purported to help establish for this purpose." Mellon's response was that he never claimed Grusch's claims were "accurate" but he felt Grusch was "sincere and credible." His full response is above. (Note: The message appears to have been cut off. An appeal has been filed for the rest of it under the "Read More" link, as shown in the screen shot).

Forerunner · Apr 18, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/blackvaultcom/status/1780965991373222153

Signed by Major General David W. Abba, Director of the DoD's Special Access Program Central Office (SAPCO), this memo from March of 2023 stated that AARO was "authorized" to receive all information relating to "sensitive U.S. Government (USG) information, activities, and/or materials," even if they are subject to an NDA or bound by a security oath.

David Grusch was free and clear to relay his UAP related information to AARO without repercussion, all the way up to a TOP SECRET level.

TheBee · Apr 20, 2024

View: https://youtu.be/3I5I1G3iLR0?si=wnGpyC2bBifgA8kX

Forerunner · Apr 21, 2024

Drones or UFOs? Alarming incursions demand answers

Over the last five years, a series of bizarre — and remarkably brazen — “drone swarms” have overwhelmed key Department of Defense facilities and assets, including nuclear missile silos.

thehill.com

The U.S. military is confronting an unsettling phenomenon. Over the last five years, a series of bizarre — and remarkably brazen — "drone swarms" have overwhelmed key Department of Defense facilities and assets, including nuclear missile silos. Notably, some of the objects appear to exhibit unconventional technology.

As Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated on April 9, "We see consistent incursions around sensitive government facilities."

Despite the U.S. government's sweeping investigative authorities and abilities, the puzzling incidents remain a mystery. None have been decisively tied to foreign or domestic actors.

In December 2023, for example, large numbers of unidentified "drones" appeared regularly over Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

According to the Air Force, the base experienced "multiple incursions throughout the month." The incidents were so perplexing that the Air Force called in a special NASA aircraft equipped with what may be the world's most sophisticated airborne camera to gather data on the mysterious objects.

In 2019, dozens of unknown "drones" stalked some of the U.S. Navy's most advanced warships off the coast of Southern California.

Over the course of several weeks, mysterious objects hovered and maneuvered around the Navy vessels, prompting a sweeping, multi-jurisdictional investigation. Importantly, some of the more perplexing incidents took place nearly 200 miles off the coast of San Diego. The imagery released publicly shows indistinct, seemingly round objects.

In one intriguing video associated with the incursions, a spherical object descends slowly into the ocean approximately 120 miles off the California coast. In a similar incident the following day, sailors aboard a different Navy vessel observed an object "splashing" into the sea some 160 miles off the coast.

Perhaps most notably, in late 2019 and early 2020, swarms of dozens if not hundreds of unknown drone-like objects left countless residents and law enforcement officials in rural Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming perplexed. The "creepy" incidents received significant media coverage, including in the New York Times and several national network news outlets.

In another incident, internal Federal Aviation Administration emails describe an object "flying low [but] no engine-propeller noise could be heard."

One of the unknown objects also passed just 200 feet over a Kansas Highway Patrol officer. Somehow, the brightly lit craft "made absolutely no sound at all, even though the wind was calm."

Yet another witness, a retired meteorologist, heard "no sound" as one of the objects "hovered," alarmingly, "over a [nuclear] missile command station within sight of his farm."

Perhaps most perplexingly, FAA emails note that "there are several reports that indicate the drones are operating in coordination with a 'Big Drone' that may be stationary in the area."

This larger object, according to the emails, "also described as a 'Mother Ship,' is said to hover while all the others fly around in close proximity."

In one bizarre incident, a Nebraska deputy sheriff reported "observing 30 to 50 [objects] flying independently of each other with a larger 'mothership' hovering for hours."

Some of these objects also reportedly flew in "adverse weather conditions," including "hovering" in winds of "30 mph with 40-plus mph gusts." A briefing document prepared for the FAA administrator noted that sheriffs from several Colorado counties reported that the objects flew for "several hours at a time in less than optimum flying conditions (high winds and storm-like conditions)."

Following an exhaustive, multi-agency investigation, the FAA concluded "with high confidence" that the odd incidents were "not covert military activities," which only deepens the mystery.

Beyond the remarkable parallels between the 1965 and 2019-2020 incidents, no drones or other conventional aircraft capable of such flight characteristics existed 60 years ago, adding still more complexity to the mystery.

Regardless of the nature of the enigmatic objects appearing in close proximity to military installations and assets, the glaring national security vulnerabilities involved mean that Congress must demand answers on this seemingly decades-long phenomenon.

Forerunner · Apr 21, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1782062761939190014

SCENE: Grothman's walking through the US Capitol when Ask a Pol's Matt Laslo sees him, to his initial annoyance…

Matt Laslo: "Hey, how you doing sir?"

Glenn Grothman: "Good."

ML: "Are you going to that SCIF briefing today with AARO or no?"

GG: "Not that I know of."

ML: "Any update on the UAP hearing?"

GG: "No."

ML: "No?"

Grothman and Laslo walk through a little crowd as they exit the Capitol, as the congressman's heading back to his office.

Visitor: "Sorry!"

GG: "We're gonna do something though."

ML: "'We're gonna do something'?"

GG: "Is the SCIF thing, is that on that?"

ML: "That's UAP Caucus members. Burlison spearheaded it, him and Burchett. It was kind of last minute though."

GG: "Oh."

ML: "Do you — is this, I mean, with the election drawing nearer and your plate full, is this issue falling off or because it's so bipartisan…?"

GG: "No. We plan on doing it. It's not because it's bipartisan. We don't have the facts yet, so we're gonna do something else about it."

ML: "Eventually?

GG: "Yeah."

ML: "You think it'll be before the election or after?"

GG: "Probably before."

ML: "'Probably before'?"

Grothman nods in agreement.

ML: "Cool. I'll be watching. Thank you sir."

Forerunner · Apr 22, 2024

John Oliver did a bit on UFOs tonight, and it was good.

View: https://twitter.com/LastWeekTonight/status/1782452927753224326

Orange Piccolo · Apr 22, 2024

Hopefully there's a follow-up, because excluding any mention of Grusch seems like a huge oversight.

Forerunner · Apr 22, 2024

View: https://youtu.be/zRdhoYqCAQg

Forerunner · Apr 22, 2024

John Oliver on UFOs: ‘There needs to be room for honest inquiry’

The Last Week Tonight host looks into speculation, study and cover-ups about unidentified flying objects in the US

www.theguardian.com

John Oliver took on the tricky, potentially fun topic of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) on Sunday evening – a "difficult subject to talk about", the Last Week Tonight host noted, "because UFOs tend to get discussed in one of two ways". The first is "wildly speculative", such as claiming Renaissance painters depicted alien invaders. And the second way is outright dismissal "with borderline contempt".

"There needs to be room for honest inquiry," he concluded, "because science is all about collecting small answers that eventually help us address big questions."

Forerunner · Apr 22, 2024

Another Signal Exchange...

This is the type of information that has caused some of us to take allegations of recovered off-world materials seriously.

christopherkmellon.substack.com

As you can see, this senior government official claimed they were being granted access to an alleged U.S. alien technology recovery and exploitation program. I won't comment on the organization they worked for, but I can confirm the individual had plausible access and was high-ranking; considerably more so than whistleblower Dave Grusch. As you can see, this individual claimed to be gaining deep insights into the program and even provided the name of the alleged Air Force 'gatekeeper' for this alleged secret realm. I've shared an unredacted copy of this message with some staff and members of the various Congressional oversight committees. To the best of my knowledge, none have elected to contact the alleged USAF gatekeeper to check the veracity of this claim.

It is important to stress that regardless of the alleged technology recovery issue, the UAP topic is one that requires serious continued Congressional and Executive branch attention. In just the last few years alone, over 1,000 military UAP reports have been recorded. This is in addition to a wider pattern of mysterious and disruptive drone overflights over U.S. bases and warships. Fighter aircraft from Langley Air Force Base recently had to be relocated after weeks of drone overflights at Langley that the Air Force seemed impotent to address. The Air Force still does not know who was operating those craft or where they came from. And it is not just Langley, there have been many similar unsolved cases elsewhere in recent years. These include incidents at Anderson Air Force Base's sensitive facilities on Guam; a large region of the United States containing U.S. ICBM missile silos; Navy vessels off both the east and west coasts have been extensively surveilled; USAF training ranges in Arizona have been violated, and more. If we didn't have a culture of trying to shame and humiliate military personnel who see and report unusual things, the military would undoubtedly have many other credible reports to evaluate. With such extraordinary demonstrated vulnerabilities, far more serious than a mere Chinese balloon, there is an urgent need for our government to aggressively investigate incursions of restricted military airspace regardless of the truth of any allegations about recovered off-world technology.

I share the message below with some trepidation. I worry about the privacy of the author and the privacy of the USAF individual whose name I've redacted. I worry too that some will mistakenly assume this is a smoking gun document and all we have to do now is get the author to step forward. However, it is important to note that this individual now claims that although they became aware of the program, they were ultimately denied access. The author of the message still believes there are recovered materials, but they admit they have not seen or touched a recovered craft. So, unfortunately, this individual would not be able to put this issue to rest, even if they were willing to come forward (which they are not).

I wanted to share this with the public simply to help others better understand the kind of information that has caused some of us to take allegations of recovered off-world materials seriously. What would anyone think who received a message like this? Further, this is only one of a number of sources, four of whom I successfully introduced to AARO. However, this individual, and another very compelling witness, still refuse to meet with AARO because they do not trust the process. They might however be willing to speak with a small group of members of Congress behind closed doors. I will continue to explore that possibility.

View: https://twitter.com/ChrisKMellon/status/1782523046995083751

Forerunner · Apr 24, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/Debriefmedia/status/1783162391338815697

Originally established in France in the late 1970s, the French Group for the Study and Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (GEIPAN), an official division of the French national space agency CNES, has long been tasked with the examination of UAP. From its launch in 1977 until 1988, the program operated under the name GEPAN, and then as SEPRA between 1988 and 2004. The program officially adopted its current designation, GEIPAN, in September 2005.

Recently, The Debrief was able to speak with Frédéric Courtade, the new chief of GEIPAN, which currently sorts UAP sighting reports into four categories: 1) UAP A: Identified Phenomenon (24.6 %), 2) UAP B: Probably identified Phenomenon (39.7%), 3) UAP C: Unidentified Phenomenon due to lack of data (32.4%), and 4) UAP D: Unidentified Phenomenon after investigation (3.3%).

Baptiste Friscourt: Hello, Mr. Courtade. You are the new head of the GEIPAN, you have a degree in materials science, you have 20 years of expertise/investigation of materials within the expertise laboratory of the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), then five years on the development of scientific instruments in planetology and exobiology as part of a project to prepare for the future, and most recently four years as manager of the Space Mechanisms and Equipment for Satellite Attitude Control department. Can you tell us what GEIPAN's mission is and how it differs from other organizations involved in research into Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena?

Frédéric Courtade: GEIPAN, as its name suggests, is a study and information group on unidentified aerospace phenomena. This service is attached to the digital technical department of CNES. We are based in Toulouse, and we have the resources to investigate reports of unidentified aerospace phenomena reported to us by French citizens. The GEIPAN is legitimate in France. We carry out a pre-characterization and, if necessary, investigations to try to identify what has astonished these citizens – sometimes arousing their curiosity, sometimes worrying them – using a network of volunteer investigators recruited and trained by the GEIPAN which covers the entire country.

Our investigations are published on a website which is accessible to the public worldwide. Our work is monitored by a supervisory committee, COPEIPAN (Steering Committee for Studies and Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena), chaired by an independent authority within French institutions and comprising civil, military, and scientific authorities and any other person with significant expertise in UAP.

Today, GEIPAN is housed by CNES, it has legitimacy, and I have an operating budget that enables me to carry out investigations and to ensure the impartiality of the results of these investigations.

We do, of course, consult associations and certain organizations that are run by scientists in Europe, but from an operational point of view, I would say that this autonomy of means enables us to be completely impartial, whatever the testimony that is given to us. We investigate facts for which the witness has given us prior authorization for publication, whatever the result.

BF: Since 2017 there have been declarations by former US administration and defense officials on the subject. Does GEIPAN have a view on these statements, declaring that UAP also represent national defense vulnerabilities?

FC: I have no particular position on what is being done in the United States. GEIPAN is hosted by CNES, which has always been under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense, and the decision was made at the time (1977) for CNES, which is responsible for civil and military space issues, to manage these phenomena. I don't think that's the case in the United States, or it used to be, but it isn't any more – there's perhaps a tendency to change once more.

So the fact that this matter is being handled by military authorities who, by their very nature, are not supposed to communicate, may suggest that they want to avoid saying things and discourage some people from speaking up, in the face of this lack of communication. When you cultivate secrecy, it sometimes awakens fantasies.

C: There were a lot of cases of confusion in the 80s around American stealth bomber tests and UFO sightings. In the case of France, how would you deal with a case that is sent to GEIPAN where, after investigation, you realize that it was a French military prototype?

FC: Up until now, the Directorate General for Armaments has communicated quite openly with us. Without actually telling us what happened, but saying: "something happened there, we can reassure you, there's nothing dangerous".

We relayed information about the hypersonic glider tests, the missile tests… The army communicates quite openly, and our official collaboration with the air and space force through the CNOA, the National Air Operations Centre, is very positive. Even without telling us what really happens, that allows us to respond and reassure the population.

BF: There were hearings this summer with a whistleblower – a former American intelligence officer – who stated that there were secret programmes in the United States, carrying out tests on recovered materials.

Has GEIPAN ever been involved in collecting debris from anything that might have been found and can it carry out material expertise, given that this is part of your personal expertise?

FC: Yes, I've done it in the past, on material that had been found at an observation scene and we didn't demonstrate any extraordinary origin. We're currently working on an expert report on material found during an observation reported to us by the SIGMA 2 association of 3AF, with which we're trying to work with the CNES expert laboratory, which is developing a whole range of analysis and expert report techniques that enable us to go back quite a long way to the origin, both elementary and chemical, of what we can see. A priori, we haven't found any signature that would lead us to think that it came from somewhere else.

Forerunner · Apr 24, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/DoD_AARO/status/1783215130076959000

AARO assesses the reported UAP very likely was an ordinary object and was not exhibiting anomalous or exceptional characteristics or flight behaviors. AARO has moderate confidence in this assessment due to the limited data provided.

Forerunner · Apr 24, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/AskaPol_UAPs/status/1783289562493579768

Matt Laslo: "Spoken to Timothy Phillips yet? Over at AARO, [Sean] Kirkpatrick's replacement?

Rubio shakes head no.

ML: "Do you have any — what have you thought about that declassified report they put out? Like, what is AARO doing these days?"

Marco Rubio: "Theoretically, they're supposed to determine — I mean, everyone's interested in the look-back and all those other things, but the most important thing is determining a process for reporting unidentified aircraft, primarily for purposes of preventing strategic surprise. So I hope that's what they continue to focus on, because that's what they're supposed to be focused on."

ML: "But then talking to [Sen. Kirsten] Gillibrand, [Sen. Mike] Rounds, [Sen. Tim] Kaine complains about it over Langley. Like, they just say they were supposed to— [Sen.] Mark Kelly was complaining about it last week — this persistent problem of intrusion over US airspace..."

MR: "Yeah, it's a very serious problem. People always want to immediately default to, y'know, aliens and extraterrestrial, but the fact of the matter is if there are things flying overhead in our country that aren't supposed to be there and they aren't ours, that should be among our highest priorities. That's really what we're trying to address here."

ML: "Yeah? Thanks."

Reporter: "Sir, do you anticipate any changes to the House TikTok bill and the newest version that looks expected to come over?"

MR: "I don't know what they're going to add to it over there..."

Forerunner · Apr 25, 2024

Forerunner said:
View: https://twitter.com/DoD_AARO/status/1783215130076959000

Even Mick West doesn't agree with AARO on this one.

View: https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1783285652102222207

Forerunner · Apr 25, 2024

‘The announcement we’ve found alien life could be just a couple of years away’

Lisa Kaltenegger is an expert on the hunt for extraterrestrials – and says the biggest surprise would be if there’s nothing out there

www.telegraph.co.uk

What then, of the former US Air Force officer David Grusch, who testified at an American House of Representatives sub-committee last year that, in his time on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, he had seen documents that showed the existence of a secretive UFO-retrieval programme; that America possesses multiple spacecraft of alien origin and that "non-human biologics" were found at an alien crash site?

Kaltenegger wrote her book "a little bit with that in mind", she says. "Because I think people are very, very smart, and actually do start to doubt these things when it's just a little too convenient. But there's not much out there that's easily accessible that tells you, be careful if somebody wants to sell you this and what are the questions you should ask.

"When I see that [testimony], honestly what I think is, 'Oh God, I wish this were true.' That would be so much easier if we had aliens coming here. Because the search for chemical make-up, and gas as a biosignature, it's hard, even with the biggest telescopes we have."

The idea that we are constantly being visited by interstellar entities, she suggests, begs the question, why? – given the technological gulf between us and any intelligent life-form capable of interstellar travel. "We are in the infancy of space exploration. We have boots on the moon, but we don't even have boots on Mars," she says. "We are not the place that you would go to."

All this plays in her head when she sees pronouncements like Grusch's, she says. "This is where the scientific method is so important. This snake oil is probably not going to help you." If it was their health, people would ask for a second opinion, she stresses. "It's funny that some people suspend that thinking when it comes to somebody trying to sell them evidence of alien life." At the very least, she says, people should not give it credence without a "second independent team for us to confirm it. That's the least thing." Her own methodology, she says, "is a much stronger evidence-based search tool".

In Kaltenegger's world, though, there is excitement about four potentially life-supporting planets found orbiting the red dwarf star Trappist-1, a mere 40 light years from Earth, in 2017. "The James Webb Space Telescope is observing these planets right now," she says. "We have a chance to find the gases on these worlds. And to figure out if there's biosignatures on them within the next, let's say, five to 10 years." The time frame, even with the wonders of a space telescope, is necessary because of the difficulties of building a clear picture of an exoplanet with so much light interference from the star itself. It takes time.

But, Kaltenegger says: "If life is everywhere, it can be in that system. It may be that we need to observe 100 systems before we find life, or 1,000. But it could also be that we just need to observe one system." If that's the case, she says, then the announcement that we're not alone, "could be just a couple of years from now".

Kaltenegger "absolutely" hopes that she'll find what she's looking for in her lifetime. The introduction of AI, she says, is a step forward to compare with the invention of the computer. "AI is incredibly good at deciphering, 'Oh, this is like 20 per cent of green vegetation, 40 per cent of water and 30 per cent of ice.' Now we have something that can pattern recognise."

Designs have been drawn up, too, for a next-generation space telescope – the Habitable Worlds Observatory.

But, she insists, "I think that science is a beautiful web of ideas that spreads through time. Even if we can't find it in my lifetime, the ideas we put together, the things we put into place are the stepping stones that will allow the next generations to do it."

Arn · Apr 26, 2024

It's an interesting interview. I do struggle more and more with science trying to rationalise things that none of us really understand. The point around why would anything travel here is beyond her analysis because she doesn't really know what "anything", "travel" or "here" actually are at a zoomed out level. We have scientific theories for the physical nature of our existence and our position in the universe, or within one specific reality, but we just don't know anything beyond that. I appreciate the work science does and it's incredibly important to our continued understanding of things, but I still feel like we're fiddling about in the dark and aren't able to take rational, conclusive positions on such hypotheticals at this stage.

Grunty · Apr 28, 2024

Idon't agree with her thinking that we'd be insignificant and not be interesting to visit just because they're possibly more intelligent than us and capable of interstellar travel. Regardless of their capabilities, I think finding intelligent life period is more than enough reason to want to visit.

Akira86 · Apr 28, 2024

I tend to agree with you, Grunty, that any form of life would be interesting enough to stop and look at, unless it's so plentiful and ubiquitous that you can take it for granted. And we already know it isn't. Intelligent life would be notable just for that detail, and there's nothing limiting the interest to physical space. That's just our limited point of reference, there could be a multitude of "out theres" out there, and if for some reason something sensed us, they would do the thing that intelligence logically does.

There are countless scientists and scholars and laypersons who have a high interest in, collect, and even make a living studying ants. The insignificance isn't exclusive because many of us could be considered as a simple number among many. And we are plentiful enough for the argument to be ironic.

I don't really vibe with her conventional stance, but she has that necessary optimism a space scientist should have. I just wish newspapers and journalists would stop asking these people about Grusch, especially in the contexts of their life's work and their academic research, where they would have more use for a wad of bubblegum in the hair than they would for a government whistleblower. It's not even close to being the same conversation and the media probably knows that. So they will consistently get feedback about trust and snakeoil and framing as the public being sold something, when it's literally them jamming one subject in the middle of another to get some awkward soundbite.

ced · Apr 28, 2024

No one going to post Greenwald's FOIA results regarding Grusch and AARO? It's a long video but to sum it up AARO made many attempts to interview Grusch, all were rejected.

View: https://youtu.be/3GNITLBj0hM?si=3gSQ0tQseCLJ-Pgq

Akira86 · Apr 28, 2024

ced said:
No one going to post Greenwald's FOIA results regarding Grusch and AARO?

scroll up, back to 10 days ago I guess?

ced · Apr 28, 2024

Akira86 said:
scroll up, back to 10 days ago I guess?

Video is 1 day old, but yes I missed the article.

Forerunner · May 1, 2024

The Pentagon is lying about UFOs

The decades-long “nothing-to-see-here” approach to UFOs continues, unabated.

thehill.com

In a case resolution report published last week, the Pentagon's UFO analysis office concluded with "moderate" confidence that the object observed by the pilot was a balloon, likely "a large commercial lighting balloon."

This so-called explanation insults the intelligence of any reader who takes a few moments to review the details of the incident. It did not convince the world's most prominent UFO skeptic. The pilot's sketch of the object, described as akin to an "Apollo spacecraft," bears no plausible resemblance to the design of any known industrial lighting balloon.

I called the Florida-based company that produces the high-end commercial lighting balloons alluded to by the UFO office. According to the firm, it is unheard of that such industrial-grade tethered balloons would spontaneously float away. In a brief video, Emmy-winning lighting designer Matt Ford, who has used the lighting balloons in question, detailed the sheer absurdity of the Pentagon's explanation.

The Pentagon, astoundingly, would have the American public believe that this seemingly impossible event occurred four times, simultaneously. Meanwhile, dual sensor malfunctions aboard the fighter jet, one of which occurred only in close proximity to the UFO, remain unexplained.

Perhaps most glaringly, the Pentagon UFO office does not address how multiple balloons, separated vertically by thousand-foot increments, could plausibly maintain a "very clear," "equidistant" diamond formation at high altitudes in strong winds aloft.

Worse yet, the pilot described the lead object as "stationary" or moving "very slowly." Given the approximately 80 mile-per-hour winds observed at altitude on the day of the incident, the pilot's observations are incongruous with the Pentagon's balloon explanation.

Gaetz has rightly stated that the Pentagon's assessment is "incomplete and does not reflect all of the data I was shown." Gaetz also called for the public release of the images and radar data associated with the encounter.

The Eglin incident, in short, serves as a microcosm of the many absurd and implausible explanations that the government has offered up over the years for countless UFO incidents.

More recently, the Pentagon released a congressionally-mandated review of U.S. government involvement with UFOs. The report, which is riddled with basic factual errors, omissions and a laundry list of historical distortions, leaves much to be desired. Christopher Mellon, the Department of Defense's former top civilian intelligence official, took the UFO office to task in a scathing, 16,000-word analysis of the report.

Among the report's many flaws is an egregious falsehood about a rigorous scientific study that the Air Force commissioned in the early 1950s to look into the thousands of UFO reports that it had received. According to the Pentagon's UFO Office, this report, by the Battelle Memorial Institute, found that "all cases that had enough data were resolved and explainable." That statement is demonstrably false. The study in fact characterized as "unknown" fully 33 percent of the UFO cases considered "excellent" — that is, those involving trained or multiple observers and with sufficient information to come to a conclusion. And Battelle employed a particularly high threshold for designating a sighting as "unknown," requiring a group consensus among the evaluating scientists.

The Pentagon's egregious misrepresentation of this analysis is of like kind with its so-called explanation for the Eglin Air Force Base incident. In short, the decades-long "nothing-to-see-here" approach to UFOs continues, unabated.

Critically, the Pentagon's public stance contrasts with internal Department of Defense documents. For example, a directive disseminated last year by the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted that anomalous incidents are occurring around the world, including "in or near the territory…of the United States, of its allies and of its adversaries."

With unknown objects exhibiting highly unconventional technology brazenly penetrating airspace around nuclear missile silos and other sensitive military facilities, the American public deserves truth, transparency and far more analytic integrity than the Pentagon is currently demonstrating.

Forerunner · May 1, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/rosscoulthart/status/1785822548963492054

This @DoD_AARO FOIA response acknowledges a video does exist from the Jan 2023 Eglin AFB #UAP sighting but refuses to release it. But someone is not being truthful because @DoD_AARO officially claimed in its report that there was no video because the jet recorder was not working. And, if this object was just a balloon, why is it a national security secret?

UAP/UFO |OT|

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