from the that's-not-entirely-true-Mr.-President dept.
Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program
In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find. Which was how the Pentagon wanted it. For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon's C Ring, deep within the building's maze.
The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.
The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid's, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with NASA to produce expandable craft for humans to use in space. On CBS's "60 Minutes" in May, Mr. Bigelow said he was "absolutely convinced" that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth.
Working with Mr. Bigelow's Las Vegas-based company, the program produced documents that describe sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift. Officials with the program have also studied videos of encounters between unknown objects and American military aircraft — including one released in August of a whitish oval object, about the size of a commercial plane, chased by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Nimitz off the coast of San Diego in 2004.
[...] Under Mr. Bigelow's direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena. Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes. In addition, researchers spoke to military service members who had reported sightings of strange aircraft.
Article comes with attached 34s (with audio) and 1m16s (no audio) videos.
Politico's coverage of this story was published nearly simultaneously with the New York Times.
Related Stories
The existence of UFOs had been "proved beyond reasonable doubt," according the head of the secret Pentagon program that analyzed the mysterious aircrafts.
In an interview with British broadsheet The Telegraph published on Saturday, Luis Elizondo told the newspaper of the sightings, "In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of 'beyond reasonable doubt.'"
"I hate to use the term UFO but that's what we're looking at," he added. "I think it's pretty clear this is not us, and it's not anyone else, so no one has to ask questions where they're from."
Since 2007, Elizondo led the government program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, investigating evidence of UFOs and alien life. It was shuttered in 2012.
Its existence was first reported by The New York Times last week.
Elizondo was not able to discuss specifics of the program, but told The Telegraph that there had been "lots" of UFO sightings and witnesses interviewed during the program's five years.
Investigators pinpointed geographical "hot spots" that were sometimes near nuclear facilities and power plants and observed trends among the aircrafts including lack of flight surfaces on the objects and extreme manoeuvrability, Elizondo told The Telegraph.
Previously: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
A group linked to Luis Elizondo, the former leader of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, as well as other former military and government officials, has released a video showing a 2015 UFO encounter involving U.S. Navy pilots:
A newly-released video which shows U.S. Navy pilots encountering an unidentified flying object (UFO) in 2015 has garnered calls for more research into what these mysterious objects could be. "What the f--- is that thing?" one pilot can be heard saying in the video. "Wow, what is that, man?" the pilot adds. "Look at that flying!"
The footage was released Friday by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), a private scientific research and media group. It is led by Dr. Hal Puthoff, a NASA and U.S. Department of Defense adviser and James Semivan, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency service member. The clip is said to be "an authentic DoD video that captures the high-speed flight of an unidentified aircraft at low altitude" and "reveals a previously undisclosed Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast in 2015," according to a statement from TTSA.
From my work with To the Stars Academy, which seeks to raise private funds to investigate incidents like the 2004 Nimitz encounter, I know they continue to occur, because we are being approached by military personnel who are concerned about national security and frustrated by how the Defense Department is handling such reports. I am also familiar with the evidence as a former Pentagon intelligence official and a consultant who began researching the issue after the Nimitz incident was brought to my attention. On several occasions, I have met with senior Pentagon officials, and at least one followed up and obtained briefings confirming incidents such as the Nimitz case. But nobody wants to be "the alien guy" in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue. This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.
Also at USA Today and NextBigFuture.
Related: UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study
Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.
As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, "You have absolutely no idea what is out there!" The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves.
I have always been interested in UFOs. Of course, there was the excitement that there could be aliens and other living worlds. But more exciting to me was the possibility that interstellar travel was technologically achievable. In 1988, during my second week of graduate school at Montana State University, several students and I were discussing a recent cattle mutilation that was associated with UFOs. A physics professor joined the conversation and told us that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they were having problems with UFOs shutting down nuclear missiles. At the time I thought this professor was talking nonsense. But 20 years later, I was stunned to see a recording of a press conference featuring several former US Air Force personnel, with a couple from Malmstrom AFB, describing similar occurrences in the 1960s. Clearly there must be something to this.
With July 2 being World UFO Day, it is a good time for society to address the unsettling and refreshing fact we may not be alone. I believe we need to face the possibility that some of the strange flying objects that outperform the best aircraft in our inventory and defy explanation may indeed be visitors from afar – and there's plenty of evidence to support UFO sightings.
See also: Released FAA recording reveals pilot report of a UFO over Long Island
I-Team Exclusive: Nevada senator fought to save secret UFO program
Related: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
The Government's Secret UFO Program Funded Research on Wormholes and Extra Dimensions
The Department of Defense funded research on wormholes, invisibility cloaking, and "the manipulation of extra dimensions" under its shadowy Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, first described in 2017 by the New York Times and the Washington Post.
On Wednesday, the Defense Intelligence Agency released a list of 38 research titles pursued by the program in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.
[...] One such research topic, "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy," was led by Eric W. Davis of EarthTech International Inc, which describes itself as a facility "exploring the forefront reaches of science and engineering," with an interest in theories of spacetime, studies of the quantum vacuum, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Another project called "Invisibility Cloaking" was helmed by German scientist Ulf Leonhardt, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Leonhardt's research pertains to theoretical quantum optics, and in 2006 his work on theoretically creating "an invisible 'hole' in space, inside which objects can be hidden" was cited by Nature.
Yet another title, "Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions," was attributed to theoretical physicist Richard Obousy, director of the nonprofit Icarus Interstellar, which claims to be "researching technologies that will enable breakthroughs in interstellar travel." Obousy was credited by Gizmodo in 2009 for creating "a scientifically accurate warpship design" that could hypothetically be propelled through space by manipulating dark energy.
Also at Teslarati.
Previously: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
Related: Are We Alone? The Question is Worthy of Serious Scientific Study
No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon's U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public (archive)
Despite Pentagon statements that it disbanded a once-covert program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the effort remains underway — renamed and tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence, where officials continue to study mystifying encounters between military pilots and unidentified aerial vehicles.
Pentagon officials will not discuss the program, which is not classified but deals with classified matters. Yet it appeared last month in a Senate committee report outlining spending on the nation's intelligence agencies for the coming year. The report said the program, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was "to standardize collection and reporting" on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles, and was to report at least some of its findings to the public within 180 days after passage of the intelligence authorization act.
While retired officials involved with the effort — including Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader — hope the program will seek evidence of vehicles from other worlds, its main focus is on discovering whether another nation, especially any potential adversary, is using breakout aviation technology that could threaten the United States.
The lede has been buried for your protection. Do not RTFA.
Previously: Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
The US Navy is Drafting New Rules to Report UFO Sightings
US Navy Spokesman Acknowledges UFO Videos
The Pentagon Releases Official Footage of UFOs. No, Seriously!
You Can Now Easily Download All CIA UFO Documents to Date:
In anticipation of the government’s official UFO report coming in less than six months thanks to the COVID-19 omnibus bill, you can now download all of the publicly available CIA documentation on UFOs.
The Black Vault, a clearinghouse for declassified documents, has released a downloadable document archive filled with PDFs containing CIA files on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), the government's preferred term. . Some of the reports date all the way back to the 1980s, and according to the site's founder, John Greenewald Jr., the spy agency claims this is all of its documents on UAPs.
[...] “Around 20 years ago, I had fought for years to get additional UFO records released from the CIA,” Greenewald said in an email to Motherboard. “It was like pulling teeth! I went around and around with them to try and do so, finally achieving it. I received a large box, of a couple thousand pages, and I had to scan them in one page at a time.”
[...] “Plain and simple, the public has a right to know!” Greenewald said. “When I began researching nearly 25 years ago at the age of 15, I knew there was something to this topic. Not because of viral internet hoaxes. Not because of back door meetings wherein I can’t tell you who, but I promise it was mind-blowing information. No, none of that. It was simply because of the evidence that I got straight from the CIA. And the NSA. And the Air Force. And the DIA. I feel I am achieving what I set out to do. Easy access, to important material, for people to make up their own minds on what is going on.”
Ex-official who revealed UFO project accuses Pentagon of 'disinformation' campaign
The former Pentagon official who went public about reports of UFOs has filed a complaint with the agency's inspector general claiming a coordinated campaign to discredit him for speaking out — including accusing a top official of threatening to tell people he was "crazy," according to documents reviewed by POLITICO.
Lue Elizondo, a career counterintelligence specialist who was assigned in 2008 to work for a Pentagon program that investigated reports of "unmanned aerial phenomena," filed the 64-page complaint to the independent watchdog on May 3 and has met several times with investigators, according to his legal team.
The claim that the government is trying to discredit him comes weeks before the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon are expected to deliver an unclassified report to Congress about UFOs and the government's strategy for investigating such encounters. The report is expected to include a detailed accounting of the agencies, personnel and surveillance systems that gather and analyze the data.
"What he is saying is there are certain individuals in the Defense Department who in fact were attacking him and lying about him publicly, using the color of authority of their offices to disparage him and discredit him and were interfering in his ability to seek and obtain gainful employment out in the world," said Daniel Sheehan, Elizondo's attorney. "And also threatening his security clearance."
Previously:
Pentagon's UFO Investigation Program Revealed
UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt': Former Head Of Pentagon Program
Newly-Released Video Shows 2015 U.S. Navy Sighting of UFO
The US Navy is Drafting New Rules to Report UFO Sightings
US Navy Spokesman Acknowledges UFO Videos
The Pentagon Releases Official Footage of UFOs. No, Seriously!
The Pentagon Has Continued to Investigate UFOs Under Renamed Program
You Can Now Easily Download All CIA UFO Documents to Date
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday December 17 2017, @07:16PM (6 children)
You would expect the military to be watchful of such thing. Especial if they actually recovering metals of non earth origin. (which I sincerely doubt).
They know the military's capability of operating un-detected over foreign countries, why should the assume some other country doesn't have similar capabilities? They are just doing their job.
As long as it doesn't become another tail chasing operation like Project Bluebook, where every hoaxter was trying to get attention.
Its also amazing, now that everyone has a camera in their pocket all the time, how few times UFOs are ever reported and photographed.
(The 34seconds of helmet/gun-camera video is so perfectly tracked through steep turns, you can tell it was an on-board anomaly of their own camera system, probably a badly sun burned CCD on the camera if not outright faked after the fact. )
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Sunday December 17 2017, @09:52PM
I wonder if it is because people spend more time inside watching TV, are on the computer/game console, texting with eyes off the sky, etc
Back in the 50's, people were outside more, sitting and talking and looking at 'the weather'.
I dunno. I don't believe in aliens visiting us, but I WANT TO BELIEVE.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 17 2017, @09:56PM (3 children)
The pilots discuss seeing a fleet of the things. I don't think you can simply dismiss it as an anomaly. Although it's not like the full details of either incident (the two videos in the article are from two separate incidents) have been released.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday December 17 2017, @11:10PM
No, ONE pilot says there was a fleet, and another pilot asks him "are you sure this isn't our [garbled]?". No show showed this whole fleet.
The black center core looks like an after the fact edit, probably because the military already knew what it was.
Further, the camera tracks it perfectly, even though the aircraft is maneuvering in steep turns. You expect that on a ground/bomb camera. Pilot puts a joy stick on a land mark and the camera follows it and tries to keep it centered, regardless of maneuver. However the tracking here is too perfect. Way better than a ground cam. Its not evading, not out running, and not out turning the camera aircraft.
The last few seconds look like an F22 from behind and below. [military.com] Or maybe the RQ 170 Drone [thesop.org] from below.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 18 2017, @06:52PM (1 child)
If he had said that the entire sky was blotted out by UFOs, would that make it even more credible? The problem is not whether it is an anomaly, a UFO is an anomaly almost by definition (you do need the truism that genuinely unidentifiable flying objects are scarce - the observer might not be able to identify the phenomena responsible, but it is rare for everyone else to have the same problem). But there's a huge variety of ways that one can see things (and sometimes even photograph/video them!) that aren't particularly remarkable.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 18 2017, @07:13PM
We haven't been given the full context. If the location and date were known, it could be compared with witness reports on the ground if there were any. There's probably more video+audio that hasn't been released since all we see is a short clip.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @10:43AM
FWIW my phone camera is quite good for stuff that's up close like food or people in the same room but if I take a photo/video of a bird in the sky it's just a pixel or a smudged speck. Even a bird sitting on a powerline above doesn't have much detail compared to what I can see with my crappy eyes+corrective optics in daylight.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Sunday December 17 2017, @07:49PM
This is clearly where the aliens have their HQ - why else would their offices be so deep within the complex instead of on the probably less-secure outside?
If the aliens needed to visit their UFOs to "recharge" their gizzards, this way they would be able to access their Las-Vegas based hangars in broad daylight, as well as interview the members of the army (witnesses) who reported sightings to re-flash their brain BIOS to protect themselves from harm. It's the perfect cover.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday December 17 2017, @09:16PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMINVIp_U-k [youtube.com]
Basically a fancy quad-copter with jets. Big whoop.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday December 17 2017, @11:10PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1uLwUTDA0 [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by jelizondo on Monday December 18 2017, @12:01AM (4 children)
TFA and TFS go on about Mr. Elizondo this and Mr. Elizondo that.
Hereby, this Mr. Elizondo denies any and all allegations of any involvement in the search of extraterrestrial intelligence, visitors or artifacts.
Clearly all this is the product of people with overactive imaginations and has no factual basis.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 18 2017, @12:10AM (2 children)
Is that an attempt at humor? If not, dafuq are you talking about?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday December 18 2017, @05:23AM (1 child)
Check GP's name - J. Elizondo. No relation to the Elizondo in TFA.
Damn, now that I've had to explain it, I've ruined the joke.
(Score: 1) by takyon on Monday December 18 2017, @06:45AM
I figured that out like 5 hours ago.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 18 2017, @12:48AM
Give us the docs, doc.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday December 18 2017, @05:39AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @12:59PM
Full Disclosure by Hon. Paul T Hellyer - Former Defence Minister of Canada [youtube.com]
Make your own mind up.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @06:56PM (2 children)
one always assumes that a whole gigantic socio-economic conglomeration of humanoids is required to get off this stinking rock.
but maybe this stinking rock is contaminated by a gigantic pile of lies, deception and regular puss that has accumulated
more then all great wonders constructed by human kind over the eons.
the "great ball of puss" is thus actually a contamination of the regular human brain and thus we all live in a glorified world of
"would be", with people-representation, required taxes and a military.
so once in a while a daughter or son is born, that is magically shield from this contamination, discovers duct-tap, welding, copper, magnets and some other cool stuff and basically, in the backyard, from scrap, build a interstellar spaceship.
thus the UFOs observed are mere normal humans leaving the planet, or in seldem cases, returning for the left behind teddy-bear, or book or some other trinket.
the whole UFO conspiracy is just the "pussy filled" and contaminated population being angry about losing so much innocence (to think straight) with financing a socio-happiness-supressing-and-regular-puss-multiplying department to understand the simple life of nature of how to cruise thru the outer spaces?
example: the latest pencil shaped rock "skirting" earth was a rock shield captured via a "higgs-field" and accelerated by a warp-bubble all emitted by a tiny spacecraft made from some auto-part scrap metal yard ...non?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 18 2017, @07:29PM (1 child)
Sure. Since the dawn of aviation, or even centuries prior, lone individuals have been building Bean-with-Bacon megarockets in their spare time, coming up with more advances independently across a variety of disciplines than someone like Galileo did, and bringing them to fruition in the form of usable personal space transportation. All without being killed by chemicals, radiation, launch failure, the vacuum of space, etc.
The better explanation is that aliens who may have developed space travel hundreds of thousands or millions of years before us have sent probes to check out any planet within a thousand light years of them that might look habitable. Or every planet, including the hot and cold ones. They just spam the probes, and the probes can autonomously check out the situation on Earth-like planets. They could even send spacecraft capable of replicating themselves using the materials in the dusty outskirts of our solar system, in order to regularly spawn more probes that only have to travel a relatively short distance to reach Earth. None of this requires faster-than-light travel, although it may require patience and reliable hardware.
Throwing in some time travel would make your scenario more plausible. Time-traveling tourists are just popping themselves into existence in our timeline, skewing everything. But we don't live in the timeline in which someone traveled back and co-opted an existing empire, installing themselves as a never aging god-emperor with advanced technologies. Or someone did do that but got their clock cleaned by time travelers from the resulting future.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @09:52PM
Berenstein? Berenstain?
WHAT IS REALITY?
(Score: 1) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday December 19 2017, @01:38AM (1 child)
To me it makes sense that we'd investigate unidentified flying objects from the perspective that they may be a new type of foreign aircraft.
Imagine seeing an AWACS plane or a B-2 for the first time, or catching a glimpse of a U2 zipping by 10 miles above you. If you didn't have intel on them already what would you call those?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 20 2017, @05:17AM
Angels. Youkai. Valkyries. Etc.
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