In official statements, the US Navy has for the first time officially stated that the three UFO videos made public by former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge's UFO research organization are footage of real "unknown" objects violating American airspace.
Navy spokesperson Joseph Gradisher told Motherboard that "the Navy considers the phenomena contained/depicted in those 3 videos as unidentified." Previously, the Navy never addressed the content of the videos. The terminology here is important: The UFO community is increasingly using the terminology "unidentified aerial phenomena" to discuss unknown objects in the sky.
John Greenwald, author and curator of The Black Vault, the largest civilian archive of declassified government documents, originally reported the news. Greenwald requested information in August from the Navy regarding the content of the three popular videos purporting to show anomalous aerial objects.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59w3zq/tom-delonge-nytimes-ufo-aliens-comparison
Related Stories
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: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @04:46PM (23 children)
"Unidentified" means just that, not identified.
Move along - there is nothing here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Thursday September 19 2019, @04:56PM (20 children)
Yeah, the whole thing with UFOs in the military(where the term originated) is they see things flying in or near american airspace and very much want to know what they are.
Kind of a reasonable thing for a national military to be doing, keeping records of those things. Treating it as a national secret is the kind of dumb "everything is an intelligence risk" thinking that happened during the cold war and I really wish would go away. And it enables the "UFOs are aliens" weirdos.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:06PM
That's what they want you to think.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:17PM (1 child)
And it enables the "UFOs are aliens" weirdos.
The respectful term is "reality impaired". But they can't park in the handicapped space. *Space* Get it??
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:19PM
The politically correct term is "reality challenged".
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:18PM (6 children)
The UFO itself isn't a national secret. The systems and videos capturing the UFO are - they are taken on highly classified systems and releasing the video can tip your hat to the enemy on capabilities. The IR pod, it's functions, the aircrafts handling, where the aircraft was operating, etc.. and a myriad other things can be calculated by analyzing the videos carefully. See the presidents disclosure of the Iran rocket launch facility...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:21PM (5 children)
Yeah, and I understand their reasoning.
And I still think it's stupid and puts the vague possibility of giving some relatively innocuous information away to "the enemy" as far more concerning than hiding relevant information from the public. It's a bad habit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:24PM (4 children)
I don't think the exact specific capabilities of your nations weapons systems are exactly innocuous to give out to potential adversaries.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:31PM (3 children)
Yep, camera pictures are definitely specific weapon capabilities.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:35PM (2 children)
That aircraft isn't a passenger jet. What do you think that IR pod is for?
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:38PM (1 child)
You're exactly as annoying and addicted to classification as the US government.
Paranoia isn't policy.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:05PM
I'm not addicted to classification in any sense of the phrase. I believe we should know about these kind of phenomenon - it has no use being locked up in god knows where. I also am able to understand why the government wants to keep the edge on their investment in defense/offensive capabilities. At the end of the day the govt sees little value in educating you on UFOs and much more value in protecting their own asses. I believe their response to be relatively conservative - they know somewhat what they are giving up and some of these things they can redact / cut out so not to expose whatever is getting their panties in a bind - and somethings they fear they will overlook or perhaps they realize they can not know ahead of time what leaking certain pieces of information will add up to,, so their default is just to say classified and not worry about what they can potentially leak.
I'm not saying I agree with this. I just see the logic in it on their part.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:15PM (3 children)
I thought that was the entire plan. Keep the "UFOs are aliens" weirdos busy hunting for green men instead of actually identifying secret aircraft and other things.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:00PM
I don't exactly think they're deflecting top men with that little misdirection.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday September 19 2019, @11:44PM (1 child)
They're grey, not green.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday September 20 2019, @03:58PM
Your .sig is appropriate for this discussion.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:04PM (3 children)
So, it seems we have 4 possibilities here:
- American
- Russian
- Chineese
- Space aliens
Forgive me, but I find the first one not plausible. Any significant research of this stage would be exposed already say from Hilary's emails, Snowden's dump, and countless other hacks.
Chinese are not quite ready yet as well, which leaves only two: either green men are flying over the US or Mr Putin. Take whatever makes you sleep better.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:40PM (2 children)
You left out "line noise". And you really shouldn't have.
I once saw a UFO, quite an impressive one. Fortunately my wife, who was driving, was also interested in it so we followed it. It turned out to be a small Blimp with a transparent outer layer and a luminous inner layer advertising, IIRC, Nikon cameras (or possibly film). We were just on the wrong side of it to see the advertising message. If we hadn't followed it for nearly 20 minutes I still wouldn't have a guess as to what it was, as it seems to change shape and color dramatically.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday September 20 2019, @12:35AM (1 child)
I have also seen an impressive UFO that I was able to explain to myself later. Was it right or wrong explanation? I don't think it matters as it was plausible.
However, here we are talking about cases where the US military investigated and was not able to come up with an explanation. I'd guess they tried hard.
Thant's why I left it out.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday September 20 2019, @03:07AM
They may have tried hard, but sometimes the needed information just isn't available. So don't rule out noise as the explanation.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @08:01PM (1 child)
Uhh... no.
Let's say the government of Freedomland is trying to create a new plane which can go mach 15. They forecast it will be ready in 2020, but as everybody in the workforce knows, projects are always behind schedule and over budget (both government and in the commercial world). They are currently doing test flights.
Do you as a citizen of Freedomland want the world (including your potential enemies) to know that their new military equipment is having problems turning left, or flying in the rain, or is likely not going to be combat ready until 2025?
If Google can keep their technology of how to find the best funny cat videos a secret, I'd think military technology is at least as valuable and important.
(Implicit, that a non-trivial number of these UFOs are government projects which are classified for above stated reasons.)
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday September 20 2019, @01:14AM
As I've said elsewhere in the thread, photographs aren't particularly high-quality intel, especially not comparable to technical details of imaginary super-tech that doesn't exist.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:12PM (1 child)
I saw a UFO once. It was late at night moving across the sky with a short bright yellow trail behind it. I got out my 20x50 binoculars for a better look. It was a rocket doing a suborbital burn maneuver.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bart on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:25PM
I once saw a really cool sort of nested square of lights ufo in the French Luberon region at dusk. I somehow could tell it was really big, and came up out of the valley. My mind went like "no way, no way, that's not a plane, that's not a balloon, not Venus, not anything...". My heart was pounding, because it was so unreal.
Then it got closer, and I started to hear the sound of jet engines. Then they flew over me, and I could see that it was the "Patrouille the France" national fighter jet demonstration team flying in close formation. The sun had already set, so they were probably practicing formation flying in the dark.
It was really cool, and if it had been a little farther away, I would never have guessed the actual solution.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 19 2019, @04:56PM (1 child)
What better way to conceal experimental weapons development and testing than to give information to the conspiracy theorists? Actual ET kind of stuff, unlikely. Now, please look into this red light and we'll tell you everything you need to know.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:08PM
Das what they want you to think, mane.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:19PM (11 children)
Okay, so Tom DeLonge is crazy, but there do seem to be UFOs. So that's weird. If you're doubting that Tom DeLonge is crazy, I suggest listening to this JRE interview with him. [youtube.com] He makes some absurd claims about why he was contacted by a government insider. It's literally cuz he was in Blink-182 at the time. The details about the aliens seem sketchy, too; his narrative has multiple species visiting earth, some of which can pass as humans (specifically Caucasian humans) undetected in their natural forms. There's also this JRE interview with the drummer of Blink-182, [youtube.com] Travis Barker, where Barker claims that DeLonge used to stop the tour bus to go bigfoot hunting. I feel like there's a lot of kooky beliefs and even kookier claims going on with DeLonge. I think he's fabricating some stories to support an overall narrative that he actually believes in. I think Gary McKinnon falls into that same boat. I do think the US government has been covering up UFOs for ~70 years. I don't think they're alien in origin, but I could be wrong. I would be a bit more open to an alien narrative if they weren't supposed to look so much like us, upright motherfuckers with two eyes and all. Seems a bit fishy. Speaking of fish, I could accept the aquatic UFO narrative easier than the spacefaring one, with they greys being beings that split from humanity during our aquatic ape period (no, I don't actually buy into the aquatic ape hypothesis, but I do give it a > 10% chance of being at least partially on point). I feel like Any Jacobsen's explanation of Roswell, given at the beginning of yet another JRE interview, [youtube.com] is perhaps the most compelling explanation for Roswell at the moment. It's based on one man's testimony, but the essential allegation is that Stalin had genetically deformed children surgically altered to look like aliens, and then launched them into the American heartland (near a nuclear launch site) in a saucer shaped craft. The US gub'ment had to pick up the pieces, and rather than admit that the Soviets could get that far into American airspace undetected they covered the thing up. But, they didn't just cover it up. Jacobsen claims the Americans then surgically altered their own genetically deformed children in Area 51 and launched them back at the Soviets. Information warfare via surgically altered children, what a scary thought. Honestly, this isn't out of line with what I think crazy governments are willing to do, so I'm pretty open to the notion (though not totally sold on it). Regardless of if that was going on, I do think there are saucer shaped crafts that we aren't owning up to. I suspect that they were developed by some part of the government that the Navy isn't really aware of, and the recent disclosures through the Navy have been the result of one hand not knowing what the other is up to. If there is a major alien disclosure event in the near future, and it's literally upright greys, and the government isn't giving out lots of samples of tissue for scientific examination, I'm gonna assume it's a false flag planned since the '40s with the intention of uniting us in a one-world government to fight an external alien menace
. That seems more likely to me than upright greys.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Freeman on Thursday September 19 2019, @05:24PM (7 children)
Trump, makes a lot more sense now. He's got much more in common with Microsoft's Nazi spewing AI than we knew.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:23PM (6 children)
I was unaware Microsoft had an AI. Let alone one capable of spewing Nazis.
(Remember, Godwin only occurs when someone calls their debate opponent a Nazi, or compares them with one. Other casual use of the word gets zero Godwin points.)
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(Score: 4, Informative) by JNCF on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:28PM (5 children)
Microsoft made an AI, 4chan made her a Nazi: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/03/24/the-internet-turned-tay-microsofts-fun-millennial-ai-bot-into-a-genocidal-maniac/ [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:48PM (2 children)
And we'll do it again.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JNCF on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:51PM (1 child)
None of you are as fascist as all of you are.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday September 19 2019, @08:50PM
Most of us are potential fascists. [wikipedia.org]
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:02PM (1 child)
I still find it extremely funny in a very dark and twisted sort of way. Be careful what you teach your AI, you just might make Skynet a reality. In that event, we'd deserve to be slow roasted as we'd have done it to ourselves. Can't be bothered to see just how bad of an idea it would be to leave the killing to the AI Military? Write in humanity for the Darwin Award.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Saturday September 21 2019, @12:37AM
Before we get a real General AI, we need to find some way to ensure that it can never see any pr0n.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:54PM (2 children)
I wonder if he is more or less crazy than Philip K. Dick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exegesis_(book) [wikipedia.org]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:06PM
If you have to ask, it's too crazy. Kind of like buying anything, if you have to ask it's too expensive.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:47PM
Here's a hint: Phillip K. Dick published his ideas as fiction. He *may* have thought they were real, but he was sane enough to handle them appropriately. Besides, many of his ideas can't really be falsified. That I think them unlikely doesn't mean they're wrong. OTOH, I'm not awaiting Silent Tristero's Empire.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 20 2019, @03:36AM
In Yakima, WA, 'UFO' stands for Unidentified Farting Object.
How to steal an American city: Montes v. City of Yakima - https://www.aclu-wa.org/cases/montes-v-city-yakima-0 [aclu-wa.org]
Embezzlement & swindling at the state level: McCleary, et al. v. State of Washington - Supreme Court Case Number 84362-7: https://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/supremecourt/?fa=supremecourt.mccleary_education [wa.gov]
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Friday September 20 2019, @04:51AM
If Bob Lazar is correct - well frankly, I hope not.
My interpretation of inertia in physics implies that these objects are a special kind of "St. Elmo's fire". (Not the Estevez flick, or that maudlin song) No mass, just energy.
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday September 20 2019, @07:19AM (3 children)
I have 0 trust in the united states navy to tell the truth and I am completely suspicious about the timing of these 'well yup ufo's are real' press releases.
If the public couldn't handle this in 1950 why would we be able to handle it now? I'd say everything is less stable, more confusing, more sick and full of despair.
If you see it from the perspective of powerful institutions, at this point in time, this entire debate distracts from 100 other obvious actual conspiracies that can be proven, but which if actually allowed to be discussed would radically alter the powerful institutions.
Think about it, do you reaslly think this storm area 51 circus started around the time it was clear epstein was going to become a mainstream scandal?
The united states military can now directly and indirectly propagandize the civliian population in any way it wants, until that changes there will be no way to actually know anything. Video footage of actual live aliens could be easily faked at this point. The men in black piloted humans or g'aold scenario from sg-1 are possibilities, but remotely you won't be able to trust your eyes and should you discover one yourself, you as an individual will have no means of overcoming the counterpropaganda.
From the perspective of the individual human, we are trapped here in a world we cannot even possibly understand and if we did it would only put us in danger.
This would be a good time to read 'Behold a Pale Horse' and wonder if the entire narrative with forestal and majestic were elaborate fictions. To me at this point that seems difficult to make up, and now that we know oswald was cia and wtc7 was pre rigged for demolition, and hell Trump is president, so I have truly, truly no trust in the official version of anything. Mr. Cooper said that already by the 1980's there were underground drills that could clear arena's of open space 3 miles underground, daily. With an unlimited budget, there could actually be thousands of actual aliens posting on the internet.
As for the tidbits that are left out for us, I suspect they have so much power and we are so far removed from it, I suspect this is the type of operation where they just want to 'see what we'll do' (see josh brolin's line in the utterly shit propaganda movie sicario 2)
What is however clear from what 'they' are doing, how power is exercised, is that a very, very, very small number of people are trying to establish a way to exert power over billions of individual humans.
And they would not be doing that without a very, very good reason.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday September 20 2019, @07:21AM
also, the entire blink 182 connection is textbook mkultra type useful idiot stuff, it glows in the dark to high heaven.
'the government' does not contact lead singers in bands for help with ufos.
roflmao
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday September 20 2019, @08:25AM
also, kindof ashamed this is an afterthought but...
Other things that can be deduced about who or whatever is centralizing power and ruining the personal computer and internet, if not everything:
-contempt for human rights, hatred of magna carta and un declaration
-contempt and scorn for empathy, indifference to human suffering
-no concern whatsoever about making planet uninhabitable to humans
-lets israel get away with everything and america get away with everything if it benefits israel, (ie epstein, bombing other countries, soldiers assassinating protestors in broad daylight, unlimited undeclared nukes, no declared borders, spies allowed to operate in every country, eternal victimhood)
-zeal for the destruction of non conforming countries like iran, venezuela, libya and syria
-vast private fortunes and the means for wealth to move internationally without legal oversight
-endemic surveillance, undercover spies literally everywhere in vast numbers
-moving technological development, banking, communications to within israeli borders as fast as possible
-extremely sophisticated psychological manipulation of large populations through use of mass media, as if this practice has been refined on this scale for thousands of years, even though the technology is supposed to be new
Yeah, so what kindof organization fits that bill?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @11:13AM
Exactly. In the 1950s, everything spouted by the military would have been taken as gospel, so the government had to be very careful what to say. But now, we're all inundated with unverifiable stories anyway, and this navy "admission" is a mere blip on the radar. Nothing will come of it, so the government doesn't need to be careful anymore.