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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: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday May 27 2021, @08:20PM (3 children)
Military and spy agencies accused of stiff-arming investigators on UFO sightings [politico.com]
If they flat out say aliens are visiting in the report, you get to see an alien/UFO story on every major news site every day... for the rest of your life.
If it comes back inconclusive, there's still years of mileage in the saga as the truth™ gets teased out (or not) amid a war of different Pentagon factions.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Freeman on Thursday May 27 2021, @08:51PM (1 child)
I thought the documentary Independence Day had all this stuff figured out already.
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: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @06:21AM
I think it was the documentary, "Men who Stare at Goats", with the Runaway addendum. Acid with make you see lots of things. Not recommended for pilots of bus/semi drivers, however.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 28 2021, @06:45AM
Either that or the guy really is a bit of a nutcase, and the Pentagon guys are just stating the obvious. And "threatening his security clearance" would be expected if he's revealed classified information. Sounds like the whole story could just as easily have been written up as "Pentagon breaks silence on UFO nut", or something similar.
(Score: 5, Funny) by oumuamua on Thursday May 27 2021, @08:48PM (1 child)
by turning the Starlink satellites into a sensor mesh they can act as an Earth shield. No UFOs can get in or out without detection. Just add the cost onto the Starlink subscriber's bill and give them free X-files reruns (with no commercials).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27 2021, @11:44PM
pffft
who would mod that interesting? you think nation states need starlink to monitor traffic?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 27 2021, @08:49PM (18 children)
Until they trot out a real live alien, along with unearthly technology to support the claims, everyone who believes in aliens are going to be nuts. Seriously, there have been so many insane claims, no sane person wants to be associated with the community.
Let's start with all the anal probe nonsense. Just WTF do humans keep hidden up their asses, that an alien civilization is going to travel light years to find? And, if we do have something valuable up our asses, why don't the aliens just politely ask us to shit it out for them? Alternatively, they could just mine our sewage treatment facilities to harvest whatever this magical substance is . . .
Other stories are less crazy, mostly, but you still don't want to be closely associated with many of these people.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday May 27 2021, @08:58PM (4 children)
They are careful not to use the A-word too much.
Basically, military pilots are observing Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. Could be advanced drones, ball lightning, other lighting tricks [wikipedia.org], whatever. Some people think they are definitely technological, which if true pretty much narrows it down to secret U.S. drones, foreign drones, or aliens. And would be considered a security threat if it's not us.
One of the goals of this is to erase the stigma so that more pilots report the sightings. Shouldn't be too hard if "drones" is the default explanation.
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(Score: 2) by dwilson on Friday May 28 2021, @03:18AM (1 child)
Not quite. As a human being resident on Planet Earth, the US (-any- country, honestly) having advanced tech as described would definitely be considered a security threat by the rest of us.
It's like atomic weapons: If you've got them, you're a threat to everyone, including yourself.
- D
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 28 2021, @03:33AM
Hypersonic missiles on steroids.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday May 28 2021, @06:10PM (1 child)
Missing an obvious capitalist category of drug smugglers. I'm not kidding either and this has already been partially public from the DEA.
Now think about something interesting: The DEA only reports on captured drug smuggling drones that fail. Not the ones that never get caught and never fail.
Mix with another interesting technological anecdote: You can't release sensor data, optical or radar, that doesn't inherently give away the max range and max resolution performance of the sensor.
So the coast guard releases optical scan sensor "UFO" data, 15000 different reports, coincidentally all on objects only 2 meters in wingspan or larger and only 10 degrees C warmer than ambient. Maybe to prevent infinite false triggers off birds. Maybe that shitty performance is the best they can afford to deploy and maintain long term. Doesn't matter we know their sensor performance data now.
Meanwhile the DEA only catches failed drones that are larger than 2 meters in wingspan and hotter than 10C above ambient. So you know the coasties are working with the DEA. As if that wasn't literally their job, we know they're actually being productive doing that and its a second tier proof of sensor performance "where the rubber meets the road" rather than in theory.
The streets are not exactly lacking in drugs so we now know WRT UFO sightings that everything out there flying around smaller than 2 meters wingspan and less than 10 C above ambient temp is probably a cartel logistics drone full of heroin that is not going to be intercepted.
Everyone laughed at the idea of drug smugglers using submarines until the DEA and coasties caught one. I'm pretty sure "a lot" of UFO sightings are drug smuggler related.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @12:47PM
Everything and a lot? But why would drug smugglers use glowing or even brightly flashing stuff to smuggle drugs?
Now if they were decoys then maybe it makes sense. Everyone look at the bright flashing thingy... Don't notice all that dark grey flying stuff that's practically blending with night sky (dark grey coz the night sky in many areas is usually not that black).
But wouldn't it still be better to not have any decoys and have fewer people looking at the sky?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27 2021, @09:01PM
Would any doctors or veterinarians care to chime in?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 27 2021, @09:03PM (7 children)
Navy pilots describe encounters with UFOs [youtube.com] (13m47s)
Navy pilots recall “unsettling” 2004 UAP sighting [youtube.com] (6m45s)
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 27 2021, @09:19PM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday May 27 2021, @09:36PM (3 children)
Pilot eyewitness reports are potentially better than those from people on the ground. These military pilots can even maneuver to try to get closer to the "object" (passenger jets won't be doing that).
Anyway, it should be good enough for Runaway, who was in the Navy IIRC.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 27 2021, @10:17PM (1 child)
Yes, and no. In the pilot's favor, yes they are free to maneuver to get a better look at things they can't understand. And, they are trained to identify stuff in the sky. They aren't trained to interpret stuff that their eyes, their radar, and their cameras can't make sense of.
Within the scope of his training, you can probably believe most of what a pilot reports. Outside that scope, a pilot is just like anyone else. He is left floundering for explanations. When it comes to hi-tech, potentially alien technology, a Navy pilot is little more of an expert than you or me.
If a pilot comes back from a mission, and reports that he saw something that he can't explain, you can believe him without reservation.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 27 2021, @10:35PM
If it is "hi-tech" (drones or aliens), that's big news no matter which one it is. The skeptics don't believe this is highly technological at all, and are putting forward explanations such as weather balloons, distant passenger jets, oil rig flares, ball lightning, etc.
The pilots are gathering data with cameras, infrared sensors, etc., which is why we have these crappy videos. They are potentially seeing more than what the videos show too. Do they know if they are looking at a metallic or solid object?
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(Score: 3, Funny) by ilPapa on Friday May 28 2021, @04:00AM
I thought he was the navy guy in the Village People.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday May 28 2021, @06:23PM
Nobody wants to look at decades of history where American military pilots were indeed the first to see unidentified flying objects that turned out to be SA-2 or Mig-29 or all kinds of nifty weapons or weapons platforms.
Not like every time you fly but good odds that once per career the "MIB" are going to interview you and years or decades later you can publicly tell people you're the first American to see a SA-10 up close-ish or that Mig-27 ground attack thing or whatever.
They're trained to pay very close attention. Classic example from when I was a kid in the 80s, the Mig-23 was supposed to be super maneuverable according to the spy services, but that was more of a failed development project goal, Americans who actually watched -23 in flight noticed they had absolute shit stall performance and as such the non-suicidal pilots flew it with kid gloves low angle of attack all the time. This kind of observation is militarily important if your job is literally to shoot something like -23s down, so your tactics can assume if you push the 23 into high angle of attack flight scenario either you got an advantage or the 23 will withdraw or the 23 will enter a spin and crash itself as its stall performance is absolute shite. So to summarize a very long story, in the "early years" of combat flight sim you could tell if the programmers were gullible about bullshit and the 23 was more maneuverable than real life, or if the programmers were realistic and the -23 plane AI flew like a delta wing aka low angle of attack all the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @09:54AM
videos have fairly mundane explanations. see article by phil plait (I *think* that's his name, you may know him as "the bad astronomer"): https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/navy-videos-showing-ufos-not-aliens [syfy.com]
stories told by pilots? not true unless backed up by actual evidence. also, I'll say a lot of things if you pay me enough for a book/movie deal. stephen colbert pointed out that if ufos are seen every day for two years in the late 2010s (that's what the matt damon character said in the 60 minutes video), then why not bring a fucking phone in at least one of the hundreds of days?!
bob lazar is an interesting fellow, because apparently he's not making money from his story. but he may just be a useful idiot: they probably showed him some toys to confuse the public through him. he certainly has no understanding of physics, no matter what joe rogan thinks of that.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Thursday May 27 2021, @11:44PM
Well, a lot of people store their heads there. So there's that.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @06:26AM (1 child)
To get an idea where this retarded nonsense came from, and how the Pentagon got involved, I recommend reading this article: https://newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science. [newrepublic.com] Short story: influential senators manage to divert some military money to their billionaire friend man in black LARP.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @06:56AM
Robert Bigelow wants to thank SoylentNews for continuing his great work on exposing the UFO and LGTBQX threat to our billionaire way of life. If you have enough money, you can even get the US Navy to say stupid shit. Runaway usually turns, in the words of Edward Longshanks, for much, much, less.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @06:37AM
Aliens comment:
They're made of Meat [youtube.com]
Now we know who was probed all the way through, the runaway through. Maybe he is like the Orphelai? Or the Wedelai, only part meat? There is a brain, alright, but it is a Republican meat brain. What are you hiding up your anus, Runaway?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 27 2021, @09:15PM
It's all bullshit. Bullshit is useful as it raises the noise floor. Were there to be any signal it would be drowned by sufficiently high noise floor.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Thursday May 27 2021, @09:18PM (5 children)
Why can't everybody else? When the officials lie, what do you expect from the crazies?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 27 2021, @10:39PM (4 children)
It's about time to give up some of your money to increase the Space Force budget.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday May 27 2021, @11:03PM
Sure, if I get a flashy thingy
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @02:06AM (2 children)
aaaaaah! That's what this is about.
I wanted to speculate it was maybe coverup for the USA and Israel's latest culling of Palestinians, but the USA and Israel don't really have to hide that. What are you gonna do about it? Form an alliance between the EU, Russia, and China to bring the USA to justice?
Drumming up funding for space force makes more sense. Gotta get that Pentagon budget over the first big 1 Trillion.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 28 2021, @02:26AM (1 child)
The aliens will bring humanity to trial. The drones are collecting the evidence.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @05:46AM
Well, that's what the humans get for their human exceptionalism!
Given the tendency of UFO enthusiasts to actually be talking about angels, it's entirely fitting that we have people waiting for the aliens to beam up the 144,000 some odd elect and then dispense some kind of white throne judgement.
Probably there's a fleet of Oumuamuas that already started decelerating 53 years ago before they were aware that Earth is the planet of the apes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @02:41AM (1 child)
How many counterintelligence government perma-employees are so crazy to be posted to the UFO desk?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @06:59AM
And how crazy do you have to be to be fired from the crazy UFO desk? Is this veteran getting his hard earned mental health benefits for the VA? Some Senator, who is not crazy, ought to be looking into this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28 2021, @10:03AM
ETs are members of the Sciuridae family...Heliosciurus bos-stercus
I used to be amused by ufonuttery, but, frankly, it's now a bore. The slightly odd characters from the golden age of the 40's-60's have been replaced with 'professionally' odd ones like our Centauri ambassador Tsoukalos (the protégé of the silver age scammer von Däniken) I struggle to believe there's still money to be made from the game, but his net worth being $4million proves me wrong...and further indicates that I should have studied bullshittery rather than engineering.
Finally, if I ever hear the words 'Rendlesham Forest' or 'Nick Pope' again, I shall indeed reach for my Kill-o-Zap raygun..