Credit: NOAA

7. Lightning

Mysterious UFO sightings may go hand-in-hand with a natural weather phenomenon known as sprites flashes high in the atmosphere triggered by thunderstorms. Sprites suddenly appear when lightning from thunderstorms excites the electric field above the storm, producing dancing flashes of bright light.

Sprites can take the form of fast-paced balls of electricity, although they can also form streaks or tendrils. "Winter sprites" are common in the northern hemisphere during winter months.

Alien Coffee Mug: Get Yours in the SPACE.com Store

6. Missile Tests

In December 2009, a spectacular spiral light show appeared in the sky above northern Norway: A giant spiral, with a green-blue beam of light shooting from its center, lit up the sky in a raindrop-ripple effect pattern.

It looked like a wormhole to another dimension, but it turned out that the lights were caused by a Russian missile that failed just after launch, according to Russia's defense ministry. The botched Bulava ballistic test missile spun out of control, thus creating the mysterious rotating spiral effect.

3. Venus

The planet Venus often gets mistaken for a UFO. To viewers on Earth, the second planet from the sun appears as a bright light that hangs in the sunset sky, seeming to slowly hover in the twilight as it outshines every star except for the sun. Because Venus orbits the sun inside our own orbit, from our perspective it constantly darts out on the either side of the sun, which people often mistake for a moving UFO.

Was the Star of Bethlehem Actually Venus?

Credit: Local ABC7

1. Military Experiments

The late 1940s and early 1950s were a great time for spotting UFOs and aliens in New Mexico, primarily because that's where the Air Force was conducting some of its top-secret research. One such program was known as Project Mogul and involved floating microphone-carrying balloons to high altitudes in an attempt to pick up the sound waves generated by Soviet atomic bomb tests. The Air Force has since confirmed that a 1947 crash of one of those balloons created the debris that birthed the Roswell UFO Incident.

Another military experiment provided the bodies for that UFO. In the 1950s, Air Force scientists dropped several dozen anthropomorphic dummies from planes to test new high-altitude parachutes and determine whether the bodies would enter a dangerous spin as they fell. Results from these studies contributed to designs for the parachutes and pressurized suits that fighter jet pilots and early astronauts would wear. The Air Force was more than happy to allow Russian spies to think New Mexicans were a little kooky than to reveal the true military origin of the sightings.

02-06-2019 om 23:15 geschreven door peter  

Former US defense official: We know UFOs are real - here's why that's concerning

By Anna Hopkins | Fox News

New History Channel series explores UFO sightings by Navy pilots

'Unidentified' gives military personnel on the frontlines a voice about what they are encountering in the skies.

After a bombshell report detailing near-daily interactions with unidentified flying objects by Navy pilots in 2014 and 2015, Christopher Mellon has argued that this information is nothing new, and the government needs to do something about it.

Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, is involved with a new History Channel series, 'Unidentified,' which will expand on topics discussed in a recent New York Times article. In numerous interviews, Navy pilots revealed that they saw UFOs moving at hypersonic speeds, performing acts “beyond the physical limits of a human crew,” and emitting "no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes."

In a Wednesday morning interview with "Fox & Friends," Mellon, who has written extensively on the topic before, outlined the reasons the Navy is concerned about these sightings.

Video

"We know that UFOs exist. This is no longer an issue," he said. "The issue is why are they here? Where are they coming from and what is the technology behind these devices that we are observing?"

There are indications, Mellon said, that the objects reported by Navy pilots in 2014 and 2015 were doing things that aren't possible in this physical realm.

The speeds being reported (about 5,000 miles per hour, according to Mellon) were only sustainable for about an hour by an aircraft in the air, and these objects would be flying around all day long, the pilots said.

"Pilots observing these craft are absolutely mystified and that comes through clearly in their public statements," Mellon continued.

• UFO 'SIGHTINGS' EXPLODE AS SPACEX STARLINK 'TRAIN' APPEARS

Video

Fascination turned to fear one day, however, when a Super Hornet pilot said he almost collided with one of the objects — which he described as a sphere encasing a cube. An official report was filed, and the incident shattered the previous theory by Navy pilots that the objects were a part of some sort of extremely classified drone operation.

"These are reactions between intelligently controlled vehicles operating in and around U.S. military facilities, hence the concern," Mellon explained.

"One: there have been near mid-air collisions so there is a safety issue. Two, there is a vital national security issue which is that our sovereignty is being violated by vehicles of unknown origin," he continued.

Although all of this information is old news to Mellon, it's taken America by storm, and he says we're hardly the only country to have interactions with these objects. Having written extensively about UFO sightings before, Mellon said he's frustrated with the lack of action being taken by the government, as are the Navy pilots who experienced the sightings.

• NEW SATELLITES COULD SAVE AMERICANS $30B ON MONTHLY INTERNET BILLS, REPORT SAYS

He decided that the only way to make progress was to release this information to the public in the form of his new show, and television interviews.

"We are giving military personnel on the front line a voice," he said. "We are helping them get out the message of what it is they are encountering and why they are so concerned about it."

• CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
• The New York Post contributed to the reporting of this story

{ https://www.foxnews.com/ }

01-06-2019 om 22:13 geschreven door peter  

Tonight, the world gets its first glimpse of what To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science has been promoting for nearly two years as its new program Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation premieres on the History Channel. Ever since the 2017 disclosure of the shadowy Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program at the Pentagon, the world has learned that the U.S. Navy has encountered aerial phenomena in recent years that remain unexplained and unidentified. Some of these encounters sound far spookier than your everyday flying saucer sighting.

In the latest New York Times piece published this week, Navy pilots described encounters with cubes suspended inside spheres, giant spinning tops hovering at 30,000 feet, and incredibly fast-moving objects only visible on infrared sensors. Many of the pilots are baffled about how these objects are able to perform such incredible feats of flight while remaining in the air for over twelve hours a day. Are these visitors from afar, some sort of interdimensional entity or probe, an unknown natural phenomenon, or something stranger altogether?

The seemingly spinning-top-shaped object in the “GIMBAL” video.

Stranger doesn’t necessarily need to imply paranormal, supernatural, or extraterrestrial. As more and more descriptions about these Navy pilots’ interactions with these objects come to light, strange coincidences and curious details are starting to emerge. Could all of these sightings and the current wave of ‘disclosures’ actually be a way for the Navy to coyly admit it possess next-generation aerospace tech?

That’s all conjecture at this point, but there are a few pieces of evidence to support such a theory. Many observers have noted how curious it is that all of the sightings described in these recent disclosures took place in highly-controlled airspace in which the U.S. Armed Forces readily conduct exercises and drills or test new technologies. Many of the sightings took place in the military airspace near Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia, while the infamous “Tic Tac” incident took place in special use airspace off the coast of California. Given that the Armed Forces regularly conduct Joint Strike Group exercises in highly-controlled waters and airspace, it seems pretty coincidental that so many high-profile encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena would occur within these spaces.

Particularly given the new technology that was being tested in these areas at the time of these sightings. In the 2004 Tic Tac sightings, the USS Nimitz supercarrier and its F/A-18F Super Hornets were testing a revolutionary new sensor fusion and data-sharing system known as Cooperative Engagement Capability technology. This system lets satellites, aircraft, and ships share real-time data gleaned from dozens of sources, enabling aircraft or other vessels to track and fire upon targets their own sensors aren’t even picking up. In a way, it’s a type of ‘hive mind’ allowing an entire Joint Strike Group to share data on the fly.

USS Nimitz

The 2004 sightings occurred as the Navy was testing this technology for the first time and had just completed training for the new system. What better way to test a new data-sharing system than to send some kind of crazy next-generation prototype up into the air to see if the USS Nimitz and all of its high-tech assets could track it? The 2004 sightings weren’t unique in this regard: in the recent New York Times story detailing incidents form 2014 and 2014, the F-A/18 pilots also described conducting exercises with the same Cooperative Engagement Capability technology in preparation for deployment when they began encountering strange objects as high as 30,000 feet in the air.

It seems like a pretty big coincidence that Navy pilots would encounter these seemingly superior aircraft while conducting drills in highly-controlled airspace while using revolutionary new sensor fusion and data-sharing technology. Could these encounters have actually been the Navy’s way of conducting real-world tests of some unknown type of new aerospace technology while keeping everyone, even their own pilots, in the dark about it? Of course, we don’t know how many other Cooperative Engagement Capability drills took place without any UFO encounters, so without other information, this is all speculative.

Still, the coincidence is glaring and has some wondering if it could have been by design. According to the most recent New York Times report, even many pilots “speculated that the objects were part of some classified and extremely advanced drone program” in the wake of these encounters. As aviation watchdog Tyler Rogoway at The War Zone points out, “it’s hard to overstress just how opportune the conditions would have been for this particular [Carrier Strike Group], or elements of it, equipped with the world’s best air defense capabilities to be tested against exotic and high-performance flying craft.”

F/A-18E Super Hornet

Allegations or speculation about the U.S. military muddying the waters surrounding UFO encounters in order to conceal revolutionary, secret, or prototype technologies are nothing new and are rarely supported by evidence. In the case of the Navy’s alleged UFO encounters, there is no hard evidence surrounding these claims, but there is a deal of ‘soft’ evidence, if you will. For years, several nations and scientific institutions have claimed to have created a radical new form of propulsionusing electromagnetic radiation inside resonant vacuum chambers. If ever constructed, this theoretical “EM Drive” engine could hypothetically enable aircraft to maneuver as the UFOs in the Navy pilots describe mysterious airborne objects behaving.

While the EM Drive remains a theoretical concept as far as we know, there is the strange addition of a few curious Navy patents which surfaced on the internet recently as the Navy UFO fervor has heated up. One appears to describe a polygonal craft which can “engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level” and “greatly advance the fields of aerospace propulsion and power generation.” The patent claims the inventor of this craft is a shadowy figure named Salvatore Cezar Pais, while the patent was filed by and assigned to the US Secretary of Navy. Other patents by the same Salvatore Cezar Pais/Secretary of Navy combo include a new type of room temperature superconductor which could allow for “the design and development of novel energy generation” and a “high frequency gravitational wave generator” which sounds suspiciously like the EM Drive and looks like a cube inside a sphere – the same description of an object seen by two Navy pilots in 2014 off the coast of Virginia. All of the patents were filed within the last three years.

Are these patents related to the Navy’s now-famous UFO encounters in any way? The craft they describe sure do sound eerily familiar alongside the descriptions of these recent Navy encounters. If the Navy does possess next-gen or next-next-gen aircraft, what better way to see what they can really do than to send them up in the air to toy with your best pilots, sensors, and aircraft? Are all of these recent ‘disclosures’ and the new History Channel series merely a way to get out in front of the story concerning radical new technologies? 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

01-06-2019 om 20:32 geschreven door peter  

UFOs Are Real, But Don't Assume They're Alien Spaceships

By Mike Wall 

Aliens shouldn't be the default explanation for weird stuff in the sky.

In 2014 and 2015, pilots with the U.S. Navy reported multiple UFO sightings during training maneuvers.

(Image: © Copyright History 2019)

UFOs are very real, as we have recently seen — but that doesn't mean E.T. has been violating our airspace.

"UFO" refers to any flying object an observer cannot readily identify. And pilots with the U.S. Navy saw fast-moving UFOs repeatedly off the East Coast throughout 2014 and 2015, in one case apparently nearly colliding with one of the mysterious objects, The New York Times reported earlier this week. 

Those incidents were reported to the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), whose existence the Times and Politico revealed in December 2017. (Interestingly, those 2017 stories cited Pentagon officials as saying that AATIP had been shut down in 2012.)

Related: 7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs

Former AATIP head Luis Elizondo, by the way, is involved with a new six-part series called "Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation," which premieres tonight (May 31) on The History Channel. 

The Navy pilots said some UFOs reached hypersonic speeds without any detectable exhaust plumes, suggesting the possible involvement of super-advanced propulsion technology. Still, Defense Department officials aren't invoking intelligent aliens as an explanation, according to this week's Times story — and they're right to be measured in this respect, scientists say.

There are multiple possible prosaic explanations for the Navy pilots' observations, said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California.  

He pointed out, for example, that the sightings occurred off the coast, as did a similar 2004 observation unveiled in conjunction with the December 2017 stories. (That previous sighting occurred near San Diego).

Coastal regions are where you might expect to find a rival nation's advanced reconnaissance craft, Shostak said, because incursions over the continental United States would be more obvious and easily detected.  

He also noted that, according to the recent Times story, the Navy pilots began spotting the UFOs after their jets' radar system was upgraded. That detail suggests the sightings might stem from some sort of software bug or instrument issue, he said.

"As anybody who uses Microsoft products knows, whenever you upgrade any technical product, there are always problems," Shostak said.

Such reasoning is bolstered by the current tendency of UFOs to manifest as blobs or blurs on the displays of advanced instruments rather than as crisply defined objects in cellphone photos.

"The sightings always recede to the edge of what technology allows you to do," Shostak said. "The aliens are kind of keeping pace with technology."

Common sense also argues against jumping to the E.T. conclusion. If these UFOs are indeed alien spacecraft, what exactly are they doing? Why were they sent here, across the vast gulfs of space and time?

"If the aliens are here, you gotta say they're the best houseguests ever, because they never do anything," Shostak said. "They just buzz around. They don't address climate change; they don't steal our molybdenum."

• Related: UFO Watch: 8 Times the Government Looked for Flying Saucers

But such skepticism should not be taken as a dismissal of the E.T. possibility, Shostak stressed. 

"It's not trivial to say what these things are," he said. And Shostak applauded a newly enacted classified Navy policy, as reported by the Times, instructing pilots on how to report UFOs (which the military, and many other people, now call "unexplained aerial phenomena," likely in an attempt to dodge the tinfoil-hat stigma associated with the term "UFO.")

"That's a good policy," he said. "Let them do it."

After all, we've learned over the past decade or so that our Milky Way galaxy is home to huge numbers of potentially habitable worlds. Observations by NASA's Kepler space telescope, for example, suggest that at least 20% percent of the galaxy's 200 billion or so stars likely harbor a rocky planet in the "habitable zone," that just-right range of distances where liquid surface water could exist.

So, while the odds may be long that any UFO witnessed to date was an extraterrestrial craft, it's far from crazy to suspect that intelligent aliens are out there somewhere (or at least were out there somewhere, at some point during the Milky Way's 13-billion-year history). That's why people like Shostak keep listening for signals from the sky.

• Why Is the Pentagon Interested in UFOs?
• 5 Bold Claims of Alien Life
• 10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

01-06-2019 om 01:47 geschreven door peter  

Former head of secretive government UFO program who claims to have seen mysterious supersonic craft that spun like a top set to reveal all in new documentary

• Luiz Elizondo will talk about helming a secretive government UFO program 
• In a documentary on the History Channel, Elizondo hopes to start a conversation 
• Included in the documentary are details on sightings of mysterious aircraft 
• The documentary moves the needle on a more frank discussion of UFOs 

By JAMES PERO FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

One of the former leaders of a covert government program meant to investigate the nature of 'unknown aerial phenomenon' is opening up about some of the strange and often unexplained accounts. 

In an upcoming History Channel documentary featuring former head of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), Luis Elizondo details his involvement with the Pentagon's UFO research program in a blockbuster New York Times report from 2017.

In the Times' report, Elizondo revealed that he left the secretive $22 million government program after what he has termed excessive secrecy and internal opposition to the project.

Scroll down for video

Luis Elizondo, pictured above, headed a secretive government program meant to investigate the nature of UFO's and will open up about his involvement in a History Channel documentary

According to Elizondo, who spoke to Live Science ahead of the documentary's premier tonight at 10 pm ET, the goal of his participation is to kick start a frank conversation about the phenomenon witnessed by the now defunct program and other reports like it. 

Included in that discussion, are various puzzling reports of aircraft that seem to defy the laws of gravity as humans know them, traveling and maneuvering at speeds unparalleled by current technology.

In a recent New York Times report, a former Navy official described some of those sightings which he said occurred between 2014 and 2015.

The mysterious craft, which he said looked like a spinning top, had no visible signs of propulsion but were able to reach 30,000 feet at speeds well faster than sound.

'These things would be out there all day' Lt. Ryan Graves, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot told the Times. 

Unexplained aircraft often defy the laws of gravity, traveling at speeds well beyond the limits of human aerospace technology. In a New York Times report, a former Navy official described some of those sightings ( one shown) which he said occurred between 2014 and 2015

'Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy. With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.' 

Likewise, Elizondo said, these sightings of seemingly impossible aircraft were not uncommon. In an interview with Live Science, he said that some of the ships reported by the agency far exceeded the known limits of gravitational force.

While human technology tops out at about 16 to 18 G's, the craft seemed to ignore those rules.

'These things that we were observing were pulling 400 to 500 G's,' Elizondo told Live Science. 

'They don't have engines or even wings, and they are able to seemingly defy the natural effects of Earth's gravitational pull.'

Elizondo stops short of saying the unknown craft are the result of extraterrestrial beings, but underscores the need to investigate phenomenon, citing its implications on national security. 

Willingness to talk about unexplained phenomenon has seemed to broaden in the U.S. military with new guidelines on reporting sightings

'We trust the American people to know that North Korea has nuclear warheads pointed at Los Angeles, yet we don't trust them with the knowledge that there's something in our skies and we don't know what it is? That seems counterproductive to me,' Elizondo told Live Science. 

Elizondo's appearance in the History Channel documentary marks the latest step toward an increasing willingness on the part of the U.S. government and others to acknowledge and investigate the existence of UFO's.

Recently, the U.S. Navy also unveiled new guidelines on collecting information about UFO sightings which they said are designed to make it easier for sailors to report UFO sightings amid fears that the objects could actually be 'extremely advanced Russian aircraft.'

Earlier this month, a U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson reportedly confirmed the Pentagon's interest in UFO's to the New York Post, citing the agency's investigation of 'unidentified aerial phenomena' in an unprecedented use of UFO-like terminology. 

Read more:

• On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program - The New York Times
• Former Head of Pentagon's Secret UFO Program Has Some (Strange) Stories to Tell
• ‘Wow, What Is That?’ Navy Pilots Report Unexplained Flying Objects - The New York Times

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

01-06-2019 om 01:33 geschreven door peter  

Multiple F/A-18 Pilots Reported alleged UFO sightings using new RADAR technology

Multiple Fighter jet pilots from the United States Navy have reported alleged unidentified flying objects while operating their aircraft mid-air.

Five U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet crewmen have recounted a number of incredibly strange encounters with unidentified flying objects off the East Coast of the United States. Two of the pilots went on the record.

Experienced lieutenants Ryan Graves and Danny Accoin, as well as three other anonymous squadron pilots, who fly F/A-18 Super Hornet jets,  told The New York Times they first noticed the objects in 2014.

“These things would be out there all day,” Lt Graves told The New York Times.

{ https://fighterjetsworld.com/category/air/ }

31-05-2019 om 23:36 geschreven door peter  

Did 2 F15s Intercept Contagion Spraying High Speed Craft? Event Now Confirmed!

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

31-05-2019 om 20:28 geschreven door peter  

UFOs have come out of the fringe and into the mainstream

By Nick Pope

You’d have to be living on another planet not to have heard one of the biggest news stories in recent times: After years of denial, it turns out that the US government has a secret program, researching and investigating UFOs.

The conspiracy theorists were right all along.

The story broke in December 2017 and generated unprecedented mainstream media coverage of the UFO phenomenon, which continues to this day, as the story continues to unfold. This coverage includes The Post’s new docu-series “The Basement Office,” which delves into this story as part of a wider investigation of the UFO mystery.

The Pentagon’s secret UFO program was called AATIP — Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The title cleverly blurred the lines between next-generation aviation threats and the phenomena they were really studying. Maybe as an unintended consequence, but perhaps by design, the cryptic title also kept the program hidden from the numerous people who make Freedom of Information Act requests about “UFOs.” AATIP was set up in 2007, largely on the initiative of the then-Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. When AATIP’s existence was revealed, Reid tweeted: “The truth is out there. Seriously.”

Related revelations and developments came thick and fast. Details were released of multiple events where UFOs have been tracked on radar and chased by military jets, including a November 2004 incident where the USS Nimitz carrier strike group was buzzed by multiple UFOs. Videos of three of these spectacular midair encounters have been made public, though many more have yet to be released. The Senate Armed Services Committee investigated the USS Nimitz incident last year and interviewed some of the pilots and radar operators. Also last year, the Defense Intelligence Agency briefed Congress on AATIP’s work.

In a Jan. 9, 2018, letter to John McCain — copied to other senior congressional figures and to key committees — the DIA disclosed that they had researched anti-gravity, warp drives, wormholes and other theoretical physics concepts needed for interstellar travel, as part of an effort to understand what they termed “foreign advanced aerospace weapon threats.” It raised the question “How foreign is foreign?” — did they mean Russia, China, or somewhere considerably farther afield?

In April of this year, the Navy announced they would issue new guidance to pilots who encountered UFOs, following a recent upsurge in “incursions” by “unidentified aircraft.” Then, just last week, The Post secured a stunning admission from the DOD that AATIP investigated “unidentified aerial phenomena” — a phrase they had previously been very careful to avoid. This bombshell revelation was the final proof that this had never been about Russian or Chinese aircraft, missiles and drones. Unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) is the accepted government, military and intelligence community term for what the public calls UFOs.

When I worked on this issue for the UK’s Ministry of Defence, we used “UAP” in our internal policy discussions, thus avoiding the pop-culture baggage that came with the term “UFO” and reframing the discussion as a defense and national security issue. That’s how those of us who have looked at the phenomenon from within government view it.

UFOs have finally come out of the fringe and into the mainstream. Multiple stories have appeared in major media outlets. There is congressional interest. Pilots, radar operators and intelligence officers involved in these encounters and investigations are going on the record, calling for action. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that there’s a bigger picture here. The pace of events is picking up, and we seem to be building up to something. Something is happening. Something new. Something big.

Nick Pope worked for the UK Ministry of Defence for 21 years. From 1991 to 1994, he was posted to a division where his duties included researching and investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.

{ https://nypost.com/ }

31-05-2019 om 01:42 geschreven door peter  

'Fleet of UFOs' Followed US Aircraft, Navy Pilot Says

31-05-2019 om 01:35 geschreven door peter  

The much anticipated six-part series, “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation” airs on History Channel on May 31^st. A joint venture between A&E and UFO mogul Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars, the show promises to blow the doors wide open on the government’s recent examination of the UFO phenomenon. Having the opportunity to see the first episode early, I was also able to sit down with Anthony Lappé‏, the program’s showrunner and executive producer, to talk about some of the ‘behind the scenes’ moments which led to the creation of this project. Please note that this review DOES contain ‘Spoilers.’

The show opens with the audience meeting a former Pentagon staffer and intelligence agent, Luis Elizondo, who left his position in US intelligence to pursue the UFO enigma full time. We learn more about some of his background, as well as the now famous Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, or AATIP. We also learn about “the team,” the small collection of experts put together by Tom DeLonge and To the Stars Academy. This group is comprised of Steve Justice, Chris Mellon, and Hal Puthoff. Leading this band is Luis Elizondo and DeLonge himself.

Lappé‏ explained that this team is what really makes the show compelling. He stated,

“What we really try to do with this show was to turn the UFO genre on its head. We almost never say the word ‘alien’ in in the show. We’re really just trying to look at it from a really hard journalistic point of view…And that’s one of the key things that we really try to understand, and that is what’s so fascinating. We have these guys who are from the inside, helping us, guiding us, and introducing us to more people on the inside. I think people, when they see the series, are really going to have a much better understanding of what’s going on inside the military and our government. It’s very complicated. I’ve reported on the military intelligence world many times before, and what people don’t realize is there is no such thing as the US government. There are seventeen intelligence agencies. Everyone has different agendas and information, and especially information like this, it is highly siloed…”

Tom DeLonge

(image: courtesy A&E/Andrew Cagle)

The episode provides a brief explanation of how DeLonge began contacting these individuals but does not go into much detail as to how some of these connections were made. After leaving Blink 182, DeLonge plunges himself into the UFO world full time and begins to form bonds with some very important people. We are left to wonder how he did it, but as George Knapp states in the episode, “he used shoe leather,” made phone calls and knocked on doors. A little awkwardly, the episode poses the question as to whether DeLonge is a pawn in a bigger government intelligence game, and Knapp states that he is not. That entire conversation felt a little forced, but it clearly is meant to address some of DeLonge’s critics and their belief that the musician is another Paul Bennewitz. The episode touches upon the Wikileaks hack where DeLonge’s e-mails to former White House staffer John Podesta became public, Chris Mellon’s work as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, a little about Area 51 and Politico’s Bryan Bender just generally being a cool guy with whom I would like to go for beers with. Maybe he can come to my next UFO-themed viewing party? Open invitation Bryan.

The bulk of the episode, however, deals with the recounting of a specific UFO event, known as the 2004 Nimitz Tic-Tac incident. Luis Elizondo travels to meet with two key witnesses regarding the encounter, retired Navy pilot Commander David Fravor and the (kinda) anonymous female pilot who was Fravor’s wingman during the incident. I won’t go over all the details of the event, and you can read more about it here, but in November of 2004, the USS Nimitz battle group encountered a series of strange unidentified flying objects that resembled forty-foot Tic-Tacs. It is undoubtedly one of the most interesting modern UFO cases to grace the discourse, and the source of the “Flir Video” which was taken by one of the F-18 Super Hornets in the air that day, and features an odd object accelerating quickly off to the left. A retired Top Gun pilot and aviation expert, as well as a retired commercial pilot with 35 years’ experience,  turned consultant assess the footage in the episode. Only a week ago, new claims have surfaced full length uncut and higher quality versions of the videos featured in the episode, the “Flir Video” included, not only exist but are in the possession of private citizens.

USS Nimitz

Lappé expressed that the show has a clear objective,

“There is no doubt that this is a real phenomenon. What is it? That is still a gigantic question mark. But I think you won’t be able to watch this series of six episodes and walk away saying this is some weather phenomenon or even an American military test. I think we really put that to bed…”

I asked Lappé about how his personal opinion of the UFO phenomenon has changed as a result of producing this program. He explained,

“It’s definitely changed my life. This is a topic that I had a sort of a mild curiosity about especially when the New York Times article came out…but I never really had any direct evidence to make me believe…but this process of working on it, and it really has less to do with Luis Elizondo and Chris Mellon than it has to do with people like that female wingman pilot…and other pilots that we met. I mean, when you’re sitting in a room with these people who are so credible and have dedicated their lives to serving their country and keeping us safe. And they’re freaked out by it. You can’t help but get freaked out. It definitely changed my life. It really opened my eyes to what’s going on. On a personal level, I had nightmares in the first few months of working on this and meeting these pilots.”

Compared to other UFO documentary programs, this show is definitely one of the better ones. It does not go into the dark and nebulous ideological pit of extraterrestrials or interdimensional beings, at least in the first episode. It spends its time primarily on the cases themselves and doesn’t rely on the alien trope. While hardcore UFO researchers will find nothing startling or new in the first episode, members of the general public will find it quite compelling. We can only hope that this show will provide some more content that has never been seen before by both the public and the UFO research community. With that being said, I know I plan to keep watching.

• Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation airs on May 31^st on History Channel.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

30-05-2019 om 17:18 geschreven door peter  

On May 26, 2019, the New York Times published a story about five US Navy pilots reporting UFO sightings in 2014 and 2015 off the coast of Florida. The story cites their descriptions of unknown craft that could fly at hypersonic speeds and hover over the ocean. Their reports were handed off to the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

The five Navy pilots were interviewed by the New York Times reporters about the UFO sightings that occurred while they were conducting training maneuvers off the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt before deployment to the Middle East. The Times reporters said that due to the 2014 and 2015 sightings, that the Navy upgraded its classified guidance for how pilots are to report UFOs, which now are officially referred to as Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAP).

A video was included of one of the UFO incidents where the pilots could be heard exclaiming: “Wow, what is that, man? Look at it fly!” The video had been released over a year earlier and was the subject of a March 12, 2018, Fox News interview with Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon official, who headed AATIP from its 2007 up to 2017 when he retired in protest over the lack of support the program was receiving.

In the Times story, the pilots made clear that no known piloted aircraft could perform the UFO’s complex aerial maneuvers:

What was strange, the pilots said, was that the video showed objects accelerating to hypersonic speed, making sudden stops and instantaneous turns — something beyond the physical limits of a human crew.

They speculated that the UFOs might be part of a highly advanced drone program that raised several safety issues due to the possibility of a midair collision. They refused to speculate further about the UFO’s origins. Earlier in April 2019, the Navy issued new guidelines for reporting UFO sightings, and cited safety concerns as a factor for the need to improve the reporting process.

There are several important takeaways from this latest New York Times story that follows a December 16, 2017 story that analyzed similar sightings reported by Navy pilots back in 2004.

The first is that the US Navy is allowing its pilots to go on the public record about UFO sightings that have national security implications. This has effectively reversed a decades-long military policy dating back to 1954 called JANAP 146(C), which forbade military and civilian pilots discussing UFO sightings that were deemed to have national security implications. JANAP 146 referred to possible prosecution under Espionage Laws for unauthorized transmission of UFO sightings reported by military and civilian pilots that fell under the official reporting mechanism established by JANAP.  

The second takeaway is that the Pentagon is allowing official military surveillance video to be leaked to the public about a phenomenon which on the surface appears unknown, at least to the pilots witnessing them. It is more than likely, however, that the phenomenon is very well known to the military hierarchy who have sanctioned the leaking of the videos, which it needs to be emphasized are official Navy videos whose unauthorized disclosure carries severe penalties as JANAP 146 makes clear.

Third, the fact that the New York Times has released the story is sending a clear signal to other mainstream media sources that it is OK to discuss UFO sightings and their national security implications. We can, therefore, expect many more mainstream media stories about UFOs/UAPs in the near future as evidenced by multiple news sources immediately reporting on the Times story.

What can be concluded about the mainstream media’s newfound enthusiasm to discuss pilot reports of UFO?

It’s important to emphasize that there is no way the Pentagon would reverse its decades-long policy (JANAP 146) unless it was convinced that it could adequately explain the national security implications of UFO sightings. It’s more than likely the video leaks and pilot interviews are part of an official disclosure process of advanced aerospace technologies that are well known to US military leaders.

The Pentagon is slowly educating the public about advanced technologies it has secretly developed. There is abundant and compelling evidence that both the USAF and US Navy have developed secret space programs that utilize the kind of advanced aerospace technologies witnessed by the Navy pilots in the 2014/2015 and 2004 incidents.

It is most likely, however, that the US Air Force’s arsenal of advanced aerospace technologies will be the first secret space program that is to be revealed given the abundance of evidence proving its existence as I have documented in the US Air Force Secret Space Program. While the Navy program focused on deep space operations, the Air Force focused on near Earth operations and its craft deployed technologies that will be easier to explain as human engineered.

It will help the unfolding UFO disclosure narrative greatly if US Navy pilots are bewildered by the advanced technologies they are witnessing, thereby pointing to such technologies belonging to another military service. This will deflect attention away from the Navy SSP to the Air Force’s SSP.

It’s becoming very clear that the Pentagon has decided to move forward with preparing the general public for future announcements of advanced aerospace technologies that have been secretly developed in highly classified programs. This will be used to explain the origins of many UFO sightings over the decades, including those witnessed by military pilots that were studied by AATIP. I for one, don’t believe all UFO sightings can be explained as terrestrially developed advanced technologies, but certainly a great many are.

The advanced aerospace technologies secretly developed by the Air Force, as I explain in the US Air Force Secret Space Program, will be gradually disclosed with the official launch of Space Force, which is part of a long term strategic plan to eventually disclose and merge all advanced aerospace technologies developed by different branches of the US military.  In the meantime, to get more information about AATIP and multiple military pilot reports of UFOs since 2007, you can tune in this Friday to the official launch of the History Channel’s, “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation”.

© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice

Further Reading

• New Book! US Air Force Secret Space Program – Shifting ET Alliances & Space Force
• Do We Need Space Force to Protect us from Space Pirates?
• Trump’s Plan for US Space Force challenges Deep State Secrecy
• Trump call for Space Force a Step towards Disclosure of USAF Secret Space Program
• Is US Congress Proposal for a Space Corps a Red Herring?
• Partial Disclosure and Competing Secret Space Programs

{ https://www.exopolitics.org/ }

30-05-2019 om 01:21 geschreven door peter  

UFOs are not the same thing as extraterrestrial life. But we should start thinking about that possibility.

Footage from 2004 shows an encounter between a U.S. fighter jet and "anomalous aerial vehicles," which is military jargon for UFOs. 

(To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science)

By Daniel W. Drezner

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a regular contributor to PostEverything.

The term “UFO” automatically triggers derision in most quarters of polite society. One of Christopher Buckley’s better satires, “Little Green Men,” is premised on a George F. Will-type pundit thinking that he has been abducted by aliens, with amusing results. UFOs have historically been associated with crackpot ideas like Big Foot or conspiracy theories involving crop circles.

The obvious reason for this is that the term “UFO” is usually assumed to be a synonym for “extraterrestrial life.” If you think about it, this is odd. UFO literally stands for “unidentified flying object.” A UFO is not necessarily an alien from another planet. It is simply a flying object that cannot be explained away through conventional means. Because UFOs are usually brought up only to crack jokes, however, they have been dismissed for decades.

One of the gutsiest working paper presentations I have witnessed was Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall presenting a draft version of “Sovereignty and the UFO.” In that paper, eventually published in the journal Political Theory, Wendt and Duvall argued that state sovereignty as we understand it is anthropocentric, or “constituted and organized by reference to human beings alone.” They argued that the real reason UFOs have been dismissed is because of the existential challenge that they pose for a worldview in which human beings are the most technologically advanced life-forms:

UFOs have never been systematically investigated by science or the state, because it is assumed to be known that none are extraterrestrial. Yet in fact this is not known, which makes the UFO taboo puzzling given the ET possibility.... The puzzle is explained by the functional imperatives of anthropocentric sovereignty, which cannot decide a UFO exception to anthropocentrism while preserving the ability to make such a decision. The UFO can be “known” only by not asking what it is.

When Wendt and Duvall made this argument, there were a lot of titters in the audience. I chuckled, too. Nonetheless, their paper makes a persuasive case that UFOs certainly exist, even if they are not necessarily ETs. For them, the key is that no official authority takes seriously the idea that UFOs can be extraterrestrials. As they note, “considerable work goes into ignoring UFOs, constituting them as objects only of ridicule and scorn.”

• [The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?]

In recent years, however, there has been a subtle shift that poses some interesting questions for their argument. For one thing, discussion of actual UFOs has been the topic of some serious mainstream media coverage. There was the December 2017 New York Times story by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean about the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which was tasked with cataloguing UFOs recorded by military pilots. DoD officials confirmed its existence. Though this story generated some justified skepticism, it represented the first time the U.S. government acknowledged the existence of such a program.

What we know — and don't know — about aliens and UFOs

The Post's Cleve R. Wootson Jr. explains why a recent admission from the government is like pouring kerosene on UFO conspiracy theories. (Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Then, there were the reports last November about Oumuamua, “a mysterious, cigar-shaped interstellar object [that] fell through our solar system at an extraordinary speed,” according to New York’s Eric Levits. Oumuamua’s shape and trajectory were unusual enough for some genuine astrophysicists to publish a paper suggesting the possibility that it was an artificial construction relying on a solar sail. Again, this prompted skeptical reactions, but even those skeptics could not completely rule out the possibility that extraterrestrial activity was involved.

• [Why scientists sometimes make extraordinary claims]

Then, on Monday, the New York Times came out with another story by the same reporters who broke the 2017 story:

The strange objects, one of them like a spinning top moving against the wind, appeared almost daily from the summer of 2014 to March 2015, high in the skies over the East Coast. Navy pilots reported to their superiors that the objects had no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes, but that they could reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds.

“These things would be out there all day,” said Lt. Ryan Graves, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot who has been with the Navy for 10 years, and who reported his sightings to the Pentagon and Congress. “Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy. With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”....

No one in the Defense Department is saying that the objects were extraterrestrial, and experts emphasize that earthly explanations can generally be found for such incidents. Lieutenant Graves and four other Navy pilots, who said in interviews with The New York Times that they saw the objects in 2014 and 2015 in training maneuvers from Virginia to Florida off the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, make no assertions of their provenance.

The Times reporters broke new ground by getting pilots on record. What is interesting about this latest news cycle, however, is that DoD officials are not behaving as Wendt and Duvall would predict. Indeed, Politico’s Bryan Bender reported last month that, “The U.S. Navy is drafting new guidelines for pilots and other personnel to report encounters with ‘unidentified aircraft,’ a significant new step in creating a formal process to collect and analyze the unexplained sightings — and destigmatize them.” My Post colleague Deanna Paul followed up by reporting that “Luis Elizondo, a former senior intelligence officer, told The Post that the new Navy guidelines formalized the reporting process, facilitating data-driven analysis while removing the stigma from talking about UFOs, calling it ‘the single greatest decision the Navy has made in decades.’ ”

What appears to be happening is that official organs of the state are now acknowledging that UFOs exist, even if they are not literally using the term. They are doing so because enough pilots are reporting UFOs and near-air collisions so as to warrant better record-keeping. They are not saying that these UFOs are extraterrestrials, but they are trying to destigmatize the reporting of a UFO.

Still, the very fact that this step has been taken somewhat weakens the Wendt and Duvall thesis. This was always a two-step process: (a) Acknowledge that UFOs exist; and (b) Consider that the UFOs might be ETs.

In recent years, the U.S. national security bureaucracy has met the first criterion. What happens to our understanding of the universe if great powers meet that second one?

{ https://www.washingtonpost.com/ }

29-05-2019 om 21:15 geschreven door peter  

Alert! F-15 Eagles Splash Fast-Moving Craft 300 NM Off Florida

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

29-05-2019 om 20:28 geschreven door peter  

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge
Waking Times

After upgrading the radar systems on F/A-18 fighter jets, several Navy pilots operating from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt began to see unidentified flying objects that appeared to defy the laws of physics.

Between 2014 and 2015, the strange objects – one of them spinning like a top as it traveled against the wind, appeared almost daily in the skies above the East Coast. The crafts had “no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes,“ and “could reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds” according to the New York Times.

Lt. Ryan Graves

To be clear, these craft were reported in March of 2018 so this is not a new report, however the accounts of five pilots who witnessed them have never been published until now.

“These things would be out there all day” said Lt. Ryan Graves, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot who has been in the Navy for a decade. Graves reported his sightings to the Pentagon and Congress.

“Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy. With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”

In late 2014, a Super Hornet pilot had a near collision with one of the objects, and an official mishap report was filed. Some of the incidents were videotaped, including one taken by a plane’s camera in early 2015 that shows an object zooming over the ocean waves as pilots question what they are watching.

“Wow, what is that, man?” one exclaims. “Look at it fly!”

–New York Times

“There were a number of different reports,” said Navy spokesman Joseph Gradisher, who said that while some cases could have been commercial drones, in other cases “we don’t know who’s doing this, we don’t have enough data to track this. So the intent of the message to the fleet is to provide updated guidance on reporting procedures for suspected intrusions into our airspace.”

The sightings were reported to the recently acknowledged “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)” which analyzed the radar data, video footage and accounts from senior officers aboard the Roosevelt at the time.

According to military intelligence official Luis Elizondo, who ran the program until resigning in 2017, the sightings are “a striking series of incidents.”

The program, which began in 2007 and was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time, was officially shut down in 2012 when the money dried up, according to the Pentagon. But the Navy recently said it currently investigates military reports of U.F.O.s, and Mr. Elizondo and other participants say the program — parts of it remain classified — has continued in other forms. The program has also studied video that shows a whitish oval object described as a giant Tic Tac, about the size of a commercial plane, encountered by two Navy fighter jets off the coast of San Diego in 2004.

–New York Times

Lieutenant Graves is still at a loss to describe what he saw in the summer of 2014, when he and Lt. Danny Accoin – another Super Hornet pilot, were part of the “Red Rippers” VFA-11 squadron. Operating out of Oceana, VA, they were training for redeployment to the Persian Gulf.

Navy pilots from the VFA-11 “Red Rippers” squadron aboard the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in 2015. 

(Photo: Adam Ferguson for The New York Times)

Graves and Accoin spoke on the record to the Times, while three other pilots spoke on condition of anonymity.

It all began following an upgrade from their 1980s-era radars to  Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pods – one of the most advanced imaging devices in use by the military which can locate and designate targets at distances over 40 miles.

AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared

(ATFLIR)

One fighter pilot after another began picking up the objects, initially ignoring what they thought were false radar tracks.

“People have seen strange stuff in military aircraft for decades,” said Graves. “We’re doing this very complex mission, to go from 30,000 feet, diving down. It would be a pretty big deal to have something up there.”

Graves added that the objects were an ongoing phenomenon – showing up at 30,000 feet, 20,000 feet and even at sea level. The craft could “accelerate, slow down and then hit hypersonic speeds,” according to the report.

Lieutenant Accoin said that he had two encounters with the objects – the first of which he tried to intercept the craft’s course by flying 1,000 feet below it. And while he couldn’t see it with his helmet camera, his radar told him it was there. In the second encounter, Accoin says a training missile on his jet locked onto the craft, which his infrared camera picked up as well.

“I knew I had it, I knew it was not a false hit,” he said, adding “I could not pick it up visually.”

The pilots chalked it up to some sort of classified and extremely advanced drone program. Then they began to see them with their own eyes.

In late 2014, Lieutenant Graves said he was back at base in Virginia Beach when he encountered a squadron mate just back from a mission “with a look of shock on his face.”

He said he was stunned to hear the pilot’s words. “I almost hit one of those things,” the pilot told Lieutenant Graves.

The pilot and his wingman were flying in tandem about 100 feet apart over the Atlantic east of Virginia Beach when something flew between them, right past the cockpit. It looked to the pilot, Lieutenant Graves said, like a sphere encasing a cube. 

–New York Times

After the near miss, Graves and the other interviewed pilots said the squadron were no longer convinced of the classified drone theory – as government officials would know fighter pilots were operating in the area and, they reasoned, would not operate them nearby.

“It turned from a potentially classified drone program to a safety issue,” said Graves, adding “It was going to be a matter of time before someone had a midair” collision.

What was strange, the pilots said, was that the video showed objects accelerating to hypersonic speed, making sudden stops and instantaneous turns — something beyond the physical limits of a human crew.

“Speed doesn’t kill you,” Lieutenant Graves said. “Stopping does. Or acceleration.”

Asked what they thought the objects were, the pilots refused to speculate.

“We have helicopters that can hover,” Lieutenant Graves said. “We have aircraft that can fly at 30,000 feet and right at the surface.” But “combine all that in one vehicle of some type with no jet engine, no exhaust plume.”

–New York Times

In March of 2015, the Roosevelt departed the coast of Florida for the Persian Gulf to help fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, after which the incidents “tapered off,” according to the pilots.

• By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge

29-05-2019 om 20:20 geschreven door peter  

Investigative Reporter And Producer Of History’s Unidentified: “Holy Shit! This Is Like, The Biggest Story In The Universe!”

Anthony Lappé is a New York-based showrunner, director and investigative journalist and was a producer on History Channel’s upcoming docu-series, “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.” He was a guest today  on “Podcast UFO.” Watch/listen at the YouTube link above.

Below are my notes from the show. And if I thought it was important, I transcribed it. As you’ll see, most off it was important! And below that are my note from Lappé’s appearance on “Open Minds UFO Radio” with Alejandro Rojas.

Podcast UFO Notes…

“Unidentified” wasn’t AL’s brainchild.

He’s an independent filmmaker, and television producer.

History Channel had been talking to Lue Elizondo, Tom DeLonge and Chris Mellon for a little while after the New York Times article came out in December of 2017. Folks at History were just very excited about figuring out a way to do a show with them. And AL was brought on in the spring of last year. They had exclusive access to everything that TTSA were doing over this past year.

It has to have been the most fascinating, mind-blowing project I’ve ever worked on. It was absolutely incredible.

After working on the show, I definitely have many more questions than I have answers. We’re trying to reinvent the genre of UFO television. Other shows come in with a pre-conceived notion of what these things are.  That they’re somehow extraterrestrial and they leave out countervailing information.

“Unidentified” takes a cold look at what these military witnesses are seeing. And that alone is gonna blow your mind.

He mentions the Navy’s new guidelines for pilots and others to report their UFO encounters. That Navy guideline is a tacit admission that what these pilots are seeing are not U.S. military. Once you rule out that it’s U.S. military, you’re really only left with only one plausible explanation: It’s either a foreign adversary or maybe an ally. But for anyone who knows anything about propulsion and recent advancements in aircraft and where the Russians and Chinese are, it’s very hard to square that circle.

What “Unidentified,” does is look at all this test cases and try to talk about them in a very investigative way and hear directly from the pilots, radar operators and others. And then let the viewers make up their own minds about what they could be.

Martin Willis: We’ve said many times on the show that if somebody tells you they know what these things are, run away. (I agree! ~Joe) MW says he thinks our government covers up this subject because they don’tknow what it is.

AL: I’ve reported on the government for many years. In particular, law enforcement and intelligence agencies. And people need to understand that there is no such thing as the U.S. government. Just in the intelligence world alone you have 17 different intelligence agencies.

He thinks that the Navy announcement shows us that they don’t have answers at hand. And that’s the significance of these two major pillars in the whole story of UFOs that have happened over the last year and a half. It began with the release of the three videos in 2017 and then the Navy announcement.

Regarding the Navy shift in policy towards UFOs…

“That’s a big thing that many of the pilots we talked to – and there’s many more pilots…One of the interesting things – when you watch our series – you’re gonna meet and see several pilots, including the pilots who were involved in the other two videos that were released by the DoD. And we’re gonna shed some new light on that incident or incidents. There’s many more pilots that I talked to who didn’t want to go on air, who confirmed their stories.

“One of the things that really struck me was David Fravor’s wingman pilot who spoke to us for the first time. She’s the female pilot that you see in the first episode. One of the things that she told us…and I can’t remember if this is in the episode. It might be in the following episode where we kind of circle back to her. One of the things she said to us is, ‘If I was alone, and was a single-seat pilot and I was just out on a patrol or something and I saw this? I probably wouldn’t have told anyone.’ The only reason they came back and said what had happened was because all four of them saw it. The two pilots and their weapons systems operators.

“That is the reason why this wingman pilot and David Fravor are coming forward..is because they want it to be okay to report this. This is an incident that happened in broad daylight. That’s the other thing that is a huge difference for me in the sort of veracity of these stories. These are pilots intercepting things in broad daylight. So many things can happen at night, whether that’s a weather inversion or reflections or all the other weird things that happen at night. But when you’re seeing things up close and personal during broad daylight on a perfectly clear day, over the Pacific. And it’s being confirmed by all these different pilots…

“And here’s the other thing that I’m gonna tell you that we do in this show. I don’t want to give too many spoilers away. But we find many civilian witnesses, in the same area where the Nimitz incident occurred, who tell of ongoing incidents. Very similar to the Nimitz incident.”

Martin Willis: It’s strange that there are reoccurring flaps and it makes you wonder why they’re in one area.

AL: Really good point and one of the topics that they get into on the show. “We clearly are seeing that there are, some sort of, what they calls hot spots, for these incidents that are happening in certain parts of the world. And I believe you see in Episode One, AATIP even created a map in 2009 that we reveal…that shows just a very small smattering of plot points on a global map where the military had reported seeing incidents. So that is one of the ensuing mysteries of this whole thing which is fascinating and we delve into that question. Probably raising more questions than we have answers.

“This show, I hope, will push the needle forward in this conversation. Because primarily, and obviously, this was a strategic decision by Elizondo but also us as filmmakers. Making the series was…by focusing on these military witnesses, several of which are active duty people who have everything to lose. When you’re an F-18 pilot, it’s very easy to be grounded. One slip up and you can basically lose your…have your driver’s license taken away…for lack of a better word.

“And these guys are the creme de la creme of the military. To be an F-18 pilot in the Navy, is a dream of thousands of pilots that go and…even just to be a C-130 pilot is a dream. But to be a fighter pilot in the Navy, flying an F-18, you’ve really reached the pinnacle. So to risk that by coming forward and talking about something that could potentially brand you as, you know, some kind of…puts you in some sort of psych eval situation, is just an incredibly brave thing for them to do.

“As I said, I talked to many more pilots than you see in the show, who spoke to me off the record, confirming the larger details of this other main incident that we look into. But those guys did not want to go on camera. And listen, I can’t blame them. If you worked all your life and you had a dream of becoming a fighter pilot and you wanna serve your country, it’s a very risky thing.

“So what is interesting now is the Navy is saying, ‘Hey, you don’t have to be afraid any more.’ What we’re hoping is, when our show goes on the air, we actually have, at the end of every episode, an email address for military witnesses to contact us because we want to continue this investigation. Because as I said, even though we have a ton of new, really fascinating information that you’re gonna see in this series, we’ve touched the tip of the iceberg. This is an ongoing situation. These events are happening all over the world. They’re happening all the time. They may be increasing. We don’t know that for sure. But there are people who say they are. It’s exciting and I think George Knapp said it best. He said, ‘It’s exciting and it’s a little scary.’

“We brought along Commander Fravor to meet another pilot from another incident. And you’ll see him, Lue Elizondo and this new pilot, that no one’s heard from before, talk about another incident. We wanted to bring Fravor along, both to help this pilot feel comfortable and knowing that Fravor’s career wasn’t harmed by coming out. And he still works in the private sector now but still as a respected person in the military community. But also what was fascinating was just to hear them talk about aeronautics and all the physics about what this guy saw. And compare and contrast the craft that he was seeing with what Fravor saw. And it was just absolutely fascinating. That’s in episode four.”

Did AL have an interest in this subject before he started working on the show? What does he think about the theories that these are our own, secret craft/technology?

You can hear his answers and the rest of the interview at the YouTube link I posted above at beginning of this blog post.

Open Minds UFO Radio Notes…

Lappé was also the guest on Open Minds UFO Radio with Alejandro Rojas yesterday. Once again, here are my notes and a transcript when I felt it was important information.

AL: The show is almost like a chronological, year in the life of Elizondo, Mellon and the guys at To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science. He started following them last spring.

He’s a filmmaker and investigative journalist and did an eight-part series on the history of the war on drugs for History Channel two years ago. The show dug deep into the CIA’s involvement in the drug trade. He’s done a lot of work around the intelligence world and the military.

He used to run a website called “Guerrilla News Network,” which focused on alternate news. They covered Steven Greer and “The Disclosure Project.” He’s always been really interested in the UFO subject but never took the time to dig deep.

Last year, while working for A+E Originals and after the guys at TTSA were signed to an exclusive deal with them, he met Chris Mellon and Luis Elizondo. And he was like, “Holy shit. This is like, the biggest story in the Universe.”

His first impression after hearing about the Pentagon’s UFO program was skepticism since he knows a lot about how the intelligence agencies work. He’s studied and reported on things like MK Ultra, Operation Paperclip and “the CIA’s involvement in all sorts of nefarious coups and operations and actually, what counter-intelligence is.” He was extremely skeptical and asked a lot of questions that a lot of people ask when confronted with this information. Questions like, “Isn’t this just some sort of advanced aircraft that we just don’t know about yet?” That was his first question and it began a dialogue with the guys at TTSA, who very patiently began to break down why they believe that’s not the answer.

Throughout the series, they’re asking the counterfactual questions: “Can this be explained by this? Or can this be explained by that?” They really tried to take an independent look at it and try to let people make up their own minds.

Elizondo and Mellon are vessels for the testimony of these military personnel. The challenge as a filmmaker comes because these guys still have security clearances and are still very connected with what’s going on inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. They’re not whistleblowers. “They’re both very cognizant out of loyalty and commitment to the government but also in terms of their own legal situation. They try very hard not to disclose any classified information.”

Alejandro Rojas asked AL if he was surprised to see these kind of credible people doing this kind of work and doing it publicly.

AL: “That was the first thing that attracted me to this project was who these guys were…what their backgrounds were. In particular, Chris Mellon’s background as a high ranking, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and his role on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He had visibility over these special access programs that even top generals didn’t have access to see. This was a guy, as Lue says, who knew all the secrets and who was famous internally as someone who also was very much into going to sites. Going to places like Area 51 at Groom Lake and going to other black sites and meeting with the people who are running these programs. He was a very hands on guy. And frankly, just like Lue Elizondo, much of what he did was highly classified. Their lives are definitely still shrouded in mystery in terms of what exactly they were doing and where they were deployed. All that stuff is still…these guys were guys who worked in the shadows.

“So, for them to come out, especially someone like Chris Mellon, who has his family legacy as we all know, and to be speaking so candidly and putting his reputation, both in sort of, you know, his social circles…his political circles and his family legacy circles…it’s a pretty big deal.”

AR: Have you come to the conclusion that there is a genuine mystery?

AL: “Yeah, I have. And it definitely was a process to get there. But as Chris calls it – run all the traps (explore all options ~Joe). As I’ve talked to other experts…there’s many more pilots – for instance, that I’ve talked to personally, off the record, than you see in the show…that I was able to talk to who weren’t comfortable coming on the air – who confirmed things about some of the other incidents that we look into.

“I generally believe that the U.S. Navy does not know what these things are. And that’s what’s so interesting about this new April 2019 announcement of the new guidelines and the policies that they’re putting in place for reporting unidentified craft. You don’t have to read between the lines to say that that is a tacit admission that…it’s not our own craft. So, you’re really only left with two possibilities…which is, it’s an adversary, or I guess it could be an ally, but that would be fairly strange. But you’re left with it could being some sort of terrestrial adversary. And for these guys, that’s almost even a scarier concept. If Russia, for instance, has the capability to fly hypersonic craft in and around our carrier strike groups, that’s just a very scary prospect. (bad audio here so quote may be off) If they could zip and nuke and drop it on the White House and disappear before they even open up the anti-ballistic guns from the lawn there…

“And then that’s where Steve Justice from Skunkworks comes in. I’ve had long, on the record conversations with him and off the record conversations with him about technology and about the evolution of technology and where we are today with propulsion systems. Things like the (X-43) Scramjet and other hypersonic jets that are being developed. And even though we are on the edge today of a new realm of hypersonic craft, all those craft are still using conventional…or somewhat conventional propulsion systems. They’ll have huge heat signatures, for instance, coming off of them. So, for Steve Justice, it just doesn’t add up that even an adversary working in secret could leapfrog us to that degree and have something that could do the things that these pilots are saying that they’re seeing.

“It’s not only the pilots. It’s also…we speak with radar operators as well. It is a genuine mystery. I think a big…one of the people that was extremely helpful in our investigation and who plays a big role in the show, as you see, is Bryan Bender, national security correspondent for Politico. He doesn’t get a lot of credit because his story ran the same day as the New York Times story did back in 2017. He was reporting things fully and really got deep into it. Spent a lot of time personally with Elizondo and Mellon. And he just has incredible contacts inside the Pentagon…inside the intelligence community…inside the technology community and weapons contractors. And he and I have become friends. And he’s been extremely helpful for me because he’s someone who’s just at a whole nother level in terms of just understanding what’s going on inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies. And he independently has come to the same conclusion that he believes that the Pentagon clearly does not know what’s going on with these craft. That there is a growing sense inside the Pentagon that it’s something that needs to be studied more.

“And that’s really the story that we show. The series has a pretty incredible arc to it. As I said, it really is like a linear, year in the life of these guys and begins shortly after the New York Times article comes out. And it ends… what was really incredible about the April 2019 Navy announcement – that they were going to be establishing new policies and guidelines for reporting UAPs and they’re going to be analyzing the data – is that we kind of have a front row seat to how that policy was established. I can’t really say what we see had a direct result because we don’t really know the sort of cause and effect. But, as you’ll see in the series, we, both Chris Mellon and Lue Elizondo, are both closely involved with what’s going on inside the Pentagon over the course of this last year. And they consider that Navy announcement to be a huge victory for sort of everything they’ve been doing behind the scenes. And we’re able to chronicle that.”

AR: “What impact do you hope this show has on the public?”

AL: “Thats a great question.

He goes on to say that they want the show to be super accessible to everyone.

You really get to know Elizondo as a person over the course of the series and learn the challenges and risks he faced for coming out publicly about this subject.

He hopes that people will watch the series and become intrigued and have their minds opened. He feels the strength of what they’ll show is the credibility of the military pilots and their encounters that are corroborated by their radar operators when they get back to their ship.

Reiterates what these pilots have to lose by coming forward and sharing these stories. They can be grounded for very small infractions.

AL: “For these guys and women to come forward to say things about what they’ve seen in the air and to talk about how they’re feeling like that the Navy really isn’t studying it and that they’re feeling that there’s a danger that’s not being addressed, is pretty dramatic. And that’s what you see in this series. You’re gonna see people who have everything to lose. They’ve worked their whole lives to reach where they are and they’re coming forward saying that they feel like there’s a potential threat here that needs to be addressed.”

As a journalist, AL is worried about when this airs. He’s nervous because it’s a tricky thing to be associated with and it could affect his reputation.

AL: “We’re on a precipice here. There’s definitely a change. There’s a change that’s going on inside Washington right now at the highest levels of power that you will see happen before your eyes and over the course of the six episodes of ‘Unidentified.’ You will see these guys working behind the scenes to change both policy but also just to open people’s minds about what’s going on.

“These things are being seen all over the world and they have been seen over the world at least for 70 years. So, to explain them by some simple, black budget, secret program is very difficult.”

Once again, here’s the link to the entire show. It’s a must listen:

{ http://www.ufojoe.net/ }

29-05-2019 om 18:02 geschreven door peter  

Are UFOs a Threat to National Security? This Ex-U.S. Official Thinks They Warrant Investigation

29-05-2019 om 17:26 geschreven door peter  

The Nimitz Encounters

November 2004, 90 miles of the coast of Mexico near San Diego, California, the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was conducting routine training and aerial defense exercises when unexplained events occurred. No one could have predicted what would soon confront the world's most advanced naval war ships and fighter jets. Aerial craft would appear that forever changed all those that encountered them.

The answers to the question of “what are they?” remains unanswered by the sailors and the US Gov. After years of cloaked secrecy the true story can finally be told. With multiple witnesses from the ships, their first hand testimony is impossible to deny. Our film features CGI re-creations as told by the sailors and naval aviators that witnessed them. Aside from the historical fictionalized dialog (no one recorded the radio conversations), the story itself is based on the facts of the case, including official US government docs, witness statements, news reports and official timelines. See www.thenimitzencounters.com for links to the official documents.

Contact us at anon@thenimitzencounters.com

Some military personnel have requested their names be removed or remain anonymous, out of respect for their privacy we have changed names and details to protect their identity. All similarities to persons living or dead is unintentional. The producers have made every attempt to verify details and deny any liability for errors or omissions.

Categorie

• Film & animatie

Licentie

• Creative Commons-licentie - Naamsvermelding (hergebruik toegestaan)

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

29-05-2019 om 17:00 geschreven door peter  

Long UFO Seen Over The Popes Vatican In Rome Italy, MUFON Report, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: 12-6-2012, but reported today.

Source: MUFON #100676

 

This UFO was recorded over the Vatican in Rome, Italy back in 2012, but the report was just recently sent in. UFOs have been seen around the Vatican before, usually on live cam. Now why UFOs are so frequently seen around religious monuments is unknown, but we can easily assume that the aliens are doing research on us and our religious or non religious beliefs. People are often so confident and loyal to a religion that it may be a quality that aliens admire...loyalty. 

 

Remember the UFO that came down over Dome of Rock temple in Jerusalem? It was seen by thousands of locals and tourists and captured on over 6 different videos. Probably more recorded it, but often people are too afraid if they upload a video of a UFO that government agents or MIB agents will harm them. That fear still controls some of the public, causing a a large amount of reports to go unreported. 

Scott C. Waring

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

29-05-2019 om 16:42 geschreven door peter  

Photo: THOMAS WATKINS/AFP/Getty Images

The unidentified flying objects look like white Tic Tacs, or spinning tops flying against the wind — and Navy pilots keep reporting their presence over U.S. airspace. In interviews with the New York Times, five more pilots have come forward describing their experiences with UFOs flying off the Eastern seaboard from Virginia to Florida between 2014 and 2015.

One ten-year veteran, Lieutenant Ryan Graves, claimed that he saw UFOs almost daily, and that the objects could reach hypersonic speeds and heights of up to 30,000 feet without any visible engine or plumes of infrared exhaust. Graves, who reported his experience to the Pentagon and Congress, said, “These things would be out there all day,” and that, “with the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”

In late 2014, a pilot of a Super Hornet reported a near-collision with a UFO when an object that looked like a “sphere encasing a cube” zipped between two fighter jets flying roughly 100 feet from each other. Another pilot, Lieutenant Danny Accoin, could identify a flying object’s presence on his radar, missile system, and infrared camera but was not able to actually see it in his helmet camera. “I knew I had it, I knew it was not a false hit,” Accoin said. But still, “I could not pick it up visually.”

As the Times reports, pilot sightings of UFOs have increased since “their 1980s-era radar was upgraded to a more advanced system. As one fighter jet after another got the new radar, pilots began picking up the objects, but ignoring what they thought were false radar tracks.”

What fascinated Lieutenant Graves about his interactions with the objects was their ability to stop rapidly, turn instantly, and immediately accelerate to hypersonic speed — maneuvers that would burden human pilots with unbearable G-forces. “Speed doesn’t kill you,” Graves said. “Stopping does. Or acceleration.”

Because the sightings occurred in airspace designated for fighter-jet training, the pilots concurred that the objects were not classified or commercial drones operating in the area. Still, none of the five — nor the Defense Department — would speculate as to the objects’ extraterrestrial nature. “We’re here to do a job, with excellence, not make up myths,” said Accoin.

The past few years have been something of a quiet golden age for UFO enthusiasts hoping to prove the validity of their interests. First, there was the Pentagon’s 2017 admission of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a short-lived, $22 million scrap of the Defense budget that would investigate reports of “unexplained aerial phenomena.” Then, in November 2018, scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics proposed a long-shot hypothesis about the cigar-shaped object Oumuamua, which passed through the solar system in 2017: It was a “solar sail,” gathering energy from the sun to accelerate through our galaxial neighborhood. (The technology isn’t all that complicated; humans have already developed it.)

And in April, the Navy announced it is “updating and formalizing the process” by which pilots report UFO sightings, as a means to destigmatize the sharing of information and treat the reports with a more data-driven approach. Luis Elizondo, a former senior intelligence officer, told the Washington Post that it was “the single greatest decision the Navy has made in decades.”

At this rate, the president’s Space Force might actually have something to do.

{ http://nymag.com/intelligencer }

29-05-2019 om 01:36 geschreven door peter  

29-05-2019 om 00:37 geschreven door peter