In recent days, it was reported that the Navy’s UAP Task Force has concluded that no evidence it has examined related to unidentified aerial phenomena points to evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft, according to a recent New York Times article that cited American intelligence officials who had been briefed on the report’s findings.

Notably, Julian Barnes and NYT Pentagon correspondent Helene Cooper reported that despite finding no conclusive links to alien spacecraft, senior officials said that the task force “still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military,” and that many of the unusual aerial objects observed by Navy pilots and other members of the armed forces could not be attributed to technologies currently in use by the United States.

The report does not rule out the possibility that some of the 120 incidents the UAP Task Force examined could be linked to technologies developed by Russia or China, and notably, “could not definitively rule out theories that the phenomena observed by military pilots might be alien spacecraft.”

The idea that some unidentified aerial phenomena might represent a form of exotic technology has been with us for decades, at the very least. Despite the fact that, to date, no conclusive evidence in support of this possibility has surfaced, the current assessments of the UAP Task Force recently conveyed to the New York Times are by no means the first time that the U.S. military has left open the possibility that some phenomena observed by our military could have otherworldly origins.

(Credit: Unsplash)

The controversy surrounding the origin of these objects coincided with the U.S. Air Force’s earliest inquiries into what had been first called “flying saucers,” following a June 1947 sighting of a group of objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier, Washington by pilot Kenneth Arnold.

These sighting reports and the concern that they generated resulted in numerous programs and studies, which began with Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book, in addition to other reports and investigations aimed at assessing whether there was anything to be made of the claims of unidentified flying objects (or UFOs, as Blue Book’s first director Edward Ruppelt dubbed them).

Project Sign began at the end of 1947 and concluded the following year with an “Estimate of the Situation” that determined UFOs could not be attributed to US or Soviet technologies, advising the Pentagon that the objects may be of extraterrestrial origin. This conclusion would appear to be the first time that a branch of the U.S. military has considered whether UFOs might have extraterrestrial origins. However, the explanation was deemed unacceptable, resulting in the end of Project Sign, and the launch of the appropriately named Project Grudge in late 1948. It was dissolved too, like its predecessor, in 1951 making way for Project Blue Book, which would continue for most of the next two decades. During the 1950s and 60s, the USAF gathered countless reports on UFOs, and several notable reports and studies were conducted during this period, which included the famous Project Blue Book Special Report 14. However, the Blue Book era ended with Edward U. Condon’s Colorado University UFO project, which argued that there was no scientific merit to UFO studies (despite being unable to discount every UFO case in the Blue Book files).

“On the basis of present knowledge,” the Condon Committee’s report stated, “the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations by intelligent beings.”

While the Air Force disclosed much of the information that it gathered about UFOs (with a few notable exceptions), it would be decades before the American public would begin to learn to what extent U.S. intelligence agencies like the CIA and the FBI had also taken interest in UFOs, albeit more quietly.

“In the middle 60s… the FBI responded to a simple request for information that the FBI is not and has never been involved with [UFOs],” says Bruce Maccabee, Ph.D., an optical physicist and researcher who spent decades studying UFO reports and appealing to agencies like the FBI and CIA for information on the subject. “Which, of course, is a lie, but as far as they were concerned it didn’t make any difference; they weren’t going to go public saying anything anyway, so that’s a pretty good clue that they’d want to cover it up.”

“As far as the CIA is concerned,” Maccabee says, “the CIA decided to do an investigation of Project Blue Book people, to see how the situation on Flying Saucers was. And this happened just after [Chief Major General John] Samford’s press conference in July of 1952, which is sort of a novel thing to contemplate.”

Government agencies investigating other government agencies, and all in an effort to try and understand what—if anything—to make out of UFOs, is indeed a novel concept.

(Credit: Unsplash)

“CIA closely monitored the Air Force effort, aware of the mounting number of sightings and increasingly concerned that UFOs might pose a potential security threat,” wrote CIA historian Gerald K. Haines in his article “CIA’s role in the study of UFOs, 1947–90: A die‐hard issue,” published in Volume 14 of the CIA’s in-house publication, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 14, 1999. However, Haines’ study also stated that “while Agency concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s, CIA has since paid only limited and peripheral attention to the phenomena.”

What accounts for the waning interest of the intelligence community? As Haines noted in his historical overview, early on it seemed that the CIA’s interest in UFOs had been significant:

“Because of the tense Cold War situation and increased Soviet capabilities, the CIA Study Group saw serious national security concerns in the flying saucer situation. The group believed that the Soviets could use UFO reports to touch off mass hysteria and panic in the United States. The group also believed that the Soviets might use UFO sightings to overload the US air warning system so that it could not distinguish real targets from phantom UFOs. H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director of OSI, added that he considered the problem of such importance that it should be brought to the attention of the National Security Council, in order that a communitywide coordinated effort towards it solution may be initiated.”

This would change, however, notably with the publication of a Robertson Panel study on UFOs assembled by and named after H.P. Robertson, a physicist with the California Institute of Technology in January 1953. “The Robertson panel’s conclusions were strikingly similar to those of the earlier Air Force project reports on SIGN and GRUDGE and to those of the CIA’s own OSI Study Group,” Haines writes. “All investigative groups found that UFO reports indicated no direct threat to national security and no evidence of visits by extraterrestrials.”

Luis Alvarez, one of the Robertson Panel participants

(Public Domain).

The Robertson Panel’s conclusions decades ago were remarkably similar to the current assessments expected to be delivered by the UAP Task Force in its forthcoming report. They essentially found no evidence of a threat posed by unidentified flying objects, and nothing conclusive that could link them to visits by extraterrestrials. However, such intentionally ambiguous results from studies conducted over the years often do little to satisfy public interest, and function more like a Rorschach test: those who want UFOs to be extraterrestrial visitors see that the possibility hasn’t been ruled out, while skeptics averse to the idea remind them that there is still no good evidence.

There’s nothing new under the sun, or so the saying goes. Hence, rather than making actual progress on the UFO issue, it appears that most of the same old assessments and presumptions that have remained with us for decades about this phenomenon are what endure today. We’re still left wondering, in the end, what they are, and even if they are, with very little advancement in our knowledge about these mystifying appearances of unusual aerial objects throughout time.

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In advance of a highly anticipated U.S. government report on UAP soon to be released, everyone is either talking about UFOs or being asked about them.

One of the many who has been approached for an opinion on the subject in recent days had been Texas A&M University astronomer Nick Suntzeff, who was asked about the possibility as to whether UFOs might represent visitors from other planets that have been monitoring the Earth for decades, or perhaps even centuries.

Suntzeff, an astronomer whose previous work in Chile has contributed to our understanding of other cosmic mysteries the likes of dark matter, said that he “can’t rule out we have visitors from other planets,” although he adds that we would require more evidence before such conclusions may be drawn.

Texas A&M University Professor Nick Suntzeff

(Wikimedia Commons CC 3.0).

“We need a clear photo,” he says, adding that even with what may be deemed “good” sighting reports, observers often aren’t aware of the distance the object was at the time of the sighting, along with any kinds of nearby objects that can help one gauge the size of the UFO in question.

“I have seen lots of weird things in the sky,” Suntzeff says. “Very weird things — but I can always explain them.”

Citing the work of physicist Enrico Fermi and his famous paradox, Suntzeff asked, “if there is intelligent life, why don’t we see it with our telescopes, or see evidence here on Earth of visitations? Astronomers are always looking for life elsewhere in the universe.”

As Suntzeff correctly points out, astronomers are always looking for life in the universe, and if UFOs do eventually end up being proven to be a visitation to Earth by extraterrestrials, the question will nonetheless remain as to why we would find evidence of them right here at home, under our proverbial noses, and yet we have such a hard time finding evidence alien life further out in the cosmos at their presumed point of origin.

Fermi recognized, as his famous paradox illustrates, that there appears to be a statistical likelihood that alien life exists. Our Milky Way alone is home to billions of stars very much like our Sun, many of which would very likely have planets like Earth in orbit around them. Many would have to be older than our Sun, too, which might leave open the possibility that any aliens residing on planets orbiting those stars could be older than us, and thereby more advanced. Fermi also recognized that with our interest in space travel, these other civilizations would probably have similar interests if they are anything like us. Therefore, if they possess such similar drives to explore the cosmos, and are more technologically advanced than we are, perhaps they have already developed the technology they would need to travel to places like Earth.

Physicist Enrico Fermi

(Public Domain).

In Fermi’s mind, even at the current slow pace of space travel that humans possess, the entire universe could be traversed in a few millions of years. This brings us to the notion that aliens from single points of origins very well could have populated other parts of the universe, even if doing so required several successive generations of space travelers who would establish outposts along the way, gradually expanding beyond their own planetary system, and traveling further and further from home in search of other habitable planets and, eventually, maybe even intelligent life like themselves.

Thus, Fermi concluded, based on such likelihoods, Earth should have been visited by extraterrestrials themselves, or humans should have at least found evidence of their probes. Hence, the great paradox: where are all the aliens?

Considering this paradox, it is interesting how seldom it is that astronomers and other scientists are willing to entertain the possibility that some UFO observations might represent such possible visitations, or at least the kinds of probes Fermi envisioned that might have been sent by extraterrestrials. Yet the general attitude expressed by scientists today when it comes to UFOs—even when the data on such purported incidents is being supplied by our government—amounts to a resounding “meh.”

One of the primary arguments that scientists have raised in recent days against the possibility of UFOs having an extraterrestrial origin has to do with a simple question: why would they even be interested in us in the first place?

“If the UFOs are interested in our military, that’s actually an argument against them being visitors from another star system,” argues astronomer Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute. “Instead, it suggests Russian aircraft, Chinese drones, or something else terrestrial — hardware we could understand.” Notably, a recent New York Times article which presented reporting based on information from government officials who had been briefed on the findings of the forthcoming UAP Task Force’s report said that technologies from China or Russia have not been ruled out, but that in truth, neither has the potential of some UFOs having a more exotic source. While each of these possibilities remains, the forthcoming report’s findings appear to convey that there is no evidence that conclusively supports either source of origin at the current time.

“Difficulties of interstellar travel aside, it seems to me to be inconceivable that an advanced species would find us interesting enough to visit, but not interesting enough to contact,” says Don Lincoln, a senior scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “And, if they wanted to avoid contact, they’re not being very stealthy about it.”

Both Lincoln and Shostak’s remarks are interesting, especially because they present so many presumptions about how extraterrestrial life might behave. Obviously, neither of them has had direct interactions with any extraterrestrials themselves; how could they know, therefore, what aliens might be like, or what their focus or objectives would be when visiting Earth? Yet each of them appears to fundamentally rely on the presumption that extraterrestrials simply wouldn’t find Earth very interesting, and hence would have no reason for visiting. Shostak doesn’t think that our military’s operations would be anything that would concern extraterrestrials; Lincoln more explicitly states that if they don’t intend to make contact, then he thinks aliens wouldn’t likely have other reasons to find us interesting enough to visit.

To Lincoln’s point about UFOs doing such a poor job “being very stealthy about it,” it seems that if they exist, they’ve done a good enough job that many (if not most) scientists still refuse to acknowledge them.

We simply don’t know what kinds of ideas or philosophies might guide the actions of any presumed extraterrestrial intelligence. Although scientists frequently assert reasons why UFOs are unlikely to represent such extraterrestrial visits, these arguments can often be very easily falsified, and shown to be based on expectations they have formed that draw from the only experiences they have had with any kind of intelligent life: humans. Even when scientists attempt to point out our human tendency to anthropomorphize our ideas about aliens, they are seldom able to resist the lure of doing so themselves, whether they even realize it or not.

In truth, maybe UFOs–whatever their origins might ultimately prove to be–are doing a better job keeping a low cover than scientists even realize. That would especially seem to be the case when it comes to those in the scientific community who continue to argue against their existence.

A video is making the rounds of an interview with a Russian admiral who was the last Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy from 1985 to 1991. While the video appears to be a few years old, its content is relevant today – the commander discusses encounters between UFOs and a Soviet submarine in 1945 and a US Navy sub in 1947, and those UFOs appeared to be capable of traveling underwater as well as in the air. Even more interesting, he claims the subs were attempting to explore underwater caves off the coast of Antarctica. Will the Pentagon report have anything about this? Will the current Russian military? Anyone? Bueller?

“A squadron of Soviet submarines in 1945, and then a US Navy one in 1947, were severely attacked by flying saucers while trying to gain access to underground caves in Antarctica.”

Former Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy Vladimir Chernavin

(credit: http://kremlin.ru/news/19816)

The video (watch it here) opens with that big announcement. According to the site Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, it is an interview conducted by journalist Khaled Al-Rushd for RT Arabic with Vladimir Nikolayevich Chernavin, a former officer of the Soviet Navy, its last Commander-in-Chief the only Commander-in-Chief of the Commonwealth of Independent States Navy from 1991 to 1992. He commanded the November class submarine K-21 in 1959, later commanded the submarine flotillas of the Northern Fleet and was awarded a title of the Hero of the Soviet Union before retiring 1992. Chernavin is currently chairman of the Soviet submariners association. Does he sound like someone who would know about UFOs and USOs?

“I remembered an interview I had with the commander of the Soviet naval forces, Vladimir Chernavin. He also told us about flying objects that were diving under water and at high speed coming out of its depths.”

The video is in Russian with English subtitles. It appears to be a recent production by Khaled Al-Rushd where he reminisces about that previous interview with Chernavin and was prompted by Al-Rushd first remembering a quote from US Naval Admiral Richard Byrd about “flying saucers” in which he said, “It is quite possible that these UFOs, whether man-made or of alien origin, come from several underwater bases, including the possible underwater bases in Antarctica, off the coast of California and off the coast of Puerto Rico.” When asked about this, Chernavin dropped this bombshell:

“There have been hundreds of such reports. I saw this phenomenon, including when I was captain of the submarine during our time in the Atlantic and the Caribbean, I clearly saw a flying object over one of our Soviet positions appearing in various forms, but mainly in the form of a round hat.”

“It was especially glowing, this light was changing, but the dish was moving at a tremendous speed, then it would stay hovering in one place and disappear immediately to appear in another place, and then dive into the water and disappear from view, and after a while it came out of the water but in another way, we were watching like this phenomena, as I saw it, the extraordinary phenomena cannot be ignored.”

Does this sound familiar? Chernadin’s next comment hits even closer to home … to the Pentagon report and the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

“A committee of this kind was formed. Especially since it was formed, I knew that the Americans had such a committee as well, and the decision was taken to collect and analyze this information in the military field for the first time from my side.”

Did you see that?

Whoa! Chernavin claims Soviet sailors were the first to report seeing UFOs, the first to see them in mass numbers, the first to follow them and to have an “operational directive” to monitor them – with the approval of the Minister of Defense. He claimed the system of monitoring and recording UFO dta “must be signed by the Commander in Chief personally. He recounts an encounter by a nuclear submarine and an escort fleet in the Pacific with “a disk-shaped object with a diameter of about 70 meters” – an encounter Chernavin assured Al-Rushd was documented. He concludes with this warning:

“This was a very serious problem. The decision had to be taken carefully and with balance, and this problem still exists today.”

Indeed, it does. Are we waiting for the wrong report?

While those interested in UFOs in the U.S. continue to wait for the Pentagon UAP report — which leaks and briefings have already prepped the public for disappointment, an X-Files-style ‘lone gunman’ in Brazil took matters into his own hands and obtained secret documents from the Brazilian concerning multiple UFO encounters in 2008 that included humanoid aliens and a military investigation. The UFO researcher released the documents a few months ago and recently translated them into English. The report is far from disappointing.

“On 11-19-2008, around 10 pm, Ms. Renata Veloso saw an object descend at high speed from the sky like a lightning bolt. It was moments before the Brazil and Portugal game, when we were getting ready to watch the game. She called me and given the insistence I walked to the window and saw a huge luminous object (hexagon) accompanied by two other smaller spherical ones that rotated under its orbit. When he approached the Nossa Senhora Aparecida church, the streetlamp lights in the Bela Vista neighborhoods went out block by block. One of the smaller objects was silver and the other was red, like red hot iron (it changed color). After a time of observation of the object’s maneuvers; I called 190 and was answered by Cpl. Barbosa. I determined that a vehicle composed by the Military personnel Cpl. Rabelo, LCpl. Francisco and LCpl. Balbino was sent to the site (Avenida Bela VistaNalongo).”

On Twitter, UFO researcher Rony Vernet released the report (pdf format here) made by Eisenhower Guerck Austríaco, a Brazilian military police of Minas Gerais State (PM-MG) officer, to his superiors concerning “Phenomenon observed in the sky of the city of Claudio, and pursuit of two strange beings seen in the city’s cane fields.” According to the report, he directed military personnel to the area, where they also witnessed the UFOs, as did another civilian woman, bringing the total number of witnesses to six.

“On November 19th and 20th we had an experience, together with several other Military personnel and people we met and interviewed about lights that flew over the city, and also about small “humanoid” beings that were chased by the Mitsubishi 13533 vehicle around 12 mph between the planted canes. These seen humanoids seemed to slip through the reeds. In all the actions of this Officer, several armed Military personnel followed the phenomenon at different times, in one of these moments, we were in 03 vehicles. A lady from Formiguinha Village, when she opened the door of her house, have seen small beings in her backyard and also saw an object colored incandescent iron standing in the air behind eucalyptus trees at about 2,600 ft, pointing to this Officer’s beret as the shape of the seen object. Objects flew at an incalculable speed and stopped as if there were no limits to physics, they just stopped suddenly. Objects curved at angles of ninety degrees or less, shifted forward, and returned backward.”

The second incident with the alien humanoids occurred the following day. The military personnel reported the streetlights going out or exploding as the UFOs hovered or exited at a high speed with no sound. They estimated the UFO to be the size of a pickup truck. The humanoid aliens were described as “luminous beings” that moved without touching the ground and had no feet, fingers, eyes or noses — just arms, legs and an “oval head.” Interestingly, “although they were luminous, they didn’t illuminate.” The police officers reported that they tried to photograph the humanoids, but …

“The humanoids were very bright, we didn’t see eyes, and they didn’t show up on the camera. Sgt Waldir Araújo Silva tried everything to photograph those “beings” but they didn’t appear, even with the lens zoom, only the fireflies appeared.”

Whatever affected their cameras also seemed to affect them – they complained of “headaches, body aches and fear,” and reporting officer Austríaco said his arm was too weak to reach for his gun. While they all saw the same things – a lake, the humanoids taking something from the ground as if they were scientists acquiring samples – the witnesses said they had a feeling of not being sure if it was real. that was confirmed the following day when they returned to the exact spot and the lake was gone. Nonetheless, the officers continued their investigation and found other witnesses. While there were no photos, they did have some evidence of the encounter.

“Several people report experiences identical to those of us Military personnel and we are going to interview these people. Some narrate hot air entering the house. The vehicles are with electrical problems. Mitsubhi doesn’t work, the Military who saw and had more contact seem distressed, we are all psychologically or physically different, more tired, sleepy, there are reports of people who felt levitating.”

The report lists the names of eleven military and civilian witnesses. Searches have not uncovered any additional reports besides the one translated by Rony Vernet. Since it occurred in 2008, tracking them down might be difficult, and they may not wish to talk – remember, this report has been kept secret for 13 years.

UFOs, aliens, fatigue, electrical problems, missing time, secret files, a ‘lone gunman’ … this incident is worth of its own X-Files episode. Sadly, the X-Files TV show is no more, but the determination and frustration of UFO investigators like Scully and Mulder lives on in people like Rony Vernet.

With a June 25 deadline, the Pentagon has just one more week to release its report on unidentified aerial phenomena, but the U.S. House Intelligence Committee received a detailed briefing on June 16 by Navy and FBI Personnel, and many of the members expressed concern – not only that it doesn’t reveal enough but also but that there is a real unease about things that can’t be explained. Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told a TMZ reporter before the briefing that “Clearly, something’s going on that we can’t handle.” Specifically:

“It has to be something that is out of our galaxy, it just has to be if it in fact is real.

“I think Roswell was covered up.”

Burchett also referenced what he said (and many agree with) were UFO references in the bible, particularly in the book of Ezekiel. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the committee chairman, said in The New York Post that the briefing was “interesting” and he “did learn things that were certainly new to me,” but wouldn’t give any details. Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois said was glad the “stigma is gone” from UFO discussions and “the fact that they are taking this sort of thing seriously for the first time, I think, is important.” If one needs more proof this briefing was considered important, look no further than the fact it was held inside a SCIF, or “sensitive compartmented information facility.”

“Everyone who’s paid enough attention to it understands they need to take it seriously. But once you go beyond that circle, you get people who are understandably resistant because of the tinfoil hat stigma. If [these objects] had the flag of Russia on the side, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Every one of these would be reported; everyone would be on top of it.”

Burchett said there was no way the UAPs seen by Navy personnel were Russian, as did former deputy defense secretary David Norquist, who set up a task force in 2020 to investigate UAPs but was not part of the briefing. He told CNN the “tinfoil hat” skeptics may have prevented more from being revealed. Which side is President Biden on? Burchett told TMZ he didn’t think Biden brought it up with Vladimir Putin in their summit in Geneva – which coincidentally occurred at about the same time as the briefing.

Don’t drag me into this!

“If the Russians had UFO technology, I mean, they would own us right now, they used to say that they’ve heard people talk about how the Nazis had it in the second world war that they did, they would have won. That is ridiculous.”

A discussion of who owns UFOs between two world leaders is “ridiculous”? No wonder Burchett thinks they’re from “out of our galaxy.”

If there’s one positive takeaway from the briefing, it’s that there really is a Pentagon report on UAPs and all signs indicate it wall be released soon. Congress members are concerned. The suspense is becoming unbearable. Let’s hope these are signs it will be worth the wait.

If there’s any person in the world who should know about UFOs, it would be the president of the United States – allegedly, the most powerful person in the world. Yet none of them, whether in or out of office, has given a definitive answer on what they might be nor have they positively stated that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials. Yet the media – and by the ‘media’ here we mean talk show hosts — keeps asking, hoping one might slip up and spill the beans from Alpha Centauri and beyond. The latest former president in the UFO hotseat is William Jefferson ‘Bill’ Clinton, who sat down on “Live with Kelly and Ryan” to promote his new novel with co-author James Patterson but instead had to explain if UFOs were fiction or non-fiction.

Hurry up! Bill Clinton is talking UFOs on Live with Kelly and Ryan!

“The truth is that we’ve never proved on, but there are things that are flying there that we have not yet fully identified, and keep in mind that there are billions of galaxies in the ever-expanding universe.”

Host Ryan Seacrest didn’t like that answer and probed for “data” that Clinton must have seen. The former president responded with:

“I think the probability is that there’s something you would call life somewhere else.”

Then host Kelly Ripa tried to embarrass Clinton, pointing out he’s a “Rhodes scholar” who should know these things. That’s when Clinton went full political and said we should focus on protecting ourselves from ourselves and clean up the Earth and our country first. That’s different than what Clinton told Jimmy Kimmel a few years ago when he admitted he had gone looking for data on UFOs and aliens while in office and that, if he had found some, would have released it. He certainly would have had help in his hunt – his chief of staff John Podesta has long admitted he regretted not digging deeper and was hoping to get another chance if Hillary Clinton had been elected president. Clinton’s former CIA daily briefer John O. Brennan recently admitted he’d seen evidence of aerial phenomena he couldn’t explain.

Whew! We’re safe … for now.

And yet … the only two presidents who have admitted seeing anything the slightest bit UFO-ish were Jimmy Carter, who claimed he saw one before he became governor of Georgia and later president, and Ronald Reagan, who claimed he, his pilot and two other witnesses saw one while he was governor of California.

Is President Joe Biden ready to answer the tough questions if and when the government UFO report is finally released? He may want to avoid Kelly, Ryan and Jimmy for a while.

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If you’re interested in the UFO phenomenon, you’ll probably know that for decades the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense investigated the subject. The MoD, however, is not the only government body that has got involved. There are more than a few of them. I’ll begin with the U.K.’s Special Branch. As for what Special Branch was, there’s this: “The first Special Branch in the world was formed in London in 1883. It spread throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Each British police force went on to form its own Special Branch, the largest being that of the Metropolitan Police until it was merged with the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) to form Counter Terrorism Command or SO15 in 2006. Special Branch maintained contact with the Security Service. Although they were not part of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), they were entitled to use the prefix “Detective” in front of their ranks…It was announced, in September 2005, that the Metropolitan Police Special Branch would be merging with the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the Metropolitan Police to form a new department called Counter Terrorism Command, with the new department coming into being on 2 October 2006.”

George King’s Aetherius Society, which was very much Contactee-driven from the late-1950s onward, was the subject of a secret file created by Special Branch. That file is now in the public domain, thanks to the terms of the U.K.’s Freedom of Information Act. The papers demonstrate that Special Branch was concerned by the fact that the Aetherius Society was allying itself with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which was created in 1the 1950s. Special Branch certainly viewed King as, in their words, a “crank.” Special Branch  came to quickly realize that King was highly motivated when it came to getting the word out regarding his views on nuclear weapons and the Russians. That alone was certainly a matter of deep concern to the authorities. The surveillance, hardly surprisingly, continued at a steady pace.

Now, let’s take a look at the U.K.’s Provost and Security Services. In the same way that, in the United States, claims have been made that the US Air Force’s UFO program, Project Blue Book, never got to see the really “good” UFO material (crashed UFOs, dead aliens, etc.), similar assertions were made in the U.K. A great deal has been written (some of it by me) on the way in which the Royal Air Force’s Provost and Security Services at Royal Air Force Rudloe Manor, Wiltshire, England played a role in the UFO subject for decades – a role that remains unclear to this day. Despite failed and clumsy attempts on the part of the MoD to lay the matter to rest – by calling Rudloe Manor merely a “coordination point” for the collection of UFO reports – the controversy still continues. Today, you can take a trip to the U.K.’s National Archives and see for yourself more than a few P&SS UFO files. They show that P&SS personnel were clearly doing their own UFO investigations.

How about another official U.K. body? This one is the Home Office. What makes the stories about the Home Office and UFOs so interesting and different, however, is the noted lack of attention they have received over the years. That’s not to say there isn’t an intriguing body of data available. Quite the contrary: there actually is an intriguing body of data on this matter. According to researcher and author Timothy Good, in his 1987 book, Above Top Secret: “A close friend of mine whom I have known since 1952 witnessed the landing of an unidentified flying object in Derbyshire in September 1963, and subsequently came into contact with its operators. Four years afterwards two men with Home Office identification cards turned up at my friend’s flat and politely asked a number of questions which clearly indicated that they were familiar with aspects of the incident.” Similarly, in 1982 Good interviewed an eye-opening interview with a retired police inspector, in an attempt to determine if the UFO issue was subject to the constraints of the British Government’s Official Secrets Act – a  piece of legislation utilized to muzzle government employees when deemed necessary by officialdom. According to Good’s source: “What I can say to you, is that I know the subject itself was the subject of a Home Office directive.”

Aerial view of GCHQ

Now, there’s the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the U.K. equivalent of the United States’ National Security Agency. In the mid-1990s UFO researcher Robin Cole found himself in deep water when he started asking questions about the UFO connection to GCHQ. Particularly so when he prepared a fascinating report that contained everything he had found out about GCHQ’s ties to UFOs. Cole’s research showed that GCHQ had UFO reports on file, had copies of some of the United States’ Project Blue Book files, had an extensive “UFO library,” and were actively watching Cole himself in the shadows. It was almost inevitable that Cole would get a personal visit. He did. One morning after his report was published, Cole got a knock on the door from personnel in CID (Criminal Investigation Department) who interviewed him about his research. They wanted to know why he was looking into the UFO-GCHQ angle. They also asked questions about his knowledge of the aforementioned Royal Air Force Rudloe Manor. The good news was that Cole hadn’t committed any kind of crime. The Men in Black went their ways and Cole chose to quit Ufology.

What all of this demonstrates is that when we talk about UFOs and the U.K. government, things go far beyond than just the Ministry of Defense.

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In the last couple of years we’ve seen more and more information coming out of the U.S. government on the matter of UFOs. In fact, it’s practically impossible to avoid the incredible amount of UFO data that has been pouring out lately. But, some may be wondering, when was it that the government really got involved in the matters of UFOs and Flying Saucers? Let’s take a look. It was in the summer of 1947 that the UFO controversy began. On June 24, 1947 a pilot named Kenneth Arnold encountered a squadron of strange-looking, boomerang-like aircraft flying near Mt. Rainier, Washington State. As an experienced pilot, Arnold was puzzled by the fact that he was unable to figure out what, exactly, the craft were. On landing, Arnold shared his story with the media and told them that the objects flew like a saucer skimmed across a body of water – in a kind of up and down motion. In literally only hours, the term “Flying Saucer” was coined. The big irony is that the “Saucer” part came from Arnold’s observation of how the object flew, rather than their shape.

Kenneth Arnold

The U.S. military quickly moved to investigate the case, as well as a wave of quite literally hundreds of additional sightings throughout the remainder of 1947 and into 1948. Thus was born the government’s first UFO program, Project Sign. Interestingly, Project Sign staff concluded that there really was a UFO phenomenon, but they were unable to state with any degree of accuracy what the objects actually were. Theories posited by Sign personnel included Russian craft, and the creations of a secret group within the U.S. Government. Some of the Sign staff favored the extraterrestrial hypothesis. In 1948, Project Sign was replaced with Project Grudge. Just like Sign, Grudge had its personnel who championed the alien angle, while others suggested military aircraft of some kind – and either the product of Uncle Sam or the Soviets. Certainly, the most well-known of all the UFO programs was Project Blue Book.

Let’s see what the government says about all this:

“On December 17, 1969, the Secretary of the Air Force announced the termination of Project Blue Book, the Air Force program for the investigation of UFOs. From 1947 to 1969, a total of 12, 618 sightings were reported to Project Blue Book. Of these 701 remain ‘Unidentified.’ The project was headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, whose personnel no longer receive, document or investigate UFO reports. The decision to discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, ‘Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects;’ a review of the University of Colorado’s report by the National Academy of Sciences; past UFO studies and Air Force experience investigating UFO reports during the 40s, ’50s, and ’60s.”

The Air Force continues: “As a result of these investigations and studies and experience gained from investigating UFO reports since 1948, the conclusions of Project Blue Book are:(1) no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security;(2) there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as “unidentified” represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and(3) there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as “unidentified” are extraterrestrial vehicles. With the termination of Project Blue Book, the Air Force regulations establishing and controlling the program for investigating and analyzing UFOs were rescinded. Documentation regarding the former Blue Book investigation has been permanently transferred to the Military Reference Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC 20408, and is available for public review and analysis.””

There is also this from the Air Force: “Since Project Blue Book was closed, nothing has happened to indicate that the Air Force ought to resume investigating UFOS. Because of the considerable cost to the Air Force in the past, and the tight funding of Air Force needs today, there is no likelihood the Air Force will become involved with UFO investigation again. There are a number of universities and professional scientific organizations, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which have considered UFO phenomena during periodic meetings and seminars. In addition, a list of private organizations interested in aerial phenomena may be found in Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations (edition 8, vol-. 1, pp. 432-433). Such timely review of the situation by private groups ensures that sound evidence will not be overlooked by the scientific community. A person calling the base to report a UFO is advised to contact a private or professional organization (as mentioned above) or to contact a local law enforcement agency if the caller feels his or public safety is endangered.”

And, finally, there is this from the Air Force: “Periodically, it is erroneously stated that the remains of extraterrestrial visitors are or have been stored at Wright-Patterson AFB. There are not now nor ever have been, any extraterrestrial visitors or equipment on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.” This last piece, of course, is a nod to the notorious “Roswell UFO crash” of July 1947, and claims that strange bodies found outside of Roswell were secretly sent to Wright-Patterson for analysis and autopsy. Of course, since the Air Force wrote this summary, there have been a great deal of new developments. No doubt, and particularly in this period of strange uncertainty we’re in right now, it’s highly likely we’ll see far more and more revelations surfacing soon.

When it comes to the present fascination for UFOs – whether on the part of the public or the media – there are two words that surface on most occasions. Those words are “the government.” That the government doesn’t think the UFOs seen on CNN, 60 Minutes and countless other media outlets are extraterrestrial. But, the government can’t be sure. That the government is concerned about Russian and Chinese technology. That the government is no more in the picture than we are. And so on and so on. Here’s the important part of all this, though: just because we have various spokespeople in government keeping us up to date on what’s going on right now, doesn’t mean the government knows everything. That may sound odd, but it’s true. For example, as UFO sightings reached epidemic proportions across the USA in the summer of 1947, the military swung into action, and various studies and operations were formulated that ultimately unified into an official, investigative operation known as Project Sign. That project would, in 1948, make way for Project Grudge; and, finally, Project Blue Book, which continued until 1969. Collectively, the three projects concluded that no UFO sighting investigated officially had ever had a bearing on national security, and there was no evidence to indicate that any UFO sightings represented alien visitations.

It’s a little known fact that when the Air Force began its UFO investigations in the late 1940s, it quietly farmed out some of the work to companies that had preexisting, working relationships with the military. As the now-declassified files of Project Grudge show, one program in particular was quietly handed over to the Weather Bureau. The Air Force wanted the bureau’s staff to find out all that it could on a mysterious, rare, weather-based phenomenon. It is known as ball lightning. As for what, exactly, ball lightning is, there’s this from the EarthSky website: “The orbs are typically about the size of a grapefruit, moving slowly over the ground. They have been seen during electrical storms, hence the early theories that they were simply a different form of lightning. They usually disappear after 10 seconds, quietly, but sometimes a bang sound can be heard. They have even been observed to pass through closed windows!” Most people in the program knew nothing of the ball lighting off-shoot. And they were government. That’s an important issue.

If you bring up the matter of ball lightning with most UFO researchers, they will likely roll their eyes and dismiss the whole thing with a swift wave of a hand or two. The possibility that some UFO sightings might actually be the result of encounters with nothing weirder than ball lightning causes Flying Saucer seekers to fume, rage and stomp around. And blood-pressure quickly reaches dangerous levels. Believe me, I’ve seen it all. And it’s not a pretty sight. I remember seeing Stan Friedman once getting all bent out of shape when the words “ball” and “lightning” popped up together. Even in the UFO field, it’s not well known that the U.S. military tried to weaponize ball lightning. The story can be found in the pages of Survey of Kugelblitz Theories for Electromagnetic Incendiaries. It was the brainchild of W.B. Lyttle and C.E. Wilson. At the time, they were in the employ of Melpar, Inc., which is described as “an American government contractor in the 20^th century Cold War period. At a time when most employment in Washington, D.C. was directly by the U.S. federal government, Melpar became an early private sector contracting company training a high technology workforce in the area.”

Lyttle and Wilson were assigned to the Edgewood Arsenal, and to what was intriguingly titled as a “New Concepts Division / Special Projects” operation. At the beginning of their 92-pages-long report, the two wrote: “The purpose of this study was to review the theory and experimental data on ball lightning, to compare the existing theory and experimental data to determine whether ball lightning is a high or low energy phenomenon, and if it is a high energy phenomenon define an effective theoretical and experimental program to develop a potential incendiary weapon.” It’s a fact that the work done by Lyttle and Wilson – which had an undeniable UFO tinge attached to it – could have provoked sightings of what witnesses might have assumed were UFOs. Notably, in the 1960s, the work of Lyttle and Wilson was carefully kept away from the Project Blue Book program, even though both Blue Book and the Lyttle and Wilson team were government.

Also on the matter of the government and UFOs – and what it knows and what it doesn’t know – there’s the matter of the Collins Elite. That’s the nickname of an organization (with a real, still-classified title that remains hidden) funded by certain elements of the U.S. government to investigate the UFO phenomenon from a demonic and satanic perspective. What the Hell?! I first got onto the story back in 2007 and exposed it in 2010, in my Final Events book. For years, people scoffed at the idea there could be a group, deep within government, studying the possibility that the alien Greys of Ufology are the minions of Satan. Personally, I don’t think the UFO phenomenon is demonic, but I decided to write the book when I realized that such a group really did exist. In other words, the story was a fascinating one to share with people interested in UFOs. But, here’s the most relevant part of the whole thing: almost everyone within the government knew next to nothing about the Collins Elite. Most of them still don’t know of it. Or, more accurately, they have been denied access to it. Just a few years ago Senator Harry Reid revealed (to a small degree) the existence of the group and confirmed that its work revolved around the “aliens are really demons” angle. The group still remains to be fully exposed. And, even if you work for the U.S. government, you probably haven’t got clearance to know the lowdown of the Collins Elite.

As the material above shows, “the government” doesn’t know everything. Agency 1 doesn’t always share its data with Agency 2. And, that may be the case right now: while most people in government are baffled by the same footage that we’ve all been seeing recently, there could very well be other agencies (or, far more likely, small, well-hidden think-tanks like the Collins Elite) that know exactly what is going on.

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