The octopus is already an impressive creature (and probably knows it) and it certainly doesn’t need any help from humans reinforcing that notion. Yet we keep studying them – possibly to prove to ourselves that we really are superior to them. Good luck with that – especially after a new study found that an octopus’ arms can and do operate independently from their brains, making snap decisions on their own. Who’s the sucker now?

“It’s an alternative model for intelligence. It gives us an understanding as to the diversity of cognition in the world, and perhaps the universe.”

Uh-oh. Is Dominic Sivitilli, a graduate student in behavioral neuroscience and astrobiology at the University of Washington in Seattle who presented the new research at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon 2019) hinting that octopuses are from another part of the universe? Perhaps he’s implying that their arms are.

“The octopus’ arms have a neural ring that bypasses the brain, and so the arms can send information to each other without the brain being aware of it. So while the brain isn’t quite sure where the arms are in space, the arms know where each other are and this allows the arms to coordinate during actions like crawling locomotion.”

In a press release for the conference, Sivitilli describes how he watched the Giant Pacific octopus, the world’s largest, and East Pacific red octopuses captured in the Puget Sound off Seattle’s coast as he gave them objects such as cinder blocks, textured rocks, Legos and maze puzzles containing food. with food inside. After recording the arm movements on video, he used a computer program to analyze them. What he found was suckers picking up information from their environment and coordinating movements directly with other suckers, which then worked collectively to create arm movement.

Did he say “collective”?

“What we’re looking at, more than what’s been looked at in the past, is how sensory information is being integrated in this network while the animal is making complicated decisions.”

In other words, while the octopus’s brain is away, the suckers will play. Will they make decisions contrary to what the brain might make given the same data but more time? Good question. Ask an octopus.

It was just a year ago that a different scientific paper proposed that the first octopus on Earth came from “cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized Octopus eggs” carried on-board a vessel sent here from another planet 270 million years ago. We know that octopuses can edit their own RNA. Now we know their suckers act in a coordinated collective without needing instructions from the Borg Queen brain.

What next? These researchers were having giant Pacific octopuses lift cinder blocks. They’re already smarter than us … do they need to be stronger than us too?

Bottom line … if a talking octopus head comes to your door and says he’s unarmed, check the back door – the Ocean’s Eight appendages are probably breaking in.

In April 1997, William S. Cohen, who was then the U.S. Secretary of Defense when Bill Clinton held the position of President of the United States, made an amazing and controversial statement to a packed audience at the University of Georgia, which is located in Athens. The conference at which the Secretary of Defense was speaking was The Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy. Cohen came straight to the point and told the audience that certain bodies and people – who he elected not to name, which is intriguing – were then presently “…engaging in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of Electro-Magnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It’s real.” Yes, it is real. We know that thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. We now have in our possession an amazing – almost sci-fi like – document that details where the U.S. Air Force hopes to be in 2025, on the matter of weather modification and control – and with respect to multiple additional technologies, too. The document was written in 1996 and is amazing enough in content – even though it was written more than two decades ago.  The document is entitled USAF 2025.

Researched and written by the 2025 Support Office at the Air University, Air Education and Training Command, and developed by the Air University Press, Educational Services Directorate, College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, the document was “designed to comply with a directive from the chief of staff of the Air Force to examine the concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the dominant air and space force in the future.” The section of the document that we need to focus our attentions upon is titled: Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025. Yes, “owning the weather.”

The U.S. Air Force offered the following, thought-provoking words: “In 2025, US aerospace forces can ‘own the weather’ by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications. While some segments of society will always be reluctant to examine controversial issues such as weather-modification, the tremendous military capabilities that could result from this field are ignored at our own peril. Weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary.” The USAF 2025 document adds: “The desirability to modify storms to support military objectives is the most aggressive and controversial type of weather-modification. While offensive weather-modification efforts would certainly be undertaken by U.S. forces with great caution and trepidation, it is clear that we cannot afford to allow an adversary to obtain an exclusive weather-modification capability.”

The Air Force presented a fictional scenario which goes some way towards explaining how, and under what specific circumstances, the weather may become the next weapon of conflict: “Imagine that in 2025 the U.S. is fighting a rich, but now consolidated, politically powerful drug cartel in South America. The cartel has purchased hundreds of Russian-and Chinese-built fighters that have successfully thwarted our attempts to attack their production facilities. With their local numerical superiority and interior lines, the cartel is launching more than 10 aircraft for every one of ours. In addition, the cartel is using the French system probatoire d’ observation de la terre (SPOT) positioning and tracking imagery systems, which in 2025 are capable of transmitting near-real-time, multispectral imagery with 1 meter resolution. The U.S. wishes to engage the enemy on an uneven playing field in order to exploit the full potential of our aircraft and munitions.”

So, steps are taken to engage that same enemy, but in a very strange fashion: “Meteorological analysis reveals that equatorial South America typically has afternoon thunderstorms on a daily basis throughout the year. Our intelligence has confirmed that cartel pilots are reluctant to fly in or near thunderstorms. Therefore, our Weather Force Support Element (WFSE), which is a part of the commander in chief’s (CINC) air operations center (AOC), is tasked to forecast storm paths and trigger or intensify thunderstorm cells over critical target areas that the enemy must defend with their aircraft. Since our aircraft in 2025 have all-weather capability, the thunderstorm threat is minimal to our forces, and we can effectively and decisively control the sky over the target.”

The Weather Force Support Element, the USAF 2025 document reveals, “has the necessary sensor and communication capabilities to observe, detect, and act on weather-modification requirements to support US military objectives. These capabilities, we are told “are part of an advanced battle area system that supports the war-fighting CINC. In our scenario, the CINC tasks the WFSE to conduct storm intensification and concealment operations. The WFSE models the atmospheric conditions to forecast, with 90 percent confidence, the likelihood of successful modification using airborne cloud generation and seeding.” Things then become even more science-fiction-like: “According to USAF 2025, by 2025 uninhabited aerospace vehicles (UAV) are routinely used for weather-modification operations. By cross-referencing desired attack times with wind and thunderstorm forecasts and the SPOT satellite’s projected orbit, the WFSE generates mission profiles for each UAV. The WFSE guides each UAV using near-real-time information from a networked sensor array.

“Prior to the attack, which is coordinated with forecasted weather conditions, the UAVs begin cloud generation and seeding operations. UAVs disperse a cirrus shield to deny enemy visual and infrared (IR) surveillance. Simultaneously, microwave heaters create localized scintillation to disrupt active sensing via synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems such as the commercially available Canadian search and rescue satellite-aided tracking (SARSAT) that will be widely available in 2025. Other cloud seeding operations cause a developing thunderstorm to intensify over the target, severely limiting the enemy’s capability to defend. The WFSE monitors the entire operation in real-time and notes the successful completion of another very important but routine weather-modification mission.”

While the military stated that this scenario might be viewed by some as being “far-fetched,” it was as sure as it could be that “technological advances in meteorology and the demand for more precise weather information by global businesses will lead to the successful identification and parameterization of the major variables that affect weather.” The USAF 2025 peoplethen did a bit of digging into the future, which, one suspects, will not be too far off of the mark: “By 2025, advances in computational capability, modeling techniques, and atmospheric information tracking will produce a highly accurate and reliable weather prediction capability, validated against real-world weather. In the following decade, population densities put pressure on the worldwide availability and cost of food and usable water. Massive life and property losses associated with natural weather disasters become increasingly unacceptable.

“These pressures prompt governments and/or other organizations who are able to capitalize on the technological advances of the previous 20 years to pursue a highly accurate and reasonably precise weather-modification capability. The increasing urgency to realize the benefits of this capability stimulates laws and treaties, and some unilateral actions, making the risks required to validate and refine it acceptable.” Less than a decade from now, we can suggest, our planet may not resemble the world in which we live today. After all, consider the following from the Air Force, who are confident that they will be able to “shape local weather patterns by influencing the factors that affect climate, precipitation, storms and their effects, fog, and near space. These highly accurate and reasonably precise civil applications of weather-modification technology have obvious military implications. This is particularly true for aerospace forces, for while weather may affect all mediums of operation, it operates in ours.”

The military recommended that, “the DOD explore the many opportunities (and also the ramifications) resulting from development of a capability to influence precipitation or conducting ‘selective precipitation modification.’ Although the capability to influence precipitation over the long term (i.e., for more than several days) is still not fully understood. By 2025 we will certainly be capable of increasing or decreasing precipitation over the short term in a localized area.” Perhaps most important and relevant of all is the way in which the United States was guaranteed to benefit, strategically, from the deployment of such technologies in areas of hostility:  “Before discussing research in this area, it is important to describe the benefits of such a capability. While many military operations may be influenced by precipitation, ground mobility is most affected. Influencing precipitation could prove useful in two ways. First, enhancing precipitation could decrease the enemy’s trafficability by muddying terrain, while also affecting their morale. Second, suppressing precipitation could increase friendly trafficability by drying out an otherwise muddied area.”

As for the matter of not just creating storms – but definitive super-storms – that might decimate entire landscapes, and without even a bullet or a missile fired, the Air Force’s report makes things acutely obvious that it is this area, perhaps more than any other, which presents the biggest strategic gains: “The desirability to modify storms to support military objectives is the most aggressive and controversial type of weather-modification. The damage caused by storms is indeed horrendous. For instance, a tropical storm has an energy equal to 10,000 one-megaton hydrogen bombs, and in 1992 Hurricane Andrew totally destroyed Homestead AFB, Florida, caused the evacuation of most military aircraft in the southeastern US, and resulted in $15.5 billion of damage.”

On the matter of manufactured storms, we are also told: “At any instant there are approximately 2,000 thunderstorms taking place. In fact 45,000 thunderstorms, which contain heavy rain, hail, microbursts, wind shear, and lightning form daily. Anyone who has flown frequently on commercial aircraft has probably noticed the extremes that pilots will go to avoid thunderstorms. The danger of thunderstorms was clearly shown in August 1985 when a jumbo jet crashed killing 137 people after encountering microburst wind shears during a rain squall. These forces of nature impact all aircraft and even the most advanced fighters of 1996 make every attempt to avoid a thunderstorm.”

USAF 2025 then asked an important question, one which has a bearing everyone who flies – regularly or occasionally: “Will bad weather remain an aviation hazard in 2025?” In answering its very own question, the Air Force said: “The answer, unfortunately, is ‘yes,’ but projected advances in technology over the next 30 years will diminish the hazard potential. Computer-controlled flight systems will be able to ‘autopilot’ aircraft through rapidly changing winds. Aircraft will also have highly accurate, onboard sensing systems that can instantaneously ‘map’ and automatically guide the aircraft through the safest portion of a storm cell. Aircraft are envisioned to have hardened electronics that can withstand the effects of lightning strikes and may also have the capability to generate a surrounding electropotential field that will neutralize or repel lightning strikes. Assuming that the U.S. achieves some or all of the above outlined aircraft technical advances and    maintains the technological ‘weather edge’ over its potential adversaries, we can next look at how we could modify the battlespace weather to make the best use of our technical advantage.”

The technology and science surrounding the issue of turning weather into weapons was further explored: “Weather-modification technologies might involve techniques that would increase latent heat release in the atmosphere, provide additional water vapor for cloud cell development, and provide additional surface and lower atmospheric heating to increase atmospheric instability.” Paramount to the success of any attempt to ignite a storm cell, noted the authors, “…is the pre-existing atmospheric conditions locally and regionally.”

In essence, that means the Earth’s atmosphere must be deemed “conditionally unstable and the large-scale dynamics must be supportive of vertical cloud development. The focus of the weather-modification effort would be to provide additional ‘conditions’ that would make the atmosphere unstable enough to generate cloud and eventually storm cell development. The path of storm cells once developed or enhanced is dependent not only on the mesoscale dynamics of the storm but the regional and synoptic (global) scale atmospheric wind flow patterns in the area which are currently not subject to human control.”

The Air Force admitted that “the technical hurdles for storm development in support of military operations are obviously greater than enhancing precipitation or dispersing fog as described earlier. One area of storm research that would significantly benefit military operations is lightning modification. Most research efforts are being conducted to develop techniques to lessen the occurrence or hazards associated with lightning. This is important research for military operations and resource protection, but some offensive military benefit could be obtained by doing research on increasing the potential and intensity of lightning.”

Let’s now take a look at the final words on this particular issue: “The lessons of history indicate a real weather-modification capability will eventually exist despite the risk. The drive exists. People have always wanted to control the weather and their desire will compel them to collectively and continuously pursue their goal. The motivation exists. The potential benefits and power are extremely lucrative and alluring for those who have the resources to develop it. This combination of drive, motivation, and resources will eventually produce the technology. History also teaches that we cannot afford to be without a weather-modification capability once the technology is developed and used by others. Even if we have no intention of using it, others will. To call upon the atomic weapon analogy again, we need to be able to deter or counter their capability with our own. Therefore, the weather and intelligence communities must keep abreast of the actions of others.

“Weather-modification is a force multiplier with tremendous power that could be exploited across the full spectrum of war-fighting environments. From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns to complete dominance of global communications and counter-space control, weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary. But, while offensive weather-modification efforts would certainly be undertaken by US forces with great caution and trepidation, it is clear that we cannot afford to allow an adversary to obtain an exclusive weather-modification capability.”

2025 is not that far way at all. It will be interesting to see if by that year we will have perfected weather-based weaponry to a highly significant degree.

This week, the Moscow Times has reported that the Russian military has developed bizarre ‘cyborg’ drones shaped like snowy owls. The avian drone was unveiled at the Russian Defense Ministry’s annual military expo in Moscow this week. Images of the drone shared by the Moscow Times show a massive, menacing owl with a creepy dome-shaped lens where its beak should be. According to the Defense Ministry, the owl drone can be equipped with cameras and other surveillance equipment as well as lasers to help guide artillery and guided air-to-surface weapons.

Snowy Owl in flight. Or is it a cyborg owl spying on us? It may soon be impossible to tell.

While the owl is sure to fool absolutely nobody with normal vision up close, at a distance the drone could easily be mistaken for an owl gliding in flight. The drone owls weigh just 5 kilograms (11 pounds) and have a range of 20 kilometers (12 miles). The body of the owl can also be swapped out for different bird species such as falcons, making it adaptable for different environments.

While this ‘cyborg’ spy owl may just seem like a kooky prototype, these drones likely represent the future of surveillance and reconaissance, at least in some small part. If the Russians and the Chinese have developed these robotic bird-shaped drones, rest assured that other nations have as well. The U.S. military has been testing their own bird drones since at least 2013. Last year, the South China Morning Postreported on the development of creepy dove-shaped dronesbeing used by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Chinese citizens in at least five different Chinese provinces. 

As if snowy owls weren’t already terrifying enough.

Just wait until these things go full-on biohybrid. In 2016, some of the biggest biomedical engineering stories concerned half biological, half robotic creatures which combined living flesh and cells with electronics. How much longer until these bird-shaped drones are actually ‘wrapped’ in actual bird blood and guts or other types of biomimicry?

The world’s superpowers already have a long history of attempting to use animals as spies. It now seems as if we can no longer trust any of our seemingly feathered friends flying overhead. Is it time to start shooting every bird out of the sky?

-

Just off the northeastern coast of the United States is a huge freshwater aquifer underneath the Atlantic Ocean. The exact size of the aquifer is still unknown, but what is known is that it stretches from Massachusetts to the southern part of New Jersey and includes the coastlines of New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. And around 670 cubic miles of it could possibly contain a bit of salty water.

It is believed that the freshwater aquifer came from the last Ice Age. Back in the 1970s when several companies were drilling for oil off the coast, they occasionally hit pockets of freshwater. However, at that time, they were unclear as to whether they were just small pockets or if they were part of a much larger area of fresh water.

Study co-researcher Kerry Key (the study can be read here), helped oil companies find oil hotspots around twenty years ago by using electromagnetic imaging on the bottom of the ocean’s floor.

Recently, he decided to change the technology in order to detect underground pools of fresh water. And in 2015, he and his study co-researcher, Rob Evans, went out into the waters off the coast of southern New Jersey and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts to examine the areas with fresh water. They put equipment into the water that measured the electromagnetic fields to find out which areas had salt water and fresh water.

What they found was that the fresh water began at the shoreline and ended up 75 miles offshore in some places, meaning that there definitely weren’t pockets that were scattered around, but instead one large uninterrupted area. It’s also quite deep, beginning at around 600 feet under the floor of the ocean and finishing at approximately 1,200 feet under the seafloor.

As for how the freshwater aquifer ended up beneath the ocean, it probably happened during the last Ice Age. Since a lot of the planet’s water was made up of glaciers around 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, the water levels were quite a bit lower than they are today. When Earth’s temperatures finally got warmer, the ice which covered the land melted which meant that much of the water washed away large amounts of sediments, forming river deltas. When the fresh water from the glaciers melted, it got trapped in the river deltas. So when the sea levels began to rise, the fresh water was stuck underneath the ocean.

Since the aquifer mixes with seawater slowly over time, the further away it is, the saltier it becomes. While the water would need to be desalinated prior to people using it, it would still be less expensive than trying to purify normal salt water. Key explained, “We probably don’t need to do that in this region, but if we can show there are large aquifers in other regions, that might potentially represent a resource” for dry locations around the planet, such as the Mideast, Saharan Africa, Australia, or Southern California.

People often ask me why I think that the creatures of Loch Ness, Scotland are supernatural in nature, rather than being flesh and blood animals. Well, the primary reason is because the loch is – and has been for centuries – an absolute magnet for paranormal activity. The real story of the Loch Ness Monster is very different to the one presented by countless cryptozoologists and monster-hunters over the years and decades. It’s also a story that many of those same cryptozoologists and monster-hunters have clearly ignored. Or, perhaps, even deliberately suppressed. That is evidenced by the fact that the supernatural data is out there, to be seen by one and all, yet it has barely been touched upon at length or discussed in the vast majority of Nessie-themed books. The reason why it has been ignored is abundantly obvious: mainstream cryptozoology does not wish to see the down to earth theories challenged by the world of the paranormal. I understand that cherished beliefs suggesting the Nessies are plesiosaurs are important to many. However, ignoring key data will not help solve the mystery. In reality, such an approach will have the polar opposite effect: it will stifle research and push it down the wrong road.

Time and again, we have seen the monsters of Loch Ness tied to the domain of the supernatural. No less than the very first recorded sighting – the 6^th century affair of St. Columba – was steeped in strange phenomena. The monster’s deadly games were reeled in by the saint, who called upon the power of the Christian god to try and rein-in the creature. More than a thousand years later the monster was still plaguing the people of Loch Ness. That much is made clear by the tales of the kelpies of Loch Ness. It’s important to note that not a solitary soul believed them to have been regular, albeit unknown, animals. Indeed, the unanimous conclusion was that the kelpies were deadly, paranormal monsters that had the ability to alter their physical appearances. Such theories, and fears, extended right up until the final years of the 19^th century – and made a resurgence years later, largely thanks to the work of monster investigator Ted Holiday. And still on the issue of the final years of the 1800s, there is the not insignificant fact that none other than the “Great Beast” Aleister Crowley lived at Loch Ness’ Boleskine House. That Crowley – deliberately, inadvertently, or a bit of both – conjured up infernal, supernatural entities and helped create an air of malignant menace at the loch, cannot be denied and cannot be without relevance.

Something else which cannot be denied is the fact that when the term “Loch Ness Monster” was created in the 1930s, it prompted a multitude of reports that described the Nessies in wildly varying ways. Arthur Grant encountered a monster with distinct flippers and a long neck. Hugh Gray’s famous photo shows a creature that pretty much lacks any kind of neck; as for its head it’s beak-like. Lieutenant McP Fordyce’s monster had long legs (rather than flippers), walked on the land, and was somewhat hairy, rather than dark and serpent-like. Add to that the tusked and frog-like Nessies of earlier years and what we have is a modern incarnation of the old kelpie – a creature that could morph into multiple forms. The implication is obvious: the kelpies of old never really went away. They were merely upgraded for new generations and given a new name: Nessie.

The highly bizarre, and downright sinister, situations into which ill-fated Nessie-seeker Ted Holiday found himself plunged are further evidence of the supernatural forces that lurk and manipulate at Loch Ness. Men in Black, strange synchronicities, a mysterious and deadly dragon cult, the Reverend Donald Omand’s exorcism of the Nessies, repeated encounters near creepy old Urquhart Castle, and Holiday’s very own unrelenting descent into a word filled with magic, mysticism, and the occult all make that clear. Even monster pursuer Tim Dinsdale – hardly publicly known for having beliefs in the supernatural nature of the monsters – admitted to having crossed paths with certain, paranormal aspects of the Nessie mystery. And then there’s the matter of UFOs.

In the summer of 2015, the controversy of the Loch Ness Monster was taken to a new height – as in literally. That was when the mystery was yet again linked to the matter of high-flying UFOs. The three key players in the story were Alan Betts and his wife, Anna, and Anna’s mother, Tatiana. The family, from the English city of York, were holidaying in Scotland. It was April 2015, and the three were staying at a cottage near Urquhart Castle. While at the loch, and as is the case for practically everyone who visits the loch, they took a good number of photos. It wasn’t until the Betts returned home, however, that they realized just how weird one of their vacation pictures was. Taken by Tatiana, it appeared to show a pair of anomalous objects in the sky, right over Loch Ness. As if Nessie wasn’t enough of a mystery on its own.

Alan – the director of a refrigerating company – said when the story hit the headlines two months later that the timing of their vacation was fortuitous. The weather was pretty much perfect: that’s to say it was bright and sunny for almost the entire time. However, on one particular day, and after the Betts spent hours of checking out the area, things changed. The sunny weather was suddenly gone and everything quickly became dark and gloomy and the rain poured in definitive deluge style.  Tatiana decided to take a photo of the moody skies – something which proved to be crucial to the story. It was only after the family got back home, and downloaded their holiday pictures onto their PC, that they noticed something odd on that particular photo. It was a pair of brightly lit objects that appeared to be flying over Loch Ness, but which weren’t seen at the time Tatiana took the picture. Alan was a self-confessed skeptic, but admitted that he was at a loss to explain what the camera had captured.  Interestingly, Alan added: “Our Akita dog, Yuka, was strangely unsettled that night.”

Anna, when approached by the Huffington Post for comment on the growing controversy surrounding the photo, said: “We can say 100 percent that the camera was perfectly fine. It was raining very heavily, there were no lights in the house to resemble the objects in any shape or form.” Some commentators suspected that the entire matter could be explained away via light reflection. Both Anna and Alan felt that such an explanation was unlikely, noting that no lights were on when the picture was taken. And, at the time of writing, that’s pretty much where things stand today. The Betts are sure they photographed something unusual, while the skeptics are positive the case can be explained in wholly rational terms.

Put all of the above together and what you get – as I see it, anyway – is a strange place and its stranger creatures, and all tied to the world of the paranormal.

The island of Puerto Rico is home to a number of different religions, one of them being Santeria – which is also practiced throughout much of the rest of the Caribbean. Its origins, however, can be found in the traditions of the Yoruba people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, West Africa. While those that adhere to the teachings of Santeria believe in the existence of one, overall god, they also believe there are numerous sub-gods too, which are collectively known as the Orishas. Those that are initiated into the religion – and which are known as Santeros – are required to go through a week-long process of purification, one which involves the application of both herbs and water to carefully and completely cleanse the body. Not only that, a great deal of time and effort is expended by the Santeros when it comes to the appeasement of their many and varied sub-deities. One way in which this has been achieved (but far less so today) is by animal sacrifice – and, specifically, the killing of chickens and goats, which – allegedly – just happen to be the most favored delicacies of the Puerto Rican “vampire.”

In November 1992, three years before the chupacabra phenomenon took off big-time, a major controversy of legal proportions surfaced in Florida, where Santeria has a significantly-sized following. It’s a following dominated by the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, which was created in 1974. As a result, the city of Hialeah – situated in Miami-Dade County – passed a law banning the practice of animal sacrifice. In 1992, this law was challenged by the church, in the Supreme Court, no less. Anargument was made to the effect that preventing the followers of Santeria from carrying out a prime aspect of their traditions was unconstitutional. On June 11, 1993, the church won the case.

In mid-2007, I was once again on the island with which I have so much affinity. I decided that I would spend the four days at my disposal trying to get to the heart of the claims that at least some tales of the chupacabra, and its deadly attacks on livestock, might be the concoctions of groups that engaged in sacrificial activity. Since such rumors existed, they had, at least, to be addressed. Santeria has a long history on Puerto Rico: it took much of its inspiration from Nigerian slaves shipped over to the island in the 18^th century. As for the matter of animal sacrifice, this was typically carried out by a Santero who was well-versed in the many and varied intricacies of the religion. The reasons for such sacrifices were numerous and included a desire for physical well-being, riches, and good fortune. Just like each and every paranormal pact, this one came at a price: money, of course.

A Santero would rub the skin of a paying client with the body of the animal that was to be imminently sacrificed. Doing so, the followers of Santeria believed, transferred whatever ailed the person – or whatever they desire – into the body of the animal. The sacrificing of the animal was an act designed to ensure the wish reaches the Orishas, who granted them whatever it was that the person in question required. Sometimes, the corpse of the animal was destroyed; on other occasions it was eaten. As for the blood, it was served in a large vessel that is then offered to the gods.

Since Santeria has a large and acknowledged following on Puerto Rico (although, it’s important to note that the sacrificial angle, today, is largely symbolic rather than literal) it’s most unlikely that its adherents would need to pass any sacrifices off as attacks undertaken by the chupacabra. There is, however, another group, allegedly, on Puerto Rico that might find it to its advantage to do exactly that. Santeria has an offshoot known variously as Mayombe, Palo, or Palo Mayombe, but which, for the sake of ease, I will refer to as Palo. Its rituals – of supposedly being able to grant wealth, health and power – are essentially identical to those of regular Santeria.

While on Puerto Rico in May 2007 I was able to hook up with a man named Sal, who told me a profoundly disturbing story. It was around 7:00 p.m. on a bustling, hot, Friday evening and we were hanging out in a run-down, darkened bar in Old San Juan’s La Perla district. Sal, thirty-something, worked in a local restaurant. As I sat and listened, he told me a number of stories that had come to him, second-hand, by what he described as a friend in the meat trade. Admittedly, I wasn’t altogether happy about relying on a story that came from a friend of a friend (and, maybe, of yet another friend, too), but in this case, I really had no choice. Sal said there existed on Puerto Rico what can only be described as a rogue form of religion, one that practiced highly controversial rituals. The group, he added, was one that pretty much no-one knew about or was linked to. Unless, that is, you were a part of it. The rituals of the group typically revolved around the sacrifice of chickens, goats and peacocks.  According to Sal, the group began its deadly activities in late 1994, or maybe early 1995, and was focused on providing a unique service, in return for a great deal of money: a guarantee of power and wealth.

Sal said that many of the people were nothing less than major, household names: famous actors, politicians, musicians, authors, and even – he claimed – certain figures in the world of royalty. Some of the rituals, Sal said, were held in a large and spacious house, one that was owned by a rich and influential figure in the equally rich and influential area of Condado, which is situated in Santurce, a district of San Juan. Other rituals were supposedly undertaken, in somewhat dicey fashion, deep in the heart of the El Yunque rain forest. As well as sacrifices and the dishing up of dead bodies to ancient deities, wild, alcohol- and cocaine-fueled orgies were the name of the game, too. It all reminded me of something straight out of the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman movie of 1999, Eyes Wide Shut. I distinctly remember thinking at the time: I sincerely hope Sal hasn’t made all this up after seeing, and getting over-excited by, the movie.

As for the chupacabra connection to the story, Sal claimed that while the group was not responsible, per se, for creating the legend of the beast, the members most definitely exploited it to their great advantage and to the absolute hilt. By that, he meant – and particularly in relation to the events in El Yunque – when the group was busy killing chickens and goats in the rain forest, and then draining their blood and offering it up to the gods, it made a great deal of sense for them to spread tales of a chupacabra or several on the loose. By doing so, their controversial actions remained buried under a mass of tales of an animal-killing, blood-drinking creature that might not actually exist – or that actually might. Could Sal help me to track down the group? Nope. Could he give me its name? Not a chance. Was there anything else he could tell me? Not a thing. It was very much just a case of: here’s what I know; take it or leave it. I decided, on balance, to choose the former – to the extent that I could. Sal’s story proved nothing. It did, however, strongly suggest to me that the truth behind the chupacabra legend was far more complex and confusing than most observers of the phenomenon had ever realized.

In 2002, Timothy Cooper – a UFO researcher from Big Bear Lake, California, who is no longer involved in the subject – sold all of his UFO files to ufologist Dr. Robert Wood. I spent a week ensconced in an Orange County, California motel room carefully logging every one of the items contained within Cooper’s vast document collection – having been hired to do so by Bob Wood. One of those items was a controversial, undated, 8-page extract from a longer, very seldom seen, document titled UFO Reports and Classified Projects: The CIA Perspective. Provided to Cooper, indirectly by an alleged CIA source that he referred to as the “Blue Boy,” it details a controversial theory that links Roswell with down-to-earth (as opposed to extraterrestrial) biological warfare activities and the Nazis. The document appears to be a draft of a briefing paper, and provides a concise history of the role of the United States’ Government and military with respect to UFOs. The opening pages, which would have provided us with a date, are unfortunately missing; but the 1990s are mentioned. Like so many supposedly leaked documents, it’s incredibly difficult to say for sure if it is the real deal or carefully-crafted disinformation. The available portions of the document are provided in full and begin as follows, and under the heading of “Historical Perspective.”

“Since 1969, the United States Government has taken the official position that unidentified flying objects (UFO) do not exists and do not pose a threat to national security. This position is based on the conclusions reached by Project BLUE BOOK, the official United States Air Force UFO study program which began in early 1948 and was terminated in December 1969. According to General Charles P. Cabell USAF, and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, this view was no accepted until the successful moon landing of Apollo 11 and several scientific studies. In January 1953, the CIA conducted its own review of the UFO phenomenon known as the Robertson Panel chaired by Dr. H.P. Robertson, a CIA employee, and its conclusions are mirrored by Project BLUE BOOK files. The only threat was of UFO reports, not UFOs.

“Freedom of Information Act responses by the CIA state that the only involvement by the CIA ended after the Robertson Panel submitted its report. Since then, the Agency has not authorized any intelligence collection project nor has received a mandate from the National Security Council to continue UFO intelligence and operations at the scientific level. A review of declassified CIA and NSA intelligence documents suggest that this may not be the case which in either event, a re-examination of all CIA and NSA intelligence documents dealing with UFOs since 1953 is warranted. I might also add that continued reporting of UFOs and related phenomenon across the United States and foreign countries, most noticeably in China, Korea, Australia, and Russia would require some form of surveillance as was done by the CIA up until 1991. Based on past CIA conclusions, a positive identification was never reached.”

We are then told: “The need for an American central intelligence and Coordinator of Information (COI) to advise the president of impending political and military developments among hostile governments arose in pre and post-World War II era through the efforts of Sir William S. Stephenson of British Intelligence, General William J. Donovan, and President Roosevelt. In this case, technological advantages in unconventional aircraft and weapons systems of Nazi Germany became the focus of Military Intelligence Division (MID), Army Intelligence (G-2), Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and COI (later Director of the Office of Strategic Services) shortly after Germany’s capitulation in May 1945. Interest in securing all available rocket and aircraft technology was generated from earlier reports of incursions over the United States by yet unidentified aerial objects believed to have been advanced aircraft from a foreign power. This technical intelligence collection effort was carried out through a vast and comprehensive man hunt known as Operation PAPER CLIP whose purpose was to bring back to the United States leading German rocket and aircraft scientists and engineers to begin work on military defense projects while preventing the wholesale recruitment of remaining German scientists by Soviet military intelligence still in Germany.

“During the war OSS technical intelligence had secured reliable information that German advances in high speed, high altitude, long range fighters and bombers were all-wing, circular-shaped employing innovative airfoil designs capable of eliminating boundary layer restrictions achieved by their V-2 ballistic missile. Coupled with the fact that American and British intelligence were gravely concerned that such aerial machines could deliver atomic bombs anywhere in Europe and on the continental United States given the fact that Germany’s atomic bomb program had a two-year head start of the Army’s Manhattan Project. I January 1948, the Department of the Army circulated a classified intelligence document to all concerned intelligence chiefs that ‘the German High Command indicated a definite interest in the Horten type of flying wing and were about to embark on a rigorous campaign to develop such aircraft toward the end of the war.’  The report suggested that the Gotha manufacturing plant was the proposed site where such aircraft were to be built and warned: ‘This plant is now in the hands of the Russians.’ The report also indicated that such information was highly desirable and requested any additional intelligence on ‘aircraft whose shape approximate that of an oval, disc, or saucer’, including ‘boundary layer control method by suction, blowing, or a combination of both” and “special controls for effective maneuverability at very slow speeds or extremely high altitudes.’

“The OSS had information regarding such developments as early as 1943 based on transcripts taken from the Flying Wing Seminar given by the Horten brothers at Bonn, Germany, on April 14, 1943, in which the newly created Central Intelligence Agency had classified and did not disseminate in 1947. British intelligence also had this information and provided the CIA technical specifications for delta-shaped, right-angled triangle, tailless and semi-circular aircraft. Other specifications included designs for ‘boomerang’ shapes under development in Britain, Canada, and the United States which are enumerated in General Nathan F. Twining’s September 23, 1947 Air Materiel Command ‘Flying Saucer’ report to Air Intelligence headquarters after numerous UFO sightings subsided during the previous summer. During the ensuing 50-year development efforts of the CIA and defense contractors these designs evolved into today’s delta-shaped stealth aircraft and uninhabited reconnaissance drones. Some of the reported UFO sightings of the 1960’s and 1970’s were classified CIA and Air Force satellites developed under high security and for national security reasons were not divulged publicly which fueled considerable speculation among the news media and civilian UFO researchers. One basic rule of military secrecy: You don’t allow a rival service to gain control over a new area of operations. Two days after the Air Materiel Command released its ‘flying saucer’ report, the Air Staff instructed the AMC to evaluate a Research and Development (RAND) study on the feasibility of putting earth orbiting reconnaissance satellites about the earth based on the opinions of German rocket experts employing state-of-the-art photographic techniques and optical imagery.”

The “Blue Boy” then turned his attention to the matter of the Roswell affair of 1947: “Another rule of secrecy was: You always camouflage your operations from prying eyes. It was not widely known to many that the Air Force and navy were conducting classified rocket-launched reconnaissance payloads from White Sands, New Mexico, which failed to reach orbiting altitudes and subsequently crashed off range and generated considerable public interest in the United States and abroad. As part of a top secret Air Force atomic weapons detection project called MOGUL involving radiation dispersal in the atmosphere, selected monitoring sites across the United States were not acknowledged to by the Air Force and Central Intelligence Group (CIG) and as a result, wreckage from one of the payloads was accidentally discovered by a sheep rancher not far from the Air Force’s Roswell Army Air Field.

“Also, another fact was not widely known among military intelligence was that CIG had planned to utilize artificial meteor strikes as decoy devices ejected from V-2 warheads at 60 miles above the earth to record dispersal trajectories and possible psychological warfare weapons against the Soviets in the advent of a war in Europe. One of the projects underway at that time incorporated re-entry vehicles containing radium and other radioactive materials combined with biological warfare agents developed by I.G. Farben for use against allied assault forces in Normandy in 1944.

“When a V-2 warhead impacted near the town of Corona, New Mexico, on July 4, 1947, the warhead did not explode and it and the deadly cargo lay exposed to the elements which forced the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to close off the crash site and a cover story was immediately put out that what was discovered was the remains of a radar tracking target suspended by balloons. In 1994 and again in 1995, the Air Force published what it considered the true account of what lay behind the Roswell story but omitted the radiological warhead data for obvious reasons. It may also be pointed out here that this kind of experiment was very similar to those conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission and the military in the late 1940’s. It was known in the CIA that the Soviets were conducting the same kind of radiological and biological warfare experiments in the early 1950’s after their successful detonation of a [sic] atomic bomb based on stolen documents and materials from Los Alamos forwarded to Moscow by communist espionage agents in the United States.”

Turning away from Roswell, the Blue Boy continued thus: “Prior to the August 1949 Soviet atomic bomb experiment, Army, Navy, and FBI intelligence officers had classified flying saucer sightings in the United States as TOP SECRET as indicated in a January 31, 1949 FBI memorandum which located Los Alamos as an active area of investigation by USAF Office of Special Investigations and described the UFOs as an ‘unconventional type without wings’ and resembled ‘rocket ship’ configurations similar to the German V-2. Almost a year prior to the United States 1947 Flying Saucer wave, State Department military Attaches reported similar sightings over Sweden and other parts of northern Europe and it was assumed that the ‘ghost rocket’ phenomenon was of Soviet origin and was in response to U.S. atmospheric tests of atomic weapons in the Pacific.

“In March 1949, the CIA did a review of flying saucer sighting data conducted by the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and based upon submitted reports from Air Force Project SIGN did not concur with the extraterrestrial hypothesis reached by project officers. Dr. Stone of OSI drew other conclusions suggesting that ‘many of the objects may be free meteorological sounding balloons’ and that if the sightings were classified projects they would not be launched from many locations across the United States and would be ‘closely coordinated with USAF or commercial designers.’ Stone also ruled out foreign aircraft reconnaissance flights because of the great distances involved and ‘guided aircraft’ lacked the range required for such flights and was beyond technical capabilities of any government at that time. The CIA had the best intelligence available on Soviet capabilities and for security reasons would not discuss classified ‘secret weapons’ programs that were under development within secret establishments in the U.S. which would be compromised if Stone made some obscure disclosure to Project SIGN staff officers. And, for the same reasons General Twining did not elaborate on ‘physical evidence’ for recovered wreckage of failed rocket launches conducted at White Sands.

“The CIA paid particular attention to reports originating out of New Mexico as indicated in a April 24, 1949 CIA intelligence report detailing a theodolite track of a ‘white spherical object’ that was traveling too fast to be a balloon described as ‘an ellipsoid about 2 ½:1 slenderness ratio’ at an altitude of 60 miles with a course heading that would have covered White Sands, Holloman Air Force Base and Los Alamos. At this point, the CIA did not comment on such reports and drew no conclusions without disclosing the existence of classified programs to un-authorized agencies.

“SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE: UFO Identification And Analysis: The sharing of scientific intelligence between British and American agencies in missile and atomic weapons research was instrumental in defeating Japan and Germany in World War II. In exchange of aviation advances and electronics, the OSS supplied technical and scientific intelligence and kept General Groves appraised of German scientific activities in atomic fission. The use of atomic weapons in war and the spread of scientific knowledge was anticipated and magnified by the Soviet penetration of U.S. atomic secrets enlarged the horror of a nuclear Pearl Harbor. With the growing possibility that some UFO sighting reports collected by the CIG were Soviet devices, Admiral Sidney Souers in 1946 undertook the task of coordinating scientific intelligence with the Office of Scientific Research and Development and directed the Central Planning Staff to look into the problem of surprise attack by unconventional means and recruited Dr. H. P. Robertson as his scientific consultant and established the Interdepartmental…”

The remaining pages of the document were not found within the files of Tim Cooper. And while the data imparted by the Blue Boy concerning the Roswell crash and biological warfare is certainly provocative, does it have any validity? With respect to the theory that a Mogul balloon was responsible for creating the legend of the UFO crash at Roswell, the United States Air Force firmly embraced, and still does embrace, that particular explanation. Mogul was a project that utilized balloons to carry radar reflectors and acoustic sensors aloft for the purpose of determining the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research. As far as the reference to I.G. Farben is concerned, this too is provocative: I. G. Farben was the company that made the Zyklon-B gas that was utilized in the terrible Nazi death camps of the Second World War. Indeed, at the height of its production in 1944, I.G. Farben ran a slave labor plant at Auschwitz using no less than 83,000 people. Arguably any “biological” work undertaken at White Sands involving people allied to I.G. Farben would have created intense controversy and would have been subject to stringent security measures – particularly if a V-2 rocket with such a “deadly cargo” had indeed strayed off course and crashed near the town of Corona.

And it is quite true that a wealth of tests of captured Nazi V-2 rockets were undertaken at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico in the period 1946 to 1952. Indeed, in total, sixty-seven V-2 rockets were assembled and tested at the Range, and ultimately provided the United States with valuable experience in the assembly, pre-flight testing, handling, fueling, launching, and tracking of large missiles. The scientific experiments conducted aboard the rockets also yielded significant information about the upper atmosphere. One series of tests, the Blossom Project, was responsible for undertaking the first biological experiments in space. Interestingly, in its July 1994 document titled Report of Air Force Research Regarding the Roswell Incident, the Air Force did address the question of whether or not a V-2 rocket was to blame for the monumental fuss at Roswell:

“A crashed or errant missile, usually described as a captured German V-2 or one of its variants, is sometimes set forth as a possible explanation for the debris recovered near Roswell. Since much of this testing done at nearby White Sands was secret at the time, it would be logical to assume that the government would handle any missile mishap under tight security, particularly if the mishap occurred on private land. From the records reviewed by the Air Force, however, there was nothing located to suggest that this was the case. Although the bulk of remaining testing records are under the control of the U.S. Army, the subject has also been very well documented over the years within Air Force records. There would be no reason to keep such information classified today. The USAF found no indicators or even hints that a missile was involved in this matter.”

To this day, the Blue Boy’s controversial revelations – shared with Tim Cooper almost a couple of decades ago – remain steeped in controversy. Whether or not the papers told the truth of Roswell and other UFO-themed events, or if alleged personnel at Area 51 concocted them to try and deflect Cooper away from the idea that UFOs have extraterrestrial origins, is an issue that remains wide open, years after Cooper received the documents.

My own view on all of this is one that many might not have taken into consideration: you will have noted that Nazi Germany gets a lot of coverage in this controversial document. I know for a fact that there are a number of people in Ufology who are racist pigs and who have a disturbing admiration for the Nazis. Yep, undeniably disgusting. Some of them are well-known figures in the field. In view of that, I would not be surprised if Cooper was duped by someone – or by a group – within Ufology itself, seeking to further emphasize and highlight a UFO-Nazi connection. My new book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin, is a study of how the Russians – throughout the Cold War – used the UFO phenomenon as a tool of psychological warfare against the United States. In light of that, I’m seriously thinking of writing a similar book, but on all of the many and varied racist, right-wing extremist scumbags in Ufology – and who still have a dangerous UFO-themed agenda designed to fly the flag of the pathetic “master race.”

The long, strange saga of the U.S. Navy and its sudden willingness to admit that its personnel regularly encounter unidentified aerial phenomena keeps getting longer and stranger. Why the sudden shift in policy? What is the motivation for disclosing these encounters to the public? Some of my fellow MU contributors and I have for months been discussing the matter and speculating about the motivations of the Navy and the Pentagon, yet nobody is any closer to understanding what might really be happening here.

Clearly, the narrative is being carefully controlled by the Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy. We can only base our speculation on what has been released to the public over the last few years by news outlets and the History Channel and what is public record. With that said, it’s been my humble opinion that the most curious additions to the still-developing story are the strange aerospace patents filed by one Salvatore Cezar Pais, a scientist working for the Naval Air Warfare Center – Aircraft Division, or NAWCAD, in Patuxent River, Maryland.

In my attempt to dig up as much information as I can about the inventor and these patents, I’ve found some supplemental documents in the U.S. Patent Office’s databases that seem to imply that Navy leadership knows that these technologies are actually possible – or that they want us to think that they are. Accompany me down this rabbit hole, if you will. I’m so far down I can’t even see the surface anymore.

Little information can be found about Salvatore Cezar Pais; he has absolutely no web presence. What is known is that he received a PhD from Western Case University in 1999 and that he currently works as a scientist for NAWCAD. Pais has published several articles and presented papers at American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conferences over the years describing his work in electromagnetic propulsion, revolutionary room temperature superconductors, and topics like his PhD dissertation: “Bubble generation under reduced gravity conditions for both co-flow and cross-flow configurations.” A list of his publications can be found here.

Pais is listed as the inventor for three separate patents for which the U.S. Navy is the assignee: a curiously Tic-Tac-shaped “High Frequency Gravitational Wave Generator;” a room temperature superconductor; and, perhaps the strangest of all, one titled “Craft Using an Inertial Mass Reduction Device.” That craft is described as being capable of incredible feats of speed and maneuverability, capable of flying equally well in air, water, or space without leaving a heat signature, and capable of altering the ‘fabric of our reality’ as we know it through exploiting what are essentially ‘loopholes’ in our current understanding of the laws of thermodynamics.

It’s weird stuff.

Of course, just because something is patented doesn’t mean it’s currently in production. Private entities and the U.S. government both regularly patent forward-looking technologies to ensure that they own the rights to them when or if they’re ever fully realized. That being said, the unorthodox circumstances surrounding the approval of this patent has me wondering: does the Navy or anyone else actually possess craft capable of the feats listed in these patents – feats which are curiously exactly like those described by Navy personnel in the recently disclosed UFO incidents and which make up the “Five Observables” Luis Elizondo keeps hammering home in the History Channel’s Unidentified series? Is the Navy attempting to patent something not yet in production based on what they’ve observed in these now well-known sightings of unknown aircraft? I’m beginning to wonder: could the United States actually already be flying hybrid underwater/aerospace craft that will change history as we know it?

While many readers have pointed out to me over the last few months since I first reported on these patents that there are plenty of patents for futuristic technologies far beyond our ability to actually produce them, it turns out the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Navy personally vouched for the legitimacy of this beyond-revolutionary aerospace technology in an appeal with the U.S. Patent Office, assuring the patent examiner in charge of this application that the aircraft propulsion method described in the patent is indeed currently possible based on experiments and tests NAWCAD has already conducted.

The application was initially rejected by Patent Examiner Philip Bonzell on the grounds that “when referring to the specifications as to ascertain about the microwave emitters needed in this system it is seen that for a high energy electromagnetic field to polarize a quantum vacuum as claimed it would take 109 [T]eslas and 1018 V/m.” That’s more magnetic strength than most magnetars generate. In other words, the examiner believed it’s impossible with today’s technology to create the insane amount of energy needed to generate the EM field that would propel this craft in the manner described in the patent application. What would be needed to generate such amounts of energy, you ask? How about a room temperature superconductor? That do anything for ya? Again, though: until we see a working prototype of said room temperature semiconductor, we have no idea what this theoretical research may add to the mystery surrounding the objects described by Navy pilots – if anything at all.

According to documents available to the public at USPTO.gov, the Patent Office rejected Pais’ and the Navy’s application for this craft several more times, the last of which was on March 30, 2018. Yet each time it was rejected, the NAWCAD’s patent attorney, Mark O. Glut, appealed the decision and submitted further documentation to ensure the patent office that this craft is indeed “enabled,” meaning it can actually be built and can actually perform as described in the patent.

The most significant addition I’ve found in these documents is a letter accompanying the final appeal written by Naval Aviation Enterprise Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Dr. James Sheehy concerning the US Patent Office’s rejection of “Craft Using an Inertial Mass Reduction Device.” In the letter, Dr. Sheehy claims that Salvatore Pais has “already begun a series of experiments to design and demonstrate advanced High energy Density/High Power propulsion systems” that are described in the patent. Furthermore, he claims that “the realization of this result demonstrates that this patent documents the future state of the possible and moves propulsion technology beyond gas dynamic systems to field-induced propulsion based hybrid aerospace-undersea craft.” Have a look at the letter yourself:

It’s important to note that Sheehy doesn’t go so far as to say the Navy currently possesses this technology, and instead notified Patent Examiner Philip Bonzell that he agrees that “this mode of acceleration/movement is beyond the state of the possible, at least at present.” Sheehy of course adds that “China is already investing significantly in this area” and “would prefer we [the US] hold the patent as opposed to paying forever more to use this revolutionary technology” as he asserts “this will become a reality.” As always, it all boils down to the ol’ “we must not allow an Inertial Mass Reduction Device gap!” With that threat of the Chicoms looming, the U.S. Patent Office finally issued a notice of allowance for “Craft Using an Inertial Mass Reduction Device” to the Department of the Navy on October 31, 2018 at a fee of $1000 USD. No reason was given for why the patent was eventually approved.

Shortly after the patent was approved, Pais presented his paper, “Room Temperature Superconducting System for Use on a Hybrid Aerospace Undersea Craft” at the 2019 SciTech Form in San Diego this past January. In the paper, Pais writes that “the achievement of room temperature superconductivity (RTSC) represents a highly disruptive technology, capable of a total paradigm change in Science and Technology,” and adds that its “military and commercial value is considerable.” The capabilities described in the paper should certainly sound familiar to anyone who’s been following the Navy UFO story over the last several years:

It is possible to envision hybrid aerospace-undersea craft (HAUC), which can function as a submersible craft capable of extreme underwater speeds (lack of water-skin friction) and enhanced aerial / underwater stealth capabilities (non-linear scattering of RF and sonar signals). This hybrid craft would move with great ease through the air/space/water mediums, by being enclosed in a Vacuum /plasma bubble/sheath, due to the coupled effects of EM field-induced air/water particles repulsion and Vacuum energy polarization. The HAUC is conical in configuration, with an elliptical cross-section, similar in geometry to a hypersonic glide vehicle / dart.

Furthermore, Pais notes in the paper that such a technology “would permit swift movement of the HAUC [hybrid aerospace-undersea craft] beyond our Solar System.” Is this why we suddenly need a Space Force? Is this what Air Force Lieutenant General VeraLinn Jamieson was referring to last year when she casually dropped during an unrelated interview that in “different galaxies in the future we’re going to actually have capability that we have right now in the air”? Curiously enough, the patent for the hybrid aerospace-undersea craft includes the possibility of a crew compartment.

SPACE FORCE! Sign me up.

Normally, I would agree with others that these patents are likely just the Navy ensuring that when or if this technology does become available, the U.S. will be able to control it. However, these are not normal times. Thanks to To the Stars Academy (TTSA) and the Department of Defense, we are now being told that Navy Navy pilots have witnessed unknown aircraft behaving exactly like these patents describe. Some of the pilots’ visual descriptions of those anomalous aircraft even seem to be uncannily similar to the drawings of the aircraft in Pais’ patents: the patents describe a resonant, gas-filled body surrounding an internal microwave generator; some Navy pilots have described seeing cubes encased in spheres flying through the air, seemingly ignoring the laws of physics.

Images from two separate patents: “Craft Using an Inertial Mass Reduction Device,” left; and “High Frequency Gravitational Wave Generator;” right. Look familiar? They’re straight out of every UFO sighting ever.

Are these patents related to the ongoing To the Stars Academy revelations in any way? Perhaps the few pieces of footage that have trickled out in the last several years could be the Navy’s way of subtly hinting that this concept actually works and is being tested in the field. Or, perhaps more likely, could all of this – the patents, the footage, the TTSA revelations – be part of some psychological operation or misinformation campaign designed to make our adversaries wonder if the U.S. is flying the unidentified aircraft zooming through their airspace with impunity? Some reports out of Iran seem to suggest that incredibly fast and maneuverable objects have been entering Iran’s airspace for years, hovering over nuclear facilities, flying abruptly away at seemingly impossible velocities, and possibly even downing an Iranian F-14. Similar craft have been seen in Russian airspace in recent years, and known U.S.-controlled experimental aircraft testing grounds around the world have seen their fair share of unusual activity lately. Remember that Puerto Rican coast guard UFO footage from a few years back? It certainly appears to show a hybrid aerospace-undersea craft, if what we’re seeing is indeed legitimate.

It is also important to note that if the Navy had wanted this patent to remain classified, it could have filed the patent under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, a law which allows patents to remain classified if they might pose a possible threat to the national security of the United States. Instead, all of Pais’ patents are currently fully available to the public. If such a propulsion technology was so revolutionary and if the Navy indeed wanted to keep this technology out of others’ hands, why make the patent public? 

Before all of this speculation is discounted as grasping at straws, consider comments made by former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, reportedly a key figure in securing funding and contracts for groups like Bigelow Airspace and the shadowy Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Earlier this year, Reid stated that the U.S., Russia, and China are currently in a “UFO race.” Could he have meant that these three military superpowers are currently scrambling to be the first to get these hybrid aerospace-undersea craft off the ground? Notice how both Tom Delonge and Chris Mellon have recently hintedthat we will soon see evidence that at least one of our NATO allies has encountered these objects as well. It’s curious that they both used the “NATO ally” talking point to bring up this addition to the unfolding story. Is TTSA all a propaganda campaign designed to make it seem as though the U.S. already has made progress in revolutionary aerospace technologies in order to sow doubt among our non-NATO frenemies? 

Alternatively, is all of this meant to capitalize on the current fascination with and belief in conspiracy theories to help shore up failing Navy recruiting, funnel more billions to the military industrial complex, or to simply keep us all afraid of unseen boogeymen so that we trust the judgment of the military and defense industrial complex? After all, anyone who’s seen it can agree: each episode of Unidentified is basically a 42-minute-long Navy advertisement.

Too many questions, not enough concrete evidence of anything outside of what is available to the public. Again: we can only draw conclusions from what has been released publicly over the last few years. Still, it’s clear that something is happening here, but we don’t know what it is, do we?

Salvatore Cezar Pais knows.

• Note: There is no way to link directly to these supplementary patent application documents. To view them for yourself, visit https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair and search for application number 15/141,270. Once there, click on the “Image File Wrapper” tab.