The military continues to encounter UFOs. Why isn't the Pentagon interested in this?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

We have no idea what is behind these mysterious cases because we do not delve into it.

In December, the Department of Defense declassified two videos documenting surprise encounters of US Navy F-18 fighters with an unidentified aircraft. The first video captures many pilots observing and discussing a strange, overhanging egg-shaped apparatus, apparently one of a "park" of such objects, according to audio recording from the cockpit. The second video shows a similar case involving an F-18 attached to the Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group in 2004.

These videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to be evidence of an aircraft far superior to anything the United States or its allies have at their disposal. DoD officials who are analyzing relevant intelligence have confirmed more than a dozen such cases off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent incident, the Air Force dispatched F-15 fighters last October in an unsuccessful attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft circling the Pacific Northwest.

A third video released by the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, a private media research company I consult, reveals a previously secret naval revelation that occurred off the East Coast in 2015.

An F / A-18 Super Hornet military aircraft captured this infrared video from a distance of several miles of an unidentified flying object moving at high speed. The Department of Defense removed the date and location of the video before allowing the video to be shown (for the Academy of Arts and Sciences "To the Stars").

Is it possible that Russia or China was technologically ahead of America? Or, as many have wondered since the first publication of the video in The New York Times in December, could these videos be evidence of an alien civilization?

Unfortunately, we do not know, because we are not looking for answers to this.

I have served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations and Director of Human Resources for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I know from numerous discussions with Pentagon officials over the past two years that military departments and agencies consider these cases to be isolated events., not part of a picture that requires serious attention and study. One colleague of mine at the To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run the Pentagon's intelligence program looking at evidence of an "anomalous" aircraft, but he quit last fall in protest of the government's lack of attention to the growing body of test data.

Meanwhile, messages from various services and agencies continue to be largely ignored and unappreciated within their respective bureaucratic verticals. At the Pentagon, there is a process for bringing together all the observations made by the military. The current approach is like conducting an army search for a submarine without a naval force. It is also reminiscent of the anti-terrorist efforts of the CIA and the FBI in the period before September 11, 2001, when everyone had information about the hijackers that they did not tell anyone about. In this case, the truth may end up being harmless, but why leave it to chance?

(A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to requests from the Washington Post for comment, but the military confirmed the existence of a UFO study program in December and said it stopped funding the research in 2012).

Soldiers who are confronted with these extraordinary phenomena tell amazing stories. For example, over the course of two weeks in November 2004, the USS Princeton, a guided missile cruiser and state-of-the-art shipborne radar, repeatedly spotted an unidentified aircraft operating alongside the Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group, which it guarded off the coast. San Diego. In some cases, according to incident reports and interviews with military personnel, these vehicles descended from an altitude of over 60,000 feet (over 18,000 m) at supersonic speed, then suddenly stop and hover just 50 feet (just over 15 m) above the ocean. The United States has nothing to do such tricks.

At least twice, F-18 fighters were dispatched to intercept these vehicles and they were able to confirm their location, appearance and flight characteristics. It is noteworthy that these contacts took place in broad daylight and were tracked independently by radars aboard many ships and aircraft. According to naval pilots I interviewed at length, these craft were approximately 45 feet (about 14 m) long and white in color. At the same time, these mysterious vehicles were easily bypassed and carried away from American front-line fighters without any visible power plant.

From my work with the To the Stars Academy, which seeks to raise private funds to investigate incidents such as the Nimitz contact in 2004, I know they continue to happen because we are approached by military personnel concerned about national security and annoyed with the way the Department of Defense handles such reports. I am also familiar with this testimony as a former Pentagon intelligence official and consultant who began investigating the matter after the Nimitz case was brought to my attention. I met several times with high-ranking Pentagon officials and at least one of them came back to this issue and received information certificates confirming incidents such as in the case of "Nimitz". But nobody wants to be the "alien guy" in the national security bureaucracy; no one wants to be ridiculed or left out of business by focusing on this issue. And this is true for both downline and upline commanders, and it is a serious and recurring obstacle to development.

If the origins of these aircraft are a mystery, then so is the paralysis of the US government in the face of this evidence. Sixty years ago, when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into orbit, the Americans shuddered at the thought that they were technologically surpassed by a dangerous rival, and the furor over the "satellite" eventually led to the space race. The Americans reacted vigorously to this, and just over a decade later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. If these aircraft mean that Russia, China or some other state is hiding an amazing technological breakthrough in order to quietly widen the gap, then of course we need to do the same as we did then. Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent boastful claims about power plant breakthroughs are not sheer bragging. Or, if these aircraft are not from Earth at all, then the need to understand what it is is even more urgent.

More recently, media coverage of the unidentified aircraft has focused on an expired $ 22 million congressional appropriation to Bigelow Aerospace, a contractor with ties to former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, Nevada. This money funded primarily research and analysis through this contractor, without the Air Force, North America Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) or other key military organizations. The real problem, however, is not the money that has been allocated long ago, however useful it may be, but the numerous recent incidents involving the military and violations of US airspace. It's time to put aside the UFO taboo and listen to our pilots and radar operators instead.

With an annual exploration budget of approximately $ 50 billion, money is not an issue. The existing funds will easily be sufficient for what is required to investigate these incidents. What we lack, above all, is the recognition that this issue justifies serious data collection and analysis. To move forward, this task must be entrusted to an official with significant influence in order to obtain cooperation from the disparate and often quarrelsome national security bureaucracies. A truly serious effort would include, among other things, analysts capable of analyzing infrared data from satellites, NORAD radar databases, and intelligence and intelligence reports. Congress should request all-source research from the Secretary of Defense, while promoting research into new types of propulsion systems that may explain how these vehicles achieve such extraordinary power and agility.

As with the "satellite", the potential national security implications are alarming, but the scientific opportunity is exciting. Who knows what threats we can avoid or what opportunities we can open up if we track these facts? We cannot afford to look away given the risk of strategic surprise. The future belongs not only to the physically brave, but also to the intellectually flexible.

Christopher Mellon served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He is a private equity investor and consultant to the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences.