Wednesday, March 14, 2018

"To The Stars" Releases Another Video, And Things Get Curiouser & Curiouser

As has been the case these past few months, discussions of Tom DeLonge, his To The Stars  "Public Benefit Corporation," and the supposed Pentagon UFO program, Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, have sucked all of the air out of other UFO-related discussions. 

As you have undoubtedly heard unless you have been hiding under a rock, To The Stars Academy has released a third infrared UFO video, supposedly declassified by the recent Pentagon UFO Program. To The Stars claims to have a "chain of custody" for these videos, showing the process of their release by the Pentagon, but nobody has seen it. 

Also, why are all of the supposed Pentagon UFO videos in the infrared? Doesn't the military have ordinary video cameras? Undoubtedly they do, but when birds or balloons turn up on ordinary video, they are immediately recognized. Is it perhaps because they have no real understanding of how these FLIR devices operate, and lots of things thus become UFOs? And only the Raytheon FLIR systems on the F-18 ever turn up UFOs - no other cameras, and on no other aircraft?

Since everyone I talk to seems as confused as hell about which video is which, let's review these three videos, in the order that To The Stars presented them, and what we know about them.

1. 2004 USS NIMITZ FLIR1 VIDEO ("Tic Tac" video)

"It is the only official footage captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at the 2004 Nimitz incident off the coast of San Diego."

2. GIMBAL: AUTHENTICATED UAP VIDEO ("Gimbal" video)

Supposedly taken off the coast of Florida in 2015.

3. 2015 GO FAST FOOTAGE ("Go Fast" video)

Supposedly taken somewhere off the east coast in 2015.
Frame showing supposed "UFO" in Go Fast video. That little dot in the middle, that's it.

Go Fast is, of course, the most recent video, and the subject of most of the recent discussion. The video as TTSA presents it to us, with analysis, is only two minutes long. The "UFO" itself is only visible for a few seconds, and is (as might be expected) just a featureless dot. But that is enough for it to be repeated endlessly across all the "serious" media as if it were proof of the arrival of aliens. The best critical examination of the Go Fast video thus far is on Mick West's Metabunk. West argues that the object's apparent rapid motion is due to the parallax effect of the aircraft's motion. There are several models of a 3-D representation showing the object and the jet, using the information provided in the FLIR display. The consensus seems to be that the object is about 10 feet across, and traveling slowly enough to be a bird or a balloon.

But wait, it gets curiouser: according to poster Blu3Skies on Reddit
if you look to the right side of the sensor overlays you'll see a 4 digit code...  That is the laser PRF code set for laser guided munitions.... Gimbal video is PRF code 1688. It took place in 2015 off the East Coast. Go Fast video is PRF code 1688. Articles sight [sic] it as taking place off the East Coast. Gimbal and Go Fast are both pieces of the same video it appears. No discrepancies in location or time as of now, however, this begs the question whether TTSA is cutting and feeding these videos to us to keep funds rolling in OR the gov is cutting/splicing and releasing them to TTSA intentionally this way.
So it appears that the Gimbal video, and the Go Fast video, were taken by the same aircraft, by the same pilot, on the same mission, and less than 20 minutes apart. While this has not been absolutely confirmed yet, it certainly appears to be true. Comparing the two videos, Mick West says that "The display configuration is all essentially the same. The time code at the bottom is in seconds, with a difference of 991 seconds (16.5 minutes) between the end of GO FAST (4254) and the start of GIMBAL (5245)" Others have remarked that the pilot's voice on the two videos sounds like the same guy, especially when he says "dude!".


Mick West compares the data displayed for Go Fast (left), and Gimbal (right)

This immediately raises some interesting issues:
  • Doesn't To The Stars realize that these appear to be from the same video? If so, why didn't they tell us? If they didn't, the incompetence of their analysis is staggering.
  • There are now only two, and not three, supposed Pentagon FLIR video recordings of UFOs. The supposed description "off the east coast in 2015" is compatible with "off the coast of Florida in 2015."
  • One F-18 pilot in 2015 seems to have had a very busy and exciting day recording UFOs. What are the chances that two very different 'genuine UFOs' would be zooming around off the coast of Florida, less than 20 minutes apart, compared with the chances that these people don't know what the #$%^ they are talking about concerning these FLIR images?

Curiouser and Curiouser.....

Since To The Stars' first announcement of these supposed 'Pentagon UFO videos," lots of journalists and UFO researchers have filed Freedom of Information requests basically asking for absolutely everything pertaining to this supposed "Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program" (sometimes called the "Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program"). Having heard about so many requests, I pity the poor schmuck working in the Pentagon on whose desk all these requests land. However, nothing seems to be turning up.

One of the most prolific filers of Freedom of Information requests is John Greenewald of The Black Vault, a huge on-line repository of UFO-related documents and materials. On March 12 he updated an earlier posting about his FOIA requests related to TTSA, AATIP, etc., and what he found runs counter to DeLonge's narrative. As soon as "To The Stars" was announced in its press conference, Greenewald filed a FOIA request with the Department of Defense requesting all documents concerning the supposed AATIP program. He writes,
On November 27, 2017, the DOD responded with a “no records” determination.

There are three possibilities:

1) The DoD is lying — which under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — if proven — is actually more of a damning situation than you might think.

2) The program is being blown out of proportion, is misinformation, or doesn’t even exist.

3) For whatever reason, the DoD doesn’t have an outline, mission statement, objectives, etc of the DOD Aviation Threat Program as my specific request asked for, but it does exist. It would be highly doubtful, but a possibility, so my “no records” response is simply directed at my specific request.

So, I have appealed the “no records” response, and have filed more FOIA requests — but something does not seem to add up.

In other words, the Department of Defense says that this supposed program, the cornerstone of To The Stars' message, never existed. Greenewald next filed a similar request concerning the AATIP with the NSA:
On 8 January 2018, the NSA told me that there were “no records” responsive to my request, which means, out of the  millions of pages within the entire Intellipedia collection, there is not a single reference to the program.   There could be many reasons for this, so this is just speculation, but it is interesting to note that there are countless mentions of classified programs within Intellipedia. When classified pages are found during searches, for examples, many of the Edward Snowden revelations (like  Wrangler), the NSA will acknowledge they are there, but exempts them from release. Another example, is my request on  Echelon.  This may have entered the realm of still heavily classified to the point they can’t even admit it’s there, and they give a GLOMAR response (“can neither confirm nor deny”). My point with these examples, is that the possible explanation that it is “still classified” and they are lying just does not fit (emphasis added).
Luis Elizondo, who reportedly ran the Pentagon's Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.
Greenewald's next request was specifically for material relating to Luis Elizondo, the man who supposedly ran AATIP, now working for To The Stars as its Director of Global Security. (No longer supervising UFO investigations, he is now DeLonge's chief Bouncer.) He writes,
On February 12, 2018, the Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff office, in FOIA Case 18-F-0324, gave another rather odd  “no records response” to a request which had multiple parts.
1) The resignation letter of Mr. Luis Elizondo, DoD personnel who played a role in The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.
2) Any/all responses by Secretary of Defense James Mattis, or any other DoD official to Mr. Elizondo regarding his resignation.
3) Any/all letters, memos, recommendations, email, etc. sent from Mr. Elizondo, to any DoD official, regarding the declassification or public release of videos, as obtained by the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program.
4) Any/all response to Mr. Elizondo, and his effort to get videos or material evidence in the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program released to the public.
Although I have an open appeal on the above with the DOD, it is noted they just wanted to forward my request to the Defense Intelligence Agency instead.  However, due to the fact that Mr. Elizondo stated clearly he worked within OSD (not DIA), and the NY TIMES among many other news outlets cited Mr. Elizondo’s resignation letter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, at least that portion of my request would be at the office that just gave the “no records” response.

Something does not seem right, and I will post the results of the appeal when they become available.
So, to summarize, there are no documents to support what Elizondo says about AATIP, and their absence is very curious, especially since the Pentagon has verbally acknowledged the bare fact of the program's existence.
The product of legislation cosponsored by senators Harry Reid of Nevada and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the program, according to Pentagon spokesperson Audricia Harris, was primarily executed through a contract with Bigelow Aerospace—a company owned by Reid’s constituent and donor Robert Bigelow. 

However, there seem to be absolutely no documents associated with AATIP. And the Pentagon has unambiguously stated that they dd not release the  three videos that TTSA is claiming to have obtained from them:
"The Department of Defense did not release those videos. I cannot confirm their authenticity. I don't have any additional info to provide," said Tom Crosson, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Might AATIP have existed only as a "Rogue program," never actually sanctioned? Good luck to you in your research, Mr. Greenewald, let us hope you can get to the bottom of all this.









34 comments:

  1. Didn't the PAO for the DOD say there was an AATIP?

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    1. Yes, there is. I spoke with that office personally quite a few times. They confirmed AATIP was absolutely real, and there is no doubt in my mind it was. My doubt is about the magnitude of the program as it is currently being conveyed either by, or to, the media.

      That said, there is a inconsistency that I think needs addressing. The word AEROSPACE vs AVIATION in the name. According to the press office, they were adamant about it being Advanced AVIATION Threat Identification Program and not Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Small detail, but important.

      I file FOIA requests using both names to be safe, but that's according to OSD... Aerospace is wrong.

      Delete
    2. ok, so wait. The govt is acknowleding that there is a program, and yet there are no documents related to that program? So if the program does exist, and I think we all agree that it does/did, then what is the likelihood that there are no documents? It seems very small. So that means the DOD is lying in their FOIA response...

      Delete
    3. Hi Carter,

      Only reason there are no documents (yet) is because the DIA is the Office of Primary Responsibility (OPR) on the declassification related to AATIP, and yet, they have been extremely backlogged on processing requests. I recently got a breakdown of where my FOIA requests "stand in line" of a queue which is about 1,100+ cases, and it doesn't sound promising this will be any sooner than a year (or more)...

      In addition, I did receive a document under FOIA. Low and behold, it contradicts the actual name of what AATIP stands for... Pentagon has said one thing, Mr. Elizondo another. Some argue that's just semantics, I argue it may be a bit more telling than some people want.

      Here is that link to the document -- look under the Intellipedia section: http://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/to-the-stars-academy-of-arts-science-tom-delonge-and-the-secret-dod-ufo-research-program/

      Delete
  2. https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-up-with-those-pentagon-ufo-videos/

    She is a pentagon spokesperson. Her name is Audricia Harris. She thinks the program existed and I don't doubt it was the case. However, I am beginning to think it was a program consisting of one or two people in a very small room tucked away in the pentagon with Bigelow sending them a bunch of stuff.

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  3. I heard Luis Elizondo on NPR and any scientific credibility he had evaporated as soon as he spoke.
    First, when the interviewer stated that the closest star to our solar system was "like 6 trillion miles away, right?" Elizondo agreed, showing he doesn't know the distance to Proxima Centauri. Second, he identified said star as "Proxima Alpha". Third, he then stated that Relativity could be wrong, intimating this could then allow for FTL travel and the ETH, and attempted to explain why it was wrong by invoking quantum entanglement. His explanation of quantum entanglement however was actually an oversimplified description of General Relativity.

    I hope this will not be construed as a personal attack on Elizondo. My point is that he portrayed himself to the NPR audience as a credible science expert and then clearly demonstrated the contrary, putting the remaining parts of his story into question.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for mentioning that NPR interview!

      As far as I'm aware, that is the only interview Elizondo has ever done where he was asked questions with more of a skeptical edge.

      That interview is probably the reason that from that point onward, he only granted interviews to people who he knew probably would only ask him questions that confirmed their belief that "UFOs == extraterrestrials".

      For anybody who's interested, I found that interview here.

      Delete
  4. So it looks like we have verbal confirmation from DoD that AATIP was real, but no documentation of any kind?

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    1. Hi Robert,

      First off, thanks for writing about my FOIA work above. I feel there are a lot of unanswered questions about this...

      Yes, you are right. I can speak from firsthand knowledge, the DOD is not denying this program existed. However, the hunt for documents is proving to be rather challenging.

      Most of which is just due to the time it will take to get documents released. I have multiple FOIA Appeals in regards to my requests being expedited. We will see how those turn out, but there is no telling how long that will take.

      As I said earlier, I do feel the program was real, but I believe the magnitude of it is being blown out of proportion, which in turn, will hurt VALID UFO research, and take away from the REAL DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE that has existed that the UFO phenomena has been of interest to the U.S. Military, and it did NOT end with Project Blue Book. I bring up this point, because this story is largely touted as the "only time" the Government has admitted interest in UFOs since the closure of Blue Book. Whether that be a media thing, a TTSA thing or just ignorance on the part of journalists, I will let the public decide.

      But when the public is misled, and the truth itself is fascinating enough, I get concerned. And as each FOIA request comes in, more and more doubt in my mind is built that this is of the magnitude we were led to believe last December by the NY TIMES.

      Alas, I will keep fighting the fight -- but I am here to answer any other questions of clarification you may have.

      Delete
  5. When will a book appear, finally giving the public the full story behind this extraordinary extraterrestrial extravaganza?

    Let's face it, we have waited seven decades for it. The documents absolutely MUST be made public, if only for the sake of world peace and security. Mr Trump, where are you at this critical time?



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  6. Perhaps former Senator Harry Reid should be asked to comment on the "no records" response, since he got funding the program.

    The NYT says it ended in 2012 under Obama. Then came Trump. Maybe the lid is back on.

    "WASHINGTON (AFP, Dec 20 2017) - White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said she was unsure whether President Donald Trump believes in UFOs Tuesday, but vowed to take the question to her leader. Amid reports that the Pentagon had funded a multi-million dollar program to identify the unidentified, Sanders faced questions about Trump's beliefs and whether he would look to reinstate the program. [...] "Somehow that question hasn't come up in our back and forth over the past couple of days," she said. "But I will check into that and be happy to circle back."

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  7. More documentary disconfirmation:

    " "The Department of Defense did not release those videos. I cannot confirm their authenticity. I don't have any additional info to provide," said Tom Crosson, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense."

    https://www.cnet.com/news/ufo-navy-airplane-video-skeptics-weigh-in-to-the-stars/

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  8. Greetings,

    Absent from all of this is the sanctum sanctorum of Gov. UAP secrecy: the US military (and those of other nations) are powerless to deal with UAP incursions into nuclear weapons facilities of all types. Robert Hastings' 40 years of research has made this irrefutable. Oh yeah, there's plenty of interest in the phenomenon at the highest levels. But it will be a cold day in Hell before any government admits its primary weapons of deterence (and threat) are vulnerable.

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    1. http://timhebert.blogspot.com/2011/02/robert-hastings-swiss-cheese.html

      Tim is a former SAC missile crew commander.

      Delete
    2. Thanks Zoam for the heads up on my site.

      Mr. Pilgrim, I tire with all of the Hastings' nonsense that he propagates concerning UFOs/ET/Nukes conspiracies. Interesting that all of Hastings' ET fairies are flying in and out of the ICBM sites, yet we get very little hard core evidence that anyone actually saw anything. Sure there are interesting accounts of missile techs and security personnel see things, yet they can't seem to get on the same page as to what the saw. I refer to the Minot 1968 incident.

      So what about the 60 Titan II sites that were available for "visitations?" There weren't any...nada. Seems that ET would be more interesting in a system that fielded a 19 mega ton yield warhead vs a pithy 250 kiloton to 1 megaton Minuteman yield.

      But what the hell do I know? Eight years both on crew and staff and I heard and saw NOTHING! Many others stated the same.

      Delete
    3. Same here Tim. I spent five years aboard an SSBN and made several patrols. No UFOs over the Tender at Holy Loch, at the weapons station at Charleston, or at Kings bay (all places I visited during that tour). I also visited Bangor Naval station when stationed aboard an SSN. No UFOs there either. SSNs also had the potential for carrying nuclear weapons. No UFOs over sub base New London or Pearl Harbor when I was stationed there either. I can only assume that Navy missiles are unimportant to UFOs.

      Delete
    4. Cite one person or nation that has been harmed by a UFO.
      They could have destroyed the human race centuries ago.
      Planet Earth is a zoo, pit stop, anthropology study, and/or a simple tourist destination for them. Maybe all of the above.

      Delete
    5. Except it's none of the above, as any life that may be out there (and the odds favour there will be some), will almost definitely be unaware of our existence; and unable to reach us even if they are. The universe is enormous; and relativity's constraints too onerous. Further, the zoo hypothesis is yet another human conceit - another 'human exceptionalism'. If aliens were observing the Earth, who could say which life form(s) they'd find the most fascinating?

      Delete
    6. Really, Scherben. And notice how he, like so many others, unthinkingly assumes that the mass of reports of ambiguous lights in the sky must represent some real thing; and that thing must be a nuts-and-bolts spacecraft; and finally he leaps to that spacecraft must be from another world! Even though decades of continuous global surveillance has detected not one visiting ET spacecraft or real "UFO" of any kind.

      You know me, but for Mr Tarn's benefit; the Zoo hypothesis is untestable, non-falsifiable so not science. It's a "what if" and even if an interesting astronomical speculation and a valid exception to the Fermi paradox, using the Zoo hypothesis as an excuse, a phony rationale, to justify the existence of visiting ET spacecraft without one bit of evidence isn't just foolish, it's a total intellectual abdication. As a much better writer once said about the worthless Interdimensional hypothesis but could also describe a number of other phony rationales that explain nothing about why people make utterly inconsequential "UFO" reports.

      Tarn; If there were real "UFOs" of any kind we'd all know it already; it wouldn't be the subject of an immature pop-culture myth and social delusion, which is all it is and will ever be.

      We're here on Earth as a mere accidental outcome of innumerable random mutations that could never be repeated, here or elsewhere. Our galaxy is defined by chaos, violence, radiations, distance and time, and even if by some most unlikely accident there exist creatures even remotely like ourselves elsewhere we'll never discover them or them us.

      And imagining and pretending that inconsequential "UFO" reports are stimulated by otherwise invisible and inconsequential visiting ET spacecraft is amusing wishful thinking--and nothing to do with evidence, rationality or reality.

      Delete
  9. It's time ufology focused on facts and not speculation. It seems like TTS gets attacked for providing what appears to be documented encounters that contradict peoples beliefs. The truth is not all the contradicting nonsense about ufos can be true so a lot of people are never going to accept the truth even if a saucer lands at the white house.
    There isn't even real tangible proof that the things exist other than a handful of documents but that hasn't stopped people from creating a religion of it.
    There are some very refreshingly rational comments on here and being a disillusioned reluctant ufo skeptic I'm heartened to see I'm not alone.

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  10. Tom DeLonge just posted to Facebook,

    "Our projects Sekret Machines, Poet Anderson, To The Stars Docu-Series and Strange Times are all now off the ground and ready for lift off. Today, we will start with nudity, skateboarding and Bigfoot".

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    Replies
    1. Three things I typically associate with one another.

      Delete
  11. Whoa, I have SO stumbled into the wrong cave. Tim...there were more than 300 sailors on that ship and I never saw your face, therefore you weren't there. Tim...you are calling more than 150 USAF missiliers liars or deluded sensationalists.
    In this cave, there's nothing but high-fiving to who can where the darkest glasses.
    Carry on.

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    Replies
    1. Again, I have never heard a single submariner, who was stationed on a ballistic submarine (crews of 150), that told me their missiles were interfered with by UFOs. I had the privilege to know a great many submariners over the years, who served on fast attack and ballistic missile submarines. Some of the sea stories I heard were pretty scary (I even learned later on that one I doubted was actually true!). Many of these were classified but nothing about alien spaceships and missiles being shutdown. The difference between the two systems is one is underwater and the other is not.

      Delete
  12. In the end, none of us can really say what the UFO denizens would have done, ought to have done or might have done had they been visiting the Earth.

    Yes we know what WE shall do, or intend to do, when we visit other planets, but we have absolutely no knowledge of what other living beings in the galaxy may or may not be thinking about.

    So there may indeed be other beings out there. They MAY think and act like us, or they may not. I presume they will be carbon-based, but even that may be a false assumption.

    All we know is that 70 years of the 'modern age' of UFOs
    have produced precisely zilch, zero in the way of tangible hardware. And that is about all we can say.

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  13. Bill; Have you ever heard a flying-saucer fairy tale that you didn't swallow whole? I Doubt It!

    Bill gasps, "there are energies and forces being employed by these objects our physics hasn’t discovered yet, let alone harnessed."

    Sounds like a line from a 1950s flying-saucer invasion movie. What a Hoot!

    http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15644/an-ounce-of-prevention/#comment-516007

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  14. I'll bet that next Bill will be doing his rawilson act, calling us "Scientific materialists" because we don't believe in flying-saucer fairy tales. And then he'll say we're "religious fanatics" because we do NOT believe in "Unicorns From Outer Space."

    That's some of that "Saucer Logic" we've heard about: Skeptics are realists and comprehend the world as it appears to be and is. But that makes us "religious fanatics" in upside-down saucer world, but only there.

    What Bill can't do is produce even one thing of ET origin. All he has is the same old "UFO" stories that have been debunked repeatedly. He even repeats Gordon Cooper's Edwards AFB fantasy when it's known that Cooper wasn't even there.

    How do you keep this delusion alive, Bill? By ignoring all reasonable and true explanations. Now who's wearing blinders?

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  15. sorry bit late to this comments section. There's no mystery here. Harold Puthoff the very same who promoted Yuri Geller as being genuine with mind-spoon-bending-powers, was with Mr Elizondo when they released this story to the New York Times journalist.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    For me that confirms that To the Stars Academy is just silly. The DoD media say they never realized any docs (you can check/ search online yourself)

    https://www.defense.gov/Resources/Contact-DoD/Media-Queries/


    The $22 million spent over 5 years on 'far-term' aerial threats in just nose in the trough-job-for-the-boys stuff. First of all the US Fed spends $250 million a year on post-it notes and pens, but only spent $22million over 5years on the greatest (fiction) possible discovery of our time.

    There have been three great surges in UFO interest which all have two things in common new aviation technology and science fiction media. The first between 1860-1890 which coincides with Airships /driggibles and the sci-fi luminary works:

    -All around the Moon (1873) Jules Verne;
    -A Plunge into Space (1890) Robert Cromie
    -Journey to Mars (1894) Gustavus Pope;
    -War of the Worlds (1898) H.G Wells.

    The second wave of UFO interest corresponds to unmanned radio controlled aircraft such as Queen Bee, Larynx, Radioplane Q1, the flying wing YB-49 and the great Sci-fi authors in the golden age of sci-fi writing 1940-1960s

    -Issac Asimov;
    -Arthur C Clarke
    -Phillip K Dick et al


    The third phase of UFO interest relates to unmanned drones and other manned craft, F-117, B2, x-47B, P-175, X-47a, Taranis, Lockheed Cormorant, DARPA HTV (13,000mph top speed) and rather low brow box-office movies like

    -Independance day,
    -Edge of tomorrow,
    -Promethues,
    -Arrival,
    -Insterstellar,
    -Aliens,
    -Close encounters etc etc.

    No clever science is needed you could just ask a sociology undergrad to explain this current state of affairs. The video from USS Nimitz incident is either natural phenomena, or just military tech in 2004. The Lockheed Cormorant sounds very similar to what they saw.

    ReplyDelete
  16. sorry bit late to this comments section. There's no mystery here. Harold Puthoff the very same who promoted Yuri Geller as being genuine with mind-spoon-bending-powers, was with Mr Elizondo when they released this story to the New York Times journalist.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    For me that confirms that To the Stars Academy is just silly. The DoD media say they never realized any docs (you can check/ search online yourself)

    https://www.defense.gov/Resources/Contact-DoD/Media-Queries/


    The $22 million spent over 5 years on 'far-term' aerial threats is just 'nose in the trough' jobs-for-the-boys stuff. First of all the US Fed spends $250 million a year on post-it notes and pens, but only spent $22million over 5years on the greatest (fiction) possible discovery of our time!

    There have been three great surges in UFO interest which all have two things in common - new aviation technology and science fiction media.

    The first was between 1860-1890 which coincides with Airships /driggibles and the sci-fi luminary works:

    -All around the Moon (1873) Jules Verne;
    -A Plunge into Space (1890) Robert Cromie
    -Journey to Mars (1894) Gustavus Pope;
    -War of the Worlds (1898) H.G Wells.

    See here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship


    The second wave of UFO interest corresponds to unmanned radio controlled aircraft such as Queen Bee, Larynx, Radioplane Q1, the flying wing YB-49 and great Sci-fi authors in the *'golden age of sci-fi writing 1940-1960s'

    -Issac Asimov;
    -Arthur C Clarke
    -Phillip K Dick et al

    *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction


    The third phase of UFO interest relates to unmanned drones and other manned craft, F-117, B2, x-47B, P-175, X-47a, Taranis, Predator, Lockheed Cormorant, DARPA HTV (13,000mph top speed) and rather 'low brow' entertainment box-office sci-fi movies like:

    -Independance day,
    -Edge of tomorrow,
    -Promethues,
    -Arrival,
    -Insterstellar,
    -Aliens,
    -Close encounters etc etc.

    No clever science is needed, you could just ask a sociology undergrad to explain this current state of interest.

    The video from USS Nimitz incident is either natural phenomena, or just military tech in 2004. The Lockheed Cormorant sounds very similar to what they saw if I was just guessing.

    ReplyDelete
  17. We need to reframe the question, its not

    'What are people seeing in the sky?';

    rather it should be,

    'WHY are people seeing things in the sky?'.

    Then, when we compare this to the time when everyone believed in ghosts, witches, angels and demons because of the prevailing religious context of that period; we understand why people see the same type of unexplained, unaccounted for things.

    Interestingly Christianity depicted in Renaissance paintings shares similar iconography with modern day Ufology. Hence why 'ufologists' (bless them even have a name for themselves) think UFOs visited people in antiquity and in the Renaissance period.

    A famous example being the 'sputnik' in 'The Glorification of the Eucharist' painting by Salimbeni (1595)*.

    This painting in particular shows that period art, should be translated in its context, in this case judeo-christian, not in the modern day context of super-fast-unmanned-stealth-drones or Russian satellites!

    *Spolier:
    It's actually Jesus and God holding pens writing on a model of earth.

    I went from a diehard believer in this stuff to cold-hard skeptic, after ironically I witnessed a UFO, near a British airforce base, that did unbelievable aerial feats and split into three before coming back together. After, I had calmed down and wondered how this moment would change my life, I had an epiphany and realised we probably have technology we are just ignorant of. After a bit of digging around I then discovered British firm, BAE were working on a 'Transformer drone' three years earlier, that did exactly as I saw.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re29lqCEtpc

    However, if an Alien UFO crashes (as they are so fond of doing despite travelling light years fine) in a major urban area and Donald Trump sends out a tweet to welcome them, as they are paraded before our planet's most popular rich-for-no-good-reason-celebrities then I will believe!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A British air force base? Which one, pray tell.

      Delete
  18. https://www.scientificexploration.org/2018-conference

    "Scientific conferences for sharing cutting-edge research."

    Which in plain English means pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo.

    ReplyDelete
  19. 'WHY are people seeing things in the sky?'.

    Hello, fistful; Welcome to Scientific skepticism!

    How about: "Why do people make 'UFO' reports?"

    From there one could consider the "UFO" subject as history, popular culture, and as social psychology.

    And not the pseudoscience of endless, inconsequential anecdotes that never advances and produces nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  20. "bad" ufos, or good ufos?. Now Found: 3000 years ago, Egypt pyramid inside pictures an helicopter, a tank, an ufo with vertical plane at rear. 1000 years ago, in South America 2 little gold jewels exactly form airplanes with motor or spacecrafts, aeronautics experts at present have constructed at major scale those figures and fly with perfect aeronautic performances. "Bad" Ufos, or Good Ufos helping to Humankind to Progress?

    ReplyDelete

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