"The UFO Bubble Goes Pop."

Those who care about such things have been noting that the report required to be sent to Congress on UFOs (or "UAPs") by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on October 31 is late. By now, more than a month late! Just before the deadline The New York Times reported (October 28) that "Many Military U.F.O. Reports Are Just Foreign Spying or Airborne Trash." That would seem to be a big embarrassment to those claiming that UFOs represent something mysterious and unknown.

Now the Wall Street Journal has popped the Government UFO bubble, so to speak. In an article published December 2, columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes, "The UFO Bubble Goes Pop. Watch the skies? No, watch our intelligence agencies and their penchant for disinformation."

A month has passed since its leaked contents were detailed in the New York Times, and still the document has not appeared and it’s not hard to guess why. Its findings will be surprising only to those who imbibed previous official disinformation on so-called UAP, or unidentified aerial phenomena. The most credible and widely trumpeted sightings by Navy pilots now are explained as illusions. Though Chinese surveillance drones do operate in areas where U.S. training flights occur, these are conventional drones, with no unusual capabilities. They aren’t the uncannily speedy, supernaturally maneuverable objects mentioned in previous accounts...

the document has not appeared and it’s not hard to guess why. Its findings will be surprising only to those who imbibed previous official disinformation on so-called UAP, or unidentified aerial phenomena. The most credible and widely trumpeted sightings by Navy pilots now are explained as illusions. Last year’s first mandatory intelligence report in what now seems a misdirection claimed several sightings “appear to demonstrate advanced technology.”

Reason Magazine, December 2022

Jenkins cites Mick West's just-published article in Reason Magazine, "The Military-UFO Complex - How a motley crew of saucer hunters got a place at the public trough." West relates the story of "paranormal pork," whereby Robert Bigelow, James Lacatski, and Senator Harry Reid deceptively schemed to get Pentagon funding for their far-out program to investigate the spookernatural:

After this otherworldly vision, Lacatski became convinced that there was a phenomenon worth investigating. He knew that his Pentagon bosses were unlikely to authorize such a thing. Nor could they publicly request funding to investigate a haunted ranch. So he and some allies invented a new program, the Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program (AAWSAP)...

AAWSAP was to be a front. Nominally it was set up to study potential novel developments in aerospace weaponry. The public solicitation makes no mention of UFOs or ghosts. It simply discusses aerospace technology and lists a variety of fields that needed investigating, such as "propulsion," "lift," "power generation," and the only real oddity, the ambiguously phrased "human effects."

They're all in here: Luis Elizondo, Tom DeLonge, Christopher Mellon, etc., all those who had a finger in this. He writes that Elizondo "at one point had been head of AAWSAP," which is not correct. Elizondo claims to have been the head of AATIP, the "Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program", a supposed successor program to AAWSAP. However, AATIP was not actually a program, as it had no budget - AAWSAP, by comparison, received over $22 million in government funds, paid to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Systems (BAASS). To the extent that AATIP was anything, it appears to have been a private, off-book UFO study group. It had no publications, and left little if any trace of its existence.

If you think West is tough on the UFO grifters, wait until you see this podcast by Steven Greenstreet of the New York Post, which lays bare the deceptions underlying the Pentagon UFO saga. Greenstreet pays careful attention to inconsistencies and contradictions of the AATIP narrative, which few have noted. One very important point made by Greenstreet is where he quotes Leslie Kean, prime mover behind the highly influential Fake News stories about AATIP in the New York Times, explaining that she did not mention that ghosts, werewolves, etc. were being studied because "the angle I was taking in my reporting was to try to get credibility for the subject." So she admits that she was writing not as a journalist, but as an advocate. The New York Times has yet to correct or retract any of the articles she wrote, which deliberately misrepresent the Pentagon's UFO investigation program.

NEW! UFOs, Werewolves & Ghosts | Shocking truth of Pentagon AAWSAP program

While "misdirection" may indeed sometimes be involved in intelligence matters, I don't think that is what happened here. Never attribute to "misdirection" that which can be explained as simple incompetence. Indeed, such incompetence has been glaringly obvious for some time. The "chief scientist" of the Pentagon's UAP Task Force,  Dr. Travis Taylor, is a well-known star of paranormal entertainment shows such as Ancient Aliens and The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.  

Keith Kloor wrote in Science (June 29, 2022) , "Pentagon UFO study led by researcher who believes in the supernatural Critics dumbfounded by reality TV star Travis Taylor's position as “chief scientist.”

The revelation shocked UFO skeptics in the science community. They note that Taylor has made extraordinary claims during TV appearances, including to have "seen more UFOs than I can count," and that he’s been tracked by supernatural entities that caused his car and appliances to malfunction. "I find it very difficult to believe" federal authorities gave Taylor a prominent role in preparing the UFO report, says Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute who is familiar with Taylor's involvement with Ancient Aliens, a cable TV show that promotes far-fetched UFO narratives.

Dr. Travis Taylor (left), Chief Scientist of the Pentagon's UAP Task Force, checks out a supposed Ancient Alien aircraft design, with Giorgio Tsoukalos.

 I wrote back in April that the Navy's top photo analysts mistook stars and planets and the effects of "bokeh" (out-of-focus image rendering) for a whole swarm of "UAPs" surrounding a Navy ship. It was also widely noted that several of the Navy's photos of supposedly unknown flying objects look suspiciciously like party balloons. Such incompetence makes it abundantly clear that whoever was performing analysis of the military's supposed photo and video unknowns had no clue what they were doing.

Three Navy UAP Photos: The "“METAL BLIMP W/ PAYLOAD”, the “SPHERE”, and the "ACORN." Apparently a 'shark balloon' (left), some out-of-focus balloon, and a Batman party balloon.

I think this provides a much better explanation for what has happened. When the adults in the room finally began paying attention to what has been happening in DOD UAP-land, they were appalled to see such foolishness. They realize that they had stepped deeply into something very messy, and are still wondering how to get it off their shoe.