We Learn More About AATIP - and it's Filled with Woo!

Australian Keith Basterfield has now given us a close look at a briefing document prepared by AATIP, the Pentagon's recent UFO investigation program set up by Senator Harry Reid, and apparently for the benefit of Robert Bigelow. These documents appear to have been leaked from "a certain US website maintained by a team member of the To The Stars Academy (TTSA)" (other sources name this person as Chris Mellon).

The most interesting slide is this one. It shows that AATIP was firmly planted in the zone of fantasy science, not the real world.

"Slide 9 From Outer Space." From the AATIP briefing document (from Keith Basterfield). 

So, AATIP says that "the science exists" for "Psychotronic weapons," that we need to defend ourselves against. One website describes "Psychotronic weapons" as 

any other unacknowledged or as yet undeveloped means inflicting death or injury on, or damaging or destroying, a person (or the biological life, bodily health, mental health, or physical and economic well-being of a person) through the use of land-based, sea-based, or space-based systems using radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies directed at individual persons or targeted populations or the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations.

The silver lining is that "psychotronic weapons" have not been shown to exist. Their use has been alleged (for example, against U.S. diplomats in Havana), but such allegations have never been proved. Conspiracy-oriented websites are filled with accounts of supposed government "mind control," and the best defense against "psychotronic weapons" is apparently a tinfoil hat. AATIP is convinced that such weapons do exist, or could be developed, and they want money to work on this.

My favorite is: "Anomalies in the space/time construct." Think about that one: supposedly some enemy might bend space and time, and kick us back into the Jurassic era, or perhaps into some distant galaxy via a cosmic wormhole. They actually believe this. Since Einstein it's been known how to 'bend' space-time: get a huge chunk of mass.  A few solar masses should suffice. Compress it into an unimaginably dense state. AATIP has never explained how they, or anyone else, might do this, let alone control it.

"Penetration of solid surfaces" is another knee-slapper. This brings to mind an actual such experiment undertaken in the Pentagon. We read in the first chapter of Jon Ronson's 2004 book, The Men Who Stare at Goats:

Gen. Stubblebine

This is a true story. It is the summer of 1983. Major General Albert Stubblebine III  [1930-2017] is sitting behind his desk... He is the United States Army's chief of intelligence, with sixteen thousand soldiers under his command...

Am I ready? he thinks. Yes, I am ready. He stands up, moves out from behind his desk, and begins to walk. I mean, he thinks, what is the atom mostly made up of anyway? Space! He quickens his pace. What am I mostly made up of? he thinks. Atoms! He is almost at a jog now. What is the wall mostly made up of? he thinks. All I have to do is merge the spaces. The wall is an illusion. What is destiny? Am I destined to stay in this room? Ha, no! Then General Stubblebine bangs his nose hard on the wall of his office. Damn, he thinks. General Stubblebine is confounded by his continual failure to walk through his wall. (p. 1-3)

AATIP informs us, "DoD has been involved in similar experiments in the past." Indeed they have, although Gen. Stubblebine is not credited. What AATIP is apparently telling us is: General Stubblebine was right, it is possible to penetrate solid surfaces and walk through walls. (An interesting piece of UFO trivia: Albert Stubblebine was married to Rima Laibow, a psychiatrist well-known for her work with supposed UFO abductees.)

"Unique cognitive human interface experiences." These are weasel words, but probably they are talking about ESP, out-of-body experiences, etc. Who knows what they really mean?

"DoD controls several facilities where activities have been detected." Note the use of the passive voice - this is not something that DoD is doing, but someone or something else is in control. What "activities" have been detected? Aliens? Ghosts? Psychic spies?   Perhaps the esteemed Mr. Elizondo could answer some of these questions for us?

 

AATIP ends the slide, and presumably the presentation, with the quote, "What was considered "phenomena" is now quantum physics." As Deepak Chopra would say, "QUANTUM!"

In any case, we now know what kind of 'advanced science' AATIP and TTSA are referring to. And it's the usual wacky woo stuff we find on the fringes of science, where extraordinary claims are not challenged and proof is not required. We've seen all of this before - and properly rejected it.

"Skinwalkers at the Pentagon" - a Book Review about Ghosts and Werewolves

This book came out last October, and I confess that for quite a while I paid little attention to it. 'Oh great,' I thought, 'more loopy stories and fairy tales.' (Which it does contain in abundance.) But after seeing a few excerpts from the book that had been posted, I realized that it was much more than that. After reading it, I realized that this book is by far the most important thing that has yet been written on the subject of AATIP, AAWSAP, and all aspects of the Pentagon UFO/UAP story. The authors are first-hand participants in the events, which they detail and document. James Lacatski administered the AAWSAP program for the Pentagon. I wrote about the reports and other data delivered by that program. Colm Kelleher was the contact person for the contract, working for Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. George Knapp is a journalist who turns up absolutely anywhere there might be a good story about UFOs. And if you have been following the conventional AATIP story, this book pretty well upends everything you've previously heard on the subject.

The conventional Pentagon UFO story that everyone has heard from Luis Elizondo, Leslie Kean, Tom DeLonge and "To The Stars," etc., goes something like this:

• The military was getting concerned about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena seen by its pilots, sailors, etc. 
• They created the AATIP - the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program - to study UAPs. There was also a program called AAWSAP - Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program - which was the same thing, just a different name. Luis Elizondo headed up the program. Much of what Elizondo knows is classified and cannot be revealed.
  
• In 2017, Elizondo resigns his job at the Pentagon, and joins Tom DeLonge's "To The Stars" organization. 
• Starting in December, 2017, Leslie Kean, with co-authors Michael Blumenthal and Helene Cooper publish a series of articles in the New York Times about "Glowing Auras and Black Money", telling the story of Elizondo and AATIP. This sets off a long-lasting media frenzy, resulting in countless media interviews, and a successful two-season series The Unidentified on the "History" Channel, starring Elizondo, DeLonge, and the "To The Stars" team.

That is the Gospel of AATIP according to Elizondo (and many others). But as Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp show, practically none of that is true. And they give specifics about meetings, persons attending, communications, etc. supporting their account. The supposed history of AATIP we have been given has always been rather woozy and lacking details. In this book, however, you will find plenty of specifics. In this version, the history of the Pentagon UAP investigation goes something like this:

• Pentagon scientist James Lacatski reads the 2005 book The Hunt for the Skinwalker by Kelleher and Knapp, which tells of numerous supposedly paranormal events occurring at Robert Bigelow's so-called "Skinwalker Ranch" in Utah. He is very impressed.
  
• Lacatski suggests to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), and to Bigelow, that the government might fund an investigation into UAPs and allegedly paranormal phenomena "collocated" with UAPs, in the interest of national security.
• Reid uses his political connections to create the AAWSAP program, with a budget of $22 million. Bigelow creates a new division of his company, BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies), which submits the only bid for the contract. 
• AAWSAP investigates not only claims of UAPs, but alleged paranormal phenomena "collocated" with them. People claim to have 'brought home' poltergeist phenomena and such after visiting Skinwalker Ranch. Blue orbs are also said to menace those who get close to the phenomenon.
• AAWSAP is funded for two fiscal years, 2009 and 2010. Reid, Lacatski, and others try to get additional funding, but are unsuccessful.

An illustration of AAWSAP investigations (from the podcast The Basement Office)

This is a very different picture than we have been shown before! There have long been hints of this side of AAWSAP, but because of there being so many conflicting accounts of the program(s), many people (including me) were inclined to dismiss them. Way back in May of 2018, KLAS in Las Vegas (where George Knapp works) published an anonymous "Statement from a Senior Manager of BAASS" (who very likely is Kelleher):

The investigations by BAASS provided new lines of evidence showing that the UFO phenomenon was a lot more than nuts and bolts machines that interacted with military aircraft. The phenomenon also involved a whole panoply of diverse activity that included bizarre creatures, poltergeist activity, invisible entities, orbs of light, animal and human injuries and much more. The exclusive focus on nuts and bolts machines could be considered myopic and unproductive in solving the larger mystery of UFOs.

Which is exactly what it says in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. Apparently Knapp has been dropping bread crumbs for us to follow for quite some time.

 

What does the book say about AATIP? "AAWSAP was not AATIP" (p. xxiii). AAWSAP had an allocated budget of about $22 million. AATIP had a budget of zero.  "AATIP involved a small group of people working on the UAP problem, with direct knowledge of their superiors, when their day jobs allowed them to." (p. xxiii-xxiv. Although I seem to recall that Elizondo once said that his superiors did not know what he was doing with AATIP.). AATIP was also described as a "small unofficial effort" (p.27). Take that, Elizondo! And what does the book have to say about Elizondo? Very little. He is mentioned just a few times, in passing. About the only insight it gives us  about Elizondo is,

As he enjoyed his steak tartare, Elizondo regaled those around him with some war stories, including one hair-raising exploit  about how his advanced intuition and remote viewing ["psychic"] capabilities had saved his life and the life of his men while on a covert combat mission in Afghanistan (p. 49).

Oh my, so apparently Elizondo brags in private about his psychic powers? Strange that he has not mentioned this in public interviews. He obviously would prefer for this not to become public, so its inclusion suggests  an agenda. 

The "Broad Scope" of AAWSAP Research

The authors emphasize that 

the decision to research paranormal phenomena that co-locate with UAPs and to examine psychic effects in UAP witnesses, in addition to scrutinizing  the core UAP technology itself, was not taken lightly because of the controversial nature of the UAP-paranormal debate....[witnesses] frequently reported poltergeist effects, humanoid-shaped black shadows, loud footsteps, hauntings, discarnate voices, small flying orbs,or some combination thereof, in their homes. These people also regularly reported precognitive, clairvoyant, telepathic, or unusual electromagnetic phenomena, as well as occasional increases in meaningful coincidences in their lives in the aftermath of a UAP encounter  (p. 161).

So with AAWSAP, we are getting not just reports of sightings, but a wide assortment of Things that go Bump in the Night. While some might see this as a bold new approach to UFOs, in fact it has been a part of the writings of UFO theorists like Jacques Vallee, John Keel, etc. for more than fifty years. There is nothing new here. (Vallee worked with AAWSAP on preparing its database.) 

Is this a dagger which I see before me?

We read of a mysterious incident occurring to Lacatski on his very first visit to the Skinwalker ranch:

Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells

Abruptly, Lacatski was transfixed by something behind where Bigelow and the [caretaker] couple were chatting: an unearthly technological device had suddenly and silently appeared out of nowhere in the adjacent kitchen. It looked to be a complex semi-opaque, yellowish, tubular structure. Lacatski said nothing but stared at the object, which was hovering silently. He looked away, looked back, and there it still was. It remained visible to Lacatski for no more than 30 seconds before vanishing on the spot (p. 39-40).

Three other people were present, but did not see this. Lacatski later said that the object looked like the illustration on this album cover.

 

 

"Bringing Something Home - The Infectious Agent Model" (p. 80).

I wrote in 2018 that Dr. Eric Davis, one of Bigelow's science contractors, claimed that a poltergeist followed him home from the Skinwalker Ranch. Now we read that "Most people who spent more than a day of Skinwalker Ranch brought "something" home with them from the property. The effect was almost universal, and universally unpleasant" (p. 80). What kind of incidents and sightings are we talking about?

• "The freakish hybrid of small dinosaur and large beaver had silently and suddenly appeared" (p. 56)
• "nightmarish 'dogmen' appearing in their backyard" (p. 81)
• "two wine bottles were flung across the room, ceiling fans would turn on," etc. (p. 81).
• "a large wolf-like creature standing outside his bedroom looking in at him" (p. 84)
• "strange blue lights flying around his backyard" (p. 84).

Tied into the Skinwalker "mystery" somewhat peripherally is "the Geller effect", when in 1973 several scientists in California testing the Israeli spoonbender's alleged magic powers were supposedly plagued in their homes with UFOs, orbs, and "black shadowy forms" (p. 88). The authors correctly note that physicist Dr. Hal Puthoff was a "central player" both in these tests of Geller, and also "as an AAWSAP BAASS consultant and contractor, in the Axelrod and other post Skinwalker Ranch incidents" (p. 89).  Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff famously investigated Uri Geller back in the early 1970s, and were very impressed by him. Geller's supposed psychic powers were shown by James Randi and other magicians to be bogus. 

AAWSAP requested, but did not get, funding for a "remote viewing" program, but they conducted a "limited feasibility test." They asked the noted remote viewer Joseph McMoneagle to view a target allegedly unknown to him, which was actually Skinwalker Ranch. His descriptions of it "were excellent" (p. 121). The authors do not mention that back in 1984, McMoneagle was working with the CIA, and attempted a remote viewing of Mars in the year 1 million B.C. He described a "pyramid" that was 20,000 meters tall, and structures with large rooms, built by "an ancient people trying to survive."

We are informed in Chapter 8 that "Blue Orbs Are not Benign" (p. 70), Several accounts are given of humans allegedly being injured or sickened by encounters with nasty Blue Orbs that are said to fly about like angry wasps. When three dogs on the Skinwalker Ranch allegedly disappeared after being menaced by a blue orb, "The rancher" [Terry Sherman] came upon "three black greasy lumps," and "presumed that his three dogs had been incinerated" (p. 76).

There is much more about the Spookernatural in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, but this review is already long enough, and you get the picture. There is no actual evidence of paranormal phenomena presented, only reports. In several cases, we are told that photos or videos of the incredible phenomenon were taken, but somehow the phenomenon erased itself from the device(s). When I hear such an account, I say to myself, "this story is completely fabricated." But the authors seem to believe such accounts.

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Related to the above is is this very interesting Podcast by Steven Greenstreet of the New York Post. I seldom watch or listen to any podcasts, since I can read an author's article in just a few minutes, while their podcast requires thirty minutes or more. But this one is worth watching. First he tells the AATIP story as it's usually told (and I'm thinking "that isn't right). Then he says that all of that is wrong, and presents the actual history, as documented in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. Strictly speaking, the book does not discuss "werewolves," but to apply that term to reports of a bipedal, wolf-like creature seems pretty appropriate. Likewise, the book does not discuss "ghosts," but does discuss "discarnate voices."

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

 

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.

I love it! The New York Post is taking the New York Times to the woodshed over its fake news reporting, not long after the New York Times dismissed the New York Post's explosive Hunter Biden laptop story as Fake News (now sheepishly admitted to be genuine). I'm thinking that perhaps the New York Post is becoming the new 'Newspaper of Record!'

Elizondo and the "Five Observables"

Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Pentagon AATIP program and now Director of Special Projects with Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy, was the keynote speaker at this year's MUFON Symposium in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. His subject was, "The History of AATIP," the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. While much of Elizondo's talk repeated what he and others have said before, we did learn some new details on the matter.

Elizondo said that the AATIP produced "five observables," that supposedly demonstrate the reality of unknown, extraordinary flying craft. 

First, "You're talking about instantaneous acceleration." No, that is an assumption, not something actually "observed." For one thing, that would violate fundamental laws of physics, somehow instantaneously accelerating a craft, while at the same time not smashing up whatever is inside it. We now know that the instance of supposed "instantaneous acceleration" in the Tic-Tac infrared video to which he refers is based upon an error. Skeptic Mick West wrote, "a lot of people have missed that fact that the sudden change in apparent velocity is actually due to a change in the zoom setting of the camera. When we correct for this by shrinking the 2x video back down to 1x then the "jerk" in velocity vanishes, and the movement is much smoother and slower, with no huge g-forces required." So the first "observable" is nothing more than a mistake.

"The Five Observables," according to AATIP. But are these actually "observed," or just assumed?

The second is "Hypersonic Velocity." This typically refers to a speed of Mach 5 or greater. What Elizondo does not explain is exactly how and where this has reportedly been observed, and how these alleged extreme velocities have measured and confirmed. Unless you know the distance to an object, you cannot calculate its speed. "Hypersonic Velocity." is an assumption, not an observation, and the claim has absolutely no credibility unless they can show exactly how it was calculated. At present, this is just an unsupported claim, not evidence.

The third is "Low Observability," otherwise presumably known as "stealth," an assumption confirmed by his use of the image of the F-117 Stealth Bomber. "Reduced cross section" has indeed been part of the Defense Department's stealth strategy for decades, involving aircraft, cruise missiles, and even ships. Elizondo does not even attempt to demonstrate that stealthiness is an attribute designed into any supposed craft they have reportedly encountered.

MUFON's General Director, Jan Harzan, is captivated by one of Elizondo's stories.

The fourth is "Multimedium Travel," when an object can supposedly operate in air, water, and even outer space. Unfortunately, he gives us no examples of this, so it is impossible to determine whether this is correct. One suspects that because an unidentified object turned up on radar or the FLIR, and later a pilot claimed to have seen a disturbance in the water (Tic-Tac video), Elizondo leaps to the conclusion that both were caused by the same object, one capable of "Multimedium Travel." More plausible is the assumption that these were unrelated incidents, linked together in the excitement of the moment.

Harzan remains enthralled by Elizondo. Meanwhile, behind them Travis Walton
is trying to hypnotize the people at his table.

The fifth "observable" is "Positive Lift," meaning "I do not have to be moving like an aircraft to generate lift under my wings." In other words, anti-gravity. This, like the first "observable", would be quite remarkable, if true. This supposedly gives you "loiter capability," meaning that you can just hover in one place, apparently without expending any energy. While "gravity control" or "anti-gravity" is a staple of Dr. Hal Puthoff's far-out physics, ordinary physicists have not yet caught up to Elizondo and Puthoff, and think this is all nonsense. Later, in a response to a question seen on the longer version of the video, Elizondo makes it clear that by "physics," he means "warping space-time" so that objects can apparently travel faster than light. He did not explain how this is to be accomplished. Perhaps he carries a black hole in his pocket?

I think it would be fair to say that AATIP's "5 Observables" are more accurately termed the "5 Assumables," given that there is a huge gap in going from what they believe is being observed to proving that their remarkable interpretations are valid. These are extraordinary claims, and as such require extraordinary proof, not just simple assumptions.

Clarifying some confusion concerning the project name: It recently came to light that the 'real name' of the recent Pentagon UFO program was supposedly AAWSAP, Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program, and not AATIP. According to Elizondo, the AAWSAP program was founded in 2007, but in 2008 "AAWSAP is formally changed to AATIP by former program manager to focus more narrowly on the 5 observables and research of advanced physics applications." He did not name the former program manager; other documents suggest that James T Lacatski was project head until 2010 when Elizondo took over.

Some people have suggested that this confusion over the name was why all the FOIA requests concerning the project had not turned anything up, but nothing much is turning up, FOIA-wise, using either name. Referring to questions about why he did not clarify this sooner, Elizondo insisted that he was "not qualified to talk about it," since he was not part of the original program. Remarkably, he appears to be "qualified" to talk about it now. Supposedly AATIP collected "volumes and volumes of information" that he could not go into detail about because it remains classified. He claims that "Much of AATIP information remains FOIA-exempt," but did not state exactly what makes it so, just that it needs to be kept out of the hands of "the enemy." He repeated his claim that the government "authorized" the release of those videos, but offered no proof of it, in spite of a Pentagon spokesman's clear denials.
 
In the question-and-answer session, Elizondo dodged specific questions, and spoke only in the most general terms, repeating what has already been said. At the end of the Q&A, Travis Walton spoke to complain about the poor quality of the questions asked of Elizondo. Walton was disappointed that people didn't ask Elizondo questions he could answer, "rather than constantly pressing for things that you can't, or shouldn't" answer. The problem was, however, that there didn't seem to be any kind of interesting question that Elizondo would answer.

The audience is thrilled by the dramatic revelations at the 2018 MUFON Symposium.

Elizondo began his talk with the prediction, "I think the same time next year we're going to have a fundamentally different conversation," apparently implying that everybody will then be convinced  that aliens are here. Let's re-visit that prediction on July 29, 2019 to see how well it holds up. My predicton is, at that time the conversation will still be same old, same old.

And the days grow short, when you reach September.

Folks, act fast - don't miss this opportunity to give your money to Tom DeLonge!

Harvard's "Galileo Project" Meets Tom DeLonge's "To The Stars"

From 2017 until the end of last year, the attention of the UFO world was focused almost solely on the "To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences" of rocker Tom DeLonge. It was going to mix advanced science with entertainment, and sold shares to credulous "investors." It produced two seasons of a successful cable TV series, Unidentified. (The show was filled with absurdity and misinformation, but apparently got good ratings.) "To The Stars" first introduced the public to the three leaked Navy UFO videos: the Tic Tac, the Go Fast, and the Gimble. The media attention was practically nonstop.

To The Stars' now-shuttered "Flagship Retail Store" in Encinitas, California - Feb. 29, 2020.

But ultimately, it could not last. Tom DeLonge is demonstrably a credulous fool (if an ambitious one), an embarrassment to any serious person associated with him. (Those who looked carefully would see that DeLonge's top people were not much better than him in terms of credibility, but the media almost never really looks at UFO claims with a skeptical eye.) For reasons never fully explained, To The Stars has effectively folded, and there was much speculation about what the TTSA alumni would do next.

We now know what at least two of them will be doing: the Galileo Project of Dr. Avi Loeb at Harvard announced that Luis Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, formerly of TTSA, would be joining them.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — October 30, 2021 — Today the Galileo Project lead Professor Avi Loeb announced the additions of Mr. Luis Elizondo and Mr. Christopher Mellon to the project team as research affiliates. Noting their depth of experience investigating the subject of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), and their shared interest in open and transparent study of the phenomena, Loeb welcomed them as the latest members of a diverse and growing Galileo Project team.

“The Galileo Project will greatly benefit from the broad knowledge base and wisdom of Elizondo and Mellon,” said Professor Loeb. “We all share the goal of identifying the nature of UAP and of anomalous interstellar objects like `Oumuamua.”

For some reason, while Dr. Loeb's announcement summarizes the background and experience of each, it carefully makes no mention of "To The Stars" or of Tom DeLonge. Obviously, they find this previous association quite embarrassing.

Tom DeLonge (left) and Luis Elizondo (right) speaking to an Italian UFO group in 2018.

About Elizondo, the Galileo Project says:

Luis Elizondo is a former counterintelligence special agent and the former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). He served in the U.S. Army in intelligence for twenty years, followed by 9 years of defense intelligence work in the Pentagon. In 2017, Elizondo resigned from his position in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, citing the need for more public exposure and governmental cooperation in the study of UAP. In the private sector, Elizondo was responsible for the distribution of the declassified Pentagon videos. He has served as advisor and public speaker across numerous programs.

Elizondo has long claimed to have been the former director of the Pentagon's AATIP program, but there is no documentary proof of this. In fact, there's no documentary proof of that program at all, in terms of a budget or mission statement or anything else definite. Some people have said that the AATIP and AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Application, which funneled $22 million to Robert Bigelow's BAASS) program were the same. But James Lacatski, the only person we know to have worked on AAWSAP, recently compared the two programs while he was on Coast to Coast radio:

But there was a difference between the two programs. Ours (AAWSAP) had $22 million dollars in funding, his (AATIP) had zero. Ours looked at military and civilian investigations, his looked at military exclusively. And we had, of course, contractor and subcontractor support. He had no contractor support. But he did his thing, we did ours. But I can say that in direct answer to your question, we were the only game in town, I would say from 2008 through 2012.

Elizondo's AATIP had zero funding. Zero! Big important government project!! So AATIP seems to have been more of a sideline, or hobby project. Something Elizondo, and probably his pals, did in their spare time. Not an actual, sponsored government investigation. And John Greenewald of the Black Vault recently revealed FOIA documents showing that neither AATIP nor AAWSAP had "any mission statement, objective, or outline that they could find," which is extremely unusual for a Pentagon program.

And more interesting "disclosures" from Elizondo continue to turn up. His recent appearance on Curt Jaimungal's Theory of Everything podcast was particularly revealing: "Luis Elizondo on Biological UFO Samples, Remote Viewing, and explaining "Somber"." The host asked him about Remote Viewing - the alleged power to "see" things psychically at a great distance, or even back in time - "I believe you dabbled in that." Elizondo did not deny this in any way, but instead did the usual verbal dance he does around extraordinary claims. He hints that it could be true, but also hints that it is secret, and he can't talk about it. Some describe this approach as Elizondo 'dropping breadcrumbs' for people to follow. He does it a lot. Here is another example from that same podcast:

Have there potentially been biological samples recovered? Yes. I’m not going to expound on that … and be careful when I say that. I’m being purposely very open and vague at the same time, right? What does that mean? Well, it means what it means.

A perfectly ridiculous statement. Also on that podcast, Elizondo was asked if there are any photos showing "occupants" inside their craft. He replied, “There are some very compelling photos out there that seem to show something inside, some sort of occupancy, and I’ll leave it at that ….”

Elizondo was interviewed by the Roswell Daily Record on June 26. Asked what were his thoughts about the supposed Roswell crash, he replied,

Before I was part of AATIP, I had no idea about Roswell, other than that there was sort of some alleged crash at some point and some farmer found debris — but during my time with AATIP, there was some very interesting anecdotal information that suggests there wasn’t just one crash, there may have been actually two crashes, and that somehow it may have been related to some sort of testing that was being done at the time at White Sands, and that material was recovered.

And that material that was recovered, samples of that material actually found their way into the hands of private citizens, some of them, but that the … allegedly the larger sections of debris were all recovered by the U.S. Government....  But again, I will share with you that it was, from my understanding, it wasn’t actually one, it was two crashes, and it may have been related to some sort of nuclear-type testing of technology that we were doing, atomic and/or nuclear technology at Los Alamos at the time.

OK. Not just one saucer crashed near Roswell, but two. Too bad Elizondo doesn't have any proof of any of this.

Tom DeLonge's press conference in 2017 with TTSA Academy team members Chris Mellon and Luis Elizondo. Next: Steve Justice, Hal Puthoff, and Jim Semivan.

About Chris Mellon, the Galileo Project says:

Christopher Mellon brings over twenty years of experience in defense intelligence and national security affairs, including serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. In the private sector, Mellon has outspokenly pushed for public awareness and governmental accountability regarding the subject of UAP. Like Elizondo, he has served as advisor and on-screen expert for numerous documentaries and television programming.

Mellon had been the Chairman of TTSA's Advisory Board, and participated in many press conferences and media events. He has admitted to being the source who leaked TTSA's famous 'three videos' to the New York Times.  When the Navy formulated new procedures in 2019 for reporting "UAPs", Tom DeLonge credited this development to Chris Mellon:

This is a DIRECT RESULT of @tothestarsacademy’s quiet efforts coordinating briefings to the Legislative and Executive Branch, working with the Navy and others at the highest levels to help create an architecture for dealing with the reality of UFOs. Chris Mellon, Chairman of the TTSA ADVISORY BOARD, worked for the greater part of the year on this breakthrough National Security Policy—- And yes, this is an admission that these Unidentified Aerial Vehicles are real, and @tothestarsacademy organized this entire effort. Thank you to everyone for believing in us... But, there is much more to come.

When Mellon was interviewed on Fox & Friends on May 26, he had no doubt about what was happening:

We know that UFOs exist. This is no longer an issue. The issue is why are they here? Where are they coming from and what is the technology behind these devices that we are observing? .....Pilots observing these craft are absolutely mystified and that comes through clearly in their public statements...These are reactions between intelligently controlled vehicles operating in and around U.S. military facilities, hence the concern.

So the Galileo Project seems to have picked up some valuable 'UAP talent' here. The project's motto is "Daring to Look Through New Telescopes." With Elizondo on board, they won't even need telescopes - he can just Remote View the alien probes from the comfort of home.

Secret Medical Experiments at the Skinwalker Ranch?

Most readers of this Blog are familiar with the so-called "Skinwalker Ranch" near Ft. Duchesne, Utah. Supposedly haunted and filled with all kinds of paranormal phenomena, it was purchased in 1996 by the wealthy investor and UFO buff Robert Bigelow of AATIP fame for study of its alleged phenomena. Members of Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) stayed on the ranch for careful first-hand study. One of them was Colm Kelleher, PhD, co-author of the book Hunt for the Skinwalker. Another was Dr. Eric Davis, an astronomer who now works at Dr. Hal Puthoff's Institute for Advanced Studies in Austin, Texas, studying weird physics. Despite Bigelow's funding and the investigators' unfettered access to the alleged phenomena,

after several years of Gorman family trauma and of focused NIDS investigation, we managed to obtain very little physical evidence of anomalous phenomena, at least no physical evidence that could be considered as conclusive proof of anything (Hunt for the Skinwalker, p. 209).

So, all the King's Horses and all the King's Men and all the King's cameras and electronic recording devices could not document anything paranormal occurring at the Skinwalker Ranch, in spite of spending several years on-site trying to do so. NIDS never did find anything much anywhere, so Bigelow shut it down in 2004, and in 2016 he sold the ranch to Adamantium Real Estate, LLC, whose owner has still not been publicly named. 

Chris Marx, former security guard at Skinwalker, being interviewed by John Greenewald.

Chris Marx is a US Army veteran and certified military police investigator, who served two tours of duty in Iraq, and one in Afghanistan. Returning from Iraq in 2009, he was hired by Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) as an investigator and security guard at the Skinwalker Ranch. This was five years after NIDS had been disbanded, so Bigelow's PhD investigators were long gone by this time. Marx' claims of employment at the ranch by BAASS have been checked out and are not in dispute. 

Marx claims to have witnessed many unexplainable events at the ranch (see below), but that is not his most significant claim. Marx says he believes that the purpose of his being hired at the ranch was to make him an unwitting subject of secret medical experiments, whose alleged purpose is unknown. This might just seem like another paranoid conspiracy story, except for one thing: Marx says that BAASS required him to get an MRI brain scan as a condition of employment, and he produced a consent form documenting that fact.

Bigelow required Marx to submit to an MRI brain scan (first posted by Erica Lukes)

This fact has astonished a lot of people, including me. I cannot think of a single reason for an employer to require an employee to submit to a brain scan, and I cannot think of any other employer who has previously required this. Recently Marx has been working with Erica Lukes, former MUFON State Director for Utah and now independent researcher with her own podcast, to investigate this matter. ( I was a guest on Erica's podcast in 2017. )

When Marx's MRI scan documentation was first posted by Erica Lukes on her Facebook page on November 10, Eric Davis (formerly of NIDS) stepped in to say, "they signed consent forms and no medical testing was done on them." ("They" presumably includes Christopher Bartel, who also formerly worked for BAASS at the ranch.) Davis added,

the AAWSAP [AATIP] was not about the ranch! It was about the Nimitz encounters and other Navy/USAF encounters. The ranch became a subordinate issue of interest because Bigelow owned it. There was no AAWSAP tasking for the ranch.

When Bartel insisted that "medical testing was done on us," Davis replied,

 I worked on that ranch for five years when I was the Director of Aerospace and Astrophysics Research at NIDS. I investigated (on the ranch and all over the Uintah Valley) and personally experienced A LOT of phenomenon on the ranch including the shooting of a possible cryptoterrestrial, one very violent calf mutilation, orbs, telepathic contact, UFOs, powerful musky odors, etc. I was never mentally or physically injured or medically tested after five years or much later after leaving NIDS. All of my work on the ranch was documented in Kelleher & Knapp’s book followed by Knapp & Corbell’s documentary film released in Sept. 2018. You and Mr. Marx are misleading Erica with your “false narrative” of being military vets who were medically tested without your consent. I’ve read all of the ranch reports during the AAWSAP. You weren’t “medically tested”. You two come off as disgruntled, fired ex-security guards looking for a big payoff.

Marx was not "fired." He left the ranch for a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and upon his return continued to work for Bigelow, although not at the ranch.

On November 15, John Greenewald, Jr., tireless researcher at The Black Vault, did a very interesting YouTube interview of Marx. In it Marx explained that when he went for his first interview with BAASS in Las Vegas, he walked in a side door of the building and was greeted by his interviewer pointing a handgun at him (!!). They asked him if he had ever had any previous paranormal experiences, experiences he could not explain. He replied "Yes," and apparently that was the answer they wanted to hear. He got the job.

Marx told Greenewald that according to some unnamed physicist, James T. Lacatski was seen at the ranch, implying that AATIP was involved. Lacatski is the only person we know to have been the head of AATIP/AAWSAP, despite Elizondo's claims to have run that program. The only thing that AATIP is known to have produced are 38 papers in weird physics, like anti-gravity, wormholes, and negative mass propulsion, and Lacatski's name appears on all of them. Everything else is just rumor, unsupported by any documentation. Greenewald noted that Hal Puthoff, as well as the Pentagon, say that AAWSAP and AATIP were the same program, while Luis Elizondo of To The Stars Academy insists they were not. (I am wondering if perhaps Elizondo may have 'padded' the resume he gave DeLonge? 😉)

Marx went on to say that there was practically no research equipment at the ranch, and so they used their own cameras and such when needed. However they were not, he says, given any directives about what to do at the ranch in terms of research. He portrayed Bigelow as being very stingy with necessary expenses for food, transportation, etc. "The whole time I was at the ranch I never saw Bigelow or any scientist."

But that did not stop Marx and his colleague(s) from doing their own investigations and recording their own observations. He claims that he and Bartel independently identified thirteen "hotspots" on the ranch. They wrote questions for the supposed paranormal 'entity,' placing them in tamper-proof evidence bags. They then used a Ouija board to try to get answers to the questions. However, he says that no answers were received, and the Ouija planchette repeatedly just flew toward his chest. Other reported strange occurrences were:

• On the day he arrived at the ranch, his gear was tossed all around. (I have long suspected that the Ranch indeed had a trickster. A human one.)
• An "invisible person," a very heavy one, allegedly walked around their trailer. He suspects that this may have to do with an AATIP experiment in "cloaking." (AATIP's weird physics paper #7 is titled "Invisibility Cloaking".)
• They reportedly saw a very bright light in the night sky lasting a few seconds, so bright that Marx said he could still see the light with his eyes closed, and with his hand in front of his eyes.
• Strangest of all is Marx's tale about the bulletproof wolf. He says he went outdoors one night to see why the dogs were barking so fiercely. He allegedly saw the dogs being held at bay by three large wolves, who then came after him. (Supposedly there are no wolves in the wild near the ranch).  Holding his 12-gauge shotgun, he fired eight rounds at one wolf from close range. The weapon had a red dot laser on the animal, it was impossible to miss. Yet there was supposedly no effect, and the wolves slowly walked off. (Marx's story of the bullet-proof wolf is not the only such account from Skinwalker. At other times it was apparently seen regularly, and was named "Toby.")

Google Map's aerial view of the Skinwalker Ranch. (Just plug "Skinwalker" into the search box.)  I don't see any Cryptids, do you?

Marx referred to an anonymous Ranch employee, "Chip," whose concerns about possible medical testing of employees was supposedly told on Jack Brewer's Blog The UFO Trail in 2012. Nobody picked up on it, Marx said. I went looking for that piece and didn't find it, however I did find a comment left there pointing to an article on the Daily Grail by "Red Pill Junkie" that in turn references a Paracast podcast from Sept. 2, 2012 in which "Chip" discussed his experiences at the Ranch. Mr. Red Pill writes that "Chip" said in 2012 that

whenever the personnel saw or felt something strange, they were required to have urine tests and bring the vials back to Vegas by the end of their shift (!). Chip also mentioned ‘brain scans’ performed on the individuals, although they were never informed of the results of such tests.

This last part of his job convinced Chip that he was there at the Skinwalker ranch more as a ‘guinea pig’ than as a security guard. “They were testing us,” he said to Gene, Chris, David and Ryan on that Paracast episode. He thought that perhaps the military was trying out something new at the remote rural location, and he and his colleagues were used as lab rats without their consent.

Las Vegas is over 500 miles from the Ranch, so it's obviously not possible for employees to 'bring the vials back to Vegas' at the end of a shift. "Were we exposed to radioactivity?" Marx asked. He noted that "fuel rods," described as about six inches long and made of very tough material, were supposedly found on the ranch, and given to Bigelow. Actually, that claim was made as far back as 1997, when they were described as five jet black "alien fuel rods" about six inches long that were "extremely hard."  One suggestion is that the rods were simply graphite rods, possibly from a lantern battery. It is extremely implausible that radioactive fuel rods would simply be left lying about the ranch, even if they had been somehow used there, which they almost certainly had not. Nobody has any real information about this now, although I suspect it's Much Ado about Nothing.

Marx closed his Black Vault interview with the admonition to be skeptical of Knapp and Corbell. Actually, Marx had earlier let off some steam in an open letter he gave to Skinwalker researcher Ryan Skinner, to be posted on Facebook:

While Mr. Knapp knows better, he is frequently on the forefront of selling snake oil to the masses, and Mr. Corbell seemingly can’t resist to pose in front of a fictitious blackboard with “data” scribbled all over it. While Mr. Corbell has absolutely zero historical involvement or relevance to anything “Ranch”, he displays himself as an expert and frequently gives wrong information on the Ranch.... Mr. Knapp, there are no “predator monsters” living on the Ranch, and there are no people tied to chairs in expectations to be killed or devoured. How do I know this? I actually worked the Ranch for 6 years, day and night. Often without any artificial illumination and by myself. There also has never been any documentation of “Big Foot”.
You guys are going as far as calling the Ranch a “mental and emotional torture chaimber”; clearly, you know better. Stop your artificial hype and disinformation nonsense.

Were Marx, Bartel, or anyone else subjected to medical experiments at Skinwalker Ranch? I don't think so, and here is why:

Greenewald asked Marx, "You were told, the reason you had to sign it was that they were going to be looking for effects on your body by this phenomena, whatever it was. So you were told that up front?" Marx replied, "Correct. And also, it was not negotiable. Because if we wouldn't have signed it, we would have lost our jobs." So one interpretation is that Bigelow believed that the Skinwalker "phenomenon" itself might have effects on someone's body, and he wanted to document it. And if BAASS were carrying out any such experiments, they would have periodically checked up on the effects of those experiments on their employees, which does not seem to have happened. So I don't think there was any attempt to monitor the health of those working at the ranch.

But why the brain scan? I have a suspicion: old-timers in UFOlogy will recall the mini-controversy raised over whether or not Whitley Strieber might have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, causing him to hallucinate his "visitors" (as opposed to, "just making them up," which is far more likely). Supposedly, Strieber had a brain scan showing that his brain was just fine, so he doesn't hallucinate. So the "visitors" are real, take that you skeptics! Bigelow would surely remember this isssue being raised, and (I suspect) wanted to rule out any of his employees being likely to "hallucinate" anything at his ranch. That way, if they reported that they saw a Cryptid, it would be because some Cryptid was really there! 😉

Perhaps someday Mr. Bigelow will explain all this to us. But that doesn't seem very likely.

To The Stars' Cable TV Series "Unidentified" Launches Amid a Frenzy in the Credulous Media

Watching the long-anticipated premiere of the series "Unidentified" on the "History" Channel, I saw little that was new or unexpected. Produced by Tom DeLonge, who organized "To The Stars Academy" (TTSA) which has more or less dominated UFO news for the past two years, it repeated the same claims that I and others have have already written about many times. Sandwiched between episodes of "Ancient Aliens," the first of six episodes of "Unidentified" concentrated on the so-called "Tic Tac" UFO, an incident involving U.S. Navy personnel in the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group off the coast of southern California in 2004. I will assume that the reader has seen the episode in question, or is at least familiar with TTSA's description of the incident. Here are a few things about that episode that I found to be misleading or incorrect:

• Much is made of the fact that reports were made by highly trained military pilots, some with combat experience. The implication is that their observations are far more credible than those of just ordinary folks. But longtime UFO researchers recall that Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the former U. S. Air Force Project Blue Book scientific consultant,  wrote "Surprisingly, commercial and military pilots appear to make relatively poor witnesses" (The Hynek UFO Report, 1977, p. 271). The pilot is, and must be, focused on keeping the aircraft safely aloft, and not on watching some strange-looking object.
• The Pentagon did not "disclose" or "release" anything about UFOs. This whole "disclosure" line came about from statements by TTSA's Luis Elizondo and others, and not from any internal Pentagon activity. The Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) came about  because multimillionaire investor (and longtime UFO believer) Robert Bigelow, a  campaign contributor to Sen. Harry Reid, prevailed upon Reid, then the Democratic leader in the Senate, to set up the AATIP program. AATIP then funneled $22 million in contracts to Bigelow's company (that's how things are done in Washington). The only thing that AATIP is known to have produced are 38 papers in weird physics, like anti-gravity, wormholes, and negative mass propulsion.

  

  Chris Cooke claiming in an episode preview that the Tic Tac displayed 'instantaneous acceleration'

• TTSA has claimed from its inception that the Pentagon released the three blurry infrared videos that they ceaselesslly show us. They claim to have 'chain of custody' documentation for the videos, but nobody has ever seen this documentation. Elizondo recently released to George Knapp, a reporter friendly to TTSA (and it seems to anybody else making UFO claims) a copy of a document purporting to show the videos' release. But a careful analysis by John Greenewald of The Black Vault shows beyond any doubt that the document does not prove what Elizondo claims it does. Greenewald notes,

"we have no proof of any [official Pentagon] release, let alone what is being touted [the videos] is even the same evidence connected to this DD Form 1910. If we see a blatant disregard for the truth by Mr. Elizondo on display with this DD Form 1910, and we see the same disregard for the truth by To The Stars Academy as they have touted documents proving a public release – how can we believe everything or anything else from the same sources?"

Elizondo's slide showing the 'five observables'

In the first episode, Luis Elizondo spoke again about his "five observables", which I wrote about September of 2018. One of them was "Instantaneous acceleration," supposedly shown by the Tic Tac UFO's rapid disappearance from the IR video. In a preview segment from "Unidentified" shown on Fox News, TTSA's Chris Cooke attributes this movement to the object itself. Elizondo has  made this claim in his lectures many times. In reality, Mick West of the excellent Metabunk showed that the 'sudden acceleration' of the object was, in fact, due to a change in the zoom factor of the camera at that point.  Surprisingly, that comment was cut from the final show; instead, Cooke is heard to say "Somebody changed the zoom." But Elizondo repeated the 'instantaneous acceleration' claim on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox news just a few hours before the series premiere. As for the other four "observables," they are more accurately called "assumables" than "observables".

One recent development that is significant, and is not mentioned on the program or by TTSA: According to an article in The Drive by Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway:

the Times' story doesn't mention that between 2014 and 2015, Graves and Accoin, and all the other personnel assigned to Carrier Air Wing One (CVW-1) and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, as well as everyone else in the associated carrier strike group, or CSG, were taking part in series of particularly significant exercises. The carrier had only returned to the fleet after major four-year-long overhaul, also known as a Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH), in August 2013. This process included installing various upgrades, such as systems associated with the latest operational iteration of the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) and its embedded Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) architecture.

This is a critical detail. When the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group encountered the Tic Tac in 2004, it was in the midst of the first ever CSG-level operations of the initial iteration of the CEC.

In other words, in 2004 the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group got its radar upgrade, and soon was reporting 'unidentified objects' including the Tic Tac. In 2014-15, Carrier Air Wing One  got its radar upgrade, and soon they, too, were reporting UFOs galore. One could interpret this to mean that the radars had finally gotten powerful enough to detect the UFOs that had long been knocking about. But I think that a better interpretation is: the radars had gotten powerful enough to begin detecting birds, small balloons, insect clouds, ice crystals, windborne debris, and various other insignificant things found up in the air. Arguing in favor of the latter interpretation is that these radars are apparently no longer detecting anomalous objects, which itself is extremely significant. It suggests that, in all likelihood, after being puzzled by anomalous objects appearing on the radar, the operators finally figured out what was happening, and no longer are troubled by anomalies.

And in a last-minute bombshell, reporter Keith Kloor finally did what reporters are supposed to do, and ask tough questions about persons in the news making claims. Writing in The Intercept on June 1, Kloor's piece is headlined "The Media loves the UFO expert who says he worked for an obscure Pentagon program. Did he?" Kloor writes,

there is one crucial detail missing from “Unidentified,” as well as from all the many stories that have quoted Elizondo since he outed himself nearly two years ago to a wide-eyed news media: There is no discernible evidence that he ever worked for a government UFO program, much less led one.

Yes, AATIP existed, and it “did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena,” Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood told me. However, he added: “Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI [the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence], up until the time he resigned effective 10/4/2017.”

That directly contradicts an email sent by a spokesperson for To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, a UFO research and entertainment company that Elizondo joined after he left the Defense Department.

Kloor notes that the only supposed confirmation of Elizondo's involvement with AATIP comes from Bryan Bender of Politico:

“Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White confirmed to Politico that the program existed and was run by Elizondo,” Bryan Bender wrote in December 2017. (Earlier this year, White, a Trump administration political appointee, resigned amid an internal probe into charges of misconduct.)

But Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood told me that he “cannot confirm” White’s statement.

As it happens, Bender, who is Politico’s defense editor, had a recurring role in the first episode of “Unidentified.” He appeared on camera numerous times as a kind of authoritative character witness for Elizondo, Mellon, and their UFO investigations.

So Bender cannot be considered an objective reporter on TTSA, and Elzondo's supposed involvement with AATIP is supported only on his own word. Kloor further notes that Elizondo will not respond to his inquiries, but obviously has no difficulty being interviewed by other reporters who give him softball questions. I have seen this behavior time and again among UFOlogists who are peddling dubious claims.

Not everyone is happy about Kloor's expose. "Disclosure" advocate Stephen Basset of the Paradigm Research Group writes,

It is the most egregious hit piece directed at the extraterrestrial presence issue and Disclosure I have ever read in 22 years. It measures up to some of the worst such articles written by Phil Klass, the most vicious debunker on record. Stanton Friedman presented a cogent case that Klass was in the direct employ of the CIA during his disgraceful career.

Note that Basset does not point out anything wrong in what Kloor has written, but he just knows it's got to be wrong. Clearly the piece has hit a nerve with E.T. proponents. And what Basset says about Klass is Loony Tunes.

"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.