Will The New York Times Ever Stop Reporting on UFOs?

In December 2017, The New York Times published a front page story about a ”shadowy” UFO Pentagon program that investigated encounters between Navy fighter pilots and mysterious, gravity-defying objects. Illustrated with several

By Keith Kloor Wired 5-17-20

grainy cockpit videos posted to the Times’ website, the scoop was captivating. ABC News called it a “bombshell.” Brett Baier of Fox News said, “a lot of people are taking this revelation seriously.”

A lot of journalists, that is. Many news consumers did lap up the story like a new X-Files episode but nobody ran for the hills, and nobody in Congress called for hearings about the “revelation” and its seemingly huge implications for civilization. As one observer on Twitter noted: “I mean the New York Times literally just gave us proof of UFOs and the world didn’t skip a beat.”

That’s because the world didn’t believe there was much to the story—or, at least, the world didn’t believe what the newspaper was hinting at. Indeed, the evidence touted by the Times (such as a supposedly recovered piece of unearthly wreckage) was shredded pretty easily by writers at New York magazine, Scientific American and WIRED.

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See Also:

Navy Reports Describe Encounters With Unexplained Flying Objects

Should Scientists Take UFOs and Ghosts More Seriously?

The Pentagon's Latest UFO Disclosures, Creator of the 'X-Files' Weighs In

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

New-Witness Angle to Nimitz Tic Tac UFO Incident

NY Times is MIA

“Oh my god! Oh my god! I’m engaged, I’m engaged! Shit!’ He’s screaming on the radio.” Excerpts from the podcast testimony of radar operator Kevin Day, former senior chief petty officer aboard the USS Princeton, relaying the words he heard in real time from an F-18 pilot in hot pursuit of what may turn out to become the best-documented military UFO challenge ever. Day was being interviewed by Air Force veteran John Burroughs at KGRA.

By Billy Cox De Void 6-18-18

“I found out later this thing did a barrel roll around him,” Day recalled during a two-hour Q&A last week on Phenomenon Radio Live. “And just basically kicked his butt in a dogfight.”

This is a new-witness angle to what’s being called the Nimitz Tic Tac incident of 2004, an update to the story broken by the New York Times last December. Day said he was in charge of air defense for the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group as it conducted training exercises 80 miles off the coast of San Diego. And he was on duty in the second week of November when a pilot with the elite “Black Aces” captured the now-famous Tic Tac-shaped UFO with an infrared gun camera.

But Day wasn’t the only Navy veteran to spill the beans last week about what he saw. On Wednesday, “Extraordinary Beliefs” podcaster Jeremy Corbell bagged a 23-minute interview with an operations specialist who would give only his first name, Trevor. During nearly week-long interactions with the furtive UFOs, Trevor was watching the radar scopes aboard the Nimitz’s Combat Direction Center, the nexus of the entire task force. Early on, he described watching high-flying blips dart across his grid in jerky movements that sound (to De Void, anyway) like a cursor on a computer screen. Trevor said he “couldn’t tag it” because the thing(s) “kept jumping around.”

But the news peg here is Trevor’s claim about what he didn’t see on radar. The day after the F-18s returned from their intercept mission, colleagues, including officers and a pilot, invited him to check out gun-cam footage that had been downloaded into the Secret Internet Protocol Routing Network (SIPRNet) system. This anomaly looked nothing like the Tic Tac. This was your classic flying saucer – flat below, rounded dome on top. The video resolution was sharper than the Tic Tac. Furthermore, when they slowed the action down, frame by frame, the UFO disappeared in sequential frames before reappearing in others. “And then boom,” says Trevor, “it was gone.”

Again, what set these new accounts into motion was the Times’ original reporting six months ago. And what ultimately led to Day’s interview is an enduring public appetite for more info on the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, the $22 million UFO research initiative, exposed by the NYT.

“This is the first chance that I’ve had a chance to actually appear before the public and speak about details of the program and not go to jail” — Hal Puthoff, June 8/CREDIT: To The Stars Academy

Less than two weeks ago, during a Society for Scientific Exploration conference in Las Vegas, engineer and research insider Hal Puthoff reminded listeners there were 38 related papers logged by the Defense Intelligence Agency, prepared by contractors as part of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Project during 2007-12. Two of those broad theoretical reports, written in 2010, one by Puthoff himself (“Acquisition Threat Support”), went public in May.

But those were tame compared with the May release of yet another paper addressing the Nimitz incident specifically. Though its author was anonymous and it bore no government markings, the summary was detailed enough to create a firestorm of Internet speculation over who wrote it.

Known for co-authoring a bangup radar analysis the 2008 Stephenville Incident as well as bringing critical scrutiny to the infrared UFO footage shot by airborne federal Customs agents over Puerto Rico in 2013, Robert Powell had been keeping an eye on the Nimitz story long before the Times’ coup. Working leads for volunteer researchers called the Scientific Coalition for Ufology, Powell located crew logs and started reaching out to potential Tic Tac witnesses. He recorded an interview with Kevin Day in either late December or early January; Trevor (“that’s his actual first name, he’s real,” Powell says) never replied to his email.

Powell kept his SCU teammates looped in, aiming to publish a fuller accounting of the Nimitz mystery online in August. But with the legitimacy of the “executive summary” of the Tic Tac being hotly contested, one of the SCU members jumped into a cyberdebate and speculated the author might’ve been the hitherto unknown Kevin Day – and dropped Day’s name in the middle of it. Powell issued a WTF to his colleague, who deleted the post. By then, it was too late. Alternative media was hot on Day’s trail.

“Once witnesses start going public,” Powell explains, “they start getting contaminated. The more they tell their stories, they begin to change. It’s weird how the mind works.”

Powell said he heard some contradictions between what Day told him several months ago and what he told Burroughs. For instance: Did the UFO(s) drop from 28,000 feet to sea level within the snap of a finger, as Day said last week, or did it/they go from 80,000 feet to 28,000 feet, as he told Powell? There are other discrepancies, most of them minor. “It wouldn’t matter to most people – this thing happened and that’s all they care about,” says Powell. “But the inconsistencies can create openings for debunkers to say it never happened.”

And what about Puthoff? Best known for his government research into the quantum mechanics behind things paranormal, the Vice President of Science and Technology for the To The Stars Academy was a key character in the Times’ scoop. On June 8 in Vegas, Puthoff openly discussed the AATIP’s research into material allegedly recovered from a UFO years ago. It was a “multi-layered bismuth and magnesium” artifact that early investigators couldn’t get to bond in the lab; furthermore, the embroidery served no discernible function.

“Well, years later, decades later actually, finally our own science moves along,” Puthoff told his audience. “We move into an area called metamaterials, and it turns out exactly this combination of materials at exactly those dimensions turn out to be an excellent microscopic waveguide for very high frequency electromagnetic terahertz frequencies.”

De Void isn’t sure what that means, exactly. But how is this not interesting?

Two days after co-authoring the Times piece on the AATIP, veteran reporter Ralph Blumenthal wrote how the story “has dominated the most emailed and most viewed lists since.” He reiterated the point on MSNBC a day later, saying “This is probably the most watched and looked-at story the New York Times has run in a long time, because people are fascinated by the subject.” Queried by the network host about what kind of stuff the Pentagon experts had investigated, Blumenthal replied, “They don’t know, they’re studying it, but it’s some kind of compound they don’t recognize.”

That was six months ago. Where is the New York Times followup? Are they really walking away from a story they started? Because?

Given the readership market for this information, as described by Blumenthal, this isn’t just bad journalism. This is a bad business decision.

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See Also:

Radar Operator Comes Forward Re USS Nimitz UFO Encounter | INTERVIEW

Pentagon UFO Program: Those Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDS)

UFOs May Have Attempted Rendezvous With Giant Undersea Object | VIDEO

Executive Summary Report: UFO Encounter with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

Department of Defense UFO Program, Luis Elizondo and The Chain of Custody

Luis Elizondo, The Defence Office of Prepublication
and Security Review, and a "DD Form 1910" Chain of Custody

Part 1

In the last few months a formal, hitherto unknown US Department of Defence (DOD) program to study the UFO phenomena has been revealed. Located within the massive Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), began in 2007, and was dissolved in 2012. Beyond that, and yet to be formally admitted, the work of ATTIP was apparently migrated to an new interagency partnership where it is still ongoing today. The AATIP effort, for most of its existence, was headed by DOD staffer, Luis Elizondo, whose career has been spent in specialised defence intelligence, counter–intelligence and security roles. Since his departure, last year, from the DOD, Elizondo has appeared in numerous media interviews

By Paul Dean ufos-documenting-the-evidence.blogspot.com 3-3-18

regarding the AATIP program, but avoids detailing specific security classified information. Acres and acres of discussion about the AATIP issue has, unsurprisingly, taken place on social media and in the press. I do not aim here to further highlight what has already been revealed, or what hasn’t. My intention, as always, is to provide primary documentation, or other solidly sourced narrative.

On top of AATIP’s sudden exposure, two segments of airborne video footage were released that purport to show unidentified, airborne objects. The first piece of footage, and its wider story, was already known to researchers, and is generally referred to as the “Nimitz” or “Tic Tac” UFO case. The second piece of footage, which was entirely new, is known as the “Gimbal” event. The former occurred in 2004 off the coast of California, and involved multiple F/A–18 Super Hornets assigned to the USS Nimitz. The latter occurred in 2015 off the coast of Florida, and involved similar aircraft. Again, my aim is not to go over, ad nauseum, these two events, or their associated video footage. Others have done so, and work is ongoing.

One question that has arisen about these two videos, though, is the issue of DOD endorsement and formal release. Elizondo, and others, such as reporter Leslie Kean, have claimed that defence authorities formally permitted the open presentation of the material, and that a documented “chain of custody” was in existence. Again, it should be noted that the “Nimitz”, or “Tic Tac”, footage was already known, as it had been leaked to an online source, by USN personnel, quite a few years ago. Also, the newer “Gimbal” footage, as I have discovered, was also leaked by USN personnel, though not to an online server for all to see. Informal, isolated leaks aside, Elizondo understandably wished to see that these segments of unusual footage were as properly accounted for as possible, as did those he has confided in. Working with a number of interested parties, either directly or indirectly, which have included an unusual outfit known as the “To The Stars Academy” (TTSA), plus The New York Times, Bigelow Aerospace, and others, Elizondo has not, as yet, demonstrated exactly how he had the videos were declassified or otherwise released. Researchers, and the wider public, have yet to see copies of any “chain of custody” documentation.

Early on, I had assumed that Elizondo had utilised the US Freedom of Information Act (FIOA) to see that the videos were released, but my rather forceful enquiries with the DIA and Office of the Secretary of Defence and Joint Staff (OSD/JS) had demonstrated that this was probably not the case. Likewise, I engaged in lengthy telephone correspondence with staffers at the Assistant to the Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs (ATSD/PA), but they couldn’t shed any light on the matter either. Upon talking to someone heavily involved in this affair, I was able to recently learn that Elizondo had used an internal DOD records–release channel unrelated to the FOI Act. My confidant wasn’t entirely comfortable with telling me exactly what this method was without consulting with Elizondo himself, and I didn’t further push the matter. Put simply, I didn’t know how the videos were formally released, but that has now changed.

On the 25th of February, 2018, Elizondo was interviewed by reporter George Knapp for the radio podcast show “Coast to Coast”. In that presentation, Elizondo revealed that he used the services of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR). In conjunction with that effort, Elizondo said he utilised a pair of DOD publications which govern the clearance and release of certain information to the public. Importantly, Elizondo stated that the actual document he used was a “DD Form 1910”.

Specifically, DOPSR is an office which resides within the Office of the Secretary of Defence (OSD) and is “responsible for managing the Department of Defense security review program, reviewing written materials both for public and controlled release”. They coordinate “official work products with Defense enterprise stakeholders to ensure that information being released is both accurate and represents the Department’s official position”. The two publications at the center of Elizondo’s video release efforts are “DOD Directive 5230.09, Clearance of DoD Information for Public Release”, which was certified as current on the 22nd of August, 2015, and “DOD Instruction 5230.29, Security and Policy Review of DoD Information for Public Release”, which was promulgated on August the 6th, 1999. As mentioned, the form Elizdono apparently used was a DOPSR–issued “DD Form 1910”. Its title is “Clearance Request for Public Release of Department of Defense Information”. Completed forms are submitted to the Chief of DOPSR, and a copy is sent for coordination with to the DOD’s Director for Freedom of Information and Security Review (DFOISR). Copies of whatever material, be it documents or audio–visual material, that the applicant wants released are submitted with the “DD Form 1910”, and processing can take weeks or months. A sample copy of the form, which is two sided, is imaged above top and below.


The DOPSR “DD Form 1910” is self–explanatory, for the most part. There are fields, or blocks, for a names, a signature, a date, subject matter areas, prior co–ordination of the subject material, office address information, etc. However, I am not exactly sure, at this stage, what information would be placed in some of the fields.

On the 1st of March, 2018, I submitted an FOI request to the Office of the Secretary of Defence and Joint Staff (OSD/JS) for a copy of this record. Explicitly, I stated, in part:

“This is a request for information under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I am requesting a specific document which were recently processed by Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR). The document is a “DD Form 1910”. It was utilised by a former DoD employee, Luis Elizondo, to see that some audio–visual clips (airborne FLIR videos from US Navy aircraft) be formally released to the public for educational or publication use. Elizondo headed up, some years ago, the much–discussed Advanced Aviation/Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). When he resigned from the DoD, he wished to utilise various DOD audio–visual material as part of a wider, civilian program. Thus, he used a DD Form 1910. Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR), or associated agencies, must have a copy of the DD Form 1910 in question.”

I was immediately furnished with an automatic reply from the DOD’s FOI Office. In it, I was given an FOI case number, which was “18–F–0601”. On the 2nd of March, 2018, I was furnished with a more formal, if interim, response from the same office. DOD FOI Specialist Sean Porter enclosed a scanned letter from Stephanie L. Carr, who is the long–suffering Chief of the DOD’s FOI Office. In it, Carr states, in part:

“This is an interim response to your enclosed March 1, 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a copy of which is attached for your convenience. We received your request on March 1, 2018, and assigned it case number 18–F–0601. We ask that you use this number when referring to your request.

Although we have already begun processing your request, we will not be able to respond within the FIOA’s 20–day statutory time period as there are unusual circumstances that impact our ability to quickly process your request. The FOIA defines unusual circumstances as (a) the need to search for and collect records from a facility geographically separated from this office; (b) the potential volume of records responsive to your request; and (c) the need for consultation with one of more other agencies or DoD components having a substantial interest in in either the determination or subject matter of the records. At least one, if not more, of these scenarios applies or would likely apply to your request. While this office handles FOIA requests for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Joint Staff (JS), and other component offices, we don’t not actually hold their records and our office is not geographically located with these organizations. As we do not hold the records, until the required records searches are complete, we are unable to make a release determination.

Your request has been placed in our complex processing queue and is being worked based on the order in which the request was received. Our current administrative workload is approximately 2,246 open requests.”

This is a standard response, no matter what the FOI request entails. I have received the exact same letter on other occasions. While it is certainly true that the OSD/JS FOI desk is inundated with requests for DOD material, I would argue that my request shouldn’t be placed in the “complex processing queue”. After all, I am asking for a copy of just one document, so the statement about the “potential volume of records responsive to your request” is hogwash. Searching for it shouldn’t be an issue, as the record was only generated last year. Also, I have given the OSD/JS FOI desk a very likely filing location, which is, of course, the DOPSR office. The statement about the record potentially being at “a facility geographically separated from this office” could be argued on technicalities either way. Both the OSD/JS FOI desk and DOPSR are located in the Pentagon though. One issue that may cause some complexity is the potential need for “consultation with one of more other agencies or DoD components” which have a “substantial interest in in either the determination or subject matter of the records”, but even this is debatable. Whatever the situation, my hands are probably tied. Short of me ringing the OSD/JS and reminding them of their responsibilities under the FOI Act, which is something I have done with varying degrees of success in the past, we are going to have to wait. Stephanie L. Carr’s letter is imaged below.

Continue Reading ►

See Also:

UFO-Pentagon FOIA Request Delayed

UFOs: What Has the U.S. Government Been Hiding?

Billionaire Robert Bigelow's Decades-Long Obsession With UFOs

Navy F-18 'Gimbal UFO' Video Explained?

Post Pentagon’s UFO Research Program Revelations – Skeptics Regroup

Understanding the Science of UFOs and Space Time Metric Engineering | VIDEO

Secret UFO Program Recorded Encounters with Unknown Objects | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

UFO-Pentagon FOIA Request Delayed

BREAKING NEWS: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program Revealed | VIDEO

Ex-CIA Chief - Keep Studying UFOs

Herald Tribune Reporter, Billy Cox Queries CIA On Chase Brandon's Roswell UFO Claims

Luis Elizando Former Head of Secret Pentagon UFO Program Describes Five Categories of UFOs | INTERVIEW

While Waiting for the Next New York Times UFO Bomb to Drop

Navy Pilot, Who Chased A UFO, Says ‘We Should Take Them Seriously’

UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?

UFO Reports at Nuclear Missile Sites and The Pentagon UFO Program

Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson Discusses The Pentagon UFO Program on Colbert | VIDEO

Ex-Military Official Details Pentagon's Secret UFO Hunt | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Pentagon's Secret UFO Search, Stanton Friedman Weighs In | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

What the New York Times UFO Report Actually Reveals

'Second' Navy Pilot Comes Forward Re UFO Encounter | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

'The Pentagon’s Newly Revealed UFO Research Program' – What a Week!

On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program

UFO-Pentagon Story Reflects Fundamental Problems

Pentagon UFO Study Examined UFO Activity at Nuclear Missile Sites Says Former U.S. Senator Harry Reid

UFO Study Focused on U.S. Military Encounters

PENTAGON UFO PROGRAM: 'Recovered Material' From UFOs Discussed By Leslie Kean | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Senator Reid Discusses Secret UFO Program | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Navy Pilot Recounts UFO Encounter | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

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Secret Programs, U.S. Senators and Money, Who Wants to Talk UFOs Now?

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Navy UFO Encounter: 'It Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’ – F/A-18F Pilot | VIDEO

Secret UFO Pentagon Program Explained By Leslie Kean | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Secret Pentagon UFO Program Spent Millions

The Pentagon’s Secret Search for UFOs

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While Waiting for the Next New York Times UFO Bomb to Drop

How deep will ‘the government’ go?

While waiting for the next New York Times UFO bomb to drop: Ahh, to be a fly-sized drone on the wall of the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C ring or wherever it is they’re trying to figure out how to manage whatever comes next. Like, who, exactly, specifically, should own this month-old mess? Is the old guard hoping Trump’s tweetstreams can keep the media preoccupied with meaningless noise? After all, last month’s cookie-cutter headlines — The Guardian (“Pentagon admits running secret UFO program for five years”), USA Today (“Defense Department Confirms They Funded UFO Program”),

By Billy Cox De Void 1-16-18

and the New York Daily News (“Department of Defense admits to running UFO program”), etc. – raised more questions than answers.

After resigning in October as a career intelligence officer, inside man Luis Elizondo told the Times in December what he knew about the DoD’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program to study UFOs. Although a laconic military flack confirmed the existence of the five-year, $22M initiative that ended in 2012, not a single serious federal acronym or bigwig currently in its employ has since been held to account for the myriad questions this revelation raises. Few investigators are feeling more hamstrung by federal obstinance than Robert Powell.

Founder of a research team called the Scientific Coalition for Ufology, Powell is the investigative point man on two relatively recent and provocative UFO incidents. One left radar tracks and confused military pilots over Stephenville, Texas, before creeping to the very edge of restricted airspace over President Bush’s Crawford ranch in 2008. The other was an ocean-dipping airborne bogey videotaped by U.S. border patrol agents over coastal Puerto Rico in 2013. The latter was documented with the same infrared technology F-18 Navy jets used to acquire the riveting UFO sequences at the center of the Times reporting in December.

Powell, who also co-authored an indispensable history about what happened when honest scientists studying UFOs confronted military roadblocks after World War II, did a very smart thing in July. That’s when he resigned as the Mutual UFO Network’s research director, for reasons too pathetic to waste time with here. Suffice it to say, there aren’t a lot of grant dollars going to an outfit whose leadership includes a prophetess renowned for channeling ancient wisdom and insight from a 35,000-year-old Lemurian warrior named Ramtha. Hello, MUFON? This is the MacArthur Genius Foundation’s board of directors calling, and we’re trying to book Ramtha for a TED talk?

Anyhow, before all that, in 2016, Powell started pounding the military bureaucracy with FOIAs in hopes of authenticating the 2004 F-18 incident, which had slipped quietly into the public domain at an independent naval aviation blog in 2007. At the Open Minds online forum in October, Powell detailed his largely unsuccessful efforts to render an accurate accounting of what happened off the coast of San Diego nearly 18 years ago, and it’s worth a read.

On 11/14/04, the UFO in question obliged military cameras during training exercises. Five naval components were involved, including the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and the USS Princeton, a guided missile destroyer. Powell dispatched FOIAs for details about the encounter to the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Marine Corps, the Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the Naval Air Warfare Center, the Naval Air Facilities Engineering Command, Naval Sea Systems Command, and Naval History and Heritage Command. All he got were goose eggs. Powell was incredulous. “So you’re telling me we have five assets and you don’t have any documents on any of those assets from that day, no deck logs or anything?” he says. “That’s unbelievable.”

Following Powell’s appeal last April, which also copied members of Congress, the Navy managed to produce contemporary anecdotal emails from service members who stated they’d heard about or seen the F-18 video. All told, Powell wound up with nine names of USMC or Navy officers with knowledge, peripheral or otherwise, about the event. He continues to explore those leads. Thanks to the NY Times’ blurb about how the Pentagon’s UFO program was initiated by the Defense Intelligence Agency, Powell is now pumping the DIA for info on F-18 incident, too.

The most important witnesses to step forward are retired Navy pilots David Fravor and Jim Straight, who went on to talk about pursuing a bogey that was painted by surface radar, was invisible to in-flight radar, and pulled maneuvers that appeared to crumple the laws of physics. Unless and until official provenance of that footage is established, says Powell, the pilot testimony is much more convincing than stand-alone video.

“We need more documentation. We need to show a FOIA paper trail that establishes a chain of command,” Powell says. “So much of what I’m hearing doesn’t make sense. The Navy can’t find anything, so how can the DIA or the Defense Department have information the Navy doesn’t?”

The defense bureaucracy is clearly at odds with itself. Again, it’d be great to eavesdrop on the contortions playing out within those privileged circles, because a credible, cogent government narrative ratchets this thing up to a very serious level. Maybe, one day sooner than we think, those of us who’ve long advocated for more transparency will get a sharper understanding of what it means to be careful what you wish for. But if the Times keeps doing decent journalism, turning back is not an option, not anymore. Even if — or especially if — it undercuts our conceits about having the fastest, stealthiest, baddest bells and whistles in the sky.

Continue Reading ►

See Also:

Navy Pilot, Who Chased A UFO, Says ‘We Should Take Them Seriously’

UFO Legacy: What Impact Will Revelation of Secret Government Program Have?

UFO Reports at Nuclear Missile Sites and The Pentagon UFO Program

Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson Discusses The Pentagon UFO Program on Colbert | VIDEO

Ex-Military Official Details Pentagon's Secret UFO Hunt | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Pentagon's Secret UFO Search, Stanton Friedman Weighs In | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

What the New York Times UFO Report Actually Reveals

'Second' Navy Pilot Comes Forward Re UFO Encounter | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

'The Pentagon’s Newly Revealed UFO Research Program' – What a Week!

On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program

UFO-Pentagon Story Reflects Fundamental Problems

Pentagon UFO Study Examined UFO Activity at Nuclear Missile Sites Says Former U.S. Senator Harry Reid

UFO Study Focused on U.S. Military Encounters

PENTAGON UFO PROGRAM: 'Recovered Material' From UFOs Discussed By Leslie Kean | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Senator Reid Discusses Secret UFO Program | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Navy Pilot Recounts UFO Encounter | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Aliens, UFOs, Flying Discs and Sightings -- Oh My!

Secret Programs, U.S. Senators and Money, Who Wants to Talk UFOs Now?

Navy Pilot Talks: The UFO Jammed Their Radar — ‘It Accelerated Beyond Any Airplane We Have’

BREAKING NEWS: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program Revealed | VIDEO

Navy UFO Encounter: 'It Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’ – F/A-18F Pilot | VIDEO

Secret UFO Pentagon Program Explained By Leslie Kean | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

Secret Pentagon UFO Program Spent Millions

The Pentagon’s Secret Search for UFOs

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

UFO-Pentagon Story Reflects Fundamental Problems

Mainstream news outlets jumped into the deep end of Billy Cox's Great Taboo. The New York Times, Politico and The Washington Post are among those reporting to have confirmed that Luis Elizondo, a career intelligence officer formerly with the Defense Department and currently of Team DeLonge, headed a UFO investigation project as claimed. The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, reportedly operational from no less than 2007 to 2012, was financed through black funding which included money funneled to Bigelow Aerospace, owned by longtime UFO enthusiast and controversial philanthropist Robert Bigelow. The remarkable circumstances published included the claim, "Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings

By Jack Brewer The UFO Trail 12-20-17

in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena."

If you're interested in UFOs, you are justified in sitting up and taking note. If you've been pulling for DeLonge, congratulations. A little chest beating is in order. The current revelations don't excuse his wild and unsupported claims about an alien presence, but he apparently has, in fact, been in contact with an intelligence community member who actually had something to say, or at least more to say than the average self-proclaimed insider.

That stated, questions involve how and why it was orchestrated. It is imperative to proceed cautiously and critically. I encourage trying to refrain from premature conclusions and confirmation bias.

While some long frustrated ufology activists have indeed succeeded in making some noise, it is important to remember a well executed public relations campaign does not an established fact make. It is imperative the reporters and key players produce materials fully supporting their claims else risk driving yet another stake of cynicism squarely through the heart of open mindedness. In this post let's cautiously explore where these stories lead us, both past and present.

Taxpayer Funds

For starters, let's consider the reported UFO hunting initiative was a taxpayer-supported program. I asked Sharon Weinberger via email if she cared to provide comment for this blog post. She is Executive Editor at Foreign Policy and author of the nonfiction book, Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld, as well as the recent bestseller, The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World.

"As a long-time advocate of government transparency, I think the only thing I have to say at the moment is that such programs, if pursued, must be able to stand up to public scrutiny," Weinberger explained. "The fact that we didn't know about this program until long after it was over, even though it was unclassified, reflects a more fundamental problem at work here. Taxpayers deserve to know their money is being spent."

The reported distribution of funds under the direction of the Department of Defense potentially opens the circumstances up to FOIA inquiries. The news stories alone offer a substantial number of FOIA opportunities, including requesting for public verification and review the documents and communications provided to the reporters. Obviously, circumstances surrounding the alleged physical evidence stored in modified buildings per Bigelow's oversight should be scrutinized at length, among other items referenced.

It was further reported via the Times, "Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes." I encourage submitting FOIA requests on such research, who specifically did it, the exact funding trail involved, the resulting dissemination of data, and similar details.

For instance, who were the "program contractors" collecting material recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena? With what organization(s), exactly? What were the specific circumstances?

Dr. Tyler Kokjohn holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and is a Professor of Microbiology at Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine. He has shown a willingness to address UFO-related topics in reasoned manners, applying his expertise to issues often debated within the community. In response to request for comment on the UFO-Pentagon news, the doctor provided the following:

Helene Cooper et al. have reported a remarkable story about an obscure Defense Department ‘black money’ project, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program ¹. This 5 year, multi-million dollar effort to investigate UFO reports was funded at the request of Senator Harry Reid supported by two (now deceased) Senate colleagues. Financial support for the earmark program was terminated in 2012 when officials determined these funds should be directed to ‘higher priority issues.’² Whether the work still continues somewhere within the Department of Defense is unclear.²

This news story has exposed a secret treasure trove of information for follow-up investigations. It appears most of the money was channeled to an aerospace research company owned by Robert Bigelow. Researchers interviewed military personnel who reported UFO sightings and conducted medical examinations of subjects experiencing physical manifestations linked to UFO incidents. In addition, Bigelow Aerospace customized buildings in Las Vegas to store metal and other materials recovered from UFO encounters.

The story by Cooper et al. (1) was solid journalism in that it provided information acquired from several persons with direct involvement in the events. However, one facet of the reporting inadvertently reveals something odd; the scientist and engineer contacted for responses, although highly expert, did not appear to have direct knowledge of the work or to have been given access to any results/data. Accordingly, their responses were generic doubts about the UFO subject, not specific critiques of the actual work itself. This seems strange because Bigelow Aerospace solicited research proposals for the effort and hired people to conduct the work. Somehow the people best able to comment regarding the scientific quality of the investigations and the significance of the results obtained were mostly overlooked.

For somewhere between 5-10 years, data and physical evidence gathered under the auspices of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program has been hidden from the public. Perhaps the unclassified portions of the scientific work performed by Bigelow Aerospace will now be forthcoming to enable evaluations by independent experts. This was a taxpayer-supported program and some extraordinary claims are being made about the findings in public. It will be unfortunate if investigators are forced to resort to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to discover what was done in this program. However, because it appears requests for research proposals/assistance were issued by Bigelow Aerospace, investigators may be able to pry loose some of the information if it becomes necessary.

The information provided in the New York Times story suggests that opinions as to what was discovered and its significance varied sharply. Senator Reid felt that the findings were so momentous the program needed a higher level of security to restrict access. A director’s summary alleged science fiction had become science fact and the U.S. could not defend itself against some of the technologies discovered. It will be fascinating to see how Defense Department officials receiving such statements weighed them against the hard data to reach a decision that other priorities were more pressing.

Because some of the principals involved in overseeing the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program have been speaking about it openly and exploiting their experiences in a commercial venture, it seems unlikely any entity could now withhold all scientific results by claiming the information is classified. Does Bigelow Aerospace hold physical evidence proving UFOs are real? Do the data prove claims the phenomena did not originate from any country? From a scientific perspective the most fascinating question is this - why would any organization with convincing, apparently unclassified, proof of UFO technologies and their origins keep it secret? Maybe an independent scientific inspection of the evidence will confirm why secret earmark programs are not always good ideas. Evaluating the scientific evidence in hand and comparing it to some remarkable claims promises to be a fascinating exercise.

(1) Helene Cooper et al. 2017. Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program, The New York Times, 16 December 2017.

(2) David Morgan. 2017. Does Pentagon Still Have a UFO Program? The Answer Is a Bit Mysterious. The Does Pentagon Still Have a UFO Program? The Answer Is a Bit Mysterious. The New York Times via Reuters, 16 December 2017.

MUFON

In 2009 the Mutual UFO Network entered into an ill fated collaboration initiated by the then-newly launched Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. The MUFON-BAASS venture was almost certainly a part of the now revealed Pentagon-funded Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, if not the primary arm of the operation. At the time, MUFON attempted to coordinate widespread training for field investigators described as a rapid response team. The organization soon found itself marred in turmoil which included a large scale exodus of personnel. Public relations were extremely strained as revolving door leadership saw a run of four executive directors in as many years. A lack of organizational transparency was a common complaint, which included the public nonprofit corporation's failure to provide details of funding sources, so before we join the capital-D disclosure celebration, let's consider how the players conducted their affairs up to this point.

James Carrion served as Executive Director of MUFON from 2006 to 2009. He is a former intelligence analyst and UFO writer/researcher who pursues forensic historic analysis. An excerpt from his 2011 blog post titled, Strange Bedfellows:

In response to request for comment for this post, Carrion provided the following contribution:

In the fall of 2008, Robert Bigelow approached MUFON with an extraordinary business proposal – a subcontract from a Bigelow subsidiary called Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, LLC (BAASS) for MUFON UFO investigative services. The MUFON Board signed non-disclosure agreements and the negotiations began.

BAASS essentially wanted MUFON’s field investigators to conduct quality investigations of significant UFO cases, no expense spared, and then to feed those investigations to BAASS scientists. BAASS’ alleged goal for this endeavor was to acquire UFO super technology and then to file patents on this technology. The contract was signed in the spring of 2009 and ran for only a few months before the partnership withered and fell apart towards the end of the year.

Before, during and after this partnership, only one MUFON Board member, former MUFON International Director, John Schuessler, was ever made privy to the money source for the Bigelow subcontract. Now it is public knowledge, courtesy of investigative journalists, that this money came from a Pentagon black budget project.

What are we to make of this public disclosure of the Pentagon’s renewed forage into UFO investigation? If we look back in history when UFOs first hit the mass consciousness in 1947, the nascent U.S. Air Force investigated UFOs through a number of projects culminating in the last official investigation, Project Bluebook, which was killed off in 1969. That is, count it, 22 years of taxpayer dollars spent in the pursuit of “something” that was declared a non-threat to national security.

Fast forward to 2007 and the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) – funded allegedly at the behest of a politician and a billionaire who had a common interest in the phenomenon. Are we expected to believe that the Pentagon let almost 40 years pass in-between its investigations before deciding that UFOs were a potential threat? Did the billions of dollars spent prior on air defense against a Soviet, Chinese or rogue nation nuclear attack, or tracking the most minute space junk, simply not detect these UFO threats beforehand?

And is black budget money given out freely at the whim of any politician who wants to study their eccentric interests? Is there a black project currently looking into uncovering Barack Obama’s “real” birth certificate, or whether Ted Cruz’s father was really involved in the JFK assassination or one that is trying to determine how hundreds of thousands of Americans donned an invisibility cloak at the 2017 Presidential inauguration?

And will the disclosure of AATIP just spawn countless other conspiracy theories, like perhaps AATIP is just a shade of gray and that other competing and unacknowledged UFO projects are hidden even deeper in the murky world of black projects?

Today when science is sadly under attack, previously accepted facts take second place to rumor, innuendo and fantasy, and where the alleged leader of the free world spins daily conspiracies and has a severe allergy to the truth, what are we really to make of the Pentagon investigating what it has consistently called a nothing burger? Even after the AATIP was disclosed, some of the data it collected or is still collecting remains classified. Does that mean the American public will AGAIN only get half of the truth?

The question that every American should be asking their elected officials is what did the 22 million taxpayer dollars, earmarked for this black budget UFO investigation project, really buy them and how soon can we the people examine the ENTIRE merchandise? Even more importantly for Congress to investigate is the decision making rationale that led up to this project and why almost 40 years lapsed before UFOs were declared objects non grata in American airspace.

What an in-depth Congressional investigation may reveal is a deeper truth – one that as Sir Winston Churchill once described the former Soviet Union – is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. In reality, we are all tired of enigmas, mysteries and riddles – what Americans really want, indeed what the whole world wants, is just the ultimate truth, whatever that may be.

The MUFON-BAASS train wreck was not the first time activities involving the nonprofit, Bigelow, and cash accountability came under fire. At the turn of the century news leaked of what would become known as the Carpenter Affair. It was soon confirmed that John Carpenter, while serving as MUFON Director of Abduction Research, secretly provided Robert Bigelow data from case files of some 140 "alien abductees" for a reported $14,000.

John Carpenter is among those who confirmed what he termed the discreet sharing of data, which reportedly included copies of recordings of hypnosis sessions conducted with the individuals. Carpenter explained during a 2012 email exchange that he confidentially provided the data to Bigelow for review by Bigelow and colleagues at the now dissolved Bigelow-founded National Institute for Discovery Science. Personnel of the Institute included Col. John Alexander, who, according to John Velez via UFO UpDates List in 2000, confirmed what Velez termed the "file sale," as did MUFON then-Executive Director Walt Andrus and Bigelow himself.

An excerpt from my 2013 blog post, The Carpenter Affair: For the Record:

The 140 people in question, who had sought support from Carpenter and MUFON, were not informed of the arrangement between Carpenter and Bigelow. The specific details of the primary motives and agendas behind the circumstances remain unclear.

"We may never know," Elizabeth Chavez Carpenter, former wife of John Carpenter and one of the 140, reflected during a December, 2013, telephone conversation.

A lack of accountability is disappointingly common within the UFO community. Its members, often eager for new and intriguing information, frequently fail to question the bookkeeping of the messenger if they support the message.

A 1996 AP article which explored Bigelow's interests in the Skinwalker Ranch reported that Bigelow declined to be interviewed, while NIDS employee John Alexander stated details would not be provided of how or why research was being conducted. The article further indicated former ranch owner Terry Sherman, employed by Bigelow to maintain the property, chose not to comment because Bigelow had him sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Public trust of MUFON and its collaborators was substantially diminished due to a lack of accountability for the Ambient Monitoring Project. In 2008, long time MUFON and ufology staple Tom Deuley wrote in the MUFON UFO Journal how the approximately ten year-long effort was coming to fruition. Deuley explained funding was in hand to complete analysis already begun on data obtained from instruments placed in the homes of reported alien abductees. The idea was to monitor the environment and discern what, if anything, was physically taking place during alleged abductions.

Much to the disappointment of a community eager to hear what happened, no conclusions were ever produced. Explanations were offered by a variety of involved parties as to why no final project report or even summary was published, all of which were inadequate, often contradictory to one another, and sorely lacking in professionalism.

The failed project involved a collaboration between some UFO organizations, including the Fund for UFO Research, which Deuley suggested in his 2008 article was a substantial influence. A review of the circumstances revealed, per the FUFOR website circa 1993, "the Fund joined with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) to form the UFO Research Coalition to conduct major projects, at the suggestion of Las Vegas builder Robert Bigelow, who promised major funding." By 1994, it was further reported via the website, "disagreement over control of the UFO Research Coalition lead to a complete break with Robert Bigelow. Laurance Rockefeller appeared on the scene, ready to fund major projects through his intermediary, Mrs. Marie 'Bootsie' Gailbreath."

Further research and communications with men listed as members of boards of directors of the involved nonprofit corporations often produced the same inconsistent statements as made publicly, if not implying worse. A 2008 email inquiry to astrophysicist Dr. Richard Henry, listed at the time as a FUFOR board member on the org's website, resulted in the doctor responding he had not heard from FUFOR "in ages."

"Let me know if you find out anything!" he added.

Bottom Line

There is no substitute for an established fact, and facts cannot be established absent evidence available for public review. Some of the material supplied to those reporting on the UFO-Pentagon story, i.e., the DeLonge project, is relevant and offers some value as contributions to the UFO genre. The videos, for example, embody what, by definition, are UFOs. They deserve ample examination by qualified experts.

That stated, the public indeed has a valid complaint when taxpayer funds are used to obtain alleged materials that, as of this writing, are not readily available for review. The public also has a valid complaint when public nonprofit corporations, which enjoy tax benefits and offer tax deductions for donors, fail to adequately report their financial activities and agendas.

What's more, some of the parties involved in the Pentagon saga have not only shown a willingness to avert from disclosing details of their activities, but an outright effort to conceal them. In doing so, the identities of funding entities have been concealed, financial reporting has been inadequate, and notification of the circumstances to involved parties has, at times, been nonexistent.

Just because someone is an intelligence community asset doesn't make them inherently dishonest or nefarious. There are any number of people who assist the U.S. intelligence services in honorable manners. A primary point, as I see it, is that with all the half-truths, lack of accountability, and direct lies within the UFO community, it is impossible to discern the value of someone's claim if they don't produce the beef. Demand it or recognize the situation for what it often is: sizzle and no steak. It might also be unethical at times. The only way to know for sure is to actually find out, and you know what they say about fool me once...

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Pentagon UFO Study Examined UFO Activity at Nuclear Missile Sites Says Former U.S. Senator Harry Reid

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PENTAGON UFO PROGRAM: 'Recovered Material' From UFOs Discussed By Leslie Kean | INTERVIEW – VIDEO

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REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

"Pablum that Passes for UFO Coverage in The New York Times"

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Lapdog journalism at the NY Times

By Billy Cox De Void 11-18-15

     God, how I do so hate reading the pablum that passes for UFO coverage in The New York Times. Had a link to its latest trifling not appeared on a Facebook post over the weekend, I might’ve been lucky enough to have missed the thing altogether. The headline – “Bright Lights, Strange Shapes and Talk of U.F.O.’s” – should’ve been sufficient warning to take a pass. But NOOOO. De Void just had to click and see and hope against hope that just once The Gray Lady might serve up an original recipe on The Great Taboo. Just once. Please.

So now the question I’m asking myself is why? Why did I do that? Which particular character flaw drove me to click onto something whose outcome was as preordained as a Wile E. Coyote canyon disaster? I want to blame it on something beyond my control, e.g., the rush of communications technologies currently reducing civilization’s attention span to a debris field of autonomic impulses. But the inner voice tells me to man up, to take responsibility and own it.

De Void refuses, however, to link to this banality. That would be wrong. Likewise, De Void declines to rain on reporter Jonah Bromwich because maybe it wasn’t his idea. Maybe it got dropped on his plate by a harried editor who needed to plug a hole quickly and reached for the first thing in the pile. In this case, it was the Nov. 7 sub-launched missile test off the nighttime coast of California. Lots of surprised people posted dramatic footage, which prompted CNN to lead its next-day coverage this way: “Panic and speculation spread Saturday night when a bright white light shot through the night skies in Southern California …”

When I think of panic, I tend to think of people trampling each other to get away from gunfire and explosions, or diving out of skyscrapers to escape roaring flames, but whatever, if CNN says panic, it must’ve been true. CNN also mentioned how the launch triggered “theories of aliens,” as did countless other newsgatherers. Anyhow, five days later, here comes the nation’s unofficial paper of record, bringing up the rear with this lead: “When strange things appear in the sky, many people can’t help but turn their thoughts to extraterrestrials. But there’s usually a more down-to-earth explanation.”

A lead like this makes De Void practically vomit with excitement.

Brownstein goes on to reassure readers that we’ve simply been conditioned to attribute murky lights in the sky to space aliens, thanks to cultural cues like “Close Encounters” and “The X-Files.” Which is refreshing; nobody’s ever heard that explanation before. Then he gives the final say to Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer: “In a way, extraterrestrials are like deities for atheists. They’re always described as these vastly superior, almost omnipotent beings coming down from on high, very much like the Christ story, or the Mormon story or the Scientology story.”

This is a tired and tiresome complaint, but the longer the Times keeps covering UFOs this way, the more exposed its amateurish vulnerabilities on this topic become. Maybe it's part of the enduring legacy of its late iconic science reporter Walter Sullivan. In 1969, Sullivan wrote the laudatory introduction to the so-called Condon Report, the seriously flawed government-funded analysis that sounded the death knell for critical institutional thinking on UFOs. Try to imagine the prestigious Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism going to reporters investigating an issue he attempted to lay to rest half a century ago.

Descendants of that storied tradition, Bromwich and/or his editor are just wasting space and undercutting the Times’ reputation as All The News That's Fit To Print. Of course it would never occur to them to raise questions about why U.S. Customs and Border Protection is stonewalling efforts to authenticate UFO footage it shot with its own camera, or to press the Federal Aviation Administration on why it began exempting raw radar records from FOIA requests nearly a decade after 9/11 allegedly changed everything. But it does make you wonder how long they can afford to ignore the numbers. Google “UFO” and 86.5 million returns pop up. For readers looking for an intelligent forum on The Great Taboo, The New York Times isn’t even embarrassing. It’s irrelevant.

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See Also:

Mainstream Media, Misinformation & The Infamous Flare Videos | 17th Anniversary of The Phoenix Lights

"...The Pathetic State of The Mainstream Media’s UFO Coverage"

The Missing Times - News Media Complicity in the UFO Cover-up

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE