It’s only been a few days since the big Pentagon/Tom deLonge UFO announcements and video releases and already those who have been keeping their own secrets are coming out of the woodwork. A man claiming to be a former Area 51 worker released his own video maintaining he once piloted a reverse-engineered alien spacecraft and he may have traveled in time during the trip. Is this the opening of the disclosure floodgates (#IflewaUFOtoo) or the start of a new round of hoaxes?

In a video produced and uploaded by ApexTV, a man introduces himself as Robert Miller, gives some personal background (his father once worked at Area 51) and then warns that what he’s about to reveal will put him in danger and he’ll probably be chased or silenced by the government. (video link here)

Miller claims that he was selected to be a pilot in a secret government program at the Area 51 Groom Lake facility and, when he arrived on his first day in the middle of the night, he was met by men in black suits. He was soon informed he’d be a test pilot on a new aircraft reverse-engineered from an alien craft that crashed in 1947. He briefly describes it, then gets into his alleged experiences … as best as he can remember them.

“I do remember they brought me inside the craft and up to the pilot’s seat. There was only room for one person in the giant craft. I looked around the cockpit and only saw a seat. No joystick, no steering wheel, no other controls. There was, however, a helmet. They told me the craft was controlled telepathically. I was told to imagine the craft starting to float off the ground, but it didn’t work. Instead I had to imagine that I was the craft, like part of it, and I began thinking of myself floating off the ground and I felt the vibrations.”

And …

“I was 500ft off the ground, then the vibrations of the engine stopped. There was no ejection button on the craft. I was effectively helpless. It was plunging towards the ground and I went unconscious. The next thing I knew I was in hospital. A man in a black suit came in and explained to me what happened. He said right before the craft hit the ground, it just went, boom, disappeared.”

There’s that man in a black suit again, who told him what happened next.

“Then in the middle of the night, they heard a loud crashing noise outside, the craft had crashed in the same spot. The scientists had hypothesized that the craft had time-traveled.”

Let’s stop there. The video was produced by ApexTV, a site “dedicated to providing quality paranormal content.” As many comments on the video point out, its content, like other ApexTV videos, is questionable. The video contains nothing other than the testimony of “Robert Miller” – no photos, stolen parts, other witnesses or any visible evidence of his experience. He implies that the craft he claims was reverse-engineered to build the ship he flew was the craft that crashed near Roswell … an incident that becomes more dubious as more people come forward to admit their part in various hoaxes surrounding it, like the “alien autopsy video.” The ‘control by thought’ relieves him of describing the cockpit in detail and the memory loss gives a convenient excuse for the lack of any other recollections or the ability to answer questions.

Nonetheless, many commenters believe what “Robert Miller” says in the video. Is the story he tells real or a hoax? On any other day, this would be on the “hoax” side but the Pentagon revelations and Tom deLonge videos have changed our perspective. For now, the needle on this is pointing directly at “get ready for more videos like this one.”

What do YOU think?

“My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.”

Just days after The New York Times and Politico reported on the existence of a Pentagon program called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program and the To The Stars Academy (TTSA) releasing what it calls “The first official UAP footage ever released by the USG,” Luis Elizondo, a member of TTSA after resigning from the Pentagon, revealed on CNN that he believes in the existence of extraterrestrials, and that belief is not just a gut feel but based on scientific evidence.

“These aircraft – we’ll call them aircraft – are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the US inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of. Things that don’t have any obvious flight services, any obvious forms of propulsion, and maneuvering in ways that include extreme maneuverability beyond, I would submit, the healthy G-forces of a human or anything biological.”

“We found a lot.”

“A lot” of evidence of what may be alien “aircraft” that’s been hidden for years and is seemingly difficult, if not impossible, to get released. Elizondo isn’t too happy about that.

“That fact is not something any government or institution should classify in order to keep secret from the people.”

For skeptics, Elizondo told The Daily Beast in another interview that he hears what they’re saying in response to the revelations over the weekend.

“Objectivity is an imperative when dealing with a subject as unknown as and contentious as UFOs. However, there are still those observations that defy explanation. Observations by highly trained individuals such as fighter or airline pilots who would recognize aircraft shapes and aircraft movements.”

So his “facts” and “evidence” are the testimonies of military and commercial pilots who know the difference between Earth planes and the aircraft of extraterrestrials. Is that compelling, coincidence, conspiracy or just connecting dots?

Unlike those UFOs the pilots were chasing, this is a discussion that will not be going away soon.

Unexplained booms have been one of the most prevalent unexplained phenomena of this year. While mysterious explosions in the sky are nothing new, they’ve been occurring with increasing regularity lately. The latest mystery booms happened this week over Tampa, Florida and was strong enough to shake houses across three different counties. Tampa resident Fred Krauer Jr. told the Tampa Bay Times that his home was rattled by the boom which left a disconcerting silence in its wake:

It sounded like a plane had crashed. I felt it in my feet in the shower. It’s a little unnerving, as with anything with the unknown. If we don’t have the answer for something, your mind starts reaching.

Spokespersons for six different government agencies claimed they were not responsible and had no knowledge whatsoever of the cause of the boom. Northern Florida is home to MacDill Air Force Base, Eglin Air Force Base, Tyndall Air Force Base, the 45th Space Wing, and Kennedy Space Center, so initial speculation centered around military activity in the area. However, MacDill AFB spokesperson Terry Montrose said there are “no records of fighters in the area.” An interesting choice of words – stating only that there were no fighters in the area leaves open the possibility that there could have been other type of aircraft overhead.

Tampa is no stranger to military activity overhead.

What’s more, the Tampa Bay Times reports that a Canadian Air Force spokesperson speaking on behalf of NORAD said that two aircraft were cleared to break the sound barrier over the Gulf of Mexico. All signs point to the likelihood that this was a military exercise of some kind, and the silence of officials in the area indicates it was classified or otherwise hush-hush. Given all of the anomalous aircraft sightings and strange activityspotted at known top secret test sites, could these booms be merely a further sign of recent military aircraft testing? Given that mystery booms pre-date the invention of aircraft, however, there could be more anomalous explanations. Is secretive military testing just a convenient scapegoat for something stranger or darker? Is there such a thing?

The recent announcement by the Pentagon that it ran a secretive UAP/UFO program has hit the UFO community like a wave. The news followed a New York Times article which featured a $20 million-dollar program designed to investigate UFO reports and a 30-second video taken by an F-18 Super Hornet’s gun camera, and features the pilot’s audible reactions to an anomalous object they were tracking. While all this new information raises many questions, the biggest one is how will UFO lore and mythology change as a result?

Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, has this latest video posted on its website, alongside testimony from fighter pilots regarding another UFO sighting and gun camera video from 2004.

Suffice it to say, most major news outlets have picked up this story, and various UFO circles are in a tizzy. The excitement and the tension is palpable, but like all such events, we must be cautious. The UFO subculture, that nebulous group of individuals who engage with UFO discourse and debate, have been duped before. Furthermore, the ‘truth’ will mix with the fiction, and out of this relationship, more Ufological mythology will be born.

Thirty years ago, the infamous Majestic 12, or MJ-12 documents surfaced. In a series of books and conference lectures between 1987 and 1989, these documents were touted as being real proof of a governmental cover-up, crashed flying saucers, and even aliens hidden in underground bases. Almost immediately after their release to the broader UFO community and the general public, the documents were identified as elaborate hoaxes and potentially disinformation documents created by the intelligence community. While their validity is no longer in question, as they are definitely fraudulent, the mythology that they generated within UFO circles still exists.

If one dares to venture into the depths of the UFO subculture, questions, conversations and debates still rage on concerning hidden underground military bases in New Mexico, crashed flying discs and the recovery of extraterrestrial bodies. Furthermore, digging deeper, one will find significant connections between the major Ufological players involved in releasing these documents, and the intelligence community.

As George P. Hansen points out in his book, The Trickster and the Paranormal,

MJ-12, or a similar group by any other name, became a centrepiece of theorizing by UFOlogists. It established a governing paradigm for many researchers. They gathered snippets of evidence and tried fitting them into this framework.

Only a couple years previously, Paul Bennewitz and his interactions with various intelligence officials with the American government, also focused upon a similar thematic line; secret government bases, alien abductions, cattle mutilations, and a plot to slowly invade the planet via genetic manipulation. These motifs within UFO discourse still exist today, and many buy into them outright. Furthermore, they have become part of the subcultural landscape, taken for granted, mythologized, televised and reprinted ad infinitum as legitimate Ufological theory. Everyone seems to ignore the source of these myths, a government-sponsored campaign cloaked in a noble call to ‘tell the truth’ but used to potentially establish ideology and lore to move the UFO debate and community towards certain realities versus others.

While the MJ-12 and Bennewitz affairs are perhaps the most famous events which highlight known governmental influence upon UFO mythology, there have been other cases of potential meddling.

Michael Swords, in his book, UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry, points to the fact that NICAP, The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, had a member by the name of Colonel Joseph Bryan III. He eventually became a board member, and shortly thereafter, became the Board chair. He forced Donald Keyhoe, NICAP’s long-standing director and founder, to retire in 1969 and disbanded the organization. Bryan was a respected Air Force officer; however, he also was a CIA operative who was high up in the intelligence agency’s psychological warfare department.

It may be silly to assume that the CIA was involved in the destruction of NICAP. Most UFO organizations tend to suffer from significant infighting and members with inflated egos, so they need little help in destroying themselves, however, it does show that members of the intelligence world at least play the UFO game.

It is too early to begin ranting about some grand conspiracy concerning this recent release of information from the Pentagon, which may have somehow been motivated by To the Stars Academy. This has not stopped some from doing so, however, such as documentarian and researcher Dr Steven Greer, who was considered to be an ‘insider’ for quite some time now, is clearly on the ‘outs.’

Good while it lasted, I suppose.

Is this a Version 2.0 government-sponsored disinformation campaign similar to MJ-12? Is this a social assessment, a psychological ‘proving ground’ to ascertain the public’s propensity for belief, and methods on how to best dupe them for other, potentially nefarious and down to earth, reasons? Do these ‘advanced aerial threats’ reinforce the ‘extraterrestrial hypothesis’ and shut out other potential theories regarding the UFO question? How will this affect all those individuals within the UFO community who do not consider the UFO phenomenon a threat, but rather a positive interaction with another intelligence? What of all those alien abductees who have allegedly come face to face with this benevolent intelligence? Will this announcement further entrench the UFO subculture in the darkness of the social fringe? Or, will it bring the UFO community out into the light, where the academic and scientific communities will finally accept the potential for strange and supernatural aerial events that cannot be attributed to human engineering?

While that last one is a stretch, these questions are all on the tips of the subcultural tongue.

The fundamental questions we must ask, however, are what narratives are being created by the UFO community, and about the UFO community as a result of this ‘UAPgate.’ What ideology will be generated and reinforced during the next several days and weeks? What lore and mythologies are being created in the wake of this new information? Finally, who in the community is being silenced by this loud gong?

No one can predict the direct mythological and ideological outcomes of this story.  That being said, it all hovers around the American government and military, organizations that have not enjoyed the UFO community’s trust over the last several decades. Oddly enough, the direct result of the MJ-12 documents and the Bennewitz affair was basically an open call to cease putting one’s faith in the government, as they were involved in some pretty dubious shenanigans and conspiracies. However, in some strange twist of Ufological irony, many members of the community have total trust in this new information, suddenly putting blind confidence in an archetypal enemy of the UFO subculture.

It is too early to know whether this information is totally open and honest. The UFO community has been tricked before, and as the old saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” Will this event shift the entire UFO discourse? Perhaps, for the time being anyway. As one UFO enthusiast put it on Facebook concerning this announcement, “I’m feeling optimistic for a change…”

Perhaps the best approach is with caution, an open-mind, but caution. However, what we can assume is that the cause of this information release, the cast of characters behind this event, all have agendas. They are playing the UFO game, we just don’t know what rules they are playing by. History has taught us that when individuals from the government and the intelligence community play the game, they play to win.

While this story sounds like it might be called “The Empire Strikes Back,” unfortunately the root of this lashing out against robot overlords had little to do with revolution … at least against robot overlords. Over the past month, a security robot hired/rented to protect the puppies and the employees at the San Francisco SPCA has been battered with barbecue sauce, fouled with feces, trapped under a tarp and bumped over by a bully. While the dedicated robot wants to keep working, the SPCA decided to place it on permanent leave. Why did this robot rouse the rowdies in San Francisco?

The program started with good intentions, according to the San Francisco Business Journal. The S.F. SPCA takes up an entire block in the Mission District, an area known for crime, car and building break-ins, drug use and informal encampments for homeless people. Jennifer Scarlett, the S.F. SPCA’s president, thought she had found a way to protect her employees at a low cost. She hired a K5 security robot from Knightscope, changed its name to a more appropriate K9 and put it to work on the SPCA’s perimeter. The K9 had an immediate effect on the grounds:

“We weren’t able to use the sidewalks at all when there’s needles and tents and bikes, so from a walking standpoint I find the robot much easier to navigate than an encampment.”

Is this the future of security?

That comment connecting the security robot to the homeless encampment is the one that started the backlash. As is the case these days, death threats were made towards the robot and it was vandalized and attacked, which is not a smart thing to do since K9/K5 weighed 398-pounds and was equipped with cameras, proximity sensors, wireless signal detectors and alarms. All that for only $6 an hour, which is far less than the $14 minimum wage in San Francisco … inciting more hatred of the robot for taking jobs that those homeless people could do.

Some local residents who encountered the K9 robot took the non-violent route and complained to City Hall about things like the robot blocking sidewalks and scaring dogs. That prompted the Department of Public Works to warn the SPCA that K9 was operating “without a proper approval” and they needed to take it off the sidewalks or face a fine. That worked better than the feces and K9 was laid off.

The robot took it well (another K5 “committed suicide” earlier this year in a fountain in Washington DC) and will probably be reassigned to another security job. Unfortunately for the protesters, even though Scarlett acknowledges the plight of the homeless and unemployed in the Mission District, but will not be hiring a human replacement. In fact, she sees robots coming back eventually.

“In five years we will look back on this and think, ‘We used to take selfies with these because they were so new.’”

Do you agree? Are robots inevitable and on the road to being friendly sidewalk sharers or is this just part of their master takeover plan?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but am I the only one who is not overwhelmed by the new revelations concerning UFOs and the U.S. Government? In fact, I have to say that I’m completely underwhelmed by it all. Now, yes, it is undeniably interesting that there should have been a program, one which was carefully not revealed for years – at least, not to the public and the media. Until now, that is, as a result of the revelations of a few days ago that appeared in the New York Times. See this link.

Yes, all of this demonstrates that there are those within government who have an interest in UFOs, and to the point where they were willing to fund a program to re-address UFOs, decades after the Air Force’s UFO program, Project Blue Book, was shut down (in 1969). But, let’s take a look at what the new revelations really tell us. As we are told, the only reason why the program ever existed in the first place was because Senator Harry Reid (having a deep and personal interest in the UFO phenomenon) pushed and pushed the government to take a new and renewed look at the subject.

As a result of Senator Reid’s actions, yes, the program was created. But, as the New York Times makes it clear to us, the bulk of the money went to, and I quote the newspaper, “an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow…” So, the government was not planning on readdressing the UFO phenomenon until Senator Reid made an approach. And yes, the government finally decided to do something – and what they did was to provide most of the the funding to the aerospace research company of a friend of Reid. But, when it comes to the matter of the overall, annual U.S. Department of Defense budget, that figure was minuscule. If this really was a top secret UFO program, far more money would have been channeled into it, and we would not be hearing about it at all.

I have had people contact me to say that all of this is evidence of secret UFO programs and (as one person put it to me) “the new inheritors of MJ12.” Well, for a start, the MJ12 saga is bullshit and something which kept Ufology busy for not just years but for decades. And where has it led us? Nowhere, that’s where. Now, I don’t dispute the possibility that there could be top secret UFO programs hidden deep in the heart of the government, the military and/or the intelligence community. In fact, I would be very surprised if such things don’t exist.

But, a project that only existed because a senator kept trying to make it happen – followed by the government finally dishing out the money outside of government – does not sound like a top secret program of highly-classified proportions. And certainly not one which had access to alien bodies and crashed UFOs, as a Facebook friend suggested to me -in all seriousness – just a few hours ago. Let’s keep all of this in perspective: government agencies often throw money at outside enterprises and for all sorts of reasons. And, yes, the existence of the program is usually not spoken about. At least, not until it surfaces into the public domain – as was the case this past weekend.

So, yes, I do find the latest news to be slightly intriguing. But, look at how the group came together, look at how the Government largely handed the work outside, and look at the fact that it was all shut down after half a decade. What we see is the kind of thing that goes on all the time in government. What we’re not seeing is evidence of “the U.S. Government’s Top Secret UFO Project.”

Such a program might exist, but this wasn’t it.