For several decades—well over half a century, in fact—information has been collected about unidentified aerial phenomena.

That’s what they’re called in modern parlance, at least. Prior to the last few years, these mysteries of the skies were more commonly known as unidentified flying objects or UFOs. This had been the name given to them by Edward Ruppelt, the first director of Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force’s systematic study of anomalous aerial phenomena that ran from March 1952 until December 1969. The program was the successor to a pair of previous studies, Project Sign and Project Grudge, undertaken by the USAF beginning in the late 1940s.

Project Blue Book, although it had been the longest-running government study of UFOs to date, produced limited results regarding the potential that an unrecognized form of technology existed and operated in our skies. Among its primary findings had been three main points:

• “No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security.”
• “There was no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge.”
• “There was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ were extraterrestrial vehicles.”

This might all be news to anyone who hasn’t been following the UFO/UAP subject now for more than the last few years. In fact, it might also be news to the most recent government group that has been convened to analyze the problem, which appeared to frame its analysis of the issue within a narrow period spanning only the last few years.

Recently, a widely anticipated government report on UFOs was recently delivered to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by the Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). In it, we learned that our government has been using a formalized method of collecting reports on UAP encountered by our military since early 2019, involving a refined mechanism for the collection of data on such reports that subsequently was adopted by the USAF in late 2020. Based on this, the Navy’s UAPTF has analyzed 144 incidents that have been logged since 2004, the majority of which occurred within the last two years.

To summarize their conclusions: all but one of these incidents remain unexplained, and the technology behind them could represent both a hazard to aviators, as well as a “challenge” to United States National Security.

Despite the merit of the Task Force’s analysis of recent reports involving UAP, it leaves much to be desired. For instance, the nine-page report—which also consists of a cover page, and appendixes at the back—leaves us with a total of just six pages that are actually related to the discussion of what the UAPTF learned from studying UAP reports during its short time in operation. What’s more, of the 144 reports that were logged, there were no details provided that gave any specific information about any of these incidents… not even one.

Indeed, the UAPTF report leaves much to be desired for longtime followers of the UFO topic. Also contained within the report are a few curiosities; take, for instance, the following excerpt regarding the USAF’s involvement, and its limited participation in the analysis of the phenomenon in question:

“Although USAF data collection has been limited historically the USAF began a six-month pilot program in November 2020 to collect in the most likely areas to encounter UAP and is evaluating how to normalize future collection, reporting, and analysis across the entire Air Force.”

Obviously, the report’s authors must have meant that the USAF has played a “limited” role in the recent collection of information on this topic, which the UAP Task Force relied upon for its analysis. However, many who read this when the report appeared online were no doubt aware of the irony in the statement: the one branch of the military that actually did undertake what remains the single longest study of unidentified flying objects in American history with Project Blue Book is now considered to have participated in “data collection [that] has been limited historically”?

Of course, there are other issues the public version of the UAPTF report presents, and we must recognize that this is also considered to be nothing more than a preliminary report, as its title aptly conveys. Nonetheless, many Americans and others around the world had probably been hoping for a bit more from our government about its involvement with the study of UAP.

Perhaps with time, there will be additional analysis and even portions of the classified version of the report that will be obtained and released by diligent transparency advocates who make frequent use of the Freedom of Information Act. However, for the time being, it appears that “what you see is what you get,” and in light of that, the American public has been left wanting on the subject of UFOs, or whatever else people may choose to call them.

It certainly isn’t the first time it has happened either… indeed, some things really don’t ever change, do they?

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There are UFO reports of all shapes and sizes, spanning the globe, and these can run the range from the odd to the outright insane. In many cases the elements come together to form a case that not only includes traditionally reliable witnesses, but many of them, all seeing the same thing and leaving us to wonder what is going on. In 1960 there was just such a case, which was first brought to the public’s attention by two sober, reliable police officers, and which would later be corroborated by many others to leave it a highly intriguing account that has never been solved.

August 13, 1960, started off fairly normally in the small town of Corning, California, near another larger town called Red Bluff, and on this hot night California Highway Patrol officers Charles A. Carson and Stanley E. Scott were out at work along Hoag Road. It was a hot, lazy evening, with the two of them looking for speeding motorists, but no one was really out in the rural area, and so they were mostly just driving along lost to their thoughts. Just before midnight they noticed something in the sky that they at first took to be an airliner, but it was flying so low that they feared it was in trouble, possibly even coming in to crash. They stopped their car to get a better look, and it would soon become apparent that this was no normal aircraft. Carson would later say of what happened:

From our position outside the car the first thing we noticed was an absolute silence. Still assuming it to be an aircraft with power off we continued to watch until the object was probably within 100′ to 200′ of the ground when it suddenly reversed completely, at high speed and gained approximately 500′ altitude. There the object stopped, at this time it was clearly visible to both of us and obviously not an aircraft of any design familiar to us. It was surrounded by a glow making the round or oblong object visible. At each end, or each side of the object there were definite red lights. At times about five white lights were visible between the red lights. As we watched the object moved again and performed aerial feats that were actually unbelievable. At this time, we radioed Tehama County Sheriff’s Office requesting they contact local radar base. The Radar Base confirmed the U.F.O. – completely unidentified.

In the meantime, the two men continued to observe the object, which they described as “as large or larger than an airliner,” completely transfixed by what they were seeing. At this point they had no idea what it could be up there doing its aerial acrobatics, and even as they excitedly wondered to each other what it was things got weirder when the object began to show signs that it knew they were there, on several occasions approaching them and then moving away again, all while occasionally lighting up the ground below with a bright red light. Officer Carson would explain:

On two occasions the object came directly towards the patrol vehicle, each time it approached, the object swept the area with a huge red light. Officer Scott turned the red light on the patrol vehicle towards the object and it immediately went away from us. We observed the object use the red beam approximately 6 or 7 times, sweeping the sky and ground areas.

After this, the mysterious craft then began to slowly move off to the east, and not wanting to lose sight of it the officers followed in their car. They kept increasing their speed to keep up with it, and were now chasing it down the road, and although they lost sight of it a few times they managed to relocate it again. At one point, they were shocked to see a similar light begin approaching from the south. This second inscrutable object approached the first and they took up a tight formation, after which they stopped and hovered there for some time, sporadically shooting red beams towards the ground, before both of them sped off to the east and disappeared. The two startled officers then went back to the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office, where they found that two deputies had also seen the strange object. Carson would say of this:

We returned to the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office and met Deputy Fry and Deputy Montgomery, who had gone to Los Molinos after contacting the radar base. Both had seen the U. F. O. clearly and described to us what we saw. The night jailer also was able to see the object for a short time, each described the object and its maneuvers exactly as we saw them. We first saw the object at 2350 hours and observed it for approximately two hours and 15 minutes. Each time the object neared us we experienced radio interference.

Image by Steve Baxter

The objects were also allegedly seen by another deputy, other Highway Patrol Officers, the night jailer, several prisoners, and some residents of the area, with around a dozen people having also observed one or both of them. In one case a formation of eight mysterious lights was supposedly seen. On top of this, the deputies who had seen the original object also reported trying to follow it as it had sped off along to its rendezvous with the other. Deputy Fry would explain in a report that would be heavily redacted and later released by the Air Force of what he and four prisoners had seen:

At 12:00 Midnight this Officer and Officer Montgomery went to Los Molinas and set on a small hill to the East named or called Blueberry Hill and at approximately 12:30AM of 8-14-60 observed four objects in the Western sky, they were traveling from the south to the north in a straight line and at times they would go straight up or down, one of the objects seem [sic] to stop and hover over the Red Bluff area. After a short time, there was an object seen going from the North to the South. I went out side of the Tehama Co. Jail to check the sky as officer Montgomery radioed that he had an object in the area that had appeared to have landed twice to the east of Los Molinas, on checking out side of the Jail observed a object coming in from the west to a position of about South East of the jail, and it appeared to stop and hover for a moment in that position. I called to the four trusties a [Blacked Out], [Blacked Out], [Blacked Out] and a [Blacked Out] to come out side and observe the flying object, by the time the four men arrived the object was hovering and it looked like a large Rail Road car with two large Red Lights one on each end, the whole object was a pale yellow glow in color and white lights appeared along it in three or four places which may have been windows. The object then took off in a southerly direction and passed out of sight without any of the above four persons and this writer hearing any type of motor or sound from the Object.

This was a great relief to officers Carson and Scott, because they had not believed their own eyes, and had thought that everyone would think they were crazy. Officer Carson would say of this in a radio interview on the matter:

I am like officer Scott, I still find it rather difficult to believe even after watching. It was amazing to sit out there for two hours and fifteen minutes watching this thing, and it is even more difficult to tell someone else what you saw. It is quite an experience. That is all you could say about it. It was definitely not a balloon or optical illusion. We saw something out there. I could hardly believe what I had seen out there and I was thankful for the fact that there were other officers from different agencies that had seen the object, plus residents of the area and people traveling through because myself — I don’t think if I had seen it and no one else had seen it — I would have been pretty confused.

Image by Steve Baxter

In the meantime, the Red Bluff Air Force Station, a radar-only site at nearby Red Bluff, who had originally confirmed to deputy Fry that they had made radar contact with something strange, were now flatly denying that they had, claiming that they had seen nothing unusual. In the following week after Carson and Scott’s sighting there would be myriad other reports of something strange in the sky, some by similarly traditionally reliable witnesses, and this is what must have finally caused the Air Force to move in for their own investigation, sending in investigators from their Project Blue Book division, which was specifically tasked with dealing with UFO reports. They would immediately confirm that there had been various sightings both before and after the Conrad and Scott sighting, and investigator Duane K. Bilslend would write of this in his report:

Local inquiry succeeded in locating various residents who had witnessed the appearance of UFO previous to or on the same date the Highway Patrol Officers had reported seeing the one in question. The undersigned interviewed each of the above persons and based on a personal opinion formed through observation of credibility, responsibility and reputation, concluded that an unidentified object and/or objects of similar physical appearance, whether real or imaginary, were observed by various solid citizens of Tehama County California.

This all seems to be very promising, with a solid series of sightings made by many disparate reliable witnesses all describing the same thing, but unfortunately, the Project Blue Book investigation was under the authority of a Colonel Philip G. Evans, who was at the time was very keen to end the Air Force’s investigation into UFOs and was known for conjuring up reports that were riddled with misinformation and dishonest data and information, mis-stating, fabricating, or omitting relevant facts, as well as often offering up lengthy and scientifically questionable “rational explanations” that sounded great to skeptics but didn’t always add up and were just as pseudo-scientific as anything else. His dismissive final report on the matter would read in part:

The conclusion of ATIC is that the sightings which occurred in the Red Bluff area were due to atmospheric refraction. It is an impossible task to determine what the exact light source was for each specific incident, but the planet Mars was the most probable culprit in the instance of the highway patrolmen. The planet at the time of the sighting was just below the horizon and probably hove into view due to the refraction of its light by the atmosphere. A contributing factor to the sightings could have been the layer of smoke which hung over the area in a thin stratiform layer. This smoke came from the forest fires in the area and hung in a layer due to the stable conditions associated with the inversion. In addition to the usual results of atmospheric refraction, special optical effects known as mirages may occur when there are strong temperature contrasts in adjacent layers of air. It is quite probable that reports of all of the sightings which occurred in California during the period 12-20 August 1960 did not reach ATIC. It is, therefore, impossible to make an accurate estimate as to how many sightings actually occurred and what percentage were due to the inversion. It is possible that some were due to other causes such as “hysteria” and the “get into the act” attitude of some people. However, in view of all available evidence in this case, it is concluded that the effects associated with the inversion were responsible for the sightings which occurred in the Red Bluff, California area between 12-20 August 1960.

This is despite the fact that Mars, Aldebaran, and Betelgeuse were all below the horizon at the time of the sighting, and an analysis of the meteorological records of the area for that night by atmospheric physicist James E. MacDonald did not find any evidence that would indicate the presence of a temperature inversion. Nevertheless, this was the Air Force story and they were sticking with it. As to what he thought of these findings, Officer Carson would say:

I have been told we saw Northern lights, a weather balloon, and now refractions. I served 4 years with the Air Force, I believe I am familiar with the Northern lights, also weather balloons. Officer Scott served as a paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. Both of us are aware of the tricks light can play on the eyes during darkness. We were aware of this at the time. Our observations and estimations of speed, size, etc. came from aligning the object with fixed objects on the horizon. I agree we find it difficult to believe what we were watching, but no one will ever convince us that we were witnessing a refraction of light.

Is that what this all was, just some refraction of light or some other mundane phenomena? Is so, how could it fool so many trained witnesses and be described by many people as something wholly otherworldly? Why did the Air Force confirm a radar lock on the object, only to then go and withdraw this? Just what was going on here? It is hard to say, and the Red Bluff incident remains a rather curious and intriguing mass sighting involving a good amount of very good witnesses, and which has never been adequately explained.

Experts are still searching for life on other planets and we may possibly even find it on one of them in our own Solar System. NASA just recently announced that there will be two missions sent to Venus to study our “sister planet”. Unfortunately for our planetary neighbor, a new study has pretty much dashed any hopes of finding life on Venus, but there is optimism for Jupiter.

In a news conference, John Hallsworth, who is a microbiologist at Queen’s University in Belfast, U.K., explained this further, “When we looked at the effective concentration of water molecules in those clouds, we found that it was a hundred times too low for even the most resilient Earth organisms to survive,” adding that it is an “…unbridgeable distance.”

Venus

For example, microorganisms on Earth can survive in water activity with a value as low as 0.585; however, on Venus, the water activity level in the clouds was just 0.004. Chris McKay, who is a NASA Ames astrobiologist, went into further details about their findings, “Our conclusion is based directly on measurements.” “It’s not a model, it’s not an assumption. The missions that NASA just selected to go to Venus will do the same measurements again — temperature, pressure — and they are going to come to very much the same conclusions because Venus is not changing on that type of time scale.”

This is incredibly disappointing news, especially for the experts who were excited to find phosphine on the planet (this is a compound that is made up of atoms from phosphorus and hydrogen that is important in regards to life.)

Now onto Jupiter, the researchers analyzed data collected by the Galileo probe that flew between 26 and 42 miles (between 42 and 68 kilometers) from the surface of the planet and discovered that the water activity in the Gas Giant’s clouds was at 0.585 which means that there is enough water activity to possibly support life. Furthermore, the temperature is about minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit which is also within the range for life to survive.

Jupiter

McKay talked a bit about this discovery, “Jupiter looks much more optimistic.” “There is at least a layer in the clouds of Jupiter where the water requirements are met. It doesn’t mean that there is life, it just means that with respect to water, it would be OK.” There are, however, other problems for life to survive such as a lack of nutrients and high levels of ultraviolet radiation.

The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy where it can be read in full.

June 25, 2021, might have been the day the United States government released its most significant report on unidentified aerial phenomena, more commonly known as UFOs, that the American public has seen in several decades.

By some measures, the report that arrived on this date was as significant as many had hoped that it would be. Nobody would deny that the document, produced by the U.S. Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), had been both highly anticipated, and conveys that the United States military appears to be taking the subject of UFOs more seriously than it has in decades. The information it contained would have been especially significant for anyone new to the subject, who might have been surprised—if not a little concerned—to learn that our military believes there is reasonable evidence of unidentified technologies operating in our controlled airspace.

By contrast, the contents of the report left much to be desired of long-time advocates of the existence of unidentified flying objects, who probably looked at the report as being, loosely summarized, “the same old, same old.” In other words, little that the report conveyed in its brief, nine pages (just six pages, if we exclude the cover page and appendixes) was anything new to those who are well-read on the topic of UFOs. These folks have likely been hearing about the release of documents through the Freedom of Information Act now for decades, conveying similar instances where unusual aerial objects appear to be capable of entering our controlled airspace at their leisure, and with little regard for the national security concerns of our military.

Because of this, there have no doubt already been plenty of members of our military that have taken the subject seriously in years past, whether they ever voiced their interest or not. However, the appearance of a larger scale, coordinated effort to collect information about possible aerial threats, and analyze them within government, has never been more apparent in recent memory than it is now. This, following both the release of the UAPTF report, as well as a press statement on it from the Pentagon that referenced a memorandum from Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks outlining the objectives of the UAPTF as it moves forward. In addition to this, several Senators, and even NASA weighed in on the timely subject of UAP following the report’s release.

Where does all of this leave us though? Perhaps more importantly, where do we go from here, and what will the American military be doing in the years ahead as it continues to study this phenomenon?

While much of this remains to be seen, there are several things that the United States, as well as any other nation that endeavors to study the phenomenon, should consider in terms of transparency, as well as the possibility of threats that could arise from such studies. Below are just a few considerations related to the study of UAP and its implications in the years ahead.

Make at least some information about UAP available to the scientific community for analysis: 

There has long been a significant disconnect between government and science on this subject. Since the UAP issue currently appears to remain within the purview of national security, a degree of government secrecy is warranted (especially as it relates to potentially classified technologies used to obtain information on the phenomena). However, if any of these objects should prove to represent novel or breakthrough technologies (especially in the unlikely event that they have exotic origins), it will be incumbent upon our government to coordinate with the scientific community on this issue and assess whether it has implications that are broader than the isolated space of national security, with potential ramifications for both the American public and maybe the entire world.

Along with its internal system of formal reporting, the U.S. Government should provide ongoing updates to the public: 

The public version of this report, while limited, is a necessary step in the right direction toward government transparency on a timely issue. When it is possible to do so while maintaining national security protocols, future information about this area of study should be periodically conveyed to the public.

Our government should commit to the ethical use and management of technologies potentially derived from UAP: 

Whatever the source of UAP may ultimately prove to be, the potential exists they may serve as the impetus for new innovations and disruptive technologies. This may hold true whether the technology is captured by our military, studied, and replicated, or even as a result of the mere observation of the devices and their operation. Such technologies may prove beneficial, although the possibility also exists that they could even hold the potential for escalating an arms race at some point in the future.

The problem outlined above is only one among several possibilities that military studies involving UAP might lead to, whether or not it was ever intended. If a significant technological breakthrough were ever to arise from the study of UAP, it indeed might prove to be beneficial to humankind. However, all-too-often in the past when new technological innovations have been acquired by militaries, their use in weapons systems development and other potentially destructive capacities has remained a consistent problem.

Transparency will be the key. In addition to being able to be studied by the scientific establishment, government studies of UAP could benefit greatly from the oversight and moral guidance that civilian organizations might be able to provide, ranging from think tanks, to media agencies and a host of other sources of valuable feedback. For that to happen, it also requires the government to be transparent with at least some of its UAP data.

The release of the UAPTF report in late June is already a step in the right direction in that regard, but will this trend continue? Or as information on military UAP studies begins to trickle out, will we merely see a bottleneck effect, where the pace of “disclosure” (if we dare even call it that) begins to steadily slow, and finally stop?

All of this remains to be seen, but for now, if nothing else, the U.S. government’s current UAP studies have injected a much-needed renascence of interest into the debate about unidentified aerial phenomena observed by pilots and others for decades. This, as well as a new awareness of the scientific possibilities—both potentially good, and bad—that the study of them might afford us in the years ahead.

The Pentagon’s long-awaited UFO report (and by ‘report’ we mean the public summary, not the full classified report) and the general consensus is that it’s weak on details and totally lacking on any information that kept the investigators from completely ruling out extraterrestrial origins. It’s as if this duck soup of a report is saying to those who have seen UFOs or claim to have been abducted by aliens and believe they’re not of this Earth, “Who are you going to believe … us or your lying eyes?” (Thank you, Marx Brothers.) Fortunately, we have a couple of psychics who claim they’ve used their abilities to confirm aliens are already here and predict that real ‘full and transparent disclosure’ is coming soon. Let’s start with the psychic who has seen evidence of alien presence on Earth for at least 50 years.

“I touched it and told Wernher, ‘this is not from our planet’. He said, ‘You’re right – this is a piece of a UFO that crashed on Earth’. I cannot reveal any more about what I saw in that refrigerator. I have signed non-disclosure documents. But I can tell you that we are in contact.’’

Did he see aliens?

That’s everyone’s favorite psychic spoonbender Uri Geller – fresh off of using his ‘powers’ to help England beat Germany in Euro 2020 (so he claims) – telling the Daily Star about a time in 1974 when he allegedly was invited to a NASA “base” in Maryland, possibly while his abilities were being tested by the U.S. government as part of the Stargate Project, to view what he was told was part of a crashed alien spacecraft … and more.

“I cannot reveal any more about what I saw in that refrigerator. I have signed non-disclosure documents. But I can tell you that we are in contact.’’

Geller is likely implying he saw a body or bodies of beings from the craft, a sight he claims shocked him. Geller says he doesn’t believe the Pentagon report is truthful because: “They DO know more!? Do they? Does he? Really? Or should he stick to football and spoon bending?

Moving on …

“I see more information being shared with the public about the known presence of alien life visiting our planet. I also see that more people will come forward to speak about strange lights in their homes and gardens and the public collectively will speak about this. It’s only through public demand that more information will be given. We are being visited now more than ever by life forms from other planets.”

Deborah Davies is the next generation of psychics – a reality star on “Real Housewives of Cheshire” who claims she’s the descendent of psychics, has had abilities since childhood and has been a working medium doing readings, paranormal consulting and predictions since 2009. No spoon-bending here – just claims she’s accurately predicted plane crashes, the coronavirus outbreak, Prince Philip’s death, advancements in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and more. This appears to be her first prediction on UFOs and extraterrestrials, but she makes two important comments – there is information about the “known presence of alien life forms visiting our planet” and we are being visited now by “life forms from other planets.” Unfortunately, she seems to have nothing more to share on them and The Daily Mail did no follow-up.

Ask more questions!

Two well-known psychics say alien life is here – one claims to have firsthand, eyewitness knowledge. Are they any less believable than a 9-page summary that blames its lack of depth on the witnesses not providing enough information?

Who are you going to believe … the government or a spoon-bender, a real housewife and the tabloids? Tougher question than you thought, isn’t it?