Last month the U.S. government’s new UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), submitted a report to Congress entitled, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP, the new term for UFO). This new report is itself anomalous for several reasons.

First, who ever heard of a government report being submitted months before it was due? Especially one so rife with embarrassing errors in desperate need of additional fact-checking and revision? Was AARO Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick rushing to get the report out the door before departing, perhaps to ensure that his successor could not revise or reverse some of the report’s conclusions?

Last month the U.S. government’s new UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), submitted a report to Congress entitled, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP, the new term for UFO). This new report is itself anomalous for several reasons.

AARO SEEMS UNAWARE THAT AIR FORCE CONSULTANT HYNEK LAID FOUNDATIONS OF UAP SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

Air Force Project Blue Book’s dirty little secret was that Insufficient Data often really just meant Insufficient Investigation which, if admitted, of course would reflect badly on Blue Book’s performance. Thus the usual tendency in Blue Book’s self-serving strategy was to blame the witness for any failings in investigating their own sighting – as if the witness is expected to be a top-notch PhD scientist. When the typically non-PhD witness failed to provide unequivocal PhD-level data, Blue Book would often triumphantly dismiss the case and claim it as one of their purported “successes.”

Civilian witnesses rarely even claim what they saw was a “UFO” or use the term “UFO,” much less an “alien spacecraft” (most will not even have heard the new term UAP). Most witnesses simply felt a civic duty to notify authorities about a “light” or “object” that was puzzling to them (as Blue Book consultant Hynek would say). That is the objective scientific approach which witnesses weren’t given credit for – reporting what they saw, not presuming to make PhD-level scientific interpretations or judgments of what it was. Military witnesses especially would grasp that the matter might have possible national security or scientific implications. It was inappropriate for the Air Force to insult the intelligence and goodwill of these citizens by dismissing their reports with improbable explanations that often made the witness look foolish. This high-handed and dismissive approach naturally had the effect of reinforcing the stigma and deterring others from coming forward.

The Air Force’s longtime scientific consultant on UAP, Astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, taught that the “UFO” label not be given to a report until after a scientific investigation determines that it has no conventional IFO (Identified Flying Object) or other explanation. But because there is no recognized term for the initial report, the “UFO” label (and now “UAP”) is applied right at the outset for simplicity, and a seemingly redundant qualifier has to be added for cases that pass the Hynek Scientific UFO Screening process to be a “real” UFO, such as the redundant “Unidentified UFO” (Unidentified Unidentified-Flying-Object) or “UFO Unknown.” The process is not followed logically or consistently and the Hynek Screening is treated almost as an afterthought if at all. These issues are not discussed in the AARO report. Most civilian research groups’ UAP reports appear to be “Insufficient Data” mainly because they do not have the resources to investigate them all and so no Hynek Screening is applied.

AARO’s historical account barely mentions the leading role Dr. Hynek played in researching UAP for the Air Force and attempting to implement a meaningful investigative methodology. In the lone paragraph in the section on “Perceived Deception,” Dr. Hynek is referred to merely as an investigator, not as the Air Force’s chief scientific consultant on UAP. Also, the first sentence of the paragraph only refers to public suspicions of “recovered alien craft” and “extraterrestrial beings,” not the government’s overall handling of the UAP issue. It then merely mentions that the Air Force expected him to serve as a “debunker” in a sentence that also briefly mentions that Captain Ruppelt said he was expected to “explain away every report” and align press stories with the Air Force’s public position. Yet in its discussion of Project Blue Book, AARO simply states that the Air Force “determined” that there was “there was no threat to national security, no evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles and “..no evidence submitted to, or discovered by, the USAF that sightings represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of present day scientific knowledge.” These conclusions are boldly stated as though there was nothing irregular or controversial about these conclusions. The same is true of AAROs account of the highly controversial Condon report (further details below).

Among other things, Hynek blew the whistle on the Air Force and its Project Blue Book for the “insufficient data” trick, forthrightly insisting that insufficient data cases, including the sneaky “possible/probable” IFO categories, are neither IFO nor proper UFO cases and must be excluded from statistical scorecards as they are insufficient in data (The Hynek UFO Report, 1977, p. 259). The same principle applies to modern UAP cases (“UAP” merely being the new label for UFO). Among other things, AARO should be required to clarify the distinction between Insufficient Data reports and “Insufficient Investigation” (more on Insufficient Data in sections below).

AARO also doesn’t seem to know about Hynek’s classic subdivision of UFO cases into Close Encounters (of three kinds or more), Daylight Discs, Nocturnal Lights, and Radar-Visual cases. AARO’s “complete” history of UAP investigations by the US government seems incomplete without it. There was even a Spielberg movie involving Hynek’s work, called Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

AARO also makes no mention of probably the greatest scientific investigator of UAP of all time, atmospheric physicist Dr James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona. McDonald’s name, along with Hynek’s, is all over the Blue Book records that AARO brags about “completely” reviewing (though AARO seems to have overlooked half of Blue Book’s records).

The prestigious author and scientist Dr. Jacques Vallee was a colleague of Dr. Hynek’s who lived through this period and could have helped AARO enormously, but he was not contacted. Nor was he contacted for comment by the New York Times, Washington Post, or other outlets after AARO’s historical report was released. AARO also does not seem to follow Dr. Hynek’s and Dr. Vallee’s UAP scientific methodology established in the 1960s.

ALLEGED “40-YEAR GAP” IN OFFICIAL INVESTIGATIONS OF UAP IS DUE TO AARO’S FAILURE TO PROPERLY DOCUMENT THEIR HISTORY FROM 1969-2009 – NOT EVEN A MENTION OF THE PIVOTAL 2004 NIMITZ CASE

The allegedly “complete”, “thorough”, and “accurate” AARO historical report (p. 12) wrongly claims there is “about a 40-year gap in UAP investigation programs since the termination of Project BLUE BOOK in 1969 [sic]”– in other words a 40-year alleged “gap” from 1969 to 2009 (p. 10). (Actually, Blue Book terminated in January 1970, not 1969, another historical error by AARO.)

In reality, the only “40-year gap” is in AARO’s failure to record the history, not a 40-year gap in the existence of US Government investigations and reports of UAP from 1969 to 2009. Somehow AARO managed to slip around the 2004 USS Nimitz incidents, and others that are widespread public knowledge and were investigated by the military (hence AARO can’t use the “it’s classified” excuse to withhold).

AARO certainly knows about the 2004 Nimitz UAP incidents, which were the primary events that led to the current sea change in attitude to UFOs and UAP, leading to the establishment of AARO itself. AARO just inexplicably and unbelievably chooses not to mention the Nimitz anywhere in its Historical Report.

There are numerous USG investigations of UAP easily documented in declassified records, and many published during that purported “40-year gap.” These are only a few representative examples – one can hardly match the AARO manpower of 40+ personnel and multi-million-dollar budget to do the research AARO should have done in the first place.

During the Fall 1973 UAP wave, there were several US military investigations of UAP. These included those conducted by the Navy and Coast Guard involving an underwater UFO or USO (Unidentified Submarine or Submerged Object) near the location of the highly publicized alleged UFO abduction case a month earlier at Pascagoula, Mississippi. Coast Guard personnel sighted the underwater UAP and Navy oceanographer Dr. and Lt Cdr (later RADM) Craig Dorman investigated. (UPI dispatch, Nov. 8, 1973, etc.) This is close to an important recent UAP sighting that occurred over the Gulf of Mexico, which came to Congress’ attention only as a result of a “protected disclosure.” Even then, all but one member of Congress visiting the base for the express purpose of a briefing on this case was denied access to the aircraft’s sensor data.

In October-November 1975 there was a wave of Northern Tier UAP incidents at restricted areas of military bases at Loring AFB, Maine, Malmstrom AFB and Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, Minot AFB, North Dakota, etc., which were investigated by the Air Force and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), as documented in declassified and FOIA-released electronic teletype messages (so the “it’s classified” excuse again can’t be used). Entire open-source books have been written about this (e.g., the Fawcett & Greenwood classic, Clear Intent, 1984).

A key intelligence focal point of investigations on the Northern Tier incident messages was the teletype address “AFINZ,” which turned out to be the Aerospace Intelligence Division of the Air Force Intelligence Service at the Pentagon (not Dayton, Ohio, by the way).

Likewise, NORAD Intelligence and NORAD J3 Aerospace Operations Division and predecessors have been involved with directing UAP investigations throughout the years in the alleged “40-year gap” and from before, back to the 1950s-1960s Blue Book years, and right up to the present (see “NORAD” in Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 801-824).

Also, a former Director of USAF Intelligence informed me that in the 1980’s the Air Force undertook a classified UAP collection program in the vicinity of Area 51 in an attempt to ascertain the origin of UAP violating the famous base’s restricted airspace. How come that program was not uncovered by AARO? How many other secret USAF programs related to UAP were not uncovered? Where are those UAP reports and how many others are there from other locations?

There is also no mention by AARO of the successor to Air Force Project Blue Book’s parent organization FTD (Foreign Technology Division), now called NASIC, National Air & Space Intelligence Center. Since NASIC is the Defense Dept.’s primary and central agency for intelligence on air and space threats, NASIC obviously must be involved with UAP today and its UFO / UAP history should be traceable back to FTD / Blue Book in the 1960s.

But AARO does not breathe a word about either the Foreign Technology Division FTD or NASIC in its “complete” and “thorough” history of UAP investigations (even though AAROR mentions the subject of “foreign technology” and “foreign technological threats”, pp. 15, 27).

In 1976 US-equipped Iranian jets chased UAP over Iran, with one UAP reportedly disabling the onboard radar, avionics, and the air-to-air intercept missile of an F-4. This is a famous case, with declassified official US DIA documentation released (so again the “it’s classified” excuse can’t be used), so it seems incomprehensible that AARO would not know about it.

In fact, AARO seems to be unaware of what it wrote in its own report because the “40-year gap” in government UAP investigations from 1969 to 2009 it claimed on Page 10 seems to be contradicted on Page 30, by AARO’s own admission that a nuclear weapons depot UAP case occurred in 1977 (apparently at Loring AFB, Maine) and obviously would have been investigated, and is currently taken seriously by AARO.

AARO also contradicts itself on the purported “40-year gap” in UAP investigations on Pages 21-22 where it reports that the famous Roswell incident was under various Air Force, GAO, Congressional, White House, and other investigations from 1992 to 2001 right in the middle of the alleged “gap” of 1969-2009.

(The claim on AAROR Page 40 that the Roswell incident, as “assessed” by AARO, was due to crash debris of a lost Project Mogul intelligence balloon appears to be another significant factual error by AARO since the alleged Mogul balloon launch on June 4, 1947, had been canceled according to Mogul project scientist records and the balloon equipment cannibalized for a later launch that never got lost but was followed and recovered.)

In 1980 the USAF nuclear weapons storage depot at RAF Bentwaters, England, was probed by a UAP with laser-like beams according to documents and the deputy base commander Col. Charles Halt, who was a personal eyewitness and led the field investigation team. Entire books have been openly published on the highly publicized so-called Rendlesham Forest case including by Col Halt himself. But AARO seems mystifyingly oblivious to the 1980 incidents, instead pushing its narrative of a purported “40-year gap” in UAP investigations from 1969 to 2009.

AARO’S LAUNDRY LIST OF MOSTLY IRRELEVANT AND ACTUALLY NON-SECRET “SECRET” PROJECTS

AARO tries to dismiss much of the UAP phenomenon with an implausibly expansive secret-project laundry list, including some projects like the Apollo moon landings, which were never secret in the first place.

As noted above, AARO claims that many “UAP sightings were the result of misidentifications of new technologies that observers would have understandably reported as UFOs. Observers unknowingly witnessed and reported as UFOs classified and sensitive programs that AARO assesses most likely were the cause of many UAP reports” (smoothed quote correcting AARO grammar errors etc.: See AAROR, p. 39).

Then AARO lists the Apollo program as one of 28 alleged examples (pp. 40-45). (See previous comments on Apollo.)

Yet again, AARO fails to cite an example of a single UAP sighting reported by people misidentifying any of these aircraft and drones as UAP. There are surely some valid examples, but to assert that these programs were a primary source of UAP sightings is unwarranted. Civilian UAP sightings come from all areas of the US, rural, suburban, and urban, not just in the vicinity of US military ranges and bases.

The remaining “secret” projects on AARO’s list are too tedious to go over and include the highly publicized – not “classified and sensitive” – Mercury and Gemini programs that put the first US astronauts into space, and like the Apollo moon landings never caused reported UAP sightings of their space capsules.

AARO makes a point of ostentatiously exposing and knocking down easy strawman claims throughout the report, such as going back to the Blue Book era on the sensational alleged “Navy jet” (no one saw this jet) shooting off a one-pound “metal piece” (no such metal) of a UFO (no one saw) over the Washington, DC, area in July 1952. (AAROR, pp. 20, 26; the one-pound magnesium orthosilicate stone actually found was a rare type of aubrite-enstatite magnesium meteorite, although AARO did not do the research to figure that out.)

Another easy strawman that AARO revels in demolishing is the infamous and long discredited “MJ-12” documents evidently hoaxed by Air Force’s own Office of Special Investigations personnel in the 1980s and 1990s (that Air Force role not mentioned by AARO of course) which appears to be an unlawful covert effort to manipulate US citizens and US public opinion.

Without mentioning the MJ-12 reference in the so-called “1961 Special National Intelligence Estimate” (one of several MJ-12 docs), which would have been a clear tipoff, AARO goes through a showy display of ticking off point after point how badly the document was faked:

AARO found that “the document lacked IC [Intelligence Community] tradecraft standards” and had “significant inconsistencies with SNIE’s … of the [1961] time period,” including “incorrect formatting, inconsistent branding, lack of a dissemination block and coordination language, loose narrative style, convoluted logic, imprecise and casual language, and … [strangely] superficial treatment of globally significant [1961] issues” had it really been written in 1961 instead of being faked in the 1990s. (See AAROR, p. 31, plus added MJ-12 hoax background here not mentioned by AARO.) Does this suggest poor USAF OSI tradecraft?

AARO’S STRAINED EFFORT TO DENY EARLY INTERNAL CIA CONCLUSIONS OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL UFOS

The AAROR’s representation of CIA involvement seems strained and contrived. Because this is one of only two official government conclusions of extraterrestrial origin of UFOs that AARO claims to find (and then dispute and reject), they go to some effort to try to invent something to explain away and wiggle out from CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence director Dr. H. Marshall Chadwell’s obvious and logically deducible extraterrestrial conclusion, given to CIA Director Gen. Walter B. Smith by classified memo on December 2, 1952 (see quote farther down, right out of AAROR, p. 17).

A third governmental extraterrestrial conclusion completely overlooked by AARO – by Air Force Intelligence, namely the intelligent UFO motions study by Major Dewey Fournet and presented to the CIA Robertson Panel – was missed by AARO despite its widespread reporting in declassified CIA documents and published UAP literature (see “Robertson Panel,” in Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, p. 1015).

AARO can only speculate that it is just “possible” Chadwell meant only “Soviet” (a 6-letter word Chadwell could easily have written if he meant that and easy for Chadwell’s secretary Mary Jane Carder to have typed). But Soviet threats were the CIA’s job to track, so why leave that word out? “Possible” means it does not rise to the level of “probable” or “certain” and therefore the opposite alternative (ET) of the “possible” (Soviet) is what is very probably true.

In other words, even AARO has to tacitly admit that it is likely CIA scientist Chadwell did mean extraterrestrial.

In case there is any doubt, Chadwell and his deputy Ralph Clark both confirmed in published interviews many years ago that they, the CIA OSI, did briefly conclude that UFOs were extraterrestrial but that the Robertson Panel effectively changed Chadwell’s conclusions. They did not know the Air Force planted explained IFO not Best Unexplained UFO cases on the CIA Panel so they naturally would find them explained and thus not even close to being considered extraterrestrial (see Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, p. 1013a.)

As quoted by AARO (p. 17), Dr. Chadwell told the CIA Director he was convinced that “something was going on that must have immediate attention,” and that “sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles.” Clearly, these were not classified US aircraft programs.

AARO’s handling of the CIA Special Study Group of (August) 1952 is perhaps the most error-ridden in the entire AARO Report (pp. 16-17), as it appears just about everything is completely wrong, even the dates and the names of CIA personnel and Group members, and omission of bombshell facts.  AAROR implies that the Group continued from summer until December 1952 when in fact it was in operation less than one month in order to brief the CIA Director on August 20, 1952.

This was so that the CIA Director in turn could brief the President on UAP on August 22, 1952, a fact of stunning importance.  It was the President who ordered the CIA investigation of the Air Force mishandling of UAP in the first place on July 28 after two weekends of worldwide bad publicity showing the Air Force unable to control the skies from invading UAP flying over Washington, DC, Air Force jets unable to stop the UAP — a highly relevant and dramatic fact utterly omitted by AARO.  (See “Robertson Panel,” UFO Encyclopedia, 2018.)

AARO is wrong not only about the date of the CIA Special Group but even gets the names of all the CIA personnel wrong.  Omitting all mention of the President and the CIA Director, AARO insinuates the Group was created solely on the initiative of the CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) Robert Amory Jr. but got the name wrong since in 1952 the DDI was Loftus E. Becker.  Contrary to AARO, this Special Group on UAP was not formed and tasked under the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) Physics & Electronics Division but under the OSI Operations Staff.  That P&E Division’s USAF Maj. A. Ray Gordon was not the “lead” or any part of the Group.

The Robertson Panel Minutes clearly identify the Group as consisting of “Strong, Eng, Durant” (not Maj. Gordon) two of whom have been interviewed by researchers over the years and who confirmed the obvious facts also found of course in declassified CIA documents AARO missed — the Group was formed within the OSI Operations Staff headed by Brig.Gen. Philip G. Strong, USMCR.

Somehow AARO managed to entirely miss the CIA Special Group’s finding that the Air Force UAP intelligence effort at Project Blue Book was a complete failure.  The Group’s expert in the intelligence process, Ransom L. Eng, as part of the Group, personally visited Blue Book and its parent organization ATIC at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio.  Eng found that the Air Force’s Project Blue Book UAP effort failed all 4 stages of the intelligence process —  Failed at Intelligence Collection, Failed at Analysis, Failed at Production, Failed at Dissemination.

The Special Study Group and Eng told CIA Director Walter B. Smith, Gen., USA, on August 20, 1952, at a CIA-wide briefing, that the “entire Air Force” had a “world-wide reporting system and [jet] interception program” against UAP but which generates a “flood of reports on unidentified flying objects” that comes to an inadequate “small group” with “low level of support … on a minimal basis” of only 5 personnel at Blue Book who clearly could not deal with the huge volume of UAP reports.  The UAP reports were made from a 10-question report form that was “inadequate even for the limited case-history approach.”  That’s the Intelligence Collection failure.

Then Eng said the all-important Analysis phase was of “extremely limited scope” where the Air Force used a laborious one-by-one “individual case” or “case history” system of handling, using no computer punch cards or “other standard method of processing data” to speed the process of explaining and identifying the Explained (or IFO) cases and the Unexplained cases.  But once that was done, Eng pointed out the Air Force did no trend studies, no pattern analysis nor any other of “a number accepted research techniques … in any effort to gain a sound understanding of these phenomena.”

But Eng noted ominously that Blue Book had “laboriously” plotted the Unexplained UAP cases by hand on a map and the “plots show a high incidence of reported [UAP] cases near atomic installations and Strategic Air Command [SAC] bases” but BB tried to downplay it.  The Air Force failed to mention to the CIA Group that the new incoming Air Force Director of Intelligence Maj. Gen. John Samford himself was shown the Unexplained UAP map in December 1951 displaying UAP concentrated around nuclear bases and SAC bases.  Gen. Samford was so disturbed he ordered a major investigation of the mapped UAP nuclear/SAC concentrations using computers at the AF’s Battelle Memorial Institute contractor codenamed Project Stork (which AARO botched as to its name, wrongly calling it “Project BEAR”). Here was a potential national security threat from UAP and the Air Force was misleading the CIA about it.

Eng concluded that the Air Force failed the Analysis phase of the intelligence process by failing to carry out the essential “well planned and properly guided research program” to solve the mystery of what the UAPs were and help prevent any national threat.

Eng and the Special Group thus urged the establishment by the CIA of a major ongoing, permanent scientific UAP research program conducted by MIT at its Project Lincoln radar air defense laboratory, which the CIA continued to work towards — until the AF derailed CIA with the now-infamous Robertson Panel.  The AF forced the rush-to-judgment, hurried merely 4-day Panel of scientists on the CIA OSI in the weeks leading up to January 1953, which OSI repeatedly tried to stop, stall, and postpone, but got overruled via AF pressure on the CIA Director.  The AF even manipulated the evidence by falsely submitting Explained IFO cases dressed up as Best Unexplained cases so they would fall apart in front of the Panel.  None of this salient history was mentioned by AARO (see “Robertson Panel,” UFO Encyclopedia, 2018).

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

Last month the U.S. government’s new UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), submitted a report to Congress entitled, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAP, the new term for UFO). This new report is itself anomalous for several reasons.

SURPRISINGLY, MOST AARO CASES ARE UNEXPLAINED, 62% AS OF AUG. 30, 2022

It appears that the latest AARO figures for unexplained UAP cases work out to 62%, as of August 30, 2022, since the current AARO historical report of February 2024 gives no figures.

AARO’s 2022 Annual Report reported 510 total UAP cases, of which 171 of the 366 new post-Task Force cases were “uncharacterized and unattributed” (p. 5). This seems to be a brand new name for “unidentified” (see the UAP Reporting Directive May 2023 para. 3.B.6) though the Annual Report tries to suggest it is a more preliminary “initial” category than either “positively resolved” or “unidentified.” Unfortunately, it does not define these terms in the AARO Report.

However, AARO’s UAP Reporting Directive of May 2023 belies their effort to minimize this new “unattributed” category label, by defining in paragraph 3.B.6 that “UAP ATTRIBUTION is the assessed natural or artificial source of the phenomenon and includes solar, weather, tidal events; US government, scientific, industry, and private activities; and foreign (allied or adversary) government, scientific, industry, and private activities.” That seems to indicate that “attribution” is not some “initial” cursory impression but a thorough “assessment,” hence like the identification process that would lead to “identified” or “unidentified.”

The AARO Annual Report seems to conveniently fail to mention that when these new 171 unidentified UAP reports are added to the previous UAP Task Force’s 143 unidentified, the grand total of 314 unidentified out of 510 represents a formidable 62% unexplained/unidentified.

AARO makes no mention at all of this statistic of 62% unexplained. The reader would be required to know the AARO predecessor’s UAP Task Force stats, add the numbers, and do the calculations of percentage – which almost no one will even realize needs to be done.

AARO admits its January 2023 Annual report (for 2022) had revealed that “some” of the (171) unidentified UAP “demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.” (AAROR p. 26, omits the “171” number given in the AARO Jan 2023 report, p. 5, and neither report says how many were “some.”)

This is the core element of any basic definition of a truly Unexplained UFO or UAP: unusual flight characteristics/performance along with unconventional shape (the definition can be traced as far back as Air Force UFO reporting directives in 1948-49). AARO does not single this out for much attention nor give exact statistics.

The 2024 AARO report avoids all mention of its predecessor UAP Task Force’s remarkable pro-UAP statistics of 99.3% Unidentified, including at least 56% involving multiple sensor systems which would eliminate sensor errors and conventional IFO explanations (stats all omitted in AAROR p. 24).

No AARO mention is made of either the 99.3% unidentified or the succeeding 62% unidentified number, the latest exact percentage (by calculation) deducible from exact AARO case numbers (see next section trying to numerically pin down AARO’s subsequent vague “majority” wording). The total caseload percentage of unexplained does not seem to be dropping much further if at all, given that AARO continues in 2023 and 2024 to repeatedly use the same vague “majority” term for the explained case fraction, conveniently without numbers. Presumably, if it had dropped significantly AARO would likely have highlighted this or at least set the record straight.

DISENTANGLING AARO’S OBSCURE STATISTICS REVEALS AN ANNUAL NEAR DOUBLING OF TOTAL UNEXPLAINED UAP (FROM 143 TO 314 TO CA. 600 CUMULATIVE TOTAL REPORTS)!

As mentioned above, AARO’s predecessor UAP Task Force had a total of 143 Unexplained UAP cases as of March 2021. This was more than doubled to a cumulative total of 314 unexplained in the first AARO Annual Report as of August 2022. Now it appears that the number may nearly double again to about 600 unexplained in 2024 (see table below). Unfortunately, due to a lack of clarity or transparency, we are forced to analyze and disentangle AARO’s obfuscated UAP statistics in order to deduce this.

Interestingly, the October 2023 AARO “Consolidated Annual Report” (or “AARO Cons” for short) to Congress on UAP, makes the Blue Book-style prediction that:

“Based on the ability to resolve cases to date, with an increase in the quality of data secured, the unidentified and purported anomalous nature of most UAP will likely resolve to ordinary phenomena and significantly reduce the amount of UAP case submissions [i.e., apparently discourage making of UAP reports].”

But each year or so, the total cumulative number of unidentified anomalous UAP reports increased from 143 to 314 to 600. That suggests that each year or so the added new reports with supposedly better “quality of data” were more unexplainable not more resolved with the better data. A later obscure statement in the AARO Cons report admits that AARO has not been able to explain away its UAP case backlog (the excuse being a “lack of data,” but perhaps really a lack of investigation?) hence the new cases with better data are not helping AARO, they’re still highly unexplainable (AARO Cons., Oct. 2023, p. 8).

Once again, history repeats itself. During Project Blue Book the Air Force repeatedly suggested that the primary problem in identifying and explaining UAP was lack of quality data, when often the reverse was true. When Blue Book sorted UAP cases into categories based on the quality of data, its ability to find conventional explanations steadily decreased as the quality of the witnesses and data increased (see table below from data in Blue Book Special Report 14).

Because there is no mention in the 2024 AARO report of even its alleged current 2024 caseload of 1,200 UAP cases – a number shared by AARO Acting Director Tim Phillips with CNN on March 6, 2024 – the next most recent stats with any kind of hint at an explained/unexplained breakdown we can find are in the previous AARO Annual Reports: the October 2023 AARO Report and the belated 2022 Annual UAP Report to Congress of January 2023 (a confusing array of dates and reports).

The January 2023 report gives the breakdown of only the new cases, with the numbers if one adds them up, 195-to-171 explained-to-unexplained or 53-47% (of the new, not of the total caseload), calling it “more than half,” language that subsequent AARO reports have blurred into the more vague single word “majority.” Both the October 2023 and 2024 AARO reports thus have similar language stating that an apparently bare “majority” of the UAP reports were explained, and some of the remaining “anomalous.”

Then the 2024 AARO report in effect adopts the bare “majority” language as the current UAP status, implying a roughly 51-49% type breakdown (possibly even the same 53-47% ratio as the previous new cases, in view of the vagueness). By implication, AARO seems to broadly apply the older reports’ fuzzy breakdown to the final UAP 2024 situational wrap-up in this current 2024 AARO report. AARO thus admits in subdued non-numerical language the surprising fact that nearly half of its UAP caseload is still unexplained today or does not “have an ordinary explanation” – thus seeming to undermine its position. (AAROR pp. 25-26; similar statement in AARO Cons., Oct 2023, p. 8) It would be helpful in the future if AARO would clarify the data and present the actual numbers.

Presumably, the current 2024 numbers are close to this implied 51-49% split of Explained-Unexplained, or AARO would have said differently and given us the exact figures in the AARO report. (The AARO official website does not help, it gives UAP Reporting Trends from cases 1996 to November 20, 2023, including percentages of shapes (“morphology”) of UAP but for some reason gives no numbers of total cases or percentages of cases resolved or explained – much more important numbers insofar as rating AARO’s mission performance and assessing the level of UAP activity being encountered by DoD and the IC.)

In any case, if applied to the current UAP total then there may be close to 600 Unexplained in the 1,200 UAP reports total in March 2024 (and this does not account for AARO sweeping away Insufficient Data cases as if fully explained as Blue Book did in the past, which might push the 600 Unexplained still higher depending on the definition of Insufficient Data being applied consistently). If so, then this represents almost a doubling of the 314 unexplained cases from August 2022 (a figure AARO also omits). And that 314 unexplained was a more-than doubling from the previous 143 unexplained.

If the stats were much better than this from AARO’s viewpoint, they would likely have said so. AARO had plenty of room – and months of time remaining before the report was due to Congress – to provide explicit numbers in its historical report.

Why are we forced to resort to guessing games on nuances of AARO’s language? Why doesn’t AARO release the statistics openly and transparently?

It all adds up to a profound mystery that AARO seems to be deliberately obscuring if not obfuscating.

AARO IS PLAYING THE SAME GAMES WITH DATA AS OLD UFO PROJECT BLUE BOOK – FLOODING ITS FILES WITH INSUFFICIENT DATA CASES

It appears that AARO has adopted the old Air Force Project Blue Book’s strategy of flooding their case files with Insufficient Data cases wrongly claimed to be explained. But if there are insufficient data to explain a UFO case or cases, then they are by definition unexplained. However, as Hynek taught, these don’t rate as “officially” Unexplained either, because that requires fully Sufficient Data and must go through IFO screening investigation. “Insufficient Data” does not identify an object or its cause, it says there is not enough data to do so. This AARO policy of caseload dilution with Insufficient Data reverses its predecessor UAP Task Force’s smart approach of selecting higher quality “focused” UAP cases with an emphasis on multi-sensor incidents (80 of the initial 144 UAPTF cases or 56%) which yielded only one IFO out of 144.

And unlike Blue Book, AARO does not even bother to give a breakdown of the status of the current 1,200 UAP cases on file that AARO’s new Acting Director Tim Phillips told the media about but strangely are not mentioned in AARO’s Historical Report. Perhaps AARO doesn’t want anyone to focus on numbers – specific numbers involving the alleged “assessed” UAP identifications instead of vague generalities.

AARO then complains about the lack of data regarding “speed, altitude, and size of reported UAP” (AAROR, p. 27), even though many of its cases have measurement data from multiple sensors (e.g., radar-infrared-optical F/A-18 cases). The complaint harkens back to Air Force Project Blue Book’s similarly unsupported complaint over the alleged lack of measured “speed, altitude, size” data on UFOs (The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, the ex-Blue Book Chief Ruppelt’s 1956 book, pp. 116-7, 149, 201, 212, 224, etc.). Meanwhile, Blue Book buried any mention of tracking data resident in Blue Book files from missile tracking cameras, radar-visual cases, and from an Army UAP tracking network specially set up around the top secret “Site B” nuclear weapons stockpile depot at Killeen Base, Camp Hood, Texas (see section, below, with sample chart illustrating some of the Army UAP tracking).

In AARO’s boasted “thorough” and “complete” reporting of past UAP investigations (AAROR p. 12), there is no mention of the existence of the AF’s special AF-Army-Navy/Marine multiple-sensor UFO tracking networks set up at multiple sites in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1968-70. Declassified military histories reveal over 500 “UFO” trackings on radar, optical, laser-ranging, nightscope, telescope, and infrared sensor systems, with 99% Unexplained (Declassified military histories: “Sensor Networks to Track UFOs in the Vietnam War,” UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 1050-1054).

AARO’s highly selective treatment of the Condon Report also from the AF’s UFO contract study at the University of Colorado, managed to studiously avoid the widely reported criticism that the Condon Report’s negative conclusions were contradicted by the embarrassing unmentioned fact that 34% of its own UAP cases remained Unexplained after investigation – as numerous scientists have pointed out in criticism of the Condon Report’s anti-UFO conclusions. (Someone in effect slipped up and put an easy list of the “Sightings, Unexplained” in the back Index of the published Condon Report, in 1969, where about 26 such Unexplained cases are listed, in addition to listing another 4 radar cases, 1 airglow photometer case, 3 numbered cases missed, and an uncertain number–about two–of the 14 unexplained Prairie Network-confirmed cases not overlapping with the preceding, totaling some 36 out of a grand total of about 106, or about 34%. Different tallies of the obfuscated Condon Report case numbers come up with slightly different numbers. See for example: W. Smith, Journal of UFO Studies, CUFOS, 1996). AARO fails to mention that 14 of the Condon study’s Unexplained UFO cases were backed up by photos taken by the astronomical meteor-tracking cameras of the Smithsonian’s Prairie Network system, an unprecedented scientific development.

There is also no mention of Dr. Condon’s obvious, non-scientific bias, which may have been the reason he was selected by the Air Force to chair the eponymous Commission. In late January 1967, while the Condon Committee’s investigation was ongoing, Dr. Condon tipped his hand, telling an audience at a lecture that UFOs are “nonsense” but “I’m not supposed to reach that conclusion for another year.” Once again, serious issues well-known to any UAP researcher are not included in the AARO report.

Likewise, AARO seems unaware of the new Over the Horizon – Forward Scatter (OTH-FS) radars turned over to NORAD for operational duty in March 1968 which immediately began tracking UAP. This was revealed in the House Science & Astronautics UFO Symposium hearings on July 29, 1968, and published, but despite being open source history it never made it into AARO’s “complete” and “thorough” history (“NORAD” in Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, p. 811b).

NO MENTION OF THE SCIENTIST SIGHTINGS OF UAP OR INSTRUMENTATION CASES

No mention is made by AARO that many scientists, including government scientists, astronomers, physicists, and others have personally seen UFOs, some obtaining instrument data and photos. AARO never mentions unclassified instrument tracking of UAP in the Blue Book files and other Air Force declassified records (AARO can’t claim that released sensor data is “classified”).

No mention that 14 Unexplained UFO cases in the hostile Air Force University of Colorado “scientific study of UFOs” were photographed and confirmed by the Smithsonian Prairie Network scientific meteor-tracking cameras (another 6 caught on meteor cameras were IFOs). The Colorado study tried to bury it in its infamous Condon Report, but it’s identifiable if one looks at and studies the summary data table with skewed and misleading definitions.

It appears AARO didn’t look. Another scientist UAP instrument detection by airglow scanning photometer is also an Unexplained UFO in the Condon Report, which concealed the fact that an embarrassing 34% of its cases ended up Unexplained (as mentioned above).

The Air Force set up UAP tracking networks in South Vietnam with multiple sensor systems during the war in 1968-70, as revealed in many declassified military histories (mentioned before). But AARO seems ignorant of it.

Army UAP Tracking Network Record AARO Missed Finding in the Blue Book Files, March 6-8, 1949 (Site B Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, Killeen Base, Camp Hood, Texas). Later cases included triangulations of speed, size, and altitude data on UAP.

DOES AARO ADMIT SOME “NON-EMPIRICAL” EVIDENCE OF EXTRATERRESTRIALS?

AARO’s two key conclusions, as presented at the top of its report’s Executive Summary, state:

AARO found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology.

…

AARO has found no empirical evidence for claims that the USG and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.

(AAROR Exec Summary p. 7, underlining added.)

If there is not a blanket AARO denial saying “no evidence” of extraterrestrial UAP sightings, but only a more limited, qualified denial stating “no empirical evidence” (physical evidence) of reverse-engineering extraterrestrial tech, then what non-empirical evidence does AARO have? Empirical means physical evidence and reality of objects and events, not human records of such, which records are presumably non-empirical evidence.

Is this an innocent ambiguity or an inadvertent admission that AARO has non-empirical evidence, such as documentary records or witness testimony, of reverse-engineering efforts on recovered extraterrestrial technology?

Interestingly, AARO claims to have “conducted approximately 30 interviews” of “approximately 30 people” (pp. 6, 11), and quite specifically “As of September 17, 2023, AARO interviewed approximately 30 individuals” who claimed knowledge of hidden government extraterrestrial technology and evidence (AAROR, p. 28). Don’t they know exactly how many people they interviewed, was it 30 or not?

AARO is quick to stress that “It is important to note that none of the interviewees had firsthand knowledge of these programs” (p. 9).

But this seems to be contradicted later when AARO explains that “Priority is given to those interviewees who claimed first-hand knowledge… Interviewees relaying second or third-hand knowledge are lower in priority, but AARO has and will continue to schedule interviews with them, nonetheless.” (AAROR, p. 28) AARO thus makes it seem they are reluctant to “continue to schedule interviews” with “secondhand or thirdhand” witnesses because they are so occupied with high-priority firsthand witnesses.

AARO FAILS TO DEFINE WHAT EVIDENCE IT WOULD ACCEPT FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL UAP

AARO also fails to define what evidence is required to establish extraterrestrial intelligence visiting Earth. Would multiple sensors tracking an object from high altitude or space that stops and starts with accelerations of >1000 g’s be at least a starting definition of evidence for non-human or extraterrestrial intelligence? (See Robert Powell/SCU critique of AAROR.) Likewise, AARO complains more broadly that it needs “Sufficient Data” in UAP cases, then never explains exactly what is considered “sufficient” (AARO Cons Report Oct 2023, p. 8).

Does it require direct communication with extraterrestrial intelligence to satisfy AARO’s unstated but seemingly shifting definition of “evidence” (see below)? What if the ETs simply refuse to communicate; do we just pretend to ignore them until they do? Is that a responsible operational defense posture or intelligence collection and analysis policy?

What radio signals have been received from UAP in the reports AARO has collected? AARO’s briefing slides to Congress and on its website state that it has cases of UAP-transmitted radio signals in the 1-3 and 8-12 GHz frequency bands (completely separate and different from UAP radar beams at 1-8 GHz, also listed). This has been briefed to Congress and listed in AARO Reporting Trends slides of “Typically-Reported UAP Characteristics” – but is never mentioned in the AARO Report.

Are these UAP Radio Signals a communication? What analysis of these signals has been undertaken? Has Congress been informed of the findings? The AARO Report also ignores a long history back to 1950 of UAP transmitting radio signals and radar beams and even replying to IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) interrogation signals transmitted to the UAP by ground-based US radar stations (see “UFO IFF” and “NORAD National Alert” articles in Clark’s UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 814-824, 1155-6).

Does extraterrestrial evidence require beyond-terrestrial technological capabilities (the “extra” in “extraterrestrial”)? Does sensor data suffice or must physical samples be obtained? What about AARO’s October 2023 Consolidated Annual UAP Report which mentions “some cases” of UAP with “high-speed travel and unusual maneuverability” (p.2), and “very small percentage” with “high-speed travel and unusual morphologies” (p. 8), none of which are mentioned in AARO’s current historical report (unless it’s in the classified version).

The earlier UAP Task Force reported that 15% of its reports were of “unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics” including “demonstrating UAP acceleration or a degree of signature management” (the latter meaning the UAP’s apparent use of electromagnetic signature reduction as a means of “camouflage” for purposes of lowering detectability, effectively a form of stealth) in mid-flight. Taken together, these terms evidently convey, at minimum, the UAP’s ability to “remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion” (UAPTF June 2021, p. 5).

In October 2023 the AARO then-director Sean Kirkpatrick told CNN that about 2% to 4% of his cases were “truly anomalous” – possibly referring to his just-released report’s reference to “unknown morphologies” (meaning “unknown shapes”) and “interesting signatures” not otherwise defined in the report.

These are tantalizing and provocative admissions by AARO and its predecessor, but what do they mean in terms of meeting AARO’s unspoken requirements for “evidence”?

AARO’s report displays a constant shifting of ill-defined goalposts for what it deems to be “evidence,” etc. First, there is plain “evidence” then “empirical evidence,” then there is “convincing evidence” (is “empirical evidence” not quite “convincing”?). AARO refers to “verifiable information” as if to contrast it with “empirical evidence” (AAROR, p. 35) thus raising the question, is “empirical evidence” not empirically “verifiable information” by itself? And AARO speaks of “actionable data” as conveniently undefined and not distinguished from other types of data or “evidence.” And beyond that, there are “actionable, researchable data.”

The common denominator in these shifting vague pseudo-definitions of what is required for UAP evidence is that they seem intended to ensure genuine anomalies are minimized in favor of prosaic explanations, no matter how implausible.

NOTHING BY AARO ON THE GOVERNMENT “STIGMA” PUT ON THE UAP SUBJECT; NO DISCUSSION, NO HISTORY, DESPITE ITS CRITICAL IMPORTANCE

AARO does not even mention the word “stigma” anywhere in this report, except buried in a passing reference to the UAP Task Force helping “destigmatize” reporting of UAP though not the subject of UAP (AAROR, p. 24).

This is despite the historical importance of the “stigma” deliberately attached to the UFO subject by the US government – principally by the Air Force – that is widely cited by the media and witnesses testifying before Congress. The critical importance of stigma and the problems it has created in hampering and crippling UAP research and investigation are undeniable.

As AARO’s predecessor UAP Task Force stated in its “Preliminary Report to Congress” submitted in June of 2021 (p. 4):

“Narratives from aviators in the operational community and analysts from the military and IC describe disparagement associated with observing UAP, reporting it, or attempting to discuss it with colleagues…. [T]hese stigmas have … reputational risk [that] may keep many observers silent, complicating scientific pursuit of the [UAP] topic.”

The “stigma” attached to the UFO topic as applied by the government appears to have included abuses that AARO was legally required to investigate in its Historical Report – but did not. Specifically, the Historical Report was required to:

“(ii) include a compilation and itemization of the key historical record of the involvement of the intelligence community with unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP], including— …

“(III) any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena [UAP] or related activities.” [NDAA FY23 Sec. 6802(j)(1)(B); 50 U.S. Code § 3373(j)(1)(B)]

As mentioned above, AARO failed to compile, itemize, and report on US intelligence agency abuses of UAP witnesses and others. The one tiny item dismissive of vague public perceptions of the Air Force’s UFO “debunker” abuse (AAROR, p. 38) does not document its long history as was required by law in NDAA FY23 and 50 U.S. Code § 3373 cited above.

AARO made no effort to compile the history of the Intelligence Community’s efforts to “obfuscate” or “hide” UAP information through excessive secrecy, as noted before.

Air Force Intelligence “efforts to … obfuscate [and] manipulate public opinion” on UFOs since the 1950s are primarily what caused the harsh stigma attached to the entire UFO subject in society. But this anti-UFO stigma is not investigated or historically documented by AARO – or even mentioned – contrary to its legal obligation.

This is despite the public admission by former USAF OSI officer Richard Doty that his official assignments included spying on US civilian UAP researchers and breaking into a private home, spreading disinformation about UAP, misinforming two US Senators, and spreading fake UFO documents including some so-called “MJ-12” documents that turned out to be a hoax (Doty radio interview Feb. 27, 2005; see Rojas, “Open Letter,” posting May 6, 2014, OpenMinds). Much more evidence could be cited of similar stigma-inducing covert government actions besides the public debunking and shaming of innocent UAP witnesses and civilian investigators (see “Debunking and Debunkery,” Clark, UFO Encyclopedia, 2018, pp. 379-400).

AARO’S NON-DISCLOSURE OF NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS (NDAS)

The AARO report states that it asked DoD and IC organizations to review their files for any NDAs related to UAP and none were reported (AAROR, pp. 7, 30). Had AARO actually reviewed AFOSI NDAs themselves, rather than delegating the task, they might have reached a different conclusion.

For example, I was informed by a former member of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Investigation Program (AATIP / AAWSAP) that when he requested the opportunity to interview the two F-16 pilots involved in the famous Stephenville, TX, 2008 UAP case, both pilots replied that they could not discuss the matter because they had signed USAF NDAs. It ought to be possible to run this to the ground either by contacting the pilots or searching AFOSI records.

In another instance, a former USAF Air Traffic controller told me she and her colleagues signed OSI NDAs after reporting a black triangular UAP hovering over a nuclear weapons storage facility at Barksdale AFB. Subsequently, AFOSI officers asked them to sign NDAs, explaining that they had seen a highly classified US weapons system they were not cleared for (the secret weapons program ruse again). The witnesses assumed that was a cover story, as they could not imagine a test aircraft being sent to hover over a nuclear weapons storage facility, but they felt compelled to sign the NDAs for fear of retaliation if they did not. This case also suggests that in searching for pertinent USAF NDAs, it may be necessary to review NDAs of the type alleging uncleared military personnel had been exposed to US advanced technology programs outside their clearance level or access authorization and not merely search for some sort of “UAP NDA.”

In the Bentwaters, Rendlesham Forest, UK, case in December 1980-January 1981, there are indications that secondary witnesses and civilian investigators were pressured to sign secrecy agreements (see Col. Charles Halt’s 2016 book, pp, 400, 439).

IS AARO A SCIENCE PROJECT OR AN INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATION?

Why is AARO, a component of the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense (DoD), suddenly changing the rules of the game and importing purely academic, scientific standards for the interpretation of intelligence data? Is it because this allows the government to ignore important and valid but inconvenient information?

AARO claims its “methodology applies both the scientific method and intelligence analysis tradecraft” (AAROR, p. 6). But it seems the scientific methodology is set off against the intelligence methodology to discredit any observation of UAP that exceeds present-day scientific understanding, on the tacit grounds that observations by military personnel on this issue, and seemingly this issue alone, are not credible. Meanwhile, the intelligence tradecraft that would investigate a foreign adversary’s possible futuristic development of science seems to be shunted aside. Thus AARO uses a limited academic form of today’s science to deny as “not credible” the observed and measured UAP performance that may represent an advanced technology, possibly extraterrestrial, although we know 21st century science will inevitably be followed by a 31st century science. Neither the law enforcement nor intelligence communities have the luxury of limiting themselves to dismissing human reporting in favor of purely scientific standards of evidence.

It sometimes feels as though AARO is approaching the old unscientific Air Force Project Blue Book policy, long ago exposed by Blue Book scientific consultant Dr. Hynek, of declaring “It Can’t Be: Therefore it Isn’t” when dealing with tough unexplainable UFO cases (The Hynek UFO Report, 1977, ch. 3).

Hence, AARO’s Dr. Kirkpatrick claims there is no “credible” information of craft demonstrating capabilities that defy our current scientific understanding: “AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics” (DoD News Briefing, Apr. 19, 2023). This, despite the testimony of Navy squadron Cmdr. Dave Fravor and his colleagues were involved in the Nimitz incident, backed by dramatic radar-infrared-electro-optical data recordings. AARO does not even mention the Nimitz case or its investigation anywhere in its “complete”, “thorough”, and “accurate” Historical UAP Report.

Cmdr. Fravor and his wingman and their crew all saw and reported the same wingless white “Tic Tac” shaped craft in conditions of ideal visibility and their accounts of its mind-boggling capabilities were corroborated by radar operators serving on two different platforms

Later that day another F/A-18 witnessed and filmed the UAP, yet it seems as if AARO is denying this undeniable event, suggesting it did not even happen just because it exceeds today’s academic scientific understanding. Multiple accounts by all three pilots and their weapons systems operators, and multiple radar operators and technicians agree that craft they observed demonstrated almost-instantaneous high g acceleration; achieved hypersonic speed without a sonic boom; showed no evidence of friction or plasma or obvious propulsion, despite the extreme velocities it achieved (estimated peak 90,000 mph in 12 miles going from 0 to 90,000 mph to 0, all in 0.78 seconds, at 5,000 g’s acceleration). The estimated 47-foot wingless white “Tic Tac” shaped craft also thus seemed to survive g forces far greater than any aircraft, rocket, or missile of that size built by man. The tough Navy squadron commander of the Black Aces could not find a terrestrial explanation for what he and his colleagues observed and he has made that clear in sworn testimony to Congress. Is this not relevant?

What aspect of this case should be thrown out as “not credible” and why? Why are we even bothering to ask pilots to report UAP if we do not deem them credible? Why is this case not viewed as compelling, albeit not absolutely conclusive, evidence of the presence in Earth’s atmosphere of vehicles that are so far advanced we cannot understand or replicate their performance? What evidence would AARO accept – and is AARO going to employ an unspoken rule of today’s academic science that does not see a science of tomorrow, and therefore arbitrarily says it must not have happened, because we don’t understand what was reported?

Aside from not liking the implications, is there any reason to doubt the fully consistent account of so many accomplished aviators and sailors operating with high-tech sensors? Our military could not function as effectively as it does if its personnel were not competent and reliable. When assessing the UAP issue, senior policymakers deserve candid views of intelligence and military personnel, not views limited by unrealistically high scientific standards imported from Academia. After all, AARO is a joint IC/DoD operation, not a science project.

CONCLUSION

As documented above, AARO has not complied with statutory orders from Congress for a detailed history of UAP sightings as recorded in USG’s historical records, instead providing a limited history of flawed US Government investigations of UAP.

There was no examination of the impact of “stigma” on the UFO subject, witnesses, and persons interested in it, aggressively implemented by the Air Force and supported by the AF-instigated CIA Robertson Panel, despite the legal requirement for AARO to document the history of intelligence agency manipulation of public opinion and other abuses.

Yet, as AARO itself acknowledged in its first report to Congress the “stigma” surrounding this topic has been a central problem in terms of getting government personnel or scientists to report or study UAP. (AARO Jan. 2023, p. 2) To summarize:

• • The AARO report is beset with basic errors of fact and science (for instance, despite AARO insinuations, Apollo moon landings cannot be seen by the naked eye from Earth, Manhattan Project buildings cannot fly in the air as UFOs, etc.).
  • The report makes unsupported claims about secret government projects causing civilian UAP sightings while ignoring the military’s own sightings of UAP that the military knew were not our own.
  • AARO never defines what evidence they would accept for extraterrestrial visitation or even UAP existence, to help avoid repeating past failures of UAP investigations. It seems AARO’s unstated definition of “evidence” is a fluid goalpost.
  • There are massive gaps in AARO’s review of important US government documents, records, and programs, and patterns of excessive UAP secrecy. The report focuses on prior government UAP investigations without even acknowledging they were more of an effort to delegitimize the topic than investigate it.
  • The powerful effects of the stigma that resulted are neve

    13-04-2024 om 23:53 geschreven door peter  

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