Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
19-02-2024
Multiple flights reported 'strange lights' in the sky over Quebec during one day in 2023
Multiple flights reported 'strange lights' in the sky over Quebec during one day in 2023
Early on Feb. 12, 2023, at least three different flights over Quebec reported(opens in a new tab)"seeing very strange lights in the sky, high above the flight paths" that were "moving in a rapid and irregular way."
"It looks like it's more than one and sort of circling," a crew member aboard a cargo flight from Chicago to Luxembourg told air traffic controllers in Canada, according to audio obtained by CTVNews.ca(opens in a new tab). "It's a bit weird."
Selected incidents from the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS), 2023
Since 2000, Transport Canada's database has logged more than 315,000 reports of civil aviation incidents. The cases below represent unusual "laser interference" and "CIRVIS/UFO" reports from 2023.
"Just to let you know there was a flight from the south… they saw the same thing roughly a half-an-hour ago," an air traffic controller told the Luxembourg-bound cargo flight on Feb. 12.
"So I guess we're not just dreaming then, huh?" the aviator said.
"No, you're not the first one tonight."
Roughly 24 hours later, air traffic controllers received another report, this time from an Edmonton to Yellowknife flight(opens in a new tab) operated by Air Tindi that "reported observing a rotating light" at 30,000 feet over northern Alberta.
Transport Canada routinely cautions that such "reports contain preliminary, unconfirmed data which can be subject to change."
"These reports have no potential for regulatory enforcement and often fall outside the department’s mandate," a Transport Canada spokesperson previously told CTVNews.ca(opens in a new tab). "Reports of unidentified objects can rarely be followed up on as they are as the title implies, unidentified."
"I suspect that these reports represent a small fraction of what pilots are seeing," Powell told CTVNews.ca. "Not only does the stigma of making a UAP report still exist, but the reporting form and the way it is handled would make it clear to any pilot that his report was simply filed away."
Most reports are provided to federal transportation officials by Nav Canada, a private non-profit company that owns and operates Canada's civilian air traffic control infrastructure.
The company's aviation guidelines(opens in a new tab)(opens in a new tab)direct pilots over Canada to immediately report "a vital intelligence sighting of any airborne and ground objects or activities that appear to be hostile, suspicious, unidentified or engaged in possible illegal smuggling activity." Known as "Communication Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings" or CIRVIS reports, Nav Canada even puts "unidentified flying objects" at the front of a list of examples that also includes foreign submarines and warships. When such reports are made, Nav Canada typically alerts Transport Canada and a Norad-affiliated Royal Canadian Air Force squadron in North Bay, Ont(opens in a new tab).
"Nav Canada's Aviation Occurrence Reporting Procedure is used to address instances of unauthorized or unknown aircraft in NAV CANADA managed airspace," a company spokesperson told CTVNews.ca. "Nav Canada provides all information that it receives on these incidents to the Canadian government."
"The Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Air Force do not typically investigate sightings of unknown or unexplained phenomena outside the context of investigating credible threats, potential threats, or potential distress in the case of search and rescue," a Canadian defence spokesperson previously told CTVNews.ca(opens in a new tab).
More than half of the unusual reports filed in 2023 were classified as "laser interference" incidents, while the rest were labelled as "CIRVIS/UFO" reports.
Examples of "laser interference" from 2023 include
A Transport Canada spokesperson previously explained(opens in a new tab) that aviation reports are labelled "laser interference" when "an aircraft is targeted or reported seeing a laser beam or any other directed bright light source."
Powell, the UAP researcher, believes the "laser" label is being misapplied.
"The 'laser interference' explanation appears to be a catch-all category for pilot reports," Powell said. "Laser light sources would be below the aircraft and not above it."
CTVNews.ca has filed freedom of information requests to get more data on reports like these, which rarely feature more than a line or two of detail. For example, a publicly-available Jan. 11, 2023 report from an Exploits Valley Air Services flight(opens in a new tab) over the Gulf of Saint Lawrence simply describes "bright lights approximately 100 [nautical miles] from their position." An access to information request filed with Canada's Department of National Defence revealed a slightly longer report of "approx 4 bright lights moving around each other creating geometric shapes (triangle to hexagon)."
From drones to balloons, satellites, meteorites, flares, paper lanterns and weather phenomena, many of the reports described in this article likely have ordinary and earthly explanations. But with little sign of official investigation or follow-up from Canadian officials, most cases remain unexplained.
Donald "Spike" Kavalench is a retired Transport Canada surveillance pilot who also spent more than two decades flying for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
"Transport Canada, Nav Canada and the Department of National Defence need to work together to quickly and effectively respond to and investigate any UAP reports that could signify a potential threat to the flying public and potentially our national security," Kavalench told CTVNews.ca. "So far, that has not been done."
There has been a rise in the number of reported UFO sightings across many places in the United States since 2020. Moreover, officials have expressed concerns regarding the repeated occurrence of UFO sightings over military bases. Is there any possibility that these UFOs are controlling military actions?
Not so long ago, former US Air Force Captain Robert Salas claimed that UFOs are real and interfere in the military’s nuclear program. Additionally, former head of AATIP Luis Elizondo revealed that the U.S. Military created environments to attract UFOs to study them. He noted that there was much data that showed UFOs are interested in nuclear activities and the latest weaponry systems.
The UFO activity over US army bases has been observed since 1948, with the majority of incidents occurring at Malmstrom, Minot, F.E. Warren, Ellsworth, Vandenberg, and Walker AFBs between 1963 and 1996. Other sources stationed at Wurtsmith and Loring AFBs, where B-52 nuclear bombers were based during the Cold War era, also reported incidents.
In 1967, Captain Salas was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, when he received reports of a red glowing object hovering outside the front gate of the base. A security guard reported that the object had a saucer shape and was constantly hovering near the front gate.
At the same time, the missile system suffered a complete failure, with ten intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) going offline due to a “No-Go” (inoperable) condition, which caused several alarms to go off. After investigating the incident, a team of engineers from Boeing could not find any significant failures, engineering data, or findings that would explain how the missiles had been knocked off alert.
The cause of the failure remains unknown, but it was suggested that it could have been due to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) sent from an unknown source. Despite the severity of the situation, Salas believed that the UFO did not have hostile intentions because it could have caused permanent damage to the weapons system if it wanted to.
The incident was reported by a UFO researcher Robert L. Hastings, who collected information from various army personnel, including Staff Sgt. Louis D. Kenneweg, Airman 1st Class David Hughes, Staff Sgt. Joseph M. Chassey, and Lt. Col. Robert Peisher (USAF Ret.) in his 30 years of investigation.
A similar attraction of UFOs toward nuclear bases was noticed in Canada as well. A report from Winnipeg reveals that over 200 years, there have been 2,000 UFO sightings reported in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
In the mid-1970s, there were numerous UFO sightings all along the US-Canadian border, with Manitoba being one of the places where a large number of sightings occurred. These sightings included a high number of cattle mutilations and were often seen over restricted areas where nuclear activities were conducted.
Chris A. Rutkowski, a Canadian UFO researcher, has studied UFO sightings in Canada for over 25 years and concluded that Manitoba has a long history of close encounters with aliens. His UFO research, which contains 30,000 reports, has been donated to the University of Manitoba.
In 2017, author Grant Cameron published a book entitled “Charlie Red Star: True Reports of One of North America’s Biggest UFO Sightings,” in which he described in detail the largest UFO sightings in history witnessed by Manitobans. The province was stunned by the object known as “Charlie’s Red Star,” which was seen almost every night in 1975.
Cameron claims that Manitoba UFO sightings have connections to nuclear weapons because 35 years later, he found out that the government secretly installed nuclear missiles and other weapons in restricted areas just south of the border. He believes that the sightings stopped after the missiles had been removed in November. The author thinks that the nuclear technology that humans possess could be created after extraterrestrial contact. (click here to read the full article
Strange Occurrences Near Nuclear Bases
The Reddit user “BumblebeeExpensive” claimed to have worked at a now-closed nuclear weapons storage depot in Nevada for six years and shared various strange occurrences. “When people say UFOs are attracted to nukes, they are telling the truth. But so much more goes on,” the user writes. (Source)
The user claimed to have seen a ball of light triggering a sensor on the fence line, causing security to respond and witnessed three mutilated donkeys that were dropped off out of nowhere with various organs removed. The user also claimed to have witnessed a figure on the roof of a structure. He writes it was “30 meters from me and 14 other personnel. I took a spotlight and shined it up there and as soon as the light hit the figure it disappeared – we all saw it happen.”
“I heard a man laughing maniacally once, nothing there. Sweep with night vision and thermals revealed nothing, three other witnesses. We wrote it off as the ‘laughing Colonel,’ an urban legend passed down by the security personnel for ages.”
The user and his partner also heard a soft cooing sound coming from a hot pad loaded with 500 lbs bombs, seemingly luring them past the pad and into the pitch-black desert, but they did not pursue. During a training exercise, their machine gun overwatch team spotted two figures on thermals in the desert behind them, but their sweep revealed nothing.
The user claimed to have experienced the weirdest event when they were responding to a truck approaching on the side of a nearby mountain. They visually confirmed the truck on NVGs, but suddenly the headlights disappeared, and they believed the occupants had turned them off and were then approaching on foot. They called for K9 and moved to a blocking position where they waited for ten minutes, but their radios died, and they were out of contact for twice as long as they thought.
“We are there for about ten minutes when one by one patrol members overwatching us from high points on the inside call in lights appearing at our 12, 3, and 9 o’clock- in effect flanking us (with fence line about 300 meters behind us). We see and hear nothing, not even on NVGs or thermals, dog never reacts. Suddenly panicked patrol calls in that the lights are ‘rushing’ us. We are already locked and loaded, I tell my partner to put a grenade in the tube. Nothing happens, dog never indicates. Our radios die and after ten minutes we hike back to fence line only to discover we were out of contact for twice as long as I thought we were. Very paraphrased event cuz on phone, but our radios only started working when we were back at fence line.”
The user claimed that those events, combined with the belief that UFOs are attracted to nukes. He says: “There’s more but these were the highlights or events I’m allowed to speak about. The world is not as normal as you believe it is.”
Many other users found the same story in the video published on “The Infographics Show” YouTube channel in 2020 and began doubting BumblebeeExpensive if he copied the story. But the user later clarified that was his story and added that he is the lead writer of the show. He also claimed to be the writer of the “100-day survival series” on the channel.
“There’s things I can’t talk about as I signed a 30-year non-disclosure contract with pretty stiff penalties- but I’ll say this: I know people think that there’s these big conspiracies with the government hiding knowledge of this or knowledge of that. Truth is, yes there are big secrets. But overwhelmingly, the government isn’t actively hiding knowledge of this or that- it’s literally just ignoring it because it can’t do anything about it or it doesn’t pose a threat. It does spend some time and effort investigating it- you can see that there’s a greatly increased effort to investigate UAPs now. But the truth is that a long time ago a choice was made about certain things: do they affect national security, or could we stop it if it did? If the answer is no, we’ve got bigger or more immediate concerns like the Soviet Union starting a nuclear war,” explains Reddit user BumblebeeExpensive. (Source)
Mr. Elizondo suggested that those interested in more information about this subject read “UFOs and Nukes” by Robert Hastings. The book describes the reality of UFO incursions at American nuclear weapons facilities.
In “UFOs and Nukes,” there are documented incidents of UFO interference at the US nuclear weapons facilities. The book describes incidents where unidentified objects were seen hovering near nuclear facilities, causing malfunctions in nuclear missiles and communication systems.
Some of those incidents date back to as early as January 1945, months before the atomic bombings in Japan. Those events suggest that humans’ most dangerous weapons have been under scrutiny by unidentified observers with advanced technology. The author argues that the UFO-nukes connection is significant and may be the reason for the appearance of mysterious aerial crafts in the skies over the past 70 years. Mr. Elizondo recommends this book to those interested in learning more about this subject.
Author’s Note:The present essay was written for the inaugural event of the Sol Foundation, Stanford University, School of Medicine, November 17-18, 2023. Of course, I do not speak for or represent the Sol Foundation in any way here. The following thoughts are my own. – Dr. Jeffrey Kripal
This event feels “historic” to me. I want to begin with some reflection on it, more specifically on the relationship between this event and what we have been trying to do at my own institution, Rice University, over the last few years. I have in fact hosted two related events, in 2022 and 2023, to the same size of audience and to a similar level of excitement. These conferences emerged from our Archives of the Impossible, a broad research project dedicated to exploring anomalous phenomena across the university and its present order of knowledge and grounded in an actual physical archive that Jacques Vallee himself initiated around 2014. At present, there are some 15 collections and well over one million documents in the expanding archive. If my memory serves, it was in 2014, in Berkeley, California, where Jacques first spoke to me about placing his files and case studies in a university archive, and he had just met with a geneticist from Stanford named Garry Nolan about their shared research interests. So there are numerous conceptual, historical, and personal connections at work here.
The precise relationship between these two university-based initiatives hit me hard over the past few days as I took in the astonishing physics, movement, and luminosity of the observed craft and the chemical and atomic analyses of ejected UFO material, their obvious manufactured natures, and their anomalous isotopes. The same relationship became even clearer to me as I listened to the talk of Vallee for this conference event, “The UFO Phenomenon: A Genuine Scientific Problem.”
If I may paraphrase the talk, Jacques spoke of seven categories of strangeness. He explained to this audience that the sciences work on the first three, which involve physical material that can be analyzed and studied, as has been modeled here with such impressive success. Jacques cautioned us, however, that we err if we believe that this is the full UFO phenomenon. We essentially fall into a category error or confirmation bias, since we are looking at only what can be studied with our present scientific epistemologies and technologies. We are confusing what is there with what we can understand with our cognitive methods.
The UFO phenomenon is these first three categories, yes, but it also the remaining four, and it is precisely these that are often not talked about and not reported, much less studied, largely because of their inherent strangeness or anomalous relationship to our present way of thinking and being. If I may venture a guess here, it is not that they have not yet been studied scientifically. It is rather that they cannot be. Something else, an entirely new order of knowledge, is being called for.
It struck me listening to Jacques that the humanities at their bravest, and especially the study of religion at its furthest reaches, in fact specialize in studying exactly these, that is, the strangest stuff on the other end of the spectrum–categories 5, 6, and 7. This doesnotmean that the humanities as presently conceived and practiced are our answer; or that they are in any way sufficient. I do not believe that. But at least some of us try. Andthat, I realized, is the relationship of the two university-based initiatives. We can do the fundamental science and the public policy at Stanford–categories 1, 2, and 3. We can do the weird stuff at Rice–categories 5, 6, and 7. The inquiries are very different ones with vastly different materials and methods, but they are also very much related. They must be. That unity or shared quest is likely a part of the new order of knowledge that I hear Jacques Vallee calling for. If nothing else, it is a beginning.
So let me begin on that same shared spectrum of strangeness . . . .
* * * *
I am grateful to speak to you all at this inaugural conference of the Sol Foundation. I hope I can add something helpful and hopeful here at the end–an accent, perhaps, or a caution, perhaps even a superhuman future.
I want to begin by defining my perspective, since it blinds me to some things (especially technological possibilities), even as it brings other things into sharp focus (especially religious or spiritual possibilities). One cannot see a star through a microscope. And one cannot see a cell through a telescope. The lenses through which we see are focusing and limiting at the same time. Put differently, both the telescope and the microscope possess lenses that are intentionally distorted so that we can see at a particular level for specific purposes. So too with our professional frameworks. They are distortions of the lenses, but these disciplinary foci are also very helpful, and in fact they are necessary to see anything at all.
What I will say today is a kind of massive hunch or overwhelming intuition–largely unconscious, but not entirely so–based on reading thousands of pages of books and archival materials and engaging in hundreds of hours of conversations with experiencers and researchers from the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. I come to this practice with almost four decades of teaching and writing the history of religions. We might define the latter intellectual-spiritual discipline as the comparative study of humanity’s religious experience from the prehistoric cave paintings of Europe to today’s near-death or abduction experience, with a special focus on altered states of consciousness. It is out of this historical, comparative, and altered perspective that I will write of what Peter Skafish calls “signs that are given off by the x” of the UFO.
X, indeed. Signs, indeed.
I have six things I wish to say.
1. SIGNS OF THE UFO: IT’S ABOUT SCALE
The first thing I want to say is that the signs of the UFO extend over immense ranges of space and time, certainly across the entire globe and throughout that tiny slice of memory that we call human history, and probably much further back. Any individual contact or abduction experience in the contemporary world is a mere moment in this larger hyperobject or super-presence. Precisely because of this immensity, the UFO cannot be fully fathomed in any of its recent manifestations. We can only intuit something of its hyper-presence from a much larger perspective that is at once comparative and historical.
A number of corollaries follow. One is that no single individual can possibly fathom this. It is going to take large teams, really entire disciplines over many generations. I continue to think that higher education is our best hope here, although these institutions have major limitations and fault lines that I do not want to deny. It is entirely possible that the UFO inquiry can only be done effectively outside social institutions like higher education, but such a necessity will guarantee the subject’s marginalization and require a constant re-invention of the wheel. It will also result in endless, and dysfunctional, levels of secrecy. I do not think we have time for that.
Another related corollary involves public policy: any nation-state that approaches the UFO as a potential “threat” to its present national security, much less conceives of a program whose very purpose is to “destroy” or “shoot down” the anomaly, may be perceiving something of the situation (since the UFO as physical object is not “ours” and may well represent a potential safety problem for aviators), but little or nothing at all of the potential meaning of the fuller superpresence, which does not appear to be restricted to any local politics or air space. Obviously, our arbitrary borders mean nothing to the UFO. It “violates” them at will, and effortlessly.
This rather obvious fact need not be bad news. It may in fact be very good news. This relegation of our present national identities to a secondary status, even a potential irrelevance is, after all, very much apiece with the UFO’s consistent concerns over ecological collapse, nuclear armament, and dystopian apocalypse. Still, public policies are as important as working political responses. What we desperately need is moral, scientific, and, frankly, spiritual leadership beyond our present borders and boundaries. The U.S. is poised to provide part of this leadership, but only if it can embrace its rich combinative legal logic, affirm its immigrant or “alien” nature, acknowledge and mourn its colonizing and enslaving pasts, and affirm again its historical refusal to bow to any religious absolute.
Such historical observations are not tangential, nor are they political “opinions.” They are historical facts of immense importance and implication. Indeed, the postcolonial reading of the UFO has been with us at least since Charles Fort observed in the second and third decades of the twentieth century that these “super-constructions in the sky,” as he called them, may have an eventual effect not unlike the strange ships that showed up in the harbors of the eastern seaboard of the “new world,” a series of events for which the indigenous populations simply lacked the categories to fathom, much less the technology to defend themselves against what was coming–settler colonialism and the endless violences and displacements that come in its wake.
I am also thinking of the ways that abductions might be read as a replication on a spectral plane of the earlier physical abduction by ships of the Atlantic slave trade. The alien abductions, in other words, take place within a deep historical context, and they are experienced radically differently by different racial, ethnic, and historical communities. That should tell us something important about the understandable anxieties around the topic, especially around the lack of moral agency in many of the encounters and contacts. They are not called “abductions” for nothing.
One can often detect something of the multi-faceted leadership I am imagining in the experiencers. I take it as significant, for example, that one of our most recent experiencers, Matthew Roberts–the U.S. Naval Service Member who was stationed on the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt for the 2015 “Go Fast” radar video and later transferred to the Office of Naval Intelligence–understands the phenomenon to be fundamentally initiatory in its dynamics and spiritual in nature whose aim is a kind of unconditional love for all human beings, regardless of national politics, ethnicity, or religion. This is the sort of leadership I am talking about.
I fully understand that the vast majority of individuals are not ready for this type of “flip” into who they are before and beyond their constructed identities (there is an understatement). I understand that most people think that they are their psychological, national, and religious egos–their surface selves. This is probably the deepest provocation of the UFO–its utter disregard for our constructed local egos and the degree to which it abolishes or transcends them. There is immense potential here, but only if we are willing to surrender these righteous selves and create new public policy that constitutes a more humane and global worldview.
2. IT’S ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
The second thing I want to observe is that the UFO has taken on special urgency precisely because of our human technology. With new advances in radar, sonar, and satellite capabilities, we are seeing what was probably always there in the environment but was generally invisible. Put more bluntly, these things are not new, but our technological abilities to see them are.
It also needs to be said: many of our present global crises around ecological degradation and nuclear holocaust are precisely because of our sciences and technologies. I do not think it is an accident at all that the UFO shows such anxious interest in our warplanes (the famous “foo fighters” of World War II) and nuclear installations. So the statement “It’s about technology” is doubly meant.
Or triply. The total UFO event, after all, seems to possess both a material, technological, or physical and a mental, spiritual, or paranormal dimension. I do not want to be heard as denying that what we are dealing with here includes craft of some kind. I want to affirm that, but I also want to emphasize that the total UFO phenomenon (all seven degrees of its strangeness, to invoke Vallee’s model again) clearly violates our present ways of dividing reality up into “mind” and “matter,” into “subjectivity” and “objectivity.” I continue to think that this fundamental nonduality is the phenomenon’s ultimate power and provocation–the signs of its x.
Any discussion of “technology,” then, should take into account this fundamental both-and. It does not, of course. We continue to think in terms of our machines, our technology, our weapons. We hear about “back-engineering” and “craft.” We even hear of “biologics.” And then we slice off the spiritual or paranormal dimensions, pretending that they do not exist or do not matter. This is wrong. Diana Pasulka has been a clarion voice here, urging us to think of technology and the UFO in spiritual as well as material terms. Her voice, I think, has not been sufficiently heard or integrated, particularly by those who want to think only in terms of “now we have proof,” by which they mean, “now we have physical stuff.”
I should also add here that our present realizations around AI will likely have a major impact on our ability to understand the UFO itself, which has for decades included descriptions of the “robotic” ways that the beings are said to move or interact with humans (hey, I wouldn’t walk into a tribe of angry apes, either; I would send an expendable AI entity). Put a bit differently, AI gives us a new way of imagining and picturing what is going on, much as modern cosmology, hyperdimensional mathematics, and evolutionary biology have done so in other contexts. People do not go “up” into heaven now (we know there is no “up”). They move into “other dimensions” or “evolve” into other forms of consciousness. Science, or science fiction, has changed us.
The present case of the UFO, AI, evolution, and modern notions of space travel can be compared in some ways to the modern near-death experience, which is also heavily dependent on recent biomedical technology: people are now being “brought back” from much further into the death process. As a consequence, they are remembering more, and they are saying more. One result is a new genre of mystical literature–the near-death experience literature.
The UFO and near-death experience, then, are, in some sense, unintended but quite real consequences of modern technology. To be more precise, the two related phenomena cannot be reduced to or explained by the technologies involved, but they also cannot be experienced on a broad level without them. Of course, there were examples of both the “near-death experience” and the “UFO” before the biomedical, radar, sonar, and satellite technologies, but they were relatively rare. Not anymore.
The question of recovered bodies or “biologics” presses the case even more directly. This would indeed force our hand, as it were, make us lay our philosophical cards on the table (maybe even become more aware that we are playing such cards). Those cards assume an objectified and measurable physicalism or materialism (in which mind or consciousness is not really real), but also a type of anthropocentrism, or the idea that human beings are at the apex or center of the evolved cosmos and that our senses (and their sciences) should somehow be prioritized as uniquely corresponding to the natural world. Neither of these assumptions–the scientistic materialism nor the sense-based anthropocentrism–are adequate to the full complexity or “high strangeness” of what is actually going on.
In the words of my colleague William Parsons, such a realization, particularly one that involves biologics, would constitute a “fourth blow” to human egoism, after the Copernican, Darwinian, and psychoanalytic revolutions that relegated the conscious ego from the center of the universe (Copernicus), from the intended consequences of biology (Darwin), even from the conscious or psychological control of itself (Freud). This would be yet another blow that removes us from us, as it were. Maybe that is ultimately a good thing.
3. IT’S ABOUT RELIGION
This brings me to my third point, which, obviously, is my main point: the history of religions can be very helpful but also very misleading with respect to the signs of the UFO. Religion is the elephant in our living room. This rather obvious fact is dismissed under the intellectual cop-out that is “woo.” To the extent that we use this word and what it represents (a refusal to theorize it), we cannot grasp what is at stake, what these events mean or portend. This does not mean that “religion” is our answer. I am not saying that. I am saying something much more doubled and nuanced. Hear me out.
The history of religions is very helpful to the extent that the religions give powerful and consistent witness to something transcendent to our ordinary human experience, something Other than the social human or rational mind, even from the natural world as commonly understood, and so potentially and utterly transformative of society and the self. Cosmologically speaking, the religions commonly place this transcendent Other in the sky, the heavens, or the stars, which they often understand in fully physical terms. The similarities to the UFO are obvious. I often joke about “weird beings coming down from the sky and messing with humans–that’s called religion.” The joke is meant as a joke, but there is a comparative argument in the smile.
But we have to be very careful and precise about that comparative argument, and most people are not. They assume their own belief system, their own worldview, whatever that worldview happens to be: religious or secular, or probably a little of both.
It should be stressed at this point that many of the intellectuals and prodigies of the religions have been very aware of the basic incommensurability of a NHI (nonhuman intelligence) with human cognition and quite adept at translation and mediation of the human response. But–and here is the difficult part–these very translations are often not accepted by the believing public. This is one reason the word “mystical” (mustikos) means, quite literally, “secret.” It is not that there is some kind of whispered content that could be shared but is held back, some power game: “I have the secret, and you don’t.” It is rather that this form of knowledge is not communicable unless the listener is ready, has the requisite experience, and has “ears to hear,” as the ancient Jewish rabbi once put it. Few do, of course.
As Nietzsche put the same matter (he called it “esoteric”), what will be heard in most such cases is nothing at all. The teaching will sound nonsensical, absurd–in a word, impossible. That is because that which is being spoken is impossible within the categories of the reigning order of knowledge. We are talking about a different state of consciousness, a changed human being, and different types of bodies.
I think the physical aspects of religion, including and especially what I want to call “the physics of mystics” (the really, really strange stuff–think human levitation or precognition), have been vastly underestimated in the present regime of knowledge. Human bodies in the history of religions do all sorts of superhuman things: levitate, bilocate, know the physical future, and experience different types of conscious energy, to name just a few. These (of course) have often been read as legendary exaggerations. Exaggerations they often are, of course, but that does not mean that there is not something being exaggerated, some core truth behind the glowing tales.
I was once asked to lecture at MIT about two things: human levitation and UFOs. So I did. I think they are indeed related in their anti-gravitational properties. People do levitate. They do “fly.” And they do so silently, inexplicably, almost always in altered states over which they have little if any control. We have no way of understanding any of this in our present order of knowledge. It is simply impossible, and yet there it is.
It is also relevant that the religions are often very suspicious of the apparitional content of visionary experience, even often of experience itself, since “experience” implies a subject knowing an object, and both are being transcended or overcome here (there is philosophical sophistication). The ufological literature generally lags far behind in that it possesses little systematic understanding of the levels or types of visions, apparitions, encounters, and mystical communions, much less a theorization of experience itself. As a result, its understanding of what is actually happening is too often naive and simplistic.
My point? That we have much to learn from what we already know, that is, from the historical past; but that we have to be very careful with that past–and very suspicious. What we are often dealing with in the ufological materials is what Christian theology would call demonology or, in other more positive or transformative modes, angelology–basically, entities that are not human beings, have different types of bodies, and are not “God.” Such entities have been given multiple interpretations in the religions, but the demonic beings in particular are generally seen as fairly low within the total ecology of the religions, even “below” the living human. This does not mean that this is what such entities in fact are. We also have to remember that both the soul and its double have been called “demons.” The demon, or daimon, is in fact an ancient figure of immense importance and nuance. Calling something “demonic,” then, solves nothing at all. It only reveals one’s limiting assumptions, and probably one’s theology.
Things are different again today, but not entirely different. In the modern ufological literature, for example, the beings are often considered future humans, an interpretation to which I am much drawn and find intuitively persuasive. Future humans, moreover, often take on demonic or even “evil” qualities with respect to modern humans, for example, in the coming superhumans (Übermensch) of Friedrich Nietzsche. Indeed, I happen to think that one of our big mistakes in these realms is that we are imagining the UFO in spatial terms (I hear this kind of thinking whenever some astronomer observes that the distances are too great for interstellar travel) and not in temporal ones (they are from another time, not another star system).
My point is not to opt for a particular model–angels, aliens, or future superhumans. My point is that, even within the religious traditions themselves, far above the demons or “aliens,” and very much within the reach of living human beings, are the mystical experiences of unity, communion, emptiness, enlightenment, liberation, deification (becoming a god, or becoming an angel), and physical metamorphosis that are understood to be the real purpose and goal of human life. We do not need to sign our names to any of these particular belief systems, but we should learn from their attempts at ordering the anomalies and affirming both the physical and spiritual natures of the beings involved.
Many of the altered states of the history of religions, moreover, are inherently “apophatic,” that is, they “say away” (apo-phasis) what has been said or believed by the surrounding public or culture within the religious register, which generally understands the deity as an “object” or “being” that can be approached and engaged as such. Here we return to the basic nonduality of mind and matter that I hinted at above.
These apophatic experiences are non-translatable into sensory or rational means (which, of course, rely on the same subject/object structure), much less mathematical or scientific ones. Hence their broad rejection by the public. Again, secrecy here is not about content; it is about a kind of gnosis or deifying direct knowledge that is not transactional or communicable because it cannot be slotted into any subject/object structure. Such an apophatic or mystical sensibility, I must stress, could become a key contributor to the present discussion. This is an order of knowledge that we have simply lost but desperately need back in some new form.
That’s the good news. There is also some bad news. What we today call “religion” is also profoundly unhelpful in that it is usually not like this. It is not apophatic. Indeed, religion inevitably leads to all kinds of belief systems or interpretations, including demonic ones. From a historical and comparative perspective, none of these objectifying systems can be exclusively true for the species. It is quite possible, of course, that they are all true in some local sense, in some kind of inclusive or pluralist kind of way. That is, it is possible that all of these belief systems give relative witness to a set of human responses to this superpresence, none of which are wrong in themselves as local perspectives.
Such a comparative practice is embedded, for example, in the ancient Asian image of the five blind men and the elephant (to mix the metaphors, also standing in our living room). All five blind men feel a different part of the elephant (the trunk, the tusk, the leg, the ear, the tail). They say very different things, since they experience very different things. This is then applied to different “blind” religious perspectives: it is long and soft (the trunk); it is hard and pointy (the tusk); it is firm and strong (the leg); and so on. No one is wrong. But no one also is completely correct, either. That is a very different kind of “elephant in the living room.” This is also a very different kind of comparative argument, and one not in favor of any particular religion or culture as absolute and exclusive.
It is also possible that a pluralism may be more radical still–not a witness to a deeper unity or elephant, but to a fundamental plurality of being, an entire invisible ecology of life. Maybe what we think of as nature behaves differently in different cultural contexts because it really is different. What we would have here is a shocking multinaturalism. Maybe nature is culturally conditioned (I confess I often entertain this notion in my readings about the prevalence of human levitation in some historical epochs and its demonization or relative absence in others). Perhaps in the end this is what the UFO has been about –the production of multiple local belief systems and attending cosmologies, of these different religions and different realities.
But here is the thing. Because of modern communication, we are becoming more and more aware of these historical processes. If the UFO in its full reach means what I think it means, we are also becoming more aware of the nonhuman or superhuman presence that has inspired and shaped these histories, for better and for worse. We are much less certain of our certainties, and this is a good thing. Accordingly, the process of civilizational development, the history of religions, and perhaps even the conscious production of physical reality itself, must change; it must become more conscious and aware.
So, yes, there is a deep connection between the history of religions and the UFO, but we cannot use our present assumptions about society, science, space exploration, and extraterrestrials to understand the past within a kind of “presentism” (as if our present worldview is somehow complete or infallible). Nor can we use the assumptions of the past (about gods, or God, or angels, or demons) to understand the present or future. We have to be much more sophisticated than this kind of thinking, whichever way the arrow flies. We have to be “reflexive,” as we say in the study of religion and culture. We also have to be “transversal” in a radically comparative way, by which I mean that we have to try to sit “in between” all of them to grasp something of the hyperobject or superconsciousness that is appearing in our midst, always through the perspectives of our cultural assumptions, religious or secular upbringing, and socialization.
There is simply no debate, for example, that the UFO is related to psychical, parapsychological, and paranormal phenomena. Serious researchers have been saying this for over half a century. How many times do we need to hear this before it becomes common knowledge? Perhaps the technology effects or projects the paranormal display, like some kind of movie projector. Perhaps these anomalies are expressions of consciousness itself. Perhaps consciousness itself is the projector. Perhaps, as I have argued for over a decade, such events show us in dramatic terms that there is no final separation between mind and matter. But, as I explained above, to deny all of this, or to call it “woo,” is to settle for a small slice of the total phenomenon and reject what is being shown to us in such colorfully paradoxical ways, over and over and over again.
This comparative relationship between the UFO and the paranormal, then, might seem irrelevant, but it is in actuality very relevant, as it explains well why the sciences of the UFO have been attempted again and again but have never found a stable home in the conventional materialist-oriented sciences and their particular assumptions about mind and matter. The reason is simple: the total UFO event does not honor these assumptions. Perhaps we are at a new day. Perhaps we can do this now. I hope so.
This can be good news, then, as long as we can accept our sciences for what they are and can do, and what they are not and cannot do, and then integrate those other intellectual disciplines–like anthropology, philosophy, and the history of religions–that have rich histories of theorizing consciousness or mind and its relationship to the physical world, even and especially in the mediation of altered states. This is another way of saying that we have to embrace, study, and fund all seven categories of strangeness that Jacques Vallee has outlined for us, not just the first three. I understand that this is a hard message for those who think more and more science and technology will give us an answer. It will not. And that is certainly my message to you today: we need the whole university and the entire spectrum of strangeness to come to terms with what is happening all around us, as us, and to us.
Again, it is not that “religion” has our answers, either. Related here is the question of how the religions might react or respond to what is sometimes called “disclosure.” There appear to be two basic positions here in the literature. One position argues that the religions–more likely, the religion of the author in question–can assimilate and integrate such disclosure. The other position argues that religions are expressions of previous eras and forms of knowledge, not this one, and so they are incapable of the radical change that would be necessary. Hence, it is concluded, the necessity of secrecy or, in some cases, gradual disclosure. Speaking such a secret out loud or all at once would spell the end of civilization. Or such is the argument.
I confess I am more of the latter negative camp (I do not think that many religions can integrate the UFO, much less alien bodies), although I understand and appreciate the former positive camp as well. Perhaps I sit, or wobble, in the middle of the two. I suspect there is an important truth in both positions, and I would draw a sharp distinction to explain my own waffling (I’m good at rationalizing). I would say what I already said, namely, that religions are helpful in their insistence on translating or mediating a presence that is transcendent to the social human being, but that they are not helpful in the ways that they insist on particular belief systems, none of which can likely survive any kind of robust revelation of a species-wide cosmic condition. I suppose in the end it matters which religions or what kind of religion one is talking about, and what constitutes disclosure. I think the question is complicated.
First, I cannot help but notice that many a religious believer will literally demonize parapsychological phenomena. UFOs are real, but they are demons. Mediumship is evil. And so on. I can explain to you what such people believe are the biblical roots of such beliefs, and why the biblical texts themselves are much more complicated and, frankly, interesting, but that is not my point. My point is that some religion literally demonizes what we are trying to talk about. That takes it off the table. It does not keep it on the table.
Second, and very much related, I am quite concerned about what is sometimes called the psychedelic renaissance, a name given to the broad-based psychiatric and clinical study of psychoactive molecules in the U.S. and Europe and the pharmaceutical and legal transformations that are very much sought in their wake. Much as we see in the UFO phenomenon, the altered states induced by such psychoactive plants often display a fairly clear animist structure–plants and animals speak, paranormal powers manifest, instectoid entities appear, as do, by the way, aliens and UFOs.
What concerns me here are two basic things. First, predictably, the wildest or strangest of the psychedelic states are actively ignored or not reported at all in much of the literature. Secondly, the history of European colonialism and monotheism with respect to psychoactive plants has been absolutely awful, and often literally murderous. Has “religion,” then, welcomed the animist revelation of the plants? Certainly not these religions.
The British writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote a science fiction novel many decades ago, Childhood’s End (1953), basically arguing that full disclosure of an alien presence, even a friendly one, would render immediately irrelevant all religions on the planet, except, the book implied, Buddhism (this was or would become Clarke’s religion, of course). This was the “end of childhood,” that is, the end of religion. I am somewhat with the early Clarke here, although I seriously doubt that most Buddhist traditions can survive a fuller revelation, either. I guess I am deeply skeptical that anything resembling what we now call “religion” or “science” can survive a truly non-human or superhuman intelligence. I think we are talking about a different kind of humanity here, a future one that has not yet appeared to us.
Or maybe it has.
4. IT’S ABOUT MORAL VALUES
My following three final points are really just corollaries or appendices of my third central point, that the UFO is about religion. The fourth point I want to make is that the signs and entities of the UFO can be “good” or “bad,” or both at the same time, with respect to our present human value systems. This moral doubleness, moreover, is structurally and classically “religious,” so, again, this fourth point is really a strong corollary of the previous one.
One of the very first lessons one learns when one studies religion seriously–and by “seriously” I mean the philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and history of religions–is that the sacred is morally double-edged. There is a positive sacred. The sacred attracts, redeems, and saves. There is a negative sacred. The sacred repels, terrifies, destroys. The demon is simply the reverse of the god, as the Western magical tradition puts it. It is naive to think that the sacred is restricted to only one of these poles. That simply is not true, and it has never been true. To put things in a soundbite: religion is not about being nice or good; it is about the revelation of superhuman power and actualizing the same in both individuals and the community toward specific ends.
This moral doubleness of the sacred and stress on superhuman power plays out predictably in the abduction literature within this same doubled structure. There are enlightening or spiritual experiences of unconditional love and cosmic awareness, and it is common for such experiences to activate all kinds of paranormal effects and powers, especially telepathic and precognitive ones. There are also terrifying rapes and forced abductions, themselves imbued with uncanny power as well, that leave people scarred and scared, sometimes for life. Both happen. Both are true in this simplest of senses (“they happen”). There are also, of course, negative abduction experiences that morph into spiritually transformative experiences, and the reverse. All of this is entirely in line with what we see in the history of religions.
There are different ways to interpret such things, of course. The first way is the comparative method announced in my opening point: the UFO superpresence is immense in space and time, and no single experience of it should be taken as the whole. Hence the negative experiences are as much a part of the total picture as the positive ones are. They are two sides of the same coin, or floating sphere.
Another common interpretive move, evident also in the handling of negative near-death experiences (visions of hell, for example), is to read all negative responses as just that: as responses of the human, not of the nonhuman or superhuman presence. The social ego, it is said here, is not ready for transcendence or spiritual dissolution. And so the ego responds in fear and images of violence. I myself have made this exact argument, so I am very sympathetic to it. But I also recognize it is an interpretation and requires a basic distinction: between the human response and a superhuman presence.
Within the same basic distinction, it is also often pointed out that the “intention” of the alien presence is difficult to fathom and may in fact be positive on its own level, even if it is experienced as demonic or negative on the human level. Certainly, even some of the scariest phenomena, like those described at Skinwalker Ranch, appear to make moral distinctions between humans and animals: dogs are turned into goo; people are not.
In terms of the envisioned sexual or reproductive components of the modern abduction accounts, do we not practice animal husbandry or forced insemination all the time? Just look at your pet dog. It was once a wild wolf. Who did that? We did. Is this kind of species breeding “rape”? And are we so naive to think that we will not someday practice another kind of genetic manipulation on ourselves?
Or, in terms of animal mutilations now, do we not slaughter millions of animals every day for food? So what, exactly, constitutes the evil of a few hundred, or a few thousand, mutilated cattle? I eat hamburgers. I also live with a four-footed furry being we call “Delilah.” Can I explain this profound moral inconsistency? Nope.
What am I saying here? I am saying that I think the moral values of the super-presence are not our moral values, but they kind of are. Hence my suspicion is that this is something superhuman, not completely nonhuman. That’s a guess. Please hear it as such.
5. IT’S ABOUT DECEPTION (OR ART)
The fifth point I want to make is that secrecy and deception are at the heart of the UFO phenomenon. When students of religion look at the signs of the UFO long and hard, one of the things they take away is the profoundly deceptive quality of the apparitions and experiences. Whatever is appearing is not what is actually behind the appearances. What we are witnessing is some kind of super-intelligence engaging in camouflage and misdirection.
Beware, then. To employ a very useful metaphor, we appear to be caught inside a movie. We are not looking at the projector of those movies. We cannot trust our senses here. We cannot trust our beliefs. We cannot trust our reasons. All of these are being manipulated. We can only trust our distrust. There is camouflage. There is disinformation. And these are internal to the UFO itself. There is a much more positive way to say this. The UFO is about a most fantastic art; a real filmmaking, with physical special effects and all. We are caught inside a work of art, as Terence McKenna once observed, no doubt with a grin and a spin.
6. IT’S ABOUT ONTOLOGICAL SHOCK
The sixth point I want to make is that the UFO is finally about ontological shock. David Grusch used the phrase this last summer, and in the global moral ways I have suggested above. Historically, the phrase is most associated with the Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack, who used it in the 1990s to describe what experiencers were undergoing: a massive re-ordering of what they considered to be real in light of their abduction experiences, which in no way could be integrated into the previous materialisms of the experiencers. In historical fact, the phrase “ontological shock” was coined in the 1950s by the Protestant liberal theologian Paul Tillich (who meant something different but related to the term). In short, the phrase has a deep history in the study of religion again, even when it is being used by a military and intelligence professional or an experiencer.
There is a strong corollary to this sixth point. It is this. Any approach to the UFO that wants to normalize it, that is, reduce it to society (which is what the social sciences and the humanities do) or to nature (which is what the sciences do) is inadequate. Something much more radical is afoot. I call it the impossible.
The point is to shock us into a new conception of the real. In Peter Skafish’s terms, the “signs that are given off by the x” of the UFO are fundamentally about “ontological redistribution.” By the phrase, Skafish means to suggest something related to what I am suggesting above, namely, that we are being challenged to shift our very notions of the real and to expand the concepts through which we think and imagine. We are being encouraged to consider the possibility that our present psyches, societies, and nation-states, our religions and moral systems, even our sciences and bodies do not and cannot know what is actually so, and precisely because these same systems have distributed reality into the conventional boxes of society, nature, and God. Something else, something truly “alien,” is going on.
And so I return again to my own apophatic convictions. It is not that we do not know what the UFO is with our present categories and order of knowledge. It is that we cannot know what it is with our present categories and order of knowledge. It is not about any present society. It is not about what we think of as nature with our physics, chemistry, astronomy, or computer science. It is not about any religion, past or present. It is strange beyond any of our normalities or forms of professional knowledge.
Is there a public policy for this? I don’t know. Maybe something in stages. “Let us first acknowledge the reality of the UFO, and then . . . .” But that strategy assumes that we know what reality is, or that such a reality comports with our science and technology. We thus continue the mistake within the terms of the mistake.
SHOOTING DOWN SOULS . . . GOOD LUCK WITH THAT
I like to tell jokes, as I think these jokes crystallize my intellectual arguments, much as icebergs crystallize the ocean they float in and in fact are in another frozen or crystallized form. People remember jokes, too. They don’t remember arguments. Sometimes–okay, often–no one laughs at my jokes, no doubt because the terms of the joke do not match their understanding of the world and so can produce no sudden disjunction, shock, or what we call “humor.”
I sometimes joke, for example, that the present concern with “threats” and national intelligence is fundamentally misguided, that “they might as well be trying to shoot down souls.” I then follow up with a challenge: “Good luck with that.” Does such a joke and challenge make any sense in our present order of knowledge? No, of course not. And that is my point.
I think the joke is funny, but then I also feel very alone. Thank you all this weekend for making me feel a little less alone.
Dr. Jeffrey Kripal is the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, Texas. This essay was originally presented by Kripal at The Sol Foundation Initiative for UAP Research and Policy Symposium at Stanford University on Saturday, November 18, 2023.All copyright is reserved by the author, and this essay was reprinted here with permission. For similar commentary from Professor Kripal, see his How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), as well as his various previous books, more about which can be found at his website, www.jeffreyjkripal.com.
Beroemdheden die ufo's hebben gezien Sinds een Amerikaanse legerofficier beweerde dat de Amerikaanse regering buitenaardse ruimtevaartuigen en 'niet-menselijke biologische overblijfselen' heeft, is de wereld volop bezig met de vraag of er buitenaards leven onder ons is. Er zijn veel ufo-waarnemingen geweest, waaronder die van beroemdheden.
Opleving van de kwestie De verklaringen van voormalig luchtmachtofficier David Grusch over mogelijke 'ufo's' hebben veel opschudding veroorzaakt. Te midden van deze 'buitenaardse controverse' kunnen we melden dat er enkele beroemdheden zijn die zonder angst voor kritiek publiekelijk hun vermeende ervaringen met buitenaardse wezens hebben ged
Miley Cyrus werd achtervolgd door een ufo Miley Cyrus beweerde dat ze visueel contact had met een buitenaards wezen. "Ik reed met mijn vriend door San Bernardino en ik werd achtervolgd door een soort ufo. Ik weet vrij zeker wat ik zag (...). De beste manier om het te beschrijven is als een vliegende sneeuwschuiver. Het had een grote ploeg aan de voorkant en het was knalgeel. Ik zag het vliegen, mijn vriend en andere auto's op de weg stopten ook om te kijken, daarom geloof ik dat wat ik zag echt was...
Miley Cyrus: 'het keek me aan en we maakten oogcontact' "... Ik trilde de vijf daaropvolgende dagen. Ik was naar de klote. Ik kon niet meer op dezelfde manier naar de lucht kijken. Ik dacht dat ze misschien terug zouden komen. Ik voelde me niet bedreigd, maar ik zag een wezen vooraan het vliegende object zitten. Het keek me aan en we maakten oogcontact, en dat heeft me denk ik echt aangegrepen, het kijken in de ogen van iets wat ik niet kon begrijpen. Je hebt helemaal gelijk dat het een vorm van narcisme is om te denken dat wij de enige wezens zijn in dit enorme universum", vertelde Miley aan Rick Owens van het tijdschrift Interview.
Kurt Russell: getuige van de 'Phoenix Lights' Een van de meest iconische lichtgebeurtenissen aan de hemel zijn de zogenaamde 'Phoenix Lights'. Het waren 6 lichten die een driehoekige vorm hadden en werden gezien terwijl ze van Phoenix naar Tucson in Arizona (VS) vlogen eind jaren 90. Dit werd gemeld door meer dan 20.000 mensen, waaronder acteur en piloot Kurt Russell.
Kurt Russell: zag de lichten vanuit zijn vliegtuig "Ik zag (vanuit zijn vliegtuig) zes lichten boven het vliegveld in een duidelijke V-vorm en meldde ze aan de verkeerstoren. Ze vertelden me dat ze niets hadden gezien of zagen, waarop ik antwoordde dat ik het als ongeïdentificeerd zou verklaren. Het waren zes objecten en ze vlogen. Het is de meest geziene gebeurtenis wereldwijd", zei Russell in een interview.
Demi Lovato: op afstand blijven Demi Lovato zei in een interview met E! News dat ze in Californië een ervaring had met buitenaardse wezens die haar kijk op de wereld veranderde. "We gingen naar de woestijn in Joshua Tree en ik zag een blauwe bol op ongeveer 15 meter afstand, misschien minder, en het zweefde boven de grond, het was alsof het afstand van me hield", zo vertrouwde ze toe aan E! News.
Demi Lovato: een verandering in haar leven Maar dat was niet de enige keer dat ze zo'n ervaring had, want op haar 28e verjaardag zag ze ook al ufo's. "We keken naar de sterren en plotseling verscheen er iets recht boven ons in de lucht, enorme lichten die een soort vraagteken in de lucht vormden. Ik realiseerde me dat mijn leven waarschijnlijk op een spirituele manier zou gaan veranderen", aldus Demi.
Camila Cabello ontdekte ufo's in haar video's In 2022 zei Camila Cabello in een interview met Jimmy Fallon dat ze ufo's had gezien tijdens een familievakantie in Chili. "Ik was foto's en video's aan het maken van mijn ouders. Toen begon mijn vader door de foto's te bladeren en hij zag toen we deze clips vertraagden twee objecten. Serieus, ik vertraagde de video en ik denk dat we waarschijnlijk een ufo hebben vastgelegd," legde de zangeres uit.
Camila Cabello: 'de buitenaardse wezens vertrouwden mij' Camila aarzelde om de video die ze had gemaakt te laten zien: "Ik twijfelde echt om hem hier te laten zien, want als de buitenaardse wezens me vertrouwden, omdat ik daar was, wil ik niet dat ze denken dat ik ze nu uitbuit. Ik zweer het, het is geen vogel, het is ook geen stipje op de mobiele telefoon, want je kunt het duidelijk zien bewegen van achter de berg, heel dicht bij de camera. Ik denk echt dat de buitenaardse wezens mij vertrouwden op het moment dat ik dit vastlegde," zei ze.
Nick Jonas zag ufo's vanuit zijn tuin Nick Jonas beweerde dat hij drie ufo's heeft gezien. "Het was waarschijnlijk ongeveer acht jaar geleden, ik was in de achtertuin van mijn huis in Los Angeles. Ik keek omhoog in de lucht en zag drie vliegende schotels. Ik draaide me om naar mijn vriend en vroeg hem: 'Zie jij wat ik zie of word ik gek?' Ook hij zag wat ik zag," vertelde de zanger in 2015 in het programma 'This Morning'.
Nick Jonas: 'die lichten gaven me kippenvel' "Ik keek op internet en zag dat er twee weken eerder drie identieke waarnemingen waren geweest. Mijn vriend, ik en andere mensen uit Los Angeles zagen het allemaal. Die lichten gaven me kippenvel, maar op een goede manier", zei hij hierover.
Khloé Kardashian: een ufo die boven Californië vliegt Khloé Kardashian zei dat ze ooit vreemde lichten en een ufo boven Californië zag vliegen, waardoor ze zeker weet dat er leven is op andere planeten.
Khloé Kardashian: een buitenaards pad Bij een andere gelegenheid, als onderdeel van haar realityshow 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians', ging Khloé met Tristan Thompson naar een pad in Malibu, Californië, om 'buitenaardse wezens te gaan spotten'. "Malibu heeft veel ufo-waarnemingen aangetrokken. Toen ik op onderzoek uitging, ontdekte ik dit pad en dit pad zou verbazingwekkende buitenaardse energie hebben. Ik ben weer zo enthousiast. Wandelen, buitenaardse wezens, is er iets beters?", zei de socialite op dat moment erover.
Olivia Newton-John: verbazingwekkende snelheid Wijlen Olivia Newton-John zei dat ze als tiener een object zag dat met "verbazingwekkende snelheid" over de velden in Cambridge, Engeland vloog. Sindsdien geloofde ze in dergelijke gebeurtenissen.
Olivia Newton-John: mogelijkheid bestaan ufo's In een interview zei ze: "Tegenwoordig geloven de meeste mensen in Engeland in de mogelijkheid van het bestaan van ufo's. Hoeveel mensen zouden daar twintig jaar geleden aan gedacht hebben?"
Dan Aykroyd: onderzoek naar buitenaards leven Dan Aykroyd, vooral bekend door zijn optreden in de film 'Ghostbusters' (1984), heeft zijn hele carrière onderzoek gedaan naar het bestaan van buitenaards leven.
Fromsurveillance balloonsto metallic orbs, over the past few weeks it seems like bizarre objects are falling out the sky left, right and centre.
Scientists are able to debunk most of these instances, like how a blue spiral that appeared over Hawaii last month was actually just a SpaceX launch.
However, some of them still do not have a logical explanation to this day, including the apparent 'flying saucer' that flew over a school in Australia in 1966.
The silvery white webs that fell on the heads of local football fans from an egg-shaped craft in Italy in 1954 also remain a mystery.
MailOnline takes a closer look at the seven weirdest unidentified flying object - or UFO - sightings, that are still yet to be explained.
An apparent photograph of the supposed Westall UFO encounter where more than 200 students and teachers allegedly witnessed an unexplained flying object descend onto a nearby open wild grass field in 1966
1. The 'Flying Saucer' - Australia
On April 6 1966, at around 11am, over 300 students and teachers at Westall High School in Melbourne, Australia witnessed a 'flying saucer' hover above the grounds.
Children and staff were said to have seen a 'round humped object with a flat base being circled by what appeared to be light aircraft'.
It was described as grey or silver-grey in colour, but it was not known whether the UFO appeared high or low in the sky, or for how long it was seen by those at the school, according to reports at the time.
There was also confusion over whether there was just one UFO or several, as some people described seeing three saucer-like objects.
One newspaper report in the 1960s said that several children who saw the flying saucer 'collapsed and became ill with fright'.
'I saw a craft. A mechanical object intelligently controlled hovering above me,' Mr Andrew Greenwood - a science teacher at the time - told a 7NEWS Spotlight documentary in 2021.
During the 20 minute encounter, witnesses said that five planes came and surrounded the object, appearing to try and herd it up, before it flew away.
A newspaper clipping outlining what several witnesses at the school saw on that fateful day in 1966
2. Red and green lights - UK
In December 1980, sightings of unexplained red and green lights were reported by US Air Force personnel stationed near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, UK.
These occurred on three separate nights just before the New Year, saying that the lights were flying in the sky and descending into the woodland.
US Air Force officer Steve Longero broke a 36 year silence in December 2016, to reveal he also saw red and green fluorescent lights hovering over treetops.
The incident became a topic of fascination in the UK after a group of servicemen went into Rendlesham Forest to investigate the mysterious lights and came out convinced they had seen seen an alien spacecraft.
They said the SAS wanted to take revenge on the US Air Force for capturing a squad and subjecting them to a brutal interrogation.
The British Ministry of Defence said the apparent UFOs were likely to be caused by a series of nocturnal lights.
Staff Sergeant Jim Penniston sketched the craft he says he saw at the time of the incident
The incident became a topic of fascination in the UK after a group of servicemen went into Rendlesham Forest to investigate the mysterious lights and came out convinced they had seen seen an alien spacecraft
3. 'Phoenix Lights' - USA
UFO sightings are relatively common in Arizona ever since the 'Phoenix Lights' incident on the night of March 13 1997.
Five lights were seen flying in formation, either stationary or as part of a moving V-shaped aircraft.
They were reported by thousands of people between 7.30pm and 10.30pm.
Sightings came from a space of about 300 miles, from the Nevada border, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson.
At the time, the military said it was part of a routine flare exercise, but many believed there was more to it.
To date it is the largest mass-UFO sighting in the USA.
In 1996, five lights were seen flying in formation, either stationary or as part of a moving V-shaped aircraft. Image of the Phoenix Lights newspaper article from USA Today
NASA joins the hunt for UFOs with study into 'unidentified phenomena'
NASA is conducting its first ever study into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) - known popularly asUFO's.
These are events in the sky that cannot be absolutely identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena.
Scientists are looking at current data into UAPs, and establishing which sightings are naturally-occurring or not worth further investigation.
Understanding unidentified phenomena in the atmosphere is of interest for both national security and aircraft safety.
Forget VAR, on October 27 1954 it was a UFO that caused a commotion during a football match between Fiorentina and Pistoiese in Florence, Italy.
Just after half time, thousands of fans began pointing to the sky, prompting the players to stop the game at the Stadio Artemi Franchi.
While accounts vary, general consensus is that a round spacecraft moving over the pitch, dropping silver glitter or web-like filaments as it passed
Footballer Ardico Magnini described it as 'like an egg moving slowly', while another spectator compared its shape to a cigar.
Samples of the UFO's trail were analysed at the University of Florence and were found to be made of boron, silicon, calcium and magnesium.
This debunked the theory that they were the webs of migrating spiders, as they do not contain any of these elements.
5. Alien sightings - Zimbabwe
On September 16 1994, 62 pupils of Ariel Primary School, located just outside Ruwa in Zimbabwe, saw one or more silver craft descend from the sky and land on a nearby field.
These aliens then shared messages about environmentalism telepathically, warning humans not to destroy the planet.
The alleged incident lasted about 15 minutes while the children, all aged between six and 12, were outside on break, while their teachers were in a meeting.
Not all children at the school claim they saw something that day, but some of those who did maintain it is true.
Researchers traveled to the school where they asked the kids to draw what they'd seen 'while it was fresh in their minds'
As for the humanoids some claimed to see emerge from the craft, Hofer said that most of the students' descriptions were 'very consistent of a short-looking being' and 'a lot of them described very large eyes'
One told The Sunday Mail in 2021: 'The most difficult part is that, up until today, I cannot tell what that thing was.
'I do not believe in aliens or tikoloshes. It helps explain why some of us would not want to be associated with the events of that day.'
Both the headteacher at the time and Harvard University psychiatrist Dr John Mack interviewed the children who both say their accounts and drawings were consistent.
However, some sceptics have ruled the incident as one of mass hysteria, which studies have shown are common in schools in Africa.
6. Encounter on the moors - UK
On December 1 1987, a retired police officer claims he came into contact with an alien figure while walking on Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire.
The creature made a gesture at the man, who uses the pseudonym Philip Spencer, before it ran away after he tried to take a picture of it.
He then saw a white-coloured craft which consisted of two saucer-shaped components one on top of the other rise up and disappear into the sky.
Mr Spencer then claimed that the encounter had caused his compass to break, and that he mysteriously arrived back in town two hours later than he expected later on.
His photo was studied by experts and was found to not show an animal or any evidence it had been tampered with, but it was too grainy to know for sure.
However, details of Mr Spencer's account did change after a session of hypnotherapy, when he then claimed he was abducted.
He said he taken inside the UFO and given a tour, had experiments performed on him and was forced to watch videos of apocalyptic imagery before being returned to Earth.
Sceptics also wonder why he did not photograph the spaceship.
On December 1 1987, a retired police officer claims he came into contact with an alien figure while walking on Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire.
Pictured: Mr Spencer's photo
The creature made a gesture at the man, who uses the pseudonym Philip Spencer, before it ran away after he tried to take a picture of it.
Pictured: Mr Spencer's photo
His photo was studied by experts and was not found to show an animal or any evidence it had been tampered with. Pictured: Newspaper reporting the sighting at the time
7. Unexpected Arrival - USA
At about 4:14pm on November 7 2006, a ramp employee at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, USA spotted a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering in the sky.
The employee notified other members of the crew of United Airlines Flight 446, which they were preparing for departure, including pilots, airline management and mechanics.
A total of 12 staff confirmed the sighting, including some passengers on other flights arriving at the airport.
Witnesses said it was a dark grey, disc-shaped craft that was 'obviously not clouds'.
After hovering silently for about five minutes, it reportedly shot up into the sky at a high velocity, leaving a hole in the clouds that eventually closed over.
Air traffic controllers did not see the object, but a United Airlines supervisor did contact those in the tower to report the sighting.
As it was not picked up by RADAR the Federal Aviation Administration refused to investigate, and ruled it a 'weather phenomenon', like a hole-punch cloud.
At about 4:14pm on November 7 2006, a ramp employee at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, USA spotted a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering in the sky. Pictured: An image of the UFO taken on an airport employee's phone
A total of 12 staff confirmed the sighting, which they say was a disc-shaped craft that was 'obviously not clouds'. Pictured: An image of the UFO taken on an airport employee's phone
FAMOUS UK UFO SIGHTINGS
1980 - Rendlesham Forest:Sightings of unexplained lights were reported by United States Air Force personnel stationed near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk which became linked with claims of UFO landings
1977 - Broad Haven: A class of primary school pupils said they spotted a 'cigar-shaped' craft with a 'dome covering the middle third' near their playground, that was never debunked
1956 - Lakenheath-Bentwaters: A series of radar and visual contacts with UFOs over airbases in eastern England led to a report from the Codon Committee stating that the 'probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be fairly high'
2009 - Kim Wilde's encounter: The singer recounted on 'Loose Women' the time she saw an unfamiliar-looking light in the sky that darted back and forth while out in her garden. She credits the 'life-changing' experience for inspiring her album that followed
THE PENTAGON’S EX-UFO CHIEF IS BLAMING THE GOVERNMENT FOR CONSPIRACY THEORIES
THE PENTAGON’S EX-UFO CHIEF IS BLAMING THE GOVERNMENT FOR CONSPIRACY THEORIES
TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL!
Loose Lips
After leaving the government last month, the Pentagon's former UFO chief has had his fair share of media hits. And he's revealing more than he likely could've while still in the military's employ — but this latest one, we gotta admit, is a doozy.
In an interview with Politico, the former head of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), Sean Kirkpatrick, seemed mighty critical of his ex-employer when discussing the impenetrable institution's closed-off attitude.
The decorated military man — who now serves as the chief technology officer of the Oak Ridge Nuclear Laboratory and runs his own intelligence consulting business — thinks that the Department of Defense's secrecy leaves space for all manner of ills. Including, apparently, conspiracy theories.
"If there is a void in the information space," Kirkpatrick said, "it will be filled with the imagination of the public right and the conspiracies and these accusations."
This is not, it should be noted, the first time the onetime professional UFO-hunter has taken on conspiracy peddlers.
In an op-ed penned for Scientific American and published last month, Kirkpatrick accused so-called government whistleblowers of spreading outlandish claims about extraterrestrial corpses and alien technology being reverse-engineered for human ends. To his mind, those fairytales did little more than derail the AARO's work.
"Our efforts were ultimately overwhelmed by sensational but unsupported claims that ignored contradictory evidence yet captured the attention of policy makers and the public," Kirkpatrick wrote in his editorial, "driving legislative battles and dominating the public narrative."
Now, however, his accusations have shifted from a loose cabal of government-employed conspiracists to, well, the government itself.
In particular, Kirkpatrick believes that the Pentagon should be "more forceful" when explaining what the AARO does and why it's important. As he's saidrepeatedly, the office's mission was less to hunt for aliens and more to figure out what those unidentified flying objects really are. More often than not, as he told CNN's Philip Bergen for the "In the Room" podcast, the things people are seeing are secretive military crafts.
As it's become abundantly clear since he left his role as the AARO's inaugural director, the career military servant thinks dialogue and transparency between government and media is important — and as he indicated in his discussion with Politico, which came in response to the DOD's watchdog slammed the UFO office's efforts as "uncoordinated," his former employer does not agree.
"There was a very strong concern to engage in the public discourse as often as I thought we needed to," Kirkpatrick said. "The fact that [the Pentagon's leadership] can’t figure out how to get at that message without concern for spillage into other areas has always been a frustrating point."
If an ex-spook is sounding off about the government secrecy, you know the problem might be worth taking seriously — though there's little doubt his objections will make much of a difference now that he's out the door.
UFO sighting: US officials tried to stop Australians reporting chilling incident
UFO sighting: US officials tried to stop Australians reporting chilling incident
news.com.au
Australia has a long history of encounters with unexplained aerial objects, stretching from indigenous stories to modern mysteries. Are they aliens? Top-secret man-made machines? And why is discussion of UFOs seen as the preserve of crackpots and conspiracists? Celebrated journalist ROSS COULTHART probes the phenomenon both Down Under and overseas in his new book In Plain Sight – and in this edited extract demonstrates why it can be such a chilling topic.
Going way beyond conspiracy theories ... In Plain Sight by Ross Coulthart. Photo / Supplied
About 2.30 on a pitch-black morning on Australia's remote North West Cape, Annie Farinaccio walked out of a late-night party at the United States Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt.
It was late 1991, shortly before the US was due to hand over the site to Australia. The handover was happening amid mounting concern about the base's covert role as one of the cornerstones of America's submarine-launched nuclear missile defence. In the event of nuclear war, launch orders from the US would be sent out by the station's powerful transmitters to submarines across the adjacent Indian Ocean. Exmouth locals had no idea their sleepy town would likely be obliterated in a nuclear exchange; they just valued what the "Yanks" brought to the local economy in this isolated community and were sad to be seeing them go.
The party at the base that night was to farewell some American friends who were returning home because of the handover. But Annie had stayed too late and now, she realised, she had no way of getting home – the few local taxis in this remote part of Australia had stopped for the night. So when two Australian Federal Protective Service police officers, who she knew as Kevin and Alan, kindly offered to give her a ride back into Exmouth, 5km south, she gratefully accepted.
Credible witnesss. Annie Farinaccio describes to Ross Coulthart what she saw. Photo / Supplie
Annie squeezed in between the two men on the bench seat of their four-wheel Toyota drive security vehicle and the three set off for town.
A few minutes into the journey along the barren cape's empty coast road, Kevin looked up. "It's back. Grab the camera," Annie recalled him saying. Then Alan began to fire off photographs through the windscreen at something overhead that Annie could not yet see.
"Eventually, Kevin pulled my head forward. 'Look up!' he said. Then I saw it. A long diamond-shaped craft hovering overhead with the rear edge chopped off, rows of lights running towards the craft's tip. It was a dark grey colour but not as dark as the night sky. It was 100 feet above us at most. 'What the f**k is that?'" Annie asked.
The policemen told her they had no idea, but that the same object had followed them the previous night. The next minute, the craft shot straight up from the right-hand side of the moving vehicle, before dropping down almost instantaneously on the left hand-side of the car.
Annie screamed as they hurtled down the road, with the "craft" in apparent hot pursuit. It followed them along the road for 1km. Then it shot up into the sky and appeared to land in the scrub a few hundred metres off the road, a light now shining from underneath.
Kevin wanted to stop and take pictures of it on the ground, but, Annie says, "I was crying. 'This is crazy. Take me home'."
Scene of the mystery ... the area around Harold E. Holt base. Photo / Supplied
The two police officers agreed and drove as fast as they could to the edge of Exmouth, where they dropped Annie off before rushing back to get their pictures.
"I ran to my home on the other side of town, and I ran into the house and locked the doors. I was so freaked."
Today, Annie is in no doubt that what was hovering above them that night was a craft moving at incomprehensible speed. She does not care if people think her account sounds crazy. "It moved so fast my eyes couldn't follow it," she says. "We were all freaking out."
Two days later, two American military policemen walked into Annie's workplace in town and asked her to come with them. Legally, the US had no jurisdiction, but she went with them anyway. "I didn't at that stage relate it to what we saw," she says. "I thought I was in trouble for being on the base drinking at night."
The taciturn policemen drove Annie straight into what she knew was the top-secret section of the US base. "I'm mouthing off at this stage, saying, 'I must have done something really bad,'" she laughs.
Once inside, they led Annie into a room. Sitting in front of a group of Americans in uniform were the two police officers, Alan and Kevin. Annie knew most of the Americans on base but here she recognised only one – the American commander. The others had clearly flown in from somewhere else. There were also three or four men in civilian suits.
"I laughed at that" ... Annie says what she saw was no weather balloon. Photo / Supplied
"I felt pissed off at this stage. One guy did the talking. He asked me, 'What did you see?' I said, 'I saw a UFO'. They got me to draw it and asked me more questions about it. 'You do realise that what you saw was a weather balloon?' I laughed at that," Annie said. As a child, Annie had lived on a station outside Exmouth and her father frequently launched weather balloons. "Weather balloons don't look like what I saw," she recalled telling the man. "Then one of the APS policemen sitting next to me – they both had their heads down – said: 'Please shut up … Shut up before you get us all killed'."
The interrogation went on for a few hours. It was clear the two Australian policemen had been there a lot longer – they appeared scared and dejected from the hours of questioning. Annie admits that she arced up at the Americans for trying to bully her into saying what they wanted her to say.
Annie is an intelligent university graduate who previously ran her own businesses. At the time of the sighting, she was working at the nearby Roebourne Regional Prison, counselling prisoners to help them find work. Fair to say, she was not easily rattled. "I said to them, 'I don't give a shit what you say. It wasn't a weather balloon. It was a UFO. I'm not saying what you want me to say. I know I saw a UFO'."
Looking for evidence ... well-known journalist Ross Coulthart comes to some fascinating conclusions about UFOs in his book, arguing that governments are reluctant to share the truth. Photo / Supplied
The Americans clearly had no idea what to do with an uncooperative Australian local and, eventually, they took her home. The first thing Annie did was ring her cousin, who had long been inquisitive about what was really going on at the base. He drove to Exmouth and they both visited Alan at his home.
Alan admitted the photographs of "the craft" were printed at a printing shop inside the base and the two officers had shown them to colleagues. "Next thing, they were in custody. They searched the photo-machine, and they took his camera, the pics and the negatives," Annie says. Alan told her the photographs clearly showed an intelligently guided craft, not physically landed but hovering just above the ground. But, he said, every image he took was confiscated, along with his camera.
As Annie tells it, he was seriously rattled by the experience and told her and her cousin never to come back.
Annie's elderly mother in Exmouth also confirmed part of the story. She clearly remembers the two military policemen first came to the family home, so she directed them to Annie's workplace, where her colleagues watched her being escorted away.
Still no explanation ... this object was caught on camera by a Melbourne resident shortly before the mass sighting at Westall. Photo / Supplied
Annie knows her story sounds implausible, but she's adamant it's true. And she's not alone. Recorded sightings of strange objects in Antipodean skies can be found right back to the 19th-century period of early European settlement. For thousands of years before that, indigenous Australian Aboriginal rock art and dreamtime stories described the eerie alien faces of the Wandjina cloud and rain spirits, and also what are known today as the Min Min lights. Australia also has one of the most compelling UFO cases of all time, the Westall April 1966 mass UFO sighting, where more than 200 schoolchildren, teachers and locals in Victoria witnessed three metallic disc-shaped craft hovering over the school football field in broad daylight.
Witnesses to strange objects in our skies have told stories like Annie's for decades.
And yet they are rarely investigated or taken seriously by the press. The default position for mainstream media has long been to dismiss such accounts, even to ridicule them. After all, they sound wacky and, without official corroboration, such tales are most often spiked before the public gets to hear about them.
However, overwhelming evidence shows that many governments, including Australia's, take such unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings very seriously indeed. Across the world, declassified government reports and well-corroborated witness sightings show that military and intelligence services are well aware of a persistent pattern of strange unidentified objects seen at and around sensitive military facilities such as Australia's North West Cape naval communication station. Declassified files held in the Australian government's National Archives reveal that anomalous sightings of unexplained objects at North West Cape have been officially reported to the Australian Air Force for decades by soldiers, tourists, a senior American officer at the base, and a local fireman. Annette's disturbing sighting report is not an isolated incident at all. At the very least, it warrants further investigation.
But, as I have discovered, there is a huge disconnect between the public ridicule automatically directed at claims of unidentified aerial phenomena and the long-concealed secrets now emerging of a new reality.
More recent reports of UAP sightings are increasingly being verified on radar and other sensor systems, as well as photographed or videoed, and these events are often corroborated by multiple witnesses. The sightings also feature something that even the
US military now admits it cannot prosaically explain. In fact, US government and military insiders I have interviewed for this book admit they have knowledge of technology operating in our skies, oceans and orbit that far exceeds known human science. It often appears to be intelligently controlled, presenting to those who recorded it on video and tracked it on radar as a "craft" of some kind.
Like most journalists, I'm generally reluctant to believe in cover-ups or conspiracies. But I believe that governments are not telling the public the full story about UAPs. What are these "craft"? Is the extraterrestrial hypothesis, albeit confronting, even able to explain this high strangeness? And why are they hiding in plain sight?
Since the modern UFO craze started in the 1940s, there have been countless sightings, ranging from hoaxes to the unexplained.
(Getty: Bettmann)
Are we alone in the universe?
It's a question that humans have been asking for thousands of years, with cultures across the world long believing in life beyond the stars.
But recently, there's been a noticeable shift as discussions about UFOs (or unidentified flying objects) and extraterrestrial life have moved from outside the mainstream to inside the corridors of power.
Since 2022, UFOs — which are now commonly called UAPs (or unidentified anomalous phenomena) — have featured in US congressional hearings, and even NASA has weighed in.
So why is this subject now being taken seriously by some politicians and scientists?
Flying saucers
The modern UFO craze started in the 1940s.
World War II had just ended and the Cold War was imminent. New weapons were being developed by rival superpowers.
In June 1947, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw strange objects flying near Mount Rainier in the US state of Washington, and reported it to authorities and the press.
A journalist asked him to describe their movement, and he likened it to how a saucer might move if you skipped it across water.
"[This] very enterprising journalist knew a headline when he heard one, and called them 'flying saucers', and it stuck," Greg Eghigian, a professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, tells ABC RN's Rear Vision.
But in modern UFO lore, this was just a curtain-raiser.
In July 1947, a rancher found some odd-looking debris near Roswell, New Mexico.
Visitors to Roswell in New Mexico can see many UFO-themed attractions, like this UFO museum.(Wikimedia Commons: Jirka Matousek under Creative Commons 2.0)
He took it to the sheriff, who passed it onto the nearby Roswell Army Air Field base. Those at the base initially said it was a "flying disc", but the official line was then clarified and it was said that it was a weather balloon.
Confusion and fascination ensued.
The object was actually a "high-altitude surveillance balloon to look for Soviet nuclear tests in the atmosphere … [which] was a secret program", says Chris Impey, a university distinguished professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona.
"[But] this military officer [said] 'oh it's a flying saucer' and of course, then it's off to the races and now you have Roswell as the ground zero for UFOs."
US government concerns
Behind growing public excitement and fear about UFOs, the US government had some serious questions.
"There was this concern that American airspace was being trespassed [by a foreign adversary]," Professor Eghigian says.
From the 1940s until the 1960s, a series of US government programs were set up "to see whether or not this stuff represents a threat", he says.
By the time the final project ended in 1969, it had collected over 12,000 UFO reports. And while most of these were able to be explained, 701 of the reports were classified as "unidentified".
"[But] all of these projects came to the conclusion … that there is no evidence that these things represent any kind of national security threat," Professor Eghigian says.
Aliens!
As the US government was looking into UFO sightings, some members of the public became convinced they were evidence of extraterrestrial life.
UFOs and aliens burst into popular culture in the mid-20th century.(Getty: Buyenlarge)
Professor Eghigian says the work of author and former naval aviator Donald Keyhoe in the 1950s helped kick off the modern alien craze.
"Basically [Keyhoe wrote] that the conclusion that a lot of experts are reaching is that the only thing that could explain this phenomenon [of sightings] are extraterrestrials."
UFOs then took on an even more public dimension in the 1960s and 1970s.
There were alleged alien encounters, like the story of Betty and Barney Hill, who claimed to have been abducted in New Hampshire in 1961.
Even former US President Jimmy Carter claimed to have seen UFOs.
A secret government program
By the early 1990s, the Cold War was over. Fears of high-tech global conflicts dissipated and, with them, the UFO craze.
But there was one big exception: A US senator from Nevada named Harry Reid, who had "a fairly long-standing interest in things that were paranormal", Professor Eghigian says.
From 2007 to 2012, Mr Reid helped funnel millions of dollars in government funding into a secretive Pentagon project called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, to look into UFOs.
And, in 2017, it all came out and into the public eye.
The Pentagon ran a secret program looking into UFOs.(Reuters: Joshua Roberts)
The New York Times reported on "the Pentagon's mysterious UFO program", and featured video footage of unknown objects travelling in the sky.
"Up until that point, everybody had assumed that our government really wasn't engaged with this. Or if they were, it was very, very secret, and that we'd never find out about it," says Leslie Kean, one of the journalists who worked on the story.
Critically, the existence of this program was not proof of extraterrestrials or that aliens have visited Earth.
Instead, it showed the US government was taking the matter of unidentified objects seriously and was trying to work out what the objects were.
UAP footage released by the US Department of Defense(US Department of Defense)
"[But] nothing has been the same since — [the story] radically changed the landscape," Ms Kean says.
"Legislation was passed requiring that the intelligence community provide reports on this; they set up a task force to investigate UFOs," she says.
"It just kept building and building, and as of today, there have been three open congressional hearings dealing with this."
Notably, ever since then, US officials have been using the term UAP, a broader term and one which doesn't have the same baggage as "UFO".
Intact crafts and 'pilots'?
In 2023, David Grusch, who worked with the US's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, and who had been involved with UAP investigations, went public.
He was "a very highly respected intelligence official [who became] a whistleblower", Ms Kean says.
David Grusch at a hearing in the US Capitol, discussing UAPs with lawmakers.(Reuters: Elizabeth Frantz)
Mr Grusch spoke with Ms Kean in an article that included several big claims.
"He believed, based on what up to about 40 people told him, who are directly involved with this, that the [US] government had in its possession intact crafts and also partial crafts that had crashed or had been retrieved that were not made by human beings," Ms Kean says.
In sworn testimony to US Congress, he repeated some of his claims, including how he heard that there was "non-human" biological matter from the pilots of these crafts.
"It shifted the conversation from one where government officials were talking about UFOs … to one in which a government official was talking about UFOs and saying it's aliens," says Shane Harris, the intelligence and national security reporter at the Washington Post.
"[But] a number of lawmakers, I think, found this to be problematic," Mr Harris says, because his information was all second-hand.
Meanwhile, NASA has started to do its own investigations into UAPs and it released a report in September.
But those hoping for proof of other life forms would have been disappointed.
"We didn't learn very much. They definitely said we find no evidence of aliens visiting," Professor Impey says.
He says for many UAP sightings, NASA simply said the data was "not good enough" to make conclusions.
'Sit back and watch'
For Professor Eghigian, the renewed interest in UAPs is unsurprising.
Firstly, there have been huge developments in technology in recent years which make it easier for militaries and intelligence services "to detect unusual aerial activities that they might have missed in an earlier age".
"[Also] we've got to remember that the UFO phenomenon has always thrived in any environment"And of course, the pandemic did just that. It fed this widespread sense of uncertainty, a sense of powerlessness."
He says this environment helped "fuel some of those more dubious" voices within the "UFO-curious world".
But after the recent flurry of UAP excitement, Ms Kean is one of many who believes that the truth is out there.
"There are a lot of efforts underway to try to get to the bottom of this. And I just think we can sit back and watch. Hopefully, we're on a train that's not stopping."
Scientists believe they have discovered what the “foo fighter” UFOs actually were that sparked alien fears among pilots during World War 2.
The U.S. 415th Night Fighter Squadron was the first to describe a UFO as a foo fighter during the war and the term would go on to be used throughout the conflict.
In the January 15, 1945 edition of Time, numerous United States Air Force pilots reported “balls of fire” that they called foo fighters following them closely at high speed during the night for over a month.
Now, scientists at the University of California, the University of Arizona and and Harvard-Smithsonian believe they have finally figured out what these foo fighters actually were: plasmas in the thermosphere.
“These plasmas are electromagnetic entities that have a variety of shapes and sizes. They have repeatedly approached spacecraft and the space shuttles and are attracted to electromagnetic activity including thunderstorms,” said co-author of the study, Dr. Rudolph Schild, of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian.
“They have been filmed from space, descending into the lower atmosphere and appear to be attracted to airplanes, fighter jets, nuclear power plants, and ‘hot spots’ of radiation, such as Hiroshima, which was destroyed by an atomic bomb.
“Based on video, photographic and computerized analysis, including reports by military officers and astronauts, we believe these plasmas account for at least some of the numerous reports of UFOs and Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon over the last several thousand years including the ‘foo fighters’ observed by German, Japanese and Allied pilots during WWII.”
Plasmas are what causes lightning and the Northern Lights.
According to the Telegraph, Plasma-like entities “have numerous shapes, travel in different directions, with some moving quickly while others hover in place. They even appear to target or follow each other and sometimes collide, leaving what resembles a plasma-dust trail in their wake.”
Study co-author, Dr. Christopher Impey of the department of astronomy at the University of Arizona, said, “This does not mean these plasmas are alive, or engaging in intelligent purposeful behavior.”
However, some scientists believe plasmas may represent an alternate form of life that is not carbon-based.
The research team next hopes to launch satellites that generate electromagnetic pulses equipped with infrared and X-ray cameras so they can more closely study plasmas.
Government officials have spotted mysterious metallic orbs flying all around the world, in addition to many other types of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), according to the first public meeting of NASA’s UAP independent study team, which was held on Wednesday.
Speakers at the meeting emphasized the need to collect more high-quality UAP data and lamented the stigma surrounding this topic, which they said makes it less likely for people to report unidentified phenomena. Indeed, multiple speakers noted that members of NASA’s UAP study team have been subjected to harassment as a result of their work in this field.
“It is really disheartening to hear of the harassment that our panelists have faced online all because they're studying this topic,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, during the meeting. “NASA stands behind our panelists and we do not tolerate abuse. Harassment only leads to further stigmatization of the UAP field, significantly hindering scientific progress and discouraging others to study this important subject matter.”
NASA’s UAP study team was convened in 2022 with the mission of investigating the origin and nature of UAPs with rigorous scientific standards using mostly unclassified data. NASA and other agencies, such as the Pentagon, use the term UAP instead of the more widely known UFO, which stands for unidentified flying object, in part to expand the scope of these studies beyond the aerial domain to include unexplained phenomena in oceans, space, and on the ground.
The team is made up of 16 members with a range of backgrounds, including NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, oceanographer Paula Bontempi, and David Spergel, a Princeton astrophysicist who serves as the chair of the study. The livestreamed meeting on Wednesday offered a sneak peek of some of the major findings of the study, which will be released to the public in a full report later this summer.
The meeting included a presentation by Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the US Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), who shared tantalizing reports of unexplained metallic orbs seen at various locations on Earth.
The presentation followed up on Kirkpatrick’s appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee in April, where he initially described an image of one of these orbs that was taken by a U.S. military MQ-9 Reaper drone during a routine mission in the Middle East in 2022.
“This is a typical example of the thing that we see most of,” Kirkpatrick said during the Wednesday meeting. “We see these all over the world and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers. This one in particular, however, I would point out, demonstrated no enigmatic technical capabilities and was no threat to airborne safety.”
“While we are still looking at it, I don't have any more data other than that,” Kirkpatrick added. “Being able to come to some conclusion is going to take time, until we can get better resolved data on similar objects that we can then do a larger analysis on.”
Kirkpatrick also shared newly-released footage of UAPs spotted during an aircraft training mission in the Western United States that have been provisionally identified as commercial aircraft. He noted that AARO receives an average of 50 to 100 reports of UAPs per month, though sometimes that sightings spikes due to weird events, like the Chinese balloon incident in February or Starlink launches. Only about 2 to 5 percent of reported UAP sightings turn out to be “really anomalous,” Kirkpatrick said.
“The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO and in our holdings demonstrate mundane characteristics of readily explainable sources,” Kirkpatrick explained. “While a large number of cases in AARO’s holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases.”
“Meanwhile, for the few objects that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytical rigor,” he continued. “AARO has shared these cases with the appropriately cleared NASA team members in order to discuss and help recommend potential scientific areas of study that NASA may want to take lead on.”
To that point, many speakers at the meeting addressed the dire lack of high-quality data on UAPs, which has scuttled attempts to explain some of the most ambiguous sightings. The study team will include recommendations for collecting better data and building more efficient information-sharing systems in their report, which could help to finally solve many of the most perplexing UAP sightings—though at least some of the truth will likely remain out there.
“The current existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence about the nature and origin of every UAP event,” said study chair David Spergel during the meeting. “They're often uninformative due to lack of quality control and data curation. To understand UAP better, targeted data collection, thorough data curation, and robust analyses are needed. Such an approach will help to discern unexplained UAP sightings, but even then there's no guarantee that all sightings will be explained.”
On Wednesday, members of a NASA independent study team held a public briefing on its current efforts to categorize and evaluate data related to unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, in a meeting that included participation from DoD and FAA officials involved in similar efforts.
According to NASA, UAP can be defined as “observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective.”
During opening remarks at Wednesday’s event, Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said that the team updated its terminology to convey that UAP represented all-domain “anomalous” phenomena rather than merely aerial observations. However, Evans clarified that most of the data NASA has currently evaluated as part of its independent study still involves observations of aerial phenomena.
During opening remarks, Evans also expressed his displeasure “that several of the study members “have been subjected to online abuse due to their decision to participate on this panel.” Evans added that NASA’s security team “is actively addressing this issue.”
Speaking after Evans, NASA Associate Administrator Nikola Fox also addressed the harassment that several of NASA’s independent study team members have faced.
“NASA stands behind all panelists,” Fox said, “and we don’t tolerate abuse. Harassment only leads to further stigmatization of the UAP field.”
Following Evans and Fox, David Spergel of the Simons Foundation and Chair of NASA’s UAP independent study team discussed the necessity for obtaining better quality data.
“We need high-quality data,” Spergel said, addressing the often-sporadic data collection methods used to collect information on UAP, adding that most of the data that has been reviewed by NASA’s independent study team have not been collected using properly calibrated scientific instruments.
“We design our telescopes to work at night,” Spergel said, noting visual anomalies that arise from reflections and other optical issues that cause what astronomers call “ghosting.”
“Those kinds of anomalies degrade the quality of the data,” Spergel added, emphasizing the need for utilizing properly calibrated instrumentation in efforts to collect data on UAP.
Following Spergel, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), gave a short presentation on his office’s findings, noting that AARO is proud to work alongside NASA and its independent study “as the U.S. government moves toward greater transparency on this issue.”
Kirkpatrick said that only a small number of UAP incidents include objects that demonstrate anomalous characteristics, noting there were “no maritime reports and no space reports” in the current data shared by AARO.
However, Kirkpatrick shared several slides that included updated versions of those previously shared during a Senate hearing earlier this year, which conveyed AARO’s latest data on typically reported characteristics of UAP, as well as recommendations for NASA’s independent study.
Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) speaking during Wednesday’s NASA event
(Credit: NASA TV).
Kirkpatrick also addressed a video depicting a metallic orb filmed over the Middle East that was first revealed during the Senate session several weeks ago, noting that similar objects have been seen “all over the world,” adding that “we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers.”
Responding to a question from study member Nadia Drake about the number of reports currently in AARO’s collection, Kirkpatrick said, “We are now over 800,” noting that close to 100 new reports were obtained from recently acquired Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data on UAP.
In 2021, The Debrief was the first to report that the FAA was actively collecting information on UAP, which it had been providing to AARO’s predecessor agency, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). It is unclear whether this data had been provided directly to AARO or if Kirkpatrick and his Office had been required to request it from the agency.
Kirkpatrick added that “less than single-digit percentages of the total dataset” comprised those objects which AARO deems to be “possibly really anomalous,” comprising maybe 2-5 percent of the total numbers collected. Kirkpatrick added that the next annual report produced by his office is currently being completed and prepared for release later this year.
Echoing earlier statements from NASA’s independent study team members, Kirkpatrick said he and AARO staff have also been subjected to harassment.
“My team and I have also been subjected to lots of harassment,” Kirkpatrick said, “especially coming out of my last [Senate] hearing because people don’t understand the scientific method.”
“People want answers now,” Kirkpatrick said, which he said feeds the negative stigmas against UAP reporting and studies, emphasizing the importance of NASA serving as a leader in public scientific discussion of the phenomenon.
“NASA should lead the scientific discourse [on UAP],” Kirkpatrick said, adding that it represents “a hard target problem.”
During his presentation, Kirkpatrick characterized anomalous phenomena as “anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the sensor.”
Kirkpatrick said that within the last few days, the first “Five Eyes” meeting had been held with his Office on the topic, referencing cooperative efforts between the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States on UAP studies.
Following Kirkpatrick’s presentation, Mike Freie, Technical Advisor at the Air Traffic Surveillance Services Office with the FAA, spoke about his agency’s mission and data related to UAP that it collects.
Freie discussed the various types of surveillance systems the FAA uses, which include Cooperative Surveillance and Non-Cooperative Surveillance systems, the latter comprising short and long-range radar, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), and surface surveillance systems used in coverage of surface on approach and departure paths of aircraft.
Freie emphasized that no classified DOD systems or other sensitive information were utilized in the data he shared.
“There is a process by which air traffic controllers can report UAP sightings or events,” Freie said. “Historically, those have been in the range of 3-5 reports per month,” Freie said, noting that Starlink launches appear to have caused a recent uptick in reports by pilots. A similar rise in reports followed the appearance of a Chinese surveillance balloon that passed over the U.S. earlier this year.
“That’s 3-5 reports per month across the entire 14,000 controllers per month,” Freie also clarified, noting it was a “very small percentage.”
Freie said that data on UAP is retained for an undefined period of several months, likely in an unprocessed form.
Following a break for lunch, team member and science journalist Nadia Drake addressed the number of credible UAP sightings in recent years while also emphasizing the need for applying science toward the issue.
“There is no conclusive evidence suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for UAP,” Drake said, citing the necessity for additional scientific data before UAP can be characterized and their origins can be determined.
“In science, skepticism is not a bias, nor is it a bad word,” Drake added.
Paula Bontempi, Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, spoke about NASA’s focus on transparency, and the availability of information the agency produces, adding that NASA’s experience with long-term missions makes it well-equipped to study UAP.
Federica Bianco speaking during Wednesday’s live NASA event
(Credit: NASA TV).
Following Bontempi, Federica Bianco with the University of Delaware said that machine learning methods could be applied toward automation and retrieval of data to aid in the study of UAP.
“The current status of the UAP data… will make this really hard,” Bianco added while noting that NASA’s studies of UAP could nonetheless “be an opportunity to really increase the reach of science.”
David Grinspoon, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, addressed the potential relevance of several existing NASA efforts to the study of UAP, despite there being no evidence study members had found that could positively link such aerial phenomena with extraterrestrial technologies.
“Within the scientific community, there is a widespread, but by no means universal belief that there are extraterrestrial civilizations,” Grinspoon said. “The same rationale which supports the idea that ET civilizations may exist and may be detectable also supports the idea that finding extraterrestrial artifacts in our own solar system is at least plausible.”
“NASA is the lead agency for solar system exploration,” Grinspoon said. “It already has an active program of detecting objects in our solar neighborhood, using both ground-based and space-based facilities, and it could leverage those capabilities to search for objects in space with anomalous motion, anomalous trajectories, unusual light curves, anomalous spectral signatures, or other characteristics.”
“Most of the solar system has not been searched for artifacts and anomalies,” Grinspoon added. “These modest data analysis efforts could potentially be applied to existing and planned planetary missions.”
“If NASA applies the same rigorous methodology toward UAPs that it applies to the study of possible life elsewhere, then we stand to learn something new and interesting.”
“Whatever the ultimate explanation is of those phenomena,” Grinspoon said.
Karlin Toner, Senior Advisor in Data Policy Integration with the FAA, mirroring the statements of earlier speakers, noted the apparent stigmas against “reporting or even researching such phenomena.”
“That said, by encouraging military aviators to disclose anomalies that they’ve seen or detected, the DoD is receiving many more reports,” noting Dr. Kirkpatrick’s earlier mention of close to 800 reports in AARO’s current holdings.
“I would propose to this panel that NASA can help make it safer for researchers to explore data in the civil aerospace domain simply by starting that work internally,” Toner said.
Following Toner’s remarks, Joshua Semeter, Director of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University, said that cases involving infrared and other sensory detections of UAP collected with advanced tracking systems in use by the U.S. military allow for direct calculations of parameters that include altitude and velocity.
“This multi-sensor approach is absolutely critical to charting a path forward for UAP investigation,” Semeter said.
To illustrate this point, Semeter referenced one of three historic Navy UAP videos, popularly known as “Go Fast,” noting that information that included the elevation angle of the camera, azimuth angle, target range, and other relevant data are all featured on the screen. Based on such information, Semeter said the object in the footage was not moving as quickly as the footage seems to convey, a conclusion consistent with previous analysis of the footage that concluded the parallax effect could account for the apparent speed of the object.
Still frame from “Go Fast” footage, which conveys a slower-moving object which appears to be moving rapidly due to parallax effect
(Credit: DoD/US Navy).
Offering reflections from his experience in space, astronaut Scott Kelly noted that the space environment is “so conducive to optical illusions,” adding his own past experiences with observations that initially caused him to consider whether he had been observing unidentified objects.
Mike Gold, Former Associate Administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships, expressed his concerns about how NASA’s efforts to study UAP could be undermined if efforts to preserve the data it finds aren’t undertaken, despite the widespread public attention the subject receives.
“I’ve been a part of far too many panels and studies that end up sitting on the shelf,” Gold said.
“I don’t want this to be one of those exercises,” Gold added.
“I would call for and recommend a permanent office within NASA to support this activity, albeit likely a modest one, but to collate this information… to archive the information, and act as the open, forward-facing counterpart to Sean [Kirkpatrick] and AARO.”
“I don’t want all our work to end up being in vain,” Gold said.
In a portion of the session devoted to questions from the public, Daniel Evans addressed charges that NASA may not have been forthcoming with information it possessed about UAP and criticisms that included it may have “cut the feed” during live streams of space missions when unidentified objects appeared.
“I really want to assure the public that this agency is absolutely cast iron committed to openness and transparency and honesty,” Evans said. “And that commitment also extends to our live NASA TV feeds. They provide real-time footage from our various missions.”
“To my knowledge, NASA has never intentionally cut a live feed to hide anything, and that includes UAPs, of course. Sometimes there are interruptions to our feeds, but that is simply because space is a complex place. There’s a vast array of natural phenomena, human-made objects, and so forth.”
Evans called the agency’s commitment to openness and transparency “the hallmarks of NASA,” adding that such values are “why we’re here today in public, on TV. Because we want the public to have the opportunity to see the process of this committee doing its work in public.”
“It’s only right,” Evans said.
Asked if there had been any evidence NASA’s independent study had come across indicating that UAPs may result from non-human intelligence, Anamaria Berea, associate professor of Computational and Data Science at George Mason University, said that it was “not a question you can answer very quickly with yes or no.”
“As scientists, we follow the data; we formulate hypotheses; we test theories. We follow the scientific process. The role of this panel has been to create a roadmap and a framework for how all scientists that are interested in this phenomenon can further study,” Berea said.
“We cannot make that kind of extraordinary claim for any big subject in science,” she added. “This question of whether we are alone in the universe is probably one of the largest questions that we’ve had in our history of science [and] in our history of humanity. And it’s not one we can take lightly.”
“We hope that within our lifetime we will be able to answer this question of whether we are alone or not, and also to better characterize… UAP,” Berea said.
Building on Berea’s statements, as the Wednesday session concluded, David Spergel added that the question over the existence of extraterrestrial life strikes at the very core of NASA’s mission
“One of NASA’s big questions is, is there life out there?” Spergel said.
“A lot of what NASA is doing in its exploration of the solar system and beyond is focused on searching for life in any form.”
“Answering this question is one of the things that NASA as an agency is excited about,” Spergel said.
However, in summarizing Wednesday’s session, Spergel emphasized one overarching takeaway he has gleaned from the NASA independent UAP study team’s efforts.
“We need better data.”
A public report detailing the findings of NASA’s UAP study is expected to be made available by the end of July, Spergel said on Wednesday. Additional details about the study group’s efforts and its members can be found on its official page on NASA’s website.
After thePentagon‘s great UFO declassification and congressional hearings, NASA decided to hunt down the aliens. The agency possesses advanced technology on Planet Earth, exploring the possibility of transforming satellites into alien seekers to probe unexplained sightings without launching new equipment. The Galileo Project is designing a space mission to rendezvous with the next anomalous (Oumuamua-like) interstellar object that zooms into our solar system.
Is that the first time NASA became interested in alien civilizations? NASA whistleblowers, who claimed to have closely worked in some of the top missions, do not think so. Former NASA employee, Donna Hare reportedly saw a photo of a distinct UFO. Her colleague explained that it was his job to airbrush such evidence of UFOs out of photographs before they were released to the public.
On May 9, 2001, over twenty military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific witnesses came forward at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to establish the reality of UFOs or extraterrestrial vehicles, extraterrestrial life forms, and the resulting advanced energy and propulsion technologies. As part of the Disclosure Project, Donna Hare, a photographic scientist testified to have worked for NASA contactor Philco Ford in the early 1970s. She had a high-security clearance to walk in NASA’s photo lab and other departments.
During the Disclosure Project press conference, Hare revealed that NASA covered up and eliminated space anomalies such as UFOs from the satellite photos. Hare has got several awards in the space programs. She dedicated most of her time as a technical illustrator to space programs. She created lunar maps and landing slides and had been working for 15 years as a sub-contractor for NASA.
Donna Hare: Image credit: YouTube screencap
Hare claimed to have had access to a place known as “Building Eight,” from where she made contacts with high-ranking officials. Once, she walked into a restricted area which was NASA’s photo lab. She noticed the lab had photographs of the Moon taken from satellites. She was with a friend who pointed at one of the photographs and surprisingly, she saw a round white dot.
Below is the transcript of Hare’s part in the Disclosure Program (Full Video link here):
“Good morning everyone! My name is Donna Hare, and I worked at Philco Ford aerospace from 1967 to 1981. During that time, I was a design illustrator draftsman. I did the launch slides, landing slides, and also projected plotting boards lunar maps for NASA. We were a contractor but most of the time, I worked in Building 8. I had the opportunity to do extra work during downtime which was between missions, and I walked into a photo lab which was the NASA lab across the hallway. I had a secret clearance which is not that high but I was able to go into restricted areas.
At the time, I was talking to one of the techs in there and he drew my attention to a NASA photograph. It had a “Dot” on it, and I asked what it was. Well, he drew my attention to it and I said is that a dot on the emulsion? He was smiling and he had his hands crossed… This was an aerial photograph of the Earth, I’m assuming the Earth because it had pine trees on it and the shadows of the craft or whatever it was were at the same angle as the trees and by its very nature, a UFO. And I wanted to clarify that to the gentleman that was talking to me… So, I did not know what this was but I realized at this point that it’s very secret.
I asked him what he was gonna do with this piece of information. He said they always airbrush these out before they sell them to the public, so they’re pissed pesky little creatures appearing on this photograph they wanted to get rid of. After that, I decided I would ask questions to other people that worked there (away from the site and not on site).
A guard told me that he was asked to burn some photographs and not to look at them, and there was another guard guarding him who was in green fatigues watching him burn the photographs and he said he was too tempted he looked at one.
I knew someone in quarantine with the Apollo astronauts he told me that the Apollo astronauts saw crap on the moon when we landed. He said that the astronauts are told to keep this quiet.”
Hare was told by one of the sources that during one of the moon landings, three UFOs had landed. Subsequently, there was a codeword “Santa Claus” for these crafts. She said she would be willing to testify before Congress. (Source)
In 2000, Gary McKinnon, a British Hacker who got so fed up with the government hiding information related to UFOs and free energy that he decided to hack the most secured servers of NASA and the Pentagon. McKinnon said that he had seen real photographs of UFOs in computer files at the Johnson Space Center Building. He even took a screenshot of one of the cigar-shaped UFOs in-between space and the earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately, it was removed from his computer after being seized.
Below is the recreation of the famous ‘NOT MAN MADE’ craft that was seen by McKinnon when he hacked & accessed NASA computers. (Source)
Gary claims he discovered a satellite picture of a cigar-shaped alien craft with domes on the sides, like this artist’s impression credit: PROJECT8BALL
Is this another Chinese spy balloon moment? Famous 'cube in a sphere' UFO spotted at military bases along the East Coast may have been a high-tech ENEMY drone, says ex-Pentagon UFO investigator dubbed 'Dr. Evil'
Is this another Chinese spy balloon moment? Famous 'cube in a sphere' UFO spotted at military bases along the East Coast may have been a high-tech ENEMY drone, says ex-Pentagon UFO investigator dubbed 'Dr. Evil'
The Pentagon's first ever UFO boss pointed to a Chinese-made 'spherical' drone in an uncut version of his new interview, made available to DailyMail.com
Retired UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick was called 'Dr. Evil' for his laser research
ThePentagon's former UFO chief has revealed his conclusion to one of the most famous UFO cases of the modern era: the Navy's baffling 'cube in a sphere' UFO was just a super high-tech drone.
US Navy fighter pilots had reported seeing these other-worldly craft near the Atlantic coast between 2014 and 2015, which nearly tore the wing off an F/A-18 Super Hornet that was flying with the USS Roosevelt during one incident.
Now Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the Pentagon's recently retired UFO chief, says that the objects were likely 'next generation,' 'spherical' drones that move 'very accurately.'
While not confirmed, his description matches a drone-prototype made public by Chinese researchers in 2022 — a silver orb with eight thrusters configured at the tips of an internal cube, making it capable of unprecedented mid-air twists and turns.
The case highlights why UFOs must be taken seriously and not be subject to ridicule, Kirkpatrick suggested.
The Pentagon's departing UFO chief, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, cited public 'next generation' drone research by academics in Singapore in an effort to explain the Navy's 'cube in a sphere' UFO sightings. Above a 'SpICED (Cube)' drone prototype published by Chinese researchers in 2022
In an op-ed published by Scientific American last week, Dr. Kirkpatrick dismissed US Air Force veteran David Grusch as one of several 'conspiracy-minded 'whistleblowers'' on UFOs. He emphasized that the Pentagon's UFO mission should be focused on US foreign adversaries
DailyMail.com was given an early draft transcript of Dr. Kirkpatrick's appearance on Fresh Produce Media's 'In the Room with Peter Bergen,' in which the physicist delved deeper into the national security risk that has come from stigmatizing eyewitness reports of UFOs.
'That gap could potentially be exploited by somebody,' Dr. Kirkpatrick told Bergen, 'put a platform in [the] continental United States that nobody knew was there.'
A longtime laser physicist, Dr. Kirkpatrick's government service took him to the Air Force Research Laboratory, the CIA and a position at America's highly secretive spy satellite agency the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) before chasing UFOs.
The physicist's Air Force colleagues once nicknamed him 'Dr. Evil' after the laser-obsessed villain in the Austin Powers series of spy film spoofs.
'One of my going away presents, as I was leaving the National Reconnaissance Office,' Dr. Kirkpatrick told CNN national security reporter Peter Bergen, 'was one of my close colleagues gave me a shark with a laser pointer strapped to its head.'
Dr. Kirkpatrick headed up the Pentagon's then-brand new All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) from July 2022 until the end of December 2023, leveraging his scientific expertise toward the tricky task of investigating military UFO cases.
'This is a typical example of the thing that we see most of,' Dr. Kirkpatrick told the panel. 'We see these all over the world and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers.'
It's unclear just how similar these metallic orbs may be to the UFOs first brought to public attention by former Navy lieutenant and fighter pilot Ryan Graves, who described them to Congress as 'a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere.'
But Dr. Kirkpatrick told the podcast these otherworldly craft may very likely have been a foreign espionage platform.
'There's a large number of people, pilots, others, who have said, 'Hey, I saw this giant sphere. It had a cube in it,'' he said, ''I don't understand it. It must be an alien.''
Swiss-based drone maker Flyability has also been producing spherical 'gimbal' drones since at least 2015. Both Flyability and the Singapore-based makers of the SpICED drone cited collision safety as their reasoning for pursuing these aircraft's round designs - not airborne spying
DailyMail.com has been given an early draft transcript of Dr. Kirkpatrick's appearance on the 'In the Room with Peter Bergen' podcast (above) in which the physicist discussed 'spherical' drones made by researchers in Singapore, comparing them to the US Navy's UFO sightings
'Well, actually, no, there's a number of papers out,' Dr. Kirkpatrick continued in this early, uncut draft of his podcast interview with CNN analyst Peter Bergen.
'The most recent one was from, University of Singapore, I believe, where the next generation of drones that are being built are spherical.'
'They've taken about a two-meter size, inflatable, and they put a cube inside of it,' Dr. Kirkpatrick continued. 'And everywhere the corner of the cube touches the sphere, they've fused it, cut it out, and put little thrusters in.'
US Customs and Border Patrol, the agency responsible for keeping terrorists and weapons out of the country, uploaded 10 videos that appear to show craft moving in strange ways in our skies. The videos document a fighter jet pursued by an apparently baffling flying orb, as well as something that appears to be a propeller-powered hang-glider, and another apparent orb hovering near a parked 16-wheeler truck
'So, now I have eight thrusters. And I can put cameras on it and anything else I want,' the ex-AARO chief told Bergen.
'With eight thrusters in a cube configuration, I can maneuver this drone around very accurately.'
Scientists with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in China did, in fact, prototype a spherical drone along these lines, dubbed the 'Spherical Indoor Coandă Effect Drone (SpICED)' in a September 2022 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Drones.
The research team in Singapore noted that their new prototype, which benefited from an internal propulsion system with eight nozzles in a cube configuration, showed a promising 40 percent reduction in 'trajectory control error' during their test flights.
The SUTD's 'cube in a sphere' drone prototype, they wrote, proved to be more swiftly and accurately maneuverable than their past internal 'tetrahedron' configuration.
But the Chinese-made drone is not the only novel unmanned spherical craft in production: Swiss-based Flyability has been producing 'spherical' drones since at least 2015, when it won a $1 million competition in the United Arab Emirates.
The makers of Flyability's 'gimbal' drone and the SpICED balloon drone both cited collision safety as their reasoning for pursuing these unmanned aircrafts' round designs — not high maneuverability for clandestine spying.
But they are not the only actors pursuing this kind of aerospace research, according to AARO's departing director.
'They've tried these all over the place,' Dr. Kirkpatrick said.
'There are a number of advanced technologies that are being commercialized that people don't recognize,' he said. 'Why they go immediately to 'this is extraterrestrial' is another conversation.'
While playing a 2022 military UFO video taken by an MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Mid East, AARO director Dr. Kirkpatrick told NASA's UFO advisory panel last May, 'We see these ['metallic orbs'] all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers'
Speaking to Bergen's podcast, Dr. Kirkpatrick emphasized that he sees more terrestrial, counter-intelligence and defense-oriented tasks as AARO's primary reason for being.
'The office's mission is not to prove the existence of extraterrestrials,' he said.
'The office's mission is to minimize technical and intelligence surprise. That is the primary mission.'
The laser physicist noted that last February's Chinese spy balloon drama, when multiple objects were tracked and shot down within US and Canadian airspace, could be attributed to AARO's work focusing on anomalous aerial activities.
'Four major candidates' have been interviewed to replace Pentagon UFO boss, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick (above), an anonymous source told DailyMail.com, following heated public sparring between the former CIA physicist and UFO whistleblowers, who 'never did trust Sean,' according to one UFO whistleblower's attorney Daniel Sheehan
For years, national security reporters have speculated that the Navy's 'cube in a sphere' UFOs might be related to a 1949 patent for an 'airborne radar reflector' (schematic above) filed with the US Patent and Trade Office by Washington DC resident Leon Chromak
In the past, Dr. Kirkpatrick said, 'in the long list of things that they need to be paying attention to, this one was at the bottom of that list.'
'So, there is a gap — and no one fully, I think, appreciated until the last few years that that gap could potentially be exploited by somebody,' he explained, 'put a platform in, you know, [the] continental United States that nobody knew was there.'
But Dr. Kirkpatrick's terrestrial approach during his 18-month tenure at AARO has not been without its critics — particularly over his very public disagreements with UFO whistleblower and fellow NRO veteran David Grusch.
Dr. Kirkpatrick expanded his own criticisms of Grusch in his new interview with Bergen, describing him as someone who had 'fallen to the influence' of UFO 'True Believers' within the US military and private defense contractor Bigelow Aerospace, which investigated UFO cases on contract for the Pentagon from 2007 to 2012.
In a new op-ed published by Scientific American last week, Dr. Kirkpatrick further dismissed Grusch as one of several 'conspiracy-minded 'whistleblowers.''
Daniel Sheehan, the Harvard-trained lawyer who represented UFO whistleblower Luis Elizondo in his complaint to the Pentagon's Inspector General, said last year to DailyMail.com, 'really knowledgeable' UFO whistleblowers 'never did trust Sean.'
Instead, 'what they were doing is they were going straight through to the Senate Intelligence Committee,' Sheehan said.
Scientists with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in China, published their prototype spherical drone (above) in a Sept. 2022 issue of the journal Drones. The cube configuration, they wrote, showed a 40 percent reduction in 'trajectory control error'
Swiss-based Flyability entered their own spherical drone (above) into a contest launched by the Prime Minister's Office of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE competition was billed as the 'World Cup of Drones,' with over 800 submitted entries from 57 countries
Flyability won $1 million in the UAE's 'Drones for Good' competition in 2015 for their 'gimbal'
In portions of Dr. Kirkpatrick's new podcast interview, which appear to have been cut before air, the retired government scientist commented that AARO's benefit to the US Intelligence Community (IC) was its latitude to conduct domestic surveillance 'We filled a gap,' he said
In portions of Dr. Kirkpatrick's podcast interview — which appear to have been cut before air — the retired government scientist commented that AARO's benefit to the US Intelligence Community (IC) was its latitude to conduct domestic surveillance.
'We filled a gap,' Dr. Kirkpatrick said. 'The intelligence community is prohibited by law from observing [the] continental United States, right?'
'And so, the only people that actually have authority to do that, really, are FBI, Homeland Security, [and] a few other counter-intelligence elements across the IC,' he noted, 'but that's pretty much it.'
'No one fully, I think, appreciated until the last few years that that gap could potentially be exploited by somebody [...] And that's where you ended up with Chinese balloons,' he said.
When DailyMail.com reached out to Peter Bergen and a spokesperson for his podcast, the spokesperson noted that, based on conversations with the 'In the Room' team, 'those excerpts were cut for time.'
'Episodes generally don't go over 45 minutes,' they said.
On the night of March 13, 1997, the people of the United States witnessed one of the largest and best-known UFO sightings in history. The UAP phenomenon was observed in the skies over the southwestern states of Arizona and Nevada and the Mexican state of Sonora. According to a Rocky Mountain Poll conducted at the time, as well as the commotion that ensued, around 10% of Arizonans claimed to have witnessed the incident that is now known as “The Phoenix Lights.”
One of the eyewitnesses named Richard Curtis from Arizona, claiming to have solid evidence of the incident, contacted local Councilwoman Frances Barwood. He vanished following an encounter with MIB and a media revelation.
Frances Barwood, a member of the city council, opened an investigation into the incident. Since the military and local authorities had already managed to claim that the lights seen by the eyewitnesses were only flares, her coworkers thought her behavior was ludicrous.
Barwood received a call from Richard Curtis a few months later. He said right away that he had extremely detailed footage of the Phoenix Lights despite being an injured former soldier. He claimed that had personally captured them using high-quality equipment.
“He said you could see the shape. He said you could see how big it was in comparison to the surrounding buildings and everything. He described that the lights were gaseous. He was so excited that he had gotten all this on video,” Barwood recalled him telling her. Additionally, Curtis admitted to Barwood that he had no idea who else to call and that he trusted her.
A drawing of the object created by witness Tim Ley appeared in USA Today. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Since the majority of the Phoenix Lights video footage up until this point had been merely specks of light on a dark background, Barwood was intrigued by this message. Curtis agreed to provide copies of the footage to Barwood’s office after she urged him to do so. However, days passed, and she did not receive films either by mail or by courier. “I thought he made this up. He didn’t have video, you know, all this stuff,” she said.
A week later, Curtis telephoned Barwood at her house and inquired about her thoughts on the films. Barwood informed him that she had not received them and expressed her amazement. Curtis continued by telling her that following their phone call, two men from her workplace stopped up at his home. The two “similar-looking” individuals were fully covered in black (three-piece black suits, black shoes, black hats, black suitcases, etc.). The men were not dressed in jackets or other gear, even though it was fairly chilly outside. It struck Curtis as weird.
Richard Curtis
He asked the men if they were from Barwood’s office and they confirmed it. Then they inquired about the Phoenix Lights videos, specifically to find out if Curtis had copied them. They responded that they would make copies for him themselves when he said he had not been able to. Curtis then handed them his videos and the two men left his house in a black sedan.
Barwood informed Curtis that she had no men in her office and that all of her staff were female. “I had no idea who these guys were. It sounds so bizarre. Nothing made sense to me,” Barwood recalled thinking. All of this infuriated Richard Curtis, who concluded that the authorities had misled him. In an interview with Phoenix TV, he discussed everything that had happened, including the “Men in Black” visit and that they took his videos.
And shortly after that, when Barwood tried to call Curtis, she discovered that he was not answering. When she got to his apartment, he was not there, but the neighbors informed her that Curtis had supposedly taken a faulty medication and had been transported by ambulance to the hospital. There were no records of Curtis ever being admitted to any Phoenix-area hospitals when Barwood started looking for him there.
Barwood made the decision to have her phone lines checked by a professional when she questioned how the odd men even knew about the tapes. He visited her house and conducted his tests there. After that, he went outdoors. “He wouldn’t come back in the house. He came to the backdoor and said, “No, I’m not coming in. Yes, your phone is tapped, it’s a government tap,” she said.
Phoenix city councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood sits in her north Phoenix home with a copy of The Arizona Republic which touts “UFO Mania” on its front page June 20, 1997. Barwood didn’t see the lights, but many people called her about them demanding an explanation. (AP Photo/Scott Troyanos, File)
Since the military and authorities insisted that the Phoenix Lights were nothing more than flares, Barwood was astounded to learn that someone in the US government had tapped her phones. Richard Curtis vanished without a trace.
It became a worldwide sensation throughout the course of the subsequent months. It was “the second biggest case in UFOlogy after Roswell,” according to the late Art Bell, host of the syndicated paranormal radio program Coast to Coast AM.
The bizarre light show, according to skeptics, was caused by man-made aircraft from Glendale’s Luke Air Force Base or other neighboring military installations conducting training drills. The Phoenix Lights, according to UFOlogists, were not of this world.
Below you can find a transcript from a FOX10 NEWS (Phoenix Lights) reported by Jim Schnabel: (Source)
Voiceover: Months after this (March 13) sighting there are many questions regarding the strange lights over Phoenix. Is this a solid craft, or merely lights in an empty sky? What could be the conclusive evidence is now mysteriously missing. Richard Curtis claims his home video is proof that this sighting was a huge flying craft. And he claims his video shows a solid object in the sky passing over his home.
Curtis: I saw the bottom part (of the craft) as it went over Phoenix, because the lights lit the bottom of it, and it partially blocked out the clouds and the stars. : voiceover: Curtis called city councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood, wanting to show her the footage. : (on screen: cut to a headshot of Barwood)
Barwood: He said he had it on two videotapes, and would I like them, so I said, “Of course I would.”, and could he give me copies of them. He said he would. I told him how to get them to my office and to mark them ‘personal and confidential’.
Voiceover:But before Curtis could send copies to Barwood, he’s paid a visit by two mysterious men in black. : Curtis:(voiced over MIB reenactments) They were dressed in black suits, with black hats and sunglasses. They asked me if I had tapes for councilwoman Barwood, and I said “Yah, they’re laying right here”. They said, “We’ve stopped by to pick them up.” So I said, “Great!” and just handed (the original tapes) to them.
Barwood: I didn’t get them, and I have no idea who these two men were since I have just females working in my office. It’s absolutely puzzling to me.
Voiceover:Did the tapes ever exist, and if so were they proof of more than “lights” in the sky? And who were these mysterious Men in Black who allegedly took them?
Curtis (voiced over): I think someone listened in on that phone call and wanted those tapes.
Barwood (voiced over): I can’t explain it. It’s just eerie. Voiceover: The mystery continues.
Ufology: Why Scientists Are Finally Turning UFO Sightings Into Serious Research
Ufology: Why Scientists Are Finally Turning UFO Sightings Into Serious Research
For decades, academic researchers have dismissed the study of UFOs as pseudoscience. But as the evidence becomes harder and harder to ignore, some organizations are taking steps to make the field legitimate.
For as long as humans have claimed they’ve seen UFOs—and it’s been a long, long time—the established scientific community has more or less considered them to be nonsense. While that hasn’t changed much, even as we’re in the midst of a modern ufological renaissance, some renegade scientists are fighting to bring academic rigor toUFO research.
Take Richard Hoffman, an information technology expert with over 25 years of experience, formerly contracted with the U.S. Army’s Materiel Command at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. As a senior lead architect, he kept the Army’s digital infrastructure running and safe from attack.
He’s also a UFO researcher.
“The scientific community still has to deal with the decades of stigma associated with what they see as pseudoscience or fringe science,” Hoffman tells Popular Mechanics. “Many scientists do have interests in the phenomena, but are most often discouraged by others to embrace it so they hide it.”
Hoffman is one of three executive board members who run a nonprofit scientific organization known as the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU).
✅ Unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) is the current rebranding of unidentified flying objects (UFO), a term that many believe to carry too much cultural baggage.
“There are very few UFO organizations remaining today,” Hoffman says. “Of the few that do remain, they each have their unique contributions to the phenomena, but most are in data collection roles versus long-term scientific study of cases.”
The difference with the SCU—and it’s a big one—is that it collects data that can be analyzed and studied by scientific experts, subsequently generating peer-reviewed papers published in journals and on websites, says Hoffman. The SCU doesn’t collect day-to-day UAP sighting reports, but rather digs into the more complex cases where multiple sensory data, like radar tracks and video, may exist.
Getty Images
An Objective of Legitimacy
The SCU played a significant role in studying the 2004 Nimitz UFO Encounter, when the organization released a nearly 300-page report on the incident. In 2017, the story hit the mainstream when the New York Times published a groundbreaking story about the Navy pilots who intercepted a strange object off the coast of San Diego in November 2004, and captured video of the object with their F-18’s gun camera.
In 2019, Popular Mechanics published a story about several other military personnel who also witnessed the Nimitz encounter on their radar systems and over their ship’s video system.
The SCU paper examined the available public data and testimony regarding the case, concluding that the “results suggest that given the available information, the AAV’s capabilities are beyond any known technology.”
To be clear, the SCU hasn’t concluded that some non-human intelligence is responsible. Fully aware of the significant gaps in data, the organization has suggested that “the public release of all Navy records associated with this incident to enable a full, scientific and open investigation is strongly recommended.”
The UFO research community is used to having scant data on UFO incidents; the vast majority of cases are purely anecdotal. When physical evidence or data is available, the well-established ufological conspiracy and myth-making machines begin to put that data into jeopardy.
“To date, there hasn’t been an extensive and well-funded scientific investigation of these phenomena using state-of-the-art investigative tools and a dedicated investigative team,” Robert Powell, an SCU executive board member and device physics expert, tells Popular Mechanics. The SCU is aiming to change that. Membership in the organization requires a resume submission, and a committee meets to thoroughly vet each new member.
So who makes up the 120+ members of the SCU, exactly? Mostly scientists, former military officers, and former law enforcement personnel with technical experience and investigative backgrounds, Powell says. While SCU encourages all UAP scientists to publish their work through peer-reviewed journals, and SCU members have been authors in peer-reviewed journals, a stigma still exists about UAP research. “This prevents quality papers from being published in mainstream journals simply because the topic is UAP. Therefore, SCU also provides a peer-review process for UAP papers submitted to SCU for publication,” Powell says.
To begin bridging the gap between the UFO research community and the scientific community, the SCU formed its own open-access peer-reviewed academic journal, Limina. “Anyone wishing to submit a paper to the journal should contact SCU,” Powell says.
Bettmann//Getty Images
Fighting the Stigma
Yet for all the promising progress, the SCU and similar organizations are still facing an uphill battle. The decades-long taboo surrounding UFOs and their study is thoroughly entrenched in established scientific and academic communities. They are, in essence, a dirty subject that can kill a professional career.
In 1953, the Robertson Panel was formed to look at UFO reports at the behest of the government due to a string of odd aerial objects being spotted over Washington, D.C. the previous year. The panel concluded in its classified report that UFOs posed no risk to national security, and proposed that the National Security Council actively debunk UFO reports with the intention to ideologically inoculate the public to ensure UFOs would become the subject of ridicule. The Panel even recommended that UFO investigative and research groups be monitored by intelligence agencies for subversive activity.
Seventeen years later, the infamous Condon Report, which was a product of the U.S. Air Force and the University of Colorado, was responsible for the death of the Air Force’s UFO study, Project Blue Book. The report became embroiled in controversy when a memorandum was released, explaining that the report itself had to “trick” the public into thinking the study was objective, but would ensure that the final and official position is that all UFO incidents were hoaxes, delusion, and human error.
“The wind is changing on this, just like it is on a lot of things.”
Officially, UFOs became the subject of ridicule. Tie that in with the rise of new-age UFO prophets and cults, stories of space men from Venus, alien bases in Antarctica, and the merging of UFO and conspiracy cultures, and those who used empirical data or maintained a rational and logical research approach became lumped into the same subculture as people claiming to be alien channelers or time-traveling alien ambassadors who often use people’s gullibility to earn a living.
It’s no wonder academics, professionals, and scientists publicly shy away from the subject. In research for this article, one physicist from a university in New York expressed their discomfort and asked that their name not be used because they were still trying to get tenure.
“I don’t get the sense the scientific community is any more interested or open than it was before,” Alexander Wendt, Ph.D., a political science professor at the Ohio State University, tells Popular Mechanics. “But what has changed, I think, is the politics. I think that the wind is changing on this, just like it is on a lot of things. And it’s probably young people in particular who are driving the change and are more open.”
Geography Photos//Getty Images
Forging a Scientific Future
Wendt, who has done academic work on the UFO question and presented a lecture at TEDx Columbus on the science of UFOs, sits on the board of UFOData, a project designed to create high-tech observation systems to monitor the skies and track anomalous phenomena. He knows that the taboo exists surrounding UFO research, and getting any grant money to study UFOs is still practically impossible. According to Wendt, neither the government nor any established scientific organizations are going to fund UFO research. The solution seems to be crowdfunding or finding private donors who will invest in these projects.
UFOData isn’t the only group engaged in observational studies. For three decades, Project Hessdalen, a small observatory station that monitors a valley in Norway subject to strange light phenomena, has been jointly funded by the Østfold University College and personal donations. Another organization, the UFO Data Acquisition Project (UFODAP), is also building small computer units designed to monitor and track aerial oddities. Using multiple sensors, the UFO Data Acquisition Unit is designed to record and track UAP, as well as provide metadata which can be analyzed.
Hoffman recognizes that contemporary ufology still makes academics and scientists nervous. Even with the 2019 Navy announcement that UAPs do violate American airspace and that the Pentagon was running the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, people are starting to ask more questions and some scientists are starting to participate.
“We are encouraged by this and believe it will continue to advance, however, the UFO community itself is composed of factions which continue to make scientists cringe,” Hoffman says. “SCU is attempting to support scientists and serious researchers by focusing on what science can do to advance their interests. They see us as being a safe place where conspiracy theories are non-existent and scientific methodologies win.”
So while the existence of UFOs is no longer up for debate, their source very much is. The UFO community has always been comprised of cultural and social renegades who haunt the fringes of mainstream culture, subjects of ridicule more than respect. While some still smirk at the thought of anomalous aerial objects occupying our skies, the information slowly coming out into the public domain is starting to prove that these objects may not be a laughing matter.
Whether the source of some of these data-rich UFO incidents is secret government technology, an alien nonhuman intelligence, or something fundamentally beyond our physical and philosophical understanding, we’re left to wonder, as countless thinkers and, yes, even scientists, have before: “What if?”
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on July 2, 2020.
ON APRIL 17, 2013, attendees at an independently organized TEDx event in Geneva, Switzerland, were offered a glimpse at a seemingly impossible future.
Presented under the theme of “eCulture 360° and Wikinomics”, the event offered something unique even to a gathering of some of the most renowned international speakers on science and technology: the organizers billed it as a “TEDx with the opportunity to meet Jacques Vallée, one of the founder[s] of ARPANET, the first version of the Internet.”
Vallée’s lecture at the event, titled “The Age of Impossible: Anticipating Discontinuous Futures,” dealt with how the speed at which modern technology accelerates has resulted in events that would have seemed impossible to many people only years before they transpired. With examples ranging from the collapse of General Motors in 2009 to Bernie Madoff’s role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Vallee presented what he called a “Typology of the Impossible” that hinged on four main kinds of scenarios: events that escalated too quickly, convergences of “low-p scenarios,” events that appear to violate current cultural norms, and finally, scenarios that involve the appearance of a “completely alien concept within a particular culture.”
“There are many things in our culture today that fit that model,” Vallée said at one point during the talk, as he described historical instances where things that seemed unimaginable at one time later became technological norms. Such things, Vallee said, “are possible, but we cannot imagine them. The public is not aware that they can be done. History provides many examples, and the internet itself is an example of something that was unimaginable.”
After discussing his own part in helping create ARPANET, Vallée went on to share several more examples from recent history where unforeseen scientific advancements occurred, seemingly out of the blue.
“And finally,” the scientist said, never evincing a change in his measured tone and demeanor, “the Pentagon could not imagine that fast, erratic, mobile, oval objects in the sky were anything other than mental illusions, and they…” After a brief pause, Vallée cryptically added, “and you can fill out the answers in the next few years.”
Despite his success as a venture capitalist and “co-creator of the Internet”, most of the attendees at the 2013 TEDx event in Geneva were likely aware of what Vallée is best known for: his decades of involvement with the study of unidentified aerial phenomena. As a young computer scientist and astronomer in the 1960s, Vallee not only worked alongside Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Hynek, the official scientific advisor to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book but also authored Anatomy of a Phenomenon, one of the earliest popular books written on the UFO subject by a professional scientist. Though he never uttered any of the popular names or abbreviations for the phenomenon, it was obvious what Vallee had been alluding to during this brief, passing reference to “oval objects” during his talk.
At least at that time, what had not been so obvious had been why Vallée specifically referenced the Pentagon’s relationship to UAP, nor why a series of seemingly impossible future events might come to pass involving this subject “in the next few years.”
THE CALL FROM DR. VALLÉE came through earlier than I expected.
The scientist’s voice, softened by age yet still resonant with the French he learned as a youth in Pontoise before emigrating to America many decades ago, was unmistakable to me, having heard it in many interviews and documentaries over the years. Vallée, now 83, is a man whose work in the study of unidentified aerial phenomena is only one finger on the glove of his impressive resume, spanning decades of work in astronomy, physics, computer science, and venture capitalism.
As evidenced by his billing at the TEDx event in 2013, one could indeed argue that Vallée is partly responsible for the creation of the Internet, although the affable Frenchman is modest on this point, nearly to a fault. This much was evident almost immediately as we began our discussion, and I wasted no time in bringing up the talk in Geneva and some of the intriguing hints he had dropped at that time.
“I’ve seen the development and the unfolding of a number of technologies,” Vallée told me during our call. “Very often what happens is that a discovery is made, and everyone agrees that it is important, and people write papers, and so on. And then it disappears.”
Vallée with collaborator and fellow author Chris Aubeck (Credit: Chris Aubeck)
Don’t miss Jacques Vallée’s recent interview on Rebelliously Curious with Chrissy Newton over on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel, and linked at the end of this article.
“You know, the Arpanet was essentially dead for a while,” Vallée recalls from his years working on the project decades ago. “Until [the] National Science Foundation picked up the funding, thinking that there would be several internets.” Initially a simple matter of accounting, the NSF initially believed it would be easier to fund three separate projects that looked at using networks through which computers could connect for purposes of communication.
“And then they picked it up from the DOD, and it became the Internet, as we know it now.”
Vallée offered several similar examples of predecessors to the Internet—not all of them American innovations—a point which Vallée emphasized as he shifted back to our subject of greater mutual interest: UAP.
“When I watched the meetings in Congress recently, all they talk about is American cases,” Vallee said. “And among American cases, all they talk about is military cases.”
“I can tell you, having developed a lot of databases over the years, the U.S. is less than 2% of the habitable surface of the Earth,” Vallée said.
“So, if this is extraterrestrial, what about the other 98%?”
THE PATH THAT BROUGHT
Vallée into the tempest that is the study of unidentified aerial phenomena is a long one, which stems back to his early years in Pontoise at an age when the world was still at war.
“There are things you don’t forget,” Vallée said during our call, describing his memories of seeing American aircraft being shot down over his town when he was five years old.
“I remember seeing the crew dropping out in parachutes and the Germans shooting at them.”
By 1945, the war had ended, although fears of a return to conflict lingered throughout parts of Europe. To the north, reports of ghostly “rockets” over countries like Sweden in the summer of 1946 kept many guessing whether the Soviets were conducting tests, perhaps with a form of secret new aerial weapon they had captured from the Germans. The following year, an all-new kind of paranoia would erupt across the Atlantic, as American newspapers were flooded with stories of “flying saucers” seen careening through the skies, especially in airspace around sites of importance to U.S. national security.
By the Autumn of 1954, as the wave of sightings of strange objects was cresting over North America, France was having its own torrent of reports of similar phenomena. Major newspapers like L’Aurore and France-Soir were carrying stories about unidentified flying objects almost daily, and Vallée began collecting clippings of stories like those of Marius Dewilde, a railroad worker who described his observation of a pair of diminutive “robots” next to a dark machine resting on the train tracks.
The reports seemed incredible, and very well might have remained so had it not been for what occurred the following year in May 1955, when Vallée had his own sighting.
“My mother saw it first,” he would later recall of the incident. She had been working in the garden when Vallée, sixteen at the time, heard her screaming for him and his father. Vallée made his way from the attic where his father’s woodworking shop was located, and down three flights of stairs just in time to observe a metallic disc-shaped object “with a clear bubble on top” as it hovered over the nearby church of Saint-Maclou.
A modern view of Pontoise with the Cathédrale Saint-Maclou visible in the distance (Credit: Rozinante/CC BY-SA 4.0).
The object reminded them of the parachutists the family had watched descending from the skies during the war. His mother, who continued watching it, recalled how it sped away, leaving only a few wisps of white vapor where the object had been. Vallée would later learn that a schoolmate nearby had also noticed the object, observing it through binoculars.
Despite his father’s disapproval, Vallée maintained his interest in these unusual aerial objects. “I realized,” he would later write in his journal, “that I would forever be ashamed of the human race if we simply ignored ‘their’ presence.” The young Frenchman began to educate himself on the topic by reading the works of Aimé Michel, one of the earliest serious French researchers to undertake the study of unusual aerial phenomena. It was an interest he maintained through his college years, completing his degree in mathematics at the University of Paris in 1959 and going on to receive his M.S. from the University of Lille Nord de France two years later. By 1961, Vallée was employed at the Paris Observatory as an astronomer with its artificial satellite service, tracking space objects through theodolites by night.
“Naively, I started work here with great enthusiasm, assuming that we would be engaged in genuine research,” Vallée would recall of his years at the observatory. “That is not what I found.” In July of 1961, he and the other astronomers recalled a few instances where they observed objects passing overhead that they could not identify. “The next morning,” he recalled of one incident, his superior “simply confiscated the tape and destroyed it.” Vallée inquired as to why they hadn’t sent this seemingly important information along with their normal Telex tape dispatches to U.S. Navy officials in Paris.
“The Americans would laugh at us,” his superior scoffed.
Having his fill of the prevailing attitudes in Paris, by 1962, Vallée had emigrated to the United States, first working at the University of Texas, Austin, as a research associate in astronomy, and thereafter for a short stint at the McDonald Observatory, where he helped to compile the first informational map of the planet Mars with fellow French astronomer Gérard de Vaucouleurs. However, by the summer of 1963, Vallée was looking ahead at new opportunities, one of which arrived following a meeting in September with astronomer J. Allen Hynek, chair of Northwestern University’s astronomy department, who helped the young scientist find work as a systems analyst on campus. Hynek, at the time the scientific advisor to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book UFO investigation, was a natural ally; not only would he serve as a mentor to Vallée, who went on to receive his Ph.D. from the institution in 1967, but for years thereafter the two would remain close colleagues in the pursuit of their mutual interest.
An undated photo of astronomer J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée
(public domain).
However, by the late 1960s, it seemed evident that scientific opinions on the UFO subject in the United States had finally begun to sour, despite the efforts of Hynek, Vallée, and a close network of like-minded scientists looking into the problem. By the end of 1968, the University of Colorado UFO Project, a U.S. Air Force-funded study headed by physicist Edward U. Condon, had delivered its findings; in an introductory summary to the lengthy report, Condon wrote that “nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge,” adding that “further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
Vallée, musing over the Condon study during our call, remembered his incredulity at the time he first heard about its conclusions.
“That’s an interesting chapter in science,” he said. “Or the failure of science.”
By then, Vallee had already returned to France. As he, his wife Janine, and their son, Oliver, were acclimating to life in Europe again, Vallée was quietly readjusting his approach to the UFO question.
“Once I was back in France, in a way, it served to give me the space to rethink what we had done,” Vallée told me. “I mean, I knew the Condon Committee was a joke… and that science was somewhere else. So it forced me to ask some fundamental questions that I would not have asked if I had stayed at Northwestern.”
“So I thought, where does all this come from, anyway?”
Vallée began haunting the old Paris bookshops, acquiring rare historical texts and early treatises on the sciences. An interesting question had begun to form in his mind, as he recorded in a journal entry on October 29, 1967: What about the forgotten accounts of Little People, of Elementals, of Leprechauns? If these beings are part of the same phenomenon we see now, what does that mean for their nature? Are we necessarily dealing with extraterrestrials?
“I found that the phenomenon has always been there,” Vallée says of his years spent mining observations of unusual aerial phenomena from texts that date back to classical antiquity. “Of course, they are describing it in the language of the time,” he notes, “but they are describing something that’s very, very much like what I get from witnesses today.”
The fruits of such musings culminated in Vallée’s seminal 1969 effort, Passport to Magonia, widely regarded as one of his most influential early works and, paradoxically, the effort that cast him as a pariah in the eyes of many of his ufological peers.
Mass market paperback edition of Passport to Magonia (Credit: Archives for the Unexplained).
“At first, it was completely rejected.” he says, recalling one UFO magazine that featured his likeness shortly after Magonia was published, accompanied by the headline, “Vallée has gone off the deep end.” Today, Vallée laughs about the chiding he received from his peers, and I note a hint of nostalgia about those early works behind the dry chuckle that emerges.
“Maybe the truth was in the deep end.”
OVER THE COURSE OF the ensuing decades, Vallée would continue to challenge the extraterrestrial hypothesis favored particularly among American UFO researchers. Parallel to this effort, his professional career brought him into work with the Institute for the Future in the mid-1970s, where he worked as principal investigator on the National Science Foundation computer networking project that gave rise to one of the earliest iterations of the ARPANET conferencing system. In the following decade, Vallée would become involved in venture capitalism, first as a partner at Sofinnova, then moving on to become a general partner in multiple different Silicon Valley funds, including his involvement in private investments today.
As his professional career flourished, Vallée never lost sight of his fascination with strange aerial phenomena. He authored a string of follow-ups to Magonia on the topic of UFOs throughout the 1970s and 80s, each continuing to build on the premise that the phenomenon could be far more complex than conventional opinions on UFOs would offer. His pioneering work continued to garner attention along the way, even serving as the inspiration for Claude Lacombe, a French scientist portrayed by actor François Truffaut in Stephen Spielberg’s classic film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Actor François Truffaut in Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (fair use).
In the 1990s, Vallée authored a trilogy of books that focused on the prospects of alien contact. However, he always maintained a healthy distance from drawing conclusions about what any exotic technologies behind UFOs might represent. It was also during this period that Vallée began working with real estate developer Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a privately funded scientific research effort that looked at UFOs and related phenomena.
In July 2014, Vallée presented a paper at the GEIPAN International Workshop in Paris, France, titled “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: A Strategy for Research,” offering both a snapshot of what he had learned about the complexities of the phenomenon over several decades of study, as well as what he believed might be a path toward more fruitful future research.
“After years of ideological arguments based on anecdotal data the field of UAP research appears ready to emerge into a more mature phase of reliable study,” Vallée wrote in the paper’s abstract. Citing the mounting scientific interest in UAP around the world, based in part on documents conveying an official military interest in these phenomena, the scientist argued that the path forward would require the analysis of hard data, paired with intelligently informed theoretical studies.
“Without pre-judging the origin and nature of the phenomena, a range of opportunities arise for investigation,” Vallée wrote, warning that “such projects need to generate new hypotheses and test them in a rigorous way against the accumulated reports of thousands of observers.”
The problem was that in 2014, despite the existence of several notable independent catalogs containing information on historical incidents, there was no single collection of reliable UAP reports—a centralized database, in other words—upon which such studies could rely. This had been part of what prompted Vallée to assemble such a database for NIDS, work that would later carry over as Bigelow’s efforts moved out of the private sector and into the official world as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program (AAWSAP).
(Credit: Jacques Vallée/fair use)
“In the United States the National Institute for Discovery Science (“NIDS”) and the Bigelow Aerospace Corporation have initiated a series of special catalogues to safeguard their own reports from public sources and from their staff,” Vallée wrote in his 2014 paper, adding that he had been asked to develop a UAP data warehouse containing 11 individual databases.
“The project is known as ‘Capella,’” it stated.
According to slides accompanying Vallée’s 2014 presentation, the Capella project focused on several areas that ranged from patterns emerging from UAP data to possible physics underlying the phenomenon and its impact on humans.
During our call, Vallée spoke candidly about the project and what he hopes it might still be used to achieve.
“There is such a database. It is the one we built as part of the AATIP/BAASS project in Las Vegas,” Vallée told me. Comprising roughly 260,000 cases from countries around the world, the scientist said during our call that the Capella database had been one of the major focal points of the program.
“Contrary to what people believe, [Capella] is the largest part of the budget that was spent on the classified project,” Vallée said. This included paying for translations of incident reports from Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and several other languages into English, and providing funding for teams that conducted additional research on-site.
“It was a large effort for two years, Vallée said, though he added that in reality, “probably close to fifty or sixty years of work went into the database.” Although Capella constitutes what is arguably the most extensive database containing information on UAP ever built, don’t expect to see it any time soon; it remains classified as a part of the data developed under the DIA’s AAWSAP program managed by James Lackatski between 2008 and 2010.
“The database is still classified, to my knowledge,” Vallée said during our call, prompting me to ask whether such a vast amount of historical information on the UAP subject shouldn’t be made publicly available.
Speaking with The Debrief in December 2021, Mark Rodeghier, Ph.D., director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies and a longtime colleague of Vallée, expressed frustration over previous statements made by Colm Kelleher, Ph.D., another of the scientists who worked on the AAWSAP program, who noted that much of the AAWSAP data will likely remain classified.
“I mean, isn’t that discouraging, disappointing, [and] ridiculous,” Rodeghier told The Debrief. “It’s not work on how we can get a hypersonic missile. It’s UFO investigations. How can that be classified at this point? And the answer, of course, is that it shouldn’t be classified now.”
During our call, Vallée expressed similar sentiments to Rodeghier’s, although he also defended Capella’s current classified status on account of some of the information it protects.
“You make a good point,” Vallée told me. “That’s the kind of thing that should be accessible to science,” although adding that “it will be accessible to very highly competent people who can continue to look at it under the proper classification.”
“I think it’s properly classified,” Vallée added, “because it contains a lot of medical data that should be private.” However, he said that he thinks that over time, perhaps portions can be “sanitized” for release to the public, “so that we don’t invade the privacy of individuals who have reported those things, especially their medical data.”
“It’s not classified for any military or intelligence reason as far as I know,” Vallée said. “But I’m not part of the project anymore.” Vallée noted that even he no longer has access to Capella, although several longtime colleagues of his who still work in government do.
“I’m very proud to have worked on that,” Vallée said. “It’s probably the high water mark in the computer study of UFOs so far.”
“But as we know, the high water mark is going to go even higher after this.”
DESPITE HIS OWN LEVEL of involvement with government UAP studies, as well as the level of interest generated by videos of unidentified objects collected by the U.S. military—the existence of which Vallée himself hinted at in Geneva as early as 2013—the 83-year-old scientist still doesn’t necessarily hold military UAP data in higher regard than that collected by civilians.
“The military cases in the databases I know of are less than ten percent in every country,” Vallee said during our call. “They are really good because the military has radar. They have, of course, planes that can chase the objects… pilots who are very well trained and very well positioned to give a description.”
“Those are excellent reports,” Vallée concedes. “But what about the farmer in the field, who sees [an object] close to him, and has traces, and has materials? Who has felt physiological reactions?”
“What about those cases?” he asks. “They are full of information.”
Vallée’s appreciation for UAP information collected from non-governmental sources is particularly evident in his latest book, Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, coauthored with Italian journalist Paola Leopizzi Harris. In it, they unravel the story of two men, Jose Padilla and Reme Baca, who claim to have witnessed the crash of an unusual aircraft near San Antonito, New Mexico, in August 1945. Padilla, who went on to become a State Trooper in Rowland Heights, California, maintained that as children, he and Baca had seen a large, dull-gray avocado-shaped object—along with its frantic occupants—where it had apparently crashed near his family’s ranch. The object, they say, was later recovered by the military.
Vallée while conducting field research in New Mexico in advance of the publication of Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret(Credit: Jacques Vallée).
In a newly updated second edition of the book, Vallée and Harris present additional witness testimony they have gathered about the alleged incident, which includes an observation of the crash remembered by the family of Lt. Colonel William J. Brothy, who at the time had been piloting a B-25 on a training mission. According to Brothy, he and his crew had flown over the site and recalled, “There were a lot of pieces.”
In Trinity, Vallée emphasizes what he believes are undeniable similarities between descriptions of the 1945 incident and a UAP landing in New Mexico observed by police officer Lonnie Zamora in 1964. Then, the following year another strikingly similar incident occurred near Valensole, France, involving the close observation of a landed craft and its apparent pilot or occupant.
“There is a case in Valensole, in France, and the case in Socorro. The object is identical to the Trinity object,” Vallée said. “And the [occupants] are identical to the creatures that Mr. Padilla is describing to me at Trinity, that he saw.”
“I was involved in Socorro, and I was involved in Valensole. Those are cases I know very well,” Vallée said, adding that Trinity contains new information on the Socorro case, once referred to by Hector Quintanilla, director of the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book at the time of the incident, as being “the best documented case on record.”
Today, much of Vallée’s research is focused on the collection and study of material samples believed to have been collected from UAP. Compared with his earlier work, which challenged popular notions about extraterrestrials being associated with UAP, this might surprise longtime followers of the scientist’s work. For Vallée, however, it is only the next phase in the many decades he has spent working toward resolving the mystery.
“It’s all one thing,” Vallée said during our call. “The first book I wrote was Anatomy of a Phenomenon, which… I took as a study of extraterrestrial intelligence in general, and how it was I thought UFOs illustrated the idea of life elsewhere and intelligence elsewhere… that’s definitely the place from which we started.”
“Then, when I started working with Dr. Hynek, and I started working with—in those days, it was just called ‘computer catalogs,’ it wasn’t dignified as databases or data warehouses—but those catalogs held thousands of cases. My first complete catalog was donated to the Condon Committee at the University of Colorado, when they did the study funded by the Air Force.”
“Which,” Vallée notes, “to my surprise, concluded the problem didn’t exist. So, we’ve come a long way from that.”
Given his level of involvement in working to resolve the UAP question—an effort now spanning more than six decades, including his involvement in official government UAP investigations in several countries and having authored some of the most popular books ever written on the subject—perhaps the most surprising thing expressed by Vallée during our discussion had been his predictions about how he thinks his own work will be remembered by future generations.
“I think everything I’ve done, and everything my contemporaries have done, is going to be forgotten,” he said, mirroring his observations of the invention, and subsequent reinvention, of so many other innovations in science over time, not least among them the World Wide Web.
“And then in a few years, it’s going to be reinvented by, you know, great people at Stanford and Harvard in a new way,” he tells me, accompanied by the distinctive chuckle I had by now come to expect after one of his witty responses.
“That’s always the way science works.”
Micah Hanks is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on Twitter: @MicahHanks.
UFO investigator and filmmaker Jeremy Corbell released another captivating footage for UFO enthusiasts. Along with investigative journalist George Knapp, Corbell claims to obtain spectacular footage of a UFO with five shiny lights in the V-formation as in the “Phoenix Lights,” hovering over a Marine base in the California desert.
Corbell has provided a detailed description of this incident and considered it a “Mass UFO sighting” as it involves a substantial amount of diverse documentation, including videos, photos, and recorded direct eyewitness testimonies from active military personnel. But still, it carries numerous doubts. Before discussing them, let us first take a look at the sighting details shared by Corbell.
According to Corbell, the incident occurred on the evening of April 20, 2021, at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms – Camp Wilson, a significant United States military base. The sighting lasted approximately 10 minutes and was witnessed by more than 50 people. They consistently reported observing a triangular-shaped craft during the encounter. It did not make any sound and was reported to be the size in the range from a football field to that of a three-bedroom, two-story house.
Corbell explained that he received a tip about the incident, prompting him to investigate further. Within a remarkable 36 hours after the event, he managed to connect with individuals who were present at the base during the sighting. He compared the sighting to the famous Phoenix Lights incident, citing the resemblance of a perfect V-shaped row of lights.
The craft was first observed at 8:20 pm PST and after a few minutes of observation, witnesses captured it on their iPhones. At 8:29 p.m., another remarkable occurrence took place. Illumination rounds were discharged into the night sky, above the UAP craft, leaving a visible trace and providing additional evidence of the incident. Astonishingly, at 8:30 pm, witnesses reported that the UAP seemingly “blinked out” or disappeared, just moments before the illumination rounds approached the vicinity of the unidentified craft.
Skeptical of military involvement, Corbell shared the first video of the sighting on his podcast “Weaponized” and discussed it in detail with Knapp. The footage captured the astonishment and confusion of witnesses as they saw the unidentified object in the sky. While the video did not clearly show the body of the craft, the audio and eyewitness accounts confirmed its presence.
Corbell shared the second video, which featured the reactions of U.S. Marines who were present. Their comments reflected a mix of bravado and genuine awe, acknowledging that something extraordinary was unfolding before their eyes, says Knapp. They ruled out the possibility of flares and recognized the uniqueness of the situation.
Corbell Rules Out Flares As An Explanation For UFO
Corbell debunks the theory that the sighting could be attributed to flares. He points out that the lights observed in the footage were a different color, more reddish, compared to the illuminating flares typically used, which are brighter and have a different hue. Flares also descend on parachutes, while the unidentified craft remained stationary for the duration of the sighting, with only slight forward movement at one point.
Although the triangle shape of the craft is not visible in the video, eyewitnesses on the ground reported seeing it. In a stroke of luck, another detachment of Marines shot up illuminating flares in an attempt to get a better look at the craft. The subsequent footage shows the descent of these flares onto the object, providing a side-by-side comparison between the appearance of flares and the lights observed on the craft.
Interestingly, as the flares descend, the lights on the craft appear to blink out in succession. However, according to eyewitnesses, the entire craft itself disappeared, as they could see more clearly than the footage captured.
Corbell raises an intriguing question about the behavior of the craft. If it is intelligently controlled, how might it react to the presence of flares being deployed above it to illuminate the area? This line of inquiry suggests that the craft’s response, or lack thereof, could indicate an advanced level of control and intelligence behind its movements.
Interview with Two US Marines who saw UFO
Corbell conducted a groundbreaking interview with two active-duty US Marines who witnessed this remarkable UFO sighting. The conversation, which was recorded and obtained by Corbell, provides a gripping firsthand account of the event, offering a glimpse into the experiences of these Marines during the encounter.
Taking place approximately 36 hours after the initial sighting, the interview captures the raw emotions and astonishment felt by the Marines as they recall the extraordinary incident. Both Marines, one serving as a mortar man and the other as artillery, share their perspectives on the sighting, revealing intriguing details about the event.
Corbell begins the conversation by asking for specific details, such as the location and time of the sighting. The Marines state that the event occurred around 8:25 pm near 29 Palms, California, adjacent to Camp Wilson, a Marine base. The Marines mention that the sighting attracted considerable attention, with over 50 people gradually gathering to witness the mysterious lights that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Illumination rounds(Top) were fired to show a better view of the UFO (Below). Credit: Jeremy Corbell
When asked about people’s reactions to the sighting, the Marines explain that the majority of witnesses were unable to identify the object. They note that, despite being military personnel, the sighting was unprecedented for them and left everyone puzzled.
Corbell then inquires about the evidence the Marines captured, referring to the video and photo that were shared with him. The Marines confirm that the footage was indeed recorded by one of them, emphasizing that the lights remained stationary for a solid 10 minutes. They assert that the lights were not flares, as flares typically descend rather than stay in one spot for an extended period.
In response to Corbell’s question about their belief in the presence of a craft, one Marine confidently states that he would have to believe so, referencing a photo he took showing a black triangular shape beneath the lights. He dismisses the possibility of the object being flares or illumination rounds based on his experience working with artillery. The other Marine explains that the size, color, and behavior of the lights were unlike anything they had encountered before, drawing comparisons to their own illumination rounds.
Corbell seeks further clarification, asking if the craft was hovering silently. Both Marines affirm that there was absolutely no sound, emphasizing the stationary nature of the object. When pressed about the size, one Marine compares it to a stealth bomber, although acknowledging that a stealth bomber cannot hover. He suggests that the object might have been even larger than a stealth bomber.
As the conversation progresses, the Marines recount additional intriguing details. They describe objects that emerged from the craft and circled it shortly before it went dark. They explain that these objects were the orange lights seen in the footage, which were actually the illumination rounds discharged above the craft. After the lights disappeared, helicopters began rapidly approaching the area, circling it extensively. The Marines note the presence of a convoy of over 60 trucks that also headed towards the site.
Corbell concludes the interview by asking the Marines to reflect on their experience. One Marine admits that he cannot determine what exactly they witnessed, as it was unlike anything he or his comrades had ever seen before. However, he firmly states that it was not anything recognizable from the US military and believes it was a UFO. The other Marine expresses his curiosity, emphasizing that the event remains highly documented, yet its nature and origin remain a mystery.
Another explanation by John Greenewald, Jr.
Renowned researcher John Greenewald, Jr. offers an alternative explanation for the UFO sighting over Twentynine Palms. Drawing from his experience working on the television show UFO Hunters, Greenewald suggests that the event could be linked to military training exercises rather than an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
Greenewald recalls his time on the show, where they encountered numerous cases similar to this sighting. To provide context, he highlights the Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 2-21 taking place at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center on the same date as the UFO sighting. He presents photographs released by the Department of Defense (DoD) that depict military aircraft on runways during the training exercise.
Greenewald refers to nighttime videos released by the DoD, recorded on April 20, 2021, which showcase the significant military activity in the area. He emphasizes that the DoD’s official release clearly indicates the date and location of the videos. Greenewald acknowledges the presence of live training ranges in the Twentynine Palms area but notes that there was no mention of the UFO event coinciding with the military training exercise in the podcast transcript he examined.
Drawing from his past experiences, Greenewald suggests that many incidents occurring over military training ranges are often misinterpreted as UFOs when they are more likely related to military activities. He recalls solving cases involving Air Force One sightings, military aircraft, and drones, which were initially thought to be UFOs. Greenewald explains that the extensive work done behind the scenes often reveals the true nature of such incidents.
To provide further evidence, Greenewald refers to the additional context provided by The Black Vault, sourced from submitted material. He mentions the presence of B-Roll footage showing five aircraft flares being shot in night vision, which resembles the lights observed in the “UAP” videos. Greenewald questions the coincidence of both the flares and the UFO event occurring on the same date.
Greenewald concludes by sharing the Department of Defense’s response to the claims. A spokesperson confirms the presence of military aviation assets and the ongoing Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course in Twentynine Palms at the time. However, they state that there is no record of communication or allocation of resources to investigate a UAP sighting, and the authenticity of the report cannot be verified.
While Greenewald’s explanation points to military training exercises as a plausible cause for the UFO sighting, further investigation and analysis are necessary to reach a definitive conclusion.
Both Jeremy Corbell and John Greenewald, Jr. present their respective explanations based on their knowledge and perspectives. Corbell highlights the firsthand accounts of eyewitnesses, including active military personnel, who describe a triangular craft with specific characteristics and behavior. He emphasizes the mass UFO sighting and the subsequent air and ground response, suggesting that the event warrants further investigation.
On the other hand, Greenewald provides an alternative perspective grounded in his experience working on UFO-related projects and analyzing military activities. He draws attention to the military training exercises taking place at the same time as the sighting and presents evidence, such as photographs and videos released by the Department of Defense, suggesting that the lights observed could be related to flares and other military operations.
Ultimately, it is up to us to evaluate the evidence and draw our own conclusions. Both Corbell and Greenewald contribute to the ongoing discussion surrounding UFO sightings, offering differing viewpoints that highlight the need for continued research and analysis in order to better understand these phenomena.
Sean Kirkpatrick, former head of the Pentagon's UFO investigations, debunks conspiracy claims of government cover-ups and alien technology possession.
The truth is out there, but is it extraterrestrial? Sean Kirkpatrick, the scientist who led the Pentagon's UFO investigations, spills the beans on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and the quest for alien life.
A screen shows what Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan claims are extraterrestrial life forms at the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. Mexican legislators held another hearing dedicated to the potential for extraterrestrial life forms and UFOs following a controversial spectacle in September in which Maussan displayed what he said were "non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution." (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)(AP)
No evidence of alien life
Despite conspiracy claims of government cover-ups and reverse engineering of crashed spacecraft, Kirkpatrick, former head of the Pentagon's UAP investigations, sets the record straight: "The best thing that could have happened in this job is I found the aliens, but there's none."
The departure from UAP investigations
Kirkpatrick recently stepped down from directing the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), tasked with investigating potential UFO sightings. The departure comes amid renewed attention fueled by military testimonies suggesting government possession of alien technology.
Military testimonies & alien technology
Former military witnesses testified to the House Oversight Committee, claiming the government's awareness of non-human activity since the 1930s. Allegations included the possession of alien UFOs and bodies of "dead pilots." Kirkpatrick notes that many interviewed shared similar stories of hidden UFOs dating back to the 60s or even earlier
Lack of evidence and government conspiracy
While acknowledging stories of hidden UFOs, Kirkpatrick stresses there is "no evidence of aliens" or a government conspiracy. He mentions a push to bring alien craft materials back into government oversight around the turn of the century, alleging Congress did not know about the supposed hidden program.
Pilots' UAP sightings
Many UFO sightings are reported by pilots witnessing strange objects in the sky. Kirkpatrick explains that, often, these sightings turn out to be caused by parallax—where an object appears to change position due to a shift in the observer's point of view.
Anomalous cases and lack of data
Kirkpatrick notes that between 2 percent and 5 percent of the investigated reports had sufficient data but remained "truly anomalous." He highlights the challenge in explaining phenomena when there is a lack of data, citing the case of U.S. Navy pilots witnessing a tic-tac-shaped object off the coast of California.
"VS verbergt informatie over buitenaards leven": ex-officieren getuigen voor Amerikaans Congres in "UFO-hoorzitting"
archieffoto van Amerikaans ministerie van Defensie van een ongeïdentificeerd vliegend voorwerp
"VS verbergt informatie over buitenaards leven": ex-officieren getuigen voor Amerikaans Congres in "UFO-hoorzitting"
In de VS heeft een luchtmachtveteraan tijdens een hoorzitting in het parlement herhaald dat de Amerikaanse overheid al decennialang een onderzoeksprogramma naar UFO's verbergt voor de bevolking. Volgens de voormalige majoor David Grusch is het Pentagon in het bezit van bewijsmateriaal van buitenaards leven. Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie heeft die beweringen met klem ontkend.
Ludwig De Wolf
Vorig jaar bevestigde het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie dat er een onderzoek loopt naar een 400-tal geheimzinnige waarnemingen in het luchtruim van de voorbije twee decennia. Dat onderzoek wordt gevoerd door de speciale afdeling die onderzoek doet naar UAP's (ongeïdentificeerde verschijnselen in de lucht of unidentified aerial phenomena).
Vanmiddag hebben drie klokkenluiders die voor de Amerikaanse Defensie hebben gewerkt, getuigd in een hoorzitting in het Amerikaanse parlement over "ongeïdentificeerde abnormale verschijnselen in de lucht".
Hun getuigenissen roepen meer vragen dan antwoorden op. Ze beweerden over veel meer informatie te beschikken, maar wilden of konden die niet delen op de hoorzitting.
De voormalige inlichtingenofficier David Grusch verklaarde dat Defensie in het bezit is van bewijsmateriaal van buitenaards leven en UFO's, maar concrete informatie gaf hij niet. Grusch had het over "niet-menselijk biologisch materiaal". De overheid zou die informatie volgens Grusch bewust verbergen voor de bevolking.
Grusch kon niet antwoorden op vragen in de hoorzitting omdat hij gehouden is aan een geheimhoudingsplicht (non-disclosure agreement of NDA). Hij gaf mee dat hij wel meer antwoorden kan geven in een gesloten commissie.
De drie getuigen, Ryan Graves, David Grusch en David Fravor leggen de eed af voor de hoorzitting
Onderzoek naar onverklaarbare waarnemingen
Het Pentagon heeft altijd ontkend dat er geheime onderzoeksprogramma's lopen naar UFO's en buitenaards leven. Er wordt wel onderzoek verricht naar onverklaarbare waarnemingen.
Volgens Defensie is het in het belang van de strijdkrachten om de oorsprong van de fenomenen te achterhalen, omdat ze mogelijk gevaar kunnen opleveren voor piloten. Het valt evenmin uit te sluiten dat het om tot dusver onbekende systemen of tuigen gaat van vijandelijke mogendheden.
Adjunct-directeur Inlichtingen van de Marine Scott Bray meldde eerder dat zijn diensten "niet over materiaal beschikten of stralingen hadden opgepikt die zouden suggereren dat het om iets van buitenaardse oorsprong zou gaan". Geen bewijs van buitenaards leven dus, maar Defensie wil de mogelijkheid van het bestaan van buitenaards leven ook niet uitsluiten.
Rosswellincident
Radars van het Amerikaanse leger kunnen niet altijd bepalen wat er in de lucht wordt waargenomen. Dat bleek begin dit jaar nog toen ongeïdentificeerde vliegende objecten werden neergeschoten door het leger, na het incident met de Chinese spionageballon.
Amerika is ook altijd in de ban geweest van het Roswellincident, de vermeende crash van een UFO in het plaatsje Roswell in New Mexico. Het was in de zomer van 1947 groot nieuws in de VS en is nog altijd het bekendste UFO-incident. Sindsdien doen er om de zoveel tijd allerhande beweringen over bewijs van buitenaardse wezens de ronde, maar nooit is dat bewezen.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.