Space is so powerful and so full of resources that it will change the way humanity consumes energy, information, goods and services, and will profoundly transform the way we travel. It is imperative that the newly established Space Force manage this journey into a trillion-dollar space economy, peacefully protect our people and values, and avoid war through dominance.
Since we first learned of the (Pentagon’s $22 million) ‘Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program’ (AATIP), we’ve been told that it was a Department of Defense study of UAPs/UFOs, which Luis Elizondo ran before leaving the Pentagon to join the ‘To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences’.
Although Shaw predicts that “war fighting (in space) is going to happen very quickly”, much needs to be done from laying out an organizational structure and creating a Space Force logo, to establishing bases and recruiting personnel.
Reports of unexplained mutilations carried out on animals in the US Western and Midwestern states have baffled investigators for decades. Incidents of mutilated cattle, sheep, horses, rabbits, deer, bison and elk with the bloodless corpses, often lacking jaw flesh, eyes, ears, tongue, lymph nodes and genitalia, have been reported since the early 1970s.
•Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon staffer who ran the Pentagon’s ‘Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program’(AATIP), … was instrumental in releasing the ‘Tic Tac’ and the other two UFO videos, said that due to a Non-Disclosure Agreement he made with the government, he was “not able to comment further on the existence of a longer video”.
• In the summer of 1973, a Soviet source was working at the Soviet Union’s Sary Shagan Weapons Testing Range in present-day Kazakhstan. … That evening, the source stepped outside “for some air”, looked up and saw a “green circular object or mass in the sky.”
“There was an urban legend out there …in the 1950s that Dwight Eisenhower had one or more face-to-face interactions with visitors from other worlds,” says Munch. “What interested me about the story was not so much the specifics of it or whether it was true or not, but more so … how (Eisenhower) would have potentially reflected back on those experiences late in his life. Would he have regrets or done things differently?”
Article by Joseph Elliott February 27, 2020 (theowp.org)
• On February 24th, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov stated that the United States’ plans to deploy weapons in space would have a devastating effect on the current security balance in space. Meanwhile, a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report reveals a military expansion and the ‘weaponization’ of space by China and Russia. Are we witnessing the beginning of an arms race in space?
• The Russian Foreign Minister also stated that Russia does not have plans to solve problems in space by using weapons. Russia and the United States have both expressed concerns about space militarization. In December, CNBC reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin had noted U.S. competitiveness in space and the acceleration of the creation of the US space forces to achieve “strategic supremacy”. A month earlier, Putin accused NATO of militarizing outer space. While expressing his opposition to militarization in space, Putin also said that “the march of events requires greater attention to strengthening the orbital group and the space rocket and missile industry in (Russia).”
• During a meeting of foreign ministers in November, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced, “space is part of our daily life here on Earth. It can be used for peaceful purposes. But it can also be used aggressively.” Stoltenberg added, “NATO has no intention to put weapons in space. We are a defensive alliance.” But from the perspective of a rival such as Russia, a military buildup in space can be viewed as preparation for potential conflict.
• The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has reported on the offensive military expansion in space by China and Russia, including cyberspace threats, directed energy weapons, laser weapons, and threats to orbital space systems. They point to Russia’s current development of a next generation model of the Russian supersonic near-space interceptor, MiG-31, meant to intercept and destroy satellites.
• For it’s part, the United States has brazenly become the first nation to establish a Space Force specifically for the militarization of space. If Russia and China are indeed developing armed capabilities in space, the potential of armed conflict in outer space in the near future is highly feasible. In January, Space Force commander John Raymond accused Russian spacecrafts of ‘shadowing’ American spy satellites. Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed that they were “inspector” spacecrafts engaged in an experiment and not weapons threatening American satellites. Russia’s flirtatious aggression in space combined with the current U.S. administration’s eagerness to militarize could be the provocation for conflict.
• The primary deterrent to prevent a space war from happening is the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (or ‘START’ treaty) between the US and Russia which limits the development and deployment of nuclear warheads in space. The treaty expires in 2021 and can be extended for another five years by mutual agreement. Last year, Vladimir Putin warned of the threat to international security if the START treaty was not renewed. Any nation having nuclear capabilities in space is a threat to international security. Renewal of the START treaty should be the primary diplomatic focus between Russia and the U.S.
• [Editor’s Note] What the deep state establishment and the mainstream media is telling the public, and what the reality of space travel in our solar system truly is, are two completely different things. This must make global diplomacy quite challenging for those in the know, such as Putin and Trump. They must take into consideration the reality of the situation, while keeping up the appearances of the mainstream’s false narrative until the truth can safely be revealed. They are playing three-dimensional chess while the unsuspecting public only sees one chess board.
This so-called ‘space race’ is fiction. The real space race has been going on for decades with the development of a handful of different secret space programs by various groups, including the US Navy’s ‘Solar Warden’ fleet, the reptilian fleet, the Nazi ‘Dark Fleet’, the Deep State’s ‘Interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate’, the “Alliance” group, and various other extraterrestrial space programs monitoring it all from a distance. The true space race is about these various secret space programs strategically posturing for the next era in human development on Earth which will begin with full disclosure of the vast scope of activity happening in space all around us, which has been hidden from the public for so many decades by the military industrial complex/deep state corporate and government elite.
According to the RIA news agency, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, made a statement on
Monday saying the United States’ plans to deploy weapons in space would have a devastating effect on the current security balance in space. He also stated that Russia does not have plans to solve problems in space by using weapons. This statement comes shortly after the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released an extensive report regarding military expansion in space and specifically regarding the “weaponization of space” by China and Russia. They specifically reported intelligence on the development of capabilities which include cyberspace threats, directed energy weapons, and threats to orbital space systems. Capabilities stemming from China and Russia’s development of laser weapons and ground-based anti-satellite missiles. Russia has been in the process of procuring a modified version of the Russian MiG-31, a supersonic near-space interceptor meant to intercept and destroy satellites.
The United States has also sent brazen signals to the international community of military mobilization in space. In January of 2020, the U.S. became the first nation to establish an independent space force, a new service branch of the U.S. armed forces. The Space Force is a designated umbrella branch within the Department of the Air Force. According to its official mission statement, the Force’s “responsibilities include, developing military space professionals, acquiring military space systems, maturing the military doctrine for space power, and organizing space forces to present to our Combatant Commands.” There is no denial that the U.S. is preparing its space program for military use, and if Russia and China are developing armed capabilities in space, the potential of armed conflict in outer space in the near future is highly feasible.
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Article by Sandra Erwin February 28, 2020 (spacenews.com)
• On February 28th at the Air Force Association’s annual winter symposium in Orlando, Florida, SpaceX founder Elon Musk joined the commander of the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Lt. Gen. John Thompson (both pictured above), for a “fireside chat”. “How do we make Starfleet real?” Musk asked the audience of US Air Force airmen who are now transitioning to the Space Force.
• Musk said that the future of air warfare is in autonomous drone warfare. “The fighter jet era has passed.” The ‘ticket to the future’, says Musk, is to make extensive use of reusable launch vehicles rather than expendable boosters. “I think we can go a long way to make Starfleet real and these utopian futures real.” Of course, Musk is referring to the type of rockets that his SpaceX company builds such as the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets which are ‘partially reusable’, and the new Starship vehicle currently in development which is ‘fully reusable’.
• The military will test Musk’s reusable rockets for the first time with the upcoming Falcon 9 launch of a GPS satellite on April 29th. The Space and Missile Systems Center will allow SpaceX to attempt to land the booster on a droneship at sea.
• In 2018, SpaceX was turned down on a bid for a Launch Service Agreement contract that would help to fund the Starship’s development. The Air Force awarded LSA contracts to three other companies, prompting SpaceX to file a legal challenge that is still pending.
• Musk cast Starship as an example of “radical innovation” that will keep the United States in the lead as other nations like China advance their space capabilities. “I have zero doubt that if the United States does not create innovations in space, it will be second in space.” Musk says that Starship will enable access to deep space and the eventual colonization of Mars. He encouraged rival companies to start building fully reusable vehicles like Starship and create a more competitive industry. Musk suggested there should be more ‘disruptive competition’ in the defense industry.
• [Editor’s Note] Musk strongly advocates “radical innovations” in space and “more disruptive competition in the defense industry” that will keep the United States in the lead as other nations like China advance their space capabilities. But what are these radical innovations? Eighty-year-old rocket technology. Apparently, the deep state military industrial complex wants to continue to hide its advanced exotic technologies, such as anti-gravity that the US Air Force uses in their advanced TR3B black triangle craft, and portable nuclear fusion reactor propulsion which the US Navy has publicly revealed in recent patent filings. (see ExoArticles here and here)
The deep state also wants to continue hiding the fact that the US military has deployed these technologically advanced spacecraft since the US Navy’s Solar Warden fleet in the 1980’s. Since then, these types of spacecraft have traversed not only the solar system, but the galaxy. Space travel within the solar system using these advanced propulsion technologies – not rockets- has become routine.
Who better to do the deep state’s bidding than the thoroughly compromised Elon Musk, who denies the existence of such advanced spacecraft and the presence of extraterrestrials? Musk isn’t interested in revealing the truth. Musk is only interested in the US government buying his revamped rocket technology to make himself a fortune.
ORLANDO, Fla. — In his first appearance at a military conference since the establishment of the U.S. Space Force, SpaceX founder Elon Musk gave his usual pitch on the virtues of reusable rockets. But he tailored the message to an audience of airmen who started their careers in the U.S. Air Force but are now transitioning to a new service and pondering the possibilities.
“How do we make Starfleet real?” Musk asked to roaring applause during a one-hour fireside chat with the commander of the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center Lt. Gen. John Thompson Feb. 28 at the Air Force Association’s annual winter symposium.
Musk then answered his own question, insisting that reusable launch vehicles are “absolutely fundamental” to achieving whatever space ambitions the military might have, including staying ahead of China.
Many of Musk’s comments on reusable rockets were repeats of what he said at a previous appearance at an Air Force conference Nov. 5 in San Francisco, where he also sat down with Thompson.
On Friday, Musk made multiple references to the fictional Star Trek “Starfleet” to hammer the message that reusable rockets are the ticket to the future. “I think we can go a long way to make Starfleet real and these utopian futures real.”
But none of this can happen as long as the military continues to rely on expendable boosters, said Musk.
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Article by Leigh Giangreco February 25, 2020 (gen.medium.com)
• Last year, President Trump created the new branch of the Air Force: the Space Force. Trump declared, “American superiority in space is absolutely vital and we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough.” So we asked second-in-command Lt. General David Thompson (pictured above) what the hell will Space Force do?
• What is the Space Force actually going to do? Three examples of what Space Force does and has been doing as part of the Air Force for years are: 1) keeping track of the more than 26,000 orbiting objects in space including operational satellites, expired satellites, and space debris; 2) tracking missile launches and providing warning to Americans and our allies, as we did several weeks ago when the Iranians launched a missile attack at the al-Asad base which resulted in no casualties; and 3) supporting GPS navigation for everything from smart phones to ships at sea.
• What do you do as Space Force’s second-in-command? I assist General Raymond, our commander and chief of space operations, in making sure that all forces are trained and equipped to conduct satellite tracking operations and ground sensors across 134 locations worldwide. We operate with a $12 billion annual budget and 26,000 personnel.
• Are you coordinating with NASA as well? Cape Canaveral is an Air Force/Space Force station that launches military, commercial, and NASA rockets. NASA has its own space center next door that launches the moon missions. But every interplanetary probe that NASA has launched, except one, flew on an Air Force or Space Force rocket.
• Will you be working with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos on the commercial side? We already work pretty closely with Elon Musk (SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos [Blue Origin aerospace], as well as a lot of the large [satellite] constellations that are in development to see their capability and technologies.
• What would a typical deployment look like? What are the major threats? Why is Space Force relevant when it seems like the U.S. military is constantly being pulled into counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East? Any of our joint forces needs navigation, position, and timing services provided by GPS. Our satellites support that need. But one of the biggest reasons for the creation of the Space Force is to protect us from potential adversaries like Russia and China who are flexing their muscles, and have made it clear they intend to remove our ability to utilize space if it comes to conflict.
• It seems a lot of people think Space Force was created to go up against Russia and China in some sort of intergalactic battle. How much truth is there in that? Half of that is correct. Space Force will monitor threats from Russia or China in space. But if it doesn’t matter to soldiers on the ground, sailors at sea, and airmen in the air, then it doesn’t matter to us. We will remain focused on our commanders in the field (on earth). We’re not battling for control of the moon or Mars.
• When did the idea of Space Force first come into being? Does this trace back to the Gulf War? The space age dawned in the 1950s and has grown up over the decades. In the early years it was used for strategic intelligence gathering and some other things. But by the time of the first Gulf War in 1990 and then Desert Storm in 1991, our space systems began to be able to provide tactical capabilities to troops on the ground. After 9/11, this need continued to increase, related to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places.
• Is it fair to say that Space Force is a Trump initiative? It was actually an initiative of all national leadership. The conversations about the need to address threats in space began in 2014 in the previous administration. The discussion increased in 2017 and 2018. But it was [Trump’s] announcement in June 2018 that really started to form the vision. So yes, President Trump had that vision, and he had a lot of participation from Congress in both political parties.
• Is this ‘on-the-ground’ satellite coordination? Or will Space Force involve astronauts in space? That opportunity to be an astronaut inside the Space Force today is almost zero. The best thing to do if you want to be an astronaut is to talk to NASA. But the rest of the world is going in the direction of the Space Force, with remotely piloted aircraft, drones, artificial intelligence, and vehicles that operate by remote control or autonomous control.
• Several other reporters have asked about the uniforms and the official song. Do you have any ideas about what the culture of Space Force will look like? Space Force needs its own culture and identity. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are all different. I’m in my 35th year in space-related activities. We already have a little bit of a culture and an identity, which will be refreshed with things like uniforms, mottos, and songs. We want to take a little bit of time to do them carefully. We want to ask the young, career enlisted members what they want the uniform to look like. The uniforms that are under design now look like military uniforms.
• Can you give us some clues? No clues, sorry! It will be cool.
• In ‘The Incredibles’ they say “no capes.” Are there any absolute nos for Space Force uniforms? We’re not talking spandex and capes. It needs to be the classic, sharp-looking uniform that reflects who we are as members of the American military.
• Okay, so the Marines have Chesty the bulldog, the Air Force has a falcon — what are you thinking for a mascot? The Marines didn’t have Chesty when they were formed. We’re going to let that develop naturally, so it has some meaning and tradition behind it.
• Do you have a favorite sci-fi movie that inspired you? I’ve always loved Star Trek and I really loved the most recent reboot. I think they’ve captured the essence of those old characters in a new and fresh way. I was always a Star Trek fan, but I didn’t join the Air Force to go into space.
Unless you’ve been living in a galaxy far, far away, you’ve probably heard of the newest branch of the U.S. military: the Space Force. President Trump created the new branch of the Air Force last year, declaring, “American superiority in space is absolutely vital and we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough.”
The Space Force will be the smallest branch of the U.S. military — the Marine Corps is still more than 10 times its projected size — and will draw its personnel from current Air Force staff. The new branch will also absorb many of the Air Force’s existing responsibilities, including satellite operations and support for missile warning systems. Its first chief, General John Raymond, was sworn in last month.
So does signing up for the Space Force mean preparing to wage intergalactic battle? Not exactly. Instead, the Space Force is keeping its eyes on the stars but its feet on the ground, getting GPS information from satellites that helps the U.S. military operate in the field. We talked to Lt. Gen. David Thompson, the Space Force’s second-in-command, about the satellites his people will coordinate, avoiding space junk, and whether those new uniforms will include capes.
GEN: What is the Space Force actually going to do?
David Thompson: It’s clear that a lot of the American public doesn’t understand what we already created.
Three quick examples of what Space Force has been doing as part of the Air Force for years. A couple weeks back you heard about the satellite colliding over Pittsburgh, PA. U.S. Space Force is the force that keeps track of all of those objects — 26,000-plus objects, some of them pieces of debris, old satellites — where they are, where they’re going, whether they pose a danger to anybody. That’s one of the things that we do today in the Space Force, and have been doing for years.
Second, in the missile attacks at [Ain] al-Asad base several weeks back, you’ll recall the Iranians fired several missiles, but our crew at Buckley Air Force Base outside of Denver, Colorado, detected missiles that launched and provided warning to those Americans and our friends and allies at al-Asad, which put them all in protective shelters. Had that not happened, we might be talking about folks that died in that attack as opposed to injury. That’s Space Force.
And then we don’t just do it for the military, but we do it for the civilian population as well. How many times have you followed the blue dot on your smartphone? Have you paid for gas at the pump or in a convenience store? Have you checked the internet via your cellphone? All of those positioning things, timing synchronization activities, occur through GPS which is a U.S. Space Force [satellite] constellation. We do that not just for the general public but for ships in the ocean, airplanes, forces in the desert. All navigate by GPS. And those are just a couple things that we do today and will continue as part of the Space Force.
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On February 27, at the US Air Force Association’s “Air Warfare Symposium”, Space X founder Elon Musk posed the question, “How do we make Starfleet real?” and he proposed reusable rockets as “absolutely fundamental” for the newly created Space Force.
Musk’s aggressive lobbying of reusable rocket propulsion technologies for future space exploration ignores increasing evidence that electromagnetic propulsion systems are not only scientifically feasible, but have been developed for classified spacecraft, many of which have been predicted to be soon transferred to Space Force.
Musk has undoubtedly shaken the conventional space industry with his pioneering work in developing reusable Falcon rockets for launching Dragon spacecraft that are used to deploy satellites and ferry supplies to the International Space Station. Many were thrilled to watch videos of the Falcon rockets safely returning either on land or on ocean-going barges, after some spectacular early failures.
The reusable Falcon rocket landings were followed later by Dragon spacecraft descending to Earth by first deploying parachutes to slow their descent through the atmosphere before performing an ocean splashdown. The manned version called Dragon 2 is designed to carry up to seven crew and will also perform a splashdown after completing its space mission. This effectively duplicates the Apollo era process for the return of manned space capsules.
Currently, Musk is developing a reusable Starship which again relies on rocket propulsion to take astronauts to the Moon and Mars. Measuring 160 feet (50 meters) in length, the Starship is significantly larger than the Dragon 2 and will sit atop a super heavy Falcon launch rocket. The Starship is designed to carry sufficient rocket fuel to make it possible to maneuver in space, land on the Moon, and return safely back to Earth.
At a February 28 test, a prototype Starship collapsed at the SpaceX facility in Boca Chia, Texas, showing similar development challenges to that previously faced with the Falcon rockets. Musk is confident that Space X will overcome these developmental problems and come up with a reusable spacecraft with similar capabilities to the abandoned Space Shuttle.
There is little doubt that the idea of reusable rockets is currently very helpful in transforming the space industry and moving things in the direction of multi-use space launch vehicles that will be much cheaper, reliable and safer. This has been predicted to kickstart a civilian space industry making it possible for space tourism to take off later this decade.
Musk’s ambitious plans to use reusable rockets for manned flights to service the International Space Station, trips to the Moon, and eventually establishing colonies on Mars does indeed raise important questions for the newly created Space Force. Are reusable rockets “absolutely fundamental” to Space Force as Musk contends?
There is little question, when one reviews the available evidence and whistleblower/insider testimonies that the US Air Force, like the Navy, has for decades been developing electromagnetic propulsion systems in multiple highly classified programs. I have presented the best available evidence in successive books on the secret space programs developed by the US Navy and USAF.
Very recently, the Navy has had one of its most innovative scientists, Dr. Salvator Pais, apply for patents showing the feasibility of an electromagnetically propelled hybrid spacecraft capable of traveling underwater, in the air and space. After the patent examiner rejected the application for the “Hybrid Aerospace Underwater Craft” as not scientifically feasible since it lacked an adequate power supply, the Navy intervened by having another scientist write a letter in support of Pais.
Dr. James Sheehy, the Chief Technology Officer for the Naval Aviation Enterprise pointed out that Pais’ patent application was scientifically feasible and was being experimented on. In his letter, Dr. Sheehy wrote about the electromagnetic propulsion systems making rocket engines obsolete:
If successful the realization of this result demonstrates that this patent documents the future state of the possible and moves propulsion technology beyond gas dynamic systems to field-induced propulsion based hybrid aerospace-undersea craft…
Importantly, Sheehy went on in his letter to point out that China was working on similar electromagnetic propulsion systems. Not granting the patent would lead to China gaining the intellectual property rights on such innovative technology, which had been originally conceived in the US, and very likely acquired by China through industrial espionage.
Sheehy’s warning was correct, China has indeed acquired classified US aerospace technologies and is in the midst of a rapid development process for fleets of electromagnetically propelled vehicles that are part of a secret space program that is far more powerful than its public space program using rocket propulsion systems.
China aims to overtake the US as a leading space power by 2030 through advances in Artificial Intelligence and deployment of 5G systems that are at the core of its asymmetric military strategy dubbed “Assassin’s Mace”. In my new book, Rise of the Red Dragon: Origins and Threat of China’s Secret Space Program, the full extent of China’s technological advances and how it plans to use AI and 5G to achieve space dominance are laid out in detail.
Recently, a number of former servicemen from the USAF and Navy have come forward with their testimonies that the Tic Tac UFOs captured on infrared video by Navy pilots, had an important USAF connection. One of them, Mike Turber, says that he was told by a reliable source that the Tic Tac craft belonged to the USAF and had been built at its secretive Plant 42 facility in Palmdale, California, by leading aerospace contractors.
Given the abundant evidence that the USAF and Navy have secretly developed electromagnetic propulsion systems, why would the newly created Space Force be interested in Musk’s reusable rocket propulsion systems?
Sure, reusable rockets are superior to the expensive single-use rocket launch vehicles that have been dominant since the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle. However, both single-use and reusable rocket systems are dramatically inferior to electromagnetically propelled spacecraft capable of traveling at speeds that defy conventional physics, as spectacularly demonstrated by the Tic Tac UFO craft.
Musk made his comments in a fireside chat with Lieutenant General John Thomson, Commander of the USAF Space and Missiles Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, which was only a few months ago transferred over to Space Force. Was General Thomson genuinely interested in reusable rockets for Space Force or did he have another agenda in mind?
There are three possibilities that come to mind that help explain why General Thompson and Space Force may be interested in hearing Musk’s views about reusable rocket propulsion systems.
First, reusable rockets are a useful stepping-stone to the far more effective and powerful electromagnetic propulsion technologies that Space Force is in the process of receiving from the US Air Force’s secret space program, as I have discussed elsewhere. I find this possibility highly unlikely given the unnecessary expense of building reusable rocket technologies that Space Force leaders would deem vastly inferior to electromagnetically propelled spacecraft.
A second possibility is that Musk’s advocacy of reusable rockets might be a convenient smokescreen for Space Force deploying electromagnetically propelled spacecraft, without revealing the true propulsion system being used until the right time. Put simply, there may be a need for Space Force leaders to hide from the public the true origins and development history of its reusable spacecraft.
A third possibility is that General Thompson and Space Force intends to partner with Musk since he has shown with his innovative Tesla electric car company a sustained interest in moving the car industry away from fossil fuels to electrical energy. Musk can therefore in the future play a leading role in moving the space industry away from rockets towards electromagnetic propulsion systems.
Therefore, in responding to Musk’s question, “How do we make Starfleet real?”, the answer is definitely not through reusable rockets as proposed by Musk. However, reusable rockets may be a convenient stepping stone or smokescreen for electromagnetic propulsion systems that Space Force will be deploying in the near future. Indeed, Musk may ultimately prove to be a pivotal figure in helping introduce electromagnetic propulsion systems to the general public as he learns about the classified technologies Space Force plans to release to the public.
© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice
Further Reading
Article by Lawrence D. Weiss February 22, 2020 (anchoragepress.com)
• Captain Les Horn of Eagle River, Alaska is a retired military pilot with 5,600 hours of flight time in 34 different types of aircraft, while serving 26 years in the US Navy. He holds advanced degrees in physics, nuclear engineering, and energy resources, and is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. In April 2018, Captain Horn told the following story in a presentation at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
• In 1966, Horn and a backseat radioman were flying a Navy A-4 ‘Skyhawk’ (pictured above) out of Bunker Hill Air Force Base in Missouri, at sunset. As they climbed to an altitude above that of commercial aircraft, departure control at Bunker Hill passed them off to the control tower at Indianapolis center. Horn was informed of a commercial airliner passing to his left as they continued to climb and gain altitude. Then Horn picked up a blue dot of light to his left. The strange light kept getting brighter, but Indianapolis center remained uncharacteristically quiet.
• Finally, Horn radioed Indianapolis center, “Do you have my traffic? He’s at my 10 o’clock passing, left to right.” Indianapolis center responded, “Negative.” Horn said, “Well, traffic in sight. He’s at my nine o’clock, passing to my six.” When a supervisor came on the radio and asked whether they had made contact with this object which didn’t appear on Indianapolis center’s radar, Horn replied, “[H]e’s now in my 10 o’clock position, level, appears to be closing, distance unknown.”
• The Indianapolis center supervisor insisted that he was still seeing ‘negative traffic’, but kept asking Horn the object’s position. Horn told him that this light object had come around Horn’s back and then in front of his plane. By now, the night sky was pitch black with no moon. Horn had no point of reference to determine the light object’s distance, but it appeared to maintain a constant distance. Then the object came around again and took a position on Horn’s wing. Horn reported to Indianapolis control as the object remained “in formation” with Horn’s plane.
• As the object traveled alongside Horn’s plane, Indianapolis center still could not see the object on radar. “The area of lights was kind of diffuse,” said Horn. “I couldn’t really tell what it was.” But by now the A-4 had reached its high altitude, and the object was still traveling off of his wing, tracking the plane. “I asked my back-seater (radioman), ‘Jim, are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ He says ‘I sure as hell do!’”
• Suddenly, the voice of a more senior supervisor came on the radio and asked Horn if he still had the contact in sight. When Horn replied in the affirmative, the top supervisor informed Horn that he was “clear to cruise”. “Cruise” means that you can go anywhere, fly any speed, go any altitude, and they will follow you (on radar) and keep anybody from hitting you. This is something you seldom hear from the FAA, especially when you’re flying on instrument readings.
• Horn dropped his wing to change direction by about two degrees. The light object began to come into focus better. There were no red and green navigation lights that are required on any aircraft. There was no formation lights as on military aircraft, and there were no window lights that would be seen on a commercial airliner. Horn was still having difficulty gaining perspective on this object. Said Horn, “I didn’t see anything within my realm of experience to help me identify what this was.”
• As Horn got closer to the object, he informed Indianapolis center, “[I]t appears the lights are moving in a clockwise direction (around the craft), and there’s a dome light.” All of the sudden Horn could make out the structure of the object. It was large, circular, and made no sound. Then the object began pulling ahead, in front of Horn’s plane. It started accelerating and climbing, and then it went straight up. In about three seconds it contracted into a point and disappeared into the starfield above him. It was gone.
• Stunned, Horn stopped talking for a long time. The older guy’s voice came up again asking, “Five five, radio check. Are you still there?” And I said “Roger.” “The bogey just pulled away and I have no contact with it.” The FAA never saw this object.
• “I knew that I was looking at a very non-Newtonian object,” Horn says. “[T]here were no wings suspending or holding this object up against the forces of gravity.” “When this object was ‘formating’ on me, and I closed with it, that’s when it started that rapid departure. But I did notice that his motions were not like the way an aircraft would fly.” “[I]t moved in very jerky motions, especially when it started accelerating away from me. Any structure that I was familiar with would have just torn itself to pieces pulling away like that.”
• The next day, The Washington Post headline read: “Many UFO Sightings Reported Over Indiana.” But Horn says that he never used the words “UFO.” In the Navy it’s a “bogey”. Horn said he never believed in the UFO stuff he’d heard about. “[B]ut now this was happening. This was different. …[S]omething that I didn’t understand was in my world.”
Captain Les Horn, United States Navy (retired), lives in Eagle River. Here he tells his story about a fateful flight in 1966 when he and his radioman were chased by a UFO. Captain Horn has extensive background in flight and airborne weapons systems testing, 26 years of service, 5,600 hours flying time in 34 aircraft types and models, and is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. He holds advanced degrees in physics, nuclear engineering, and energy resources.
We were flying a version of the A-4 that was used for carrier training. There was room for two pilots. You kind of team up with the guy you worked with and you’d take turns on the radios or driving the airplane.
We flew to Bunker Hill Air Force Base in Missouri. This was a late afternoon/evening flight to try to get some night time. We departed right about at sunset, and I was driving. As we launched out of there, we started our usual climb.
So, climbing out of Bunker Hill, we were passing 16,000 feet for flight level 470. Usually when you’re in the more powerful military aircraft, you can take the higher structure, because the 30s are usually crowded with airliners, but up there we know we probably only had military pilots to deal with. We were passing through the 20s going into the 40s. And as we started out, we were talking to departure control and he handed us off to Indianapolis center. And that was about a half-hour after sunset.
And so Indianapolis called up and they said “we have Delta departing Chicago Midway. He’s passing through 16,000 on route 330 passing your nine o’clock position, will clear,” and I look over and say, “tell your traffic,” and we continue to climb. Meanwhile, I picked up a blue dot of light. I expected him to call that traffic sooner or later because it’s kind of crowded in the Indianapolis-Chicago axis.
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Then, finally, this light was getting a little lighter, brighter, so I said, “Do you have my traffic? He’s at my 10 o’clock passing, left to right,” And I wait one minute. Silence. And he says “Negative.” I said, “Well, traffic in sight. He’s at my nine o’clock, passing to my six.” And another voice came up, probably his supervisor. And he said, “triple five [the plane identification number], say you’ve had contact?” and I said “well, he’s now in my 10 o’clock position, level, appears to be closing, distance unknown.”
I didn’t have it. I flew an attack airplane. We didn’t have inflight radar, we had air-to-ground. He said, “Negative traffic,” but he kept asking me and I kept telling him. I’m still flying on my departure heading and this light, I didn’t know what it was, came around behind me and then in front of me.
Mind you, I couldn’t tell because I had no point of reference. This is at night, black night, the moon wasn’t up yet. That light could have been right outside of my instrument, right outside of my canopy, or it could have been 10 miles away. I didn’t know where it was, but it maintained, it looked like to me, kind of a constant distance, but it came around me. I was talking to center all the time and telling them, and it came around and it took a position on my wing. And I say on my wing, but I didn’t know how far away it was. And there it sat.
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Article by Kyle Perisic February 21, 2020 (americanmilitarynews.com)
• On February 10th, host Jim Breslo interviewed Dave Beaty of the Nimitz Encounters documentary series. On Breslo’s The Hidden Truth Show podcast (see full interview below), Dave Beaty told of meeting a new witness to the “Tic Tac” UFO that was seen by Navy aviators with the USS Nimitz carrier group moving in ways that defy known physics, off of the coast of Baja California in November 2004, as first reported by the New York Times in December 2017.
• Beaty tells of a US Navy E-2 Hawkeye surveillance plane technician who, (as stated in the YouTube video description) was flying with a crew in support of the F-18 jets that were sent to intercept the Tic Tac UFO that had appeared on the USS Princeton’s radar. “The technician stated that he could see a Tic Tac from the window of his plane which appeared to be flying at about the same altitude.”
• Beaty said that the Navy tech didn’t want to come forward because he and the rest of his crew members were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement compelling them to stay quiet. “It wasn’t really a volunteer process, it was more a ‘sign this and don’t ever talk about what you saw,’” said Beaty of the technician and crew. “Even going out on a limb and speaking to me was sketchy for him.” Beaty reveals he has also spoken to a second anonymous witness who saw men come aboard the Princeton to take all evidence of the encounter.
• This anonymous E-2 Hawkeye technician joins five other former US Navy personnel who have come forward as witnesses to the “Tic Tac” occurrence. They are Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, Patrick Hughes, Ryan Weigelt and Kevin Day. Hughes and Voorhis said that mystery individuals only known to their command came aboard and took away all recorded evidence of the Tic Tac UFO videos and radar telemetry. Hughes claimed to have had ‘extra footage’ stored on hard drives beyond the grainy black and white video made available to the public in 2017, but they were ordered to turn it all over.
• Voorhis reported that two guys came aboard by helicopter. A short time later, he was ordered by his command to turn over all the data recordings for the AEGIS radar system, and then wipe all of the remaining tapes in the shop clean, including the blank tapes. The US Navy has officially admitted that the series of UFO videos are real.
• The Navy pilot who first saw the Tic Tac UFO from his F-18 jet in 2004 and who came forward in the 2017 New York Times article, Commander David Fravor, says he has doubts about these sailors’ stories. Still, Fravor described the object as “something not from this world.” Fravor described it as “a white Tic Tac, about the same size as a Hornet, 40 feet long with no wings”.
• Fravor recounts that the UFO was “… hanging close to the water.” “As I get closer, as my nose is starting to pull back up, it accelerates and it’s gone…. [f]aster than I’d ever seen anything in my life. ”
• On an October 5th Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Commander Fravor also told of an incident that occurred to a sailor who was diving in the ocean to inspect a torpedo. The diver is only a few feet below the surface working on the torpedo when he suddenly sees a “dark mass” emerging from below him in the ocean depths. He starts screaming through the intercom system for the crew to reverse wench and pull him up. As he is being pulled up, the torpedo is suddenly sucked down into the depths. Fravor quotes the witness saying, “The torpedo ‘didn’t sink,’ it ‘literally looked like it got sucked down’.”
There is possibly a third aircraft to have witnessed one of the most infamous UFO sightings in recent history, according to a person familiar with the matter.
As part of his Nimitz Encounters documentary, Dave Beaty told Jim Breslo on The Hidden Truth Show on Feb. 10, that he interviewed witnesses of the UFO that were “ordered to stay quiet” and signed non-disclosure type agreements immediately after the incident occurred on Nov. 14, 2004, off the coast of San Diego.
“The gentlemen I spoke to, I checked his background and he did fly in the [surveillance plane E-2 Hawkeye],” Beaty said.
The Hawkeye would be the third aircraft to have been in the area to witness the event, with the other two being the F/8-18E Super Hornets, one of which Commander David Fravor piloted, as the Daily Star reported.
Fravor brought the incident to the public’s attention in 2017 in a New York Times report that detailed his experience in the encounter.
Since Fravor’s report, others have come forward as witnesses of the incident on that day.
Beaty said that the individual he interviewed didn’t want to come forward because he signed a document that compelled him to stay quiet.
“Even going out on a limb and speaking to me was sketchy for him,” Beaty explained. “It wasn’t really a volunteer process, it was more a ‘sign this and don’t ever talk about what you saw.’”
In what is possibly the most credible UFO sighting in human history, five other former sailors have also come forward as witnesses to the “Tic Tac” occurrence.
These five witnesses, Gary Voorhis, Jason Turner, Patrick Hughes, Ryan Weigelt and Kevin Day, say more evidence beyond the publicly available footage was destroyed by unknown officials.
The only footage available is a grainy black and white video that shows the “Tic Tac” shaped object moving in a way that defies known physics.
As Commander Fravor put it, the strange object he saw was “something not from this world.”
1:18:41 minute Feb 10th interview with Navy tech Dave Beaty (‘Hidden Truth Show’ YouTube)
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Article by the ID Staff February 21, 2020 (indusdictum.com)
• In 2016, a team of Swedish researchers led by Dr Beatriz Villarroel discovered that stars have been inexplicably vanishing over the past decades. Short of completely collapsing into a black hole, there is no known physical process by which a star could physically vanish.
• Now, an international team of scientists from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (or ARIES) (in Beluwakhan, India) have published a study in the January 2020 edition of the Astronomical Journal on the one hundred stars that they’ve found missing, entitled: ‘Vanishing & Appearing Sources During a Century of Observations’ (or ‘VASCO’).
• The international team consists of 22 scientists from Sweden, Spain, Finland, USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, India, Ukraine, and the UK, including lead researcher Dr Villarroel of Stockholm University and Spain’s Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and Dr Alok C. Gupta from ARIES. Using the United States Naval Observatory’s star charts and records, the research team compared old and new observations of about 600 million heavenly objects. So far, they have chanced upon one hundred missing star-like objects.
• The US Naval Observatory’s star catalog contains about 2 to 3 billion astronomical objects. Located at Haleakala Observatory, (on Maui) Hawaii, it is presently the largest digital sky survey in the world. The observatory’s ‘Pan-STARRS’ (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) consists of astronomical cameras, telescopes, and a computing facility that surveys the sky for moving or variable objects. The ‘Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing’ has provided a sophisticated three-terabyte cloud environment for data analysis, which is done by breaking down the USNO/databases into many smaller ones with a smart index that cross-matches the subsets.
• The VASCO project team does not claim to have found signs of aliens. They do propose that the best places for astronomers to look for extraterrestrial intelligence and technologically advanced civilizations may be those areas where stars have vanished. While they have seen no signs of aliens just yet, the 100 missing stars might be proof of super-advanced alien civilizations.
Pune: A total of one hundred missing star-like objects have been chanced upon by comparing old and new observations of about 600 million heavenly objects recorded in the US Naval Observatory (USNO) by a team of 22 scientists from 11 countries.
Their research points out those parts of space where multiple stars seem to disappear could be the best places to look for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). Unless a star directly collapses into a black hole, there is no known physical process by which it could physically vanish, the study explained. While they have seen no signs of aliens just yet, the 100 missing stars might be proof of super-advanced alien civilisations.
Scientists from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, an autonomous institution of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) have participated in this study which was published in the January 2020 edition of the Astronomical Journal.
The study titled ‘Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO)’, an international project led by Dr Beatriz Villarroel of Stockholm University and Spain’s Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, consists of scientists from Sweden, Spain, Finland, USA, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, India, Cremia, Ukraine, and the UK, including Dr Alok C. Gupta, Scientist from ARIES.
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Article by Akshay Tiwari February 17, 2020 (thedigitalweekly.com)
• In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, numerous KGB files found their way to the CIA. Among these was a 250-page dossier detailing a UFO encounter that occurred in Siberia (in 1987). The now declassified CIA dossier included a translated March 27, 1993 article from the Ukraine newspaper Ternopil vechirniy, which depicted the encounter. The CIA report also listed the Canadian Weekly World News as a ‘wellspring of data’.
• The report indicates that a ‘flying saucer’ was flying low over a Soviet military unit in Siberia, and was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. As the downed UFO was surrounded by 23 soldiers, “Five short humanoids with enormous heads and huge bruised eyes got out (of the craft).”
• While the soldiers watched, the extraterrestrial beings converged into a ‘splendid white circular chunk of light that hummed and murmured’. Suddenly, the 23 soldiers were transformed into stone. Two soldiers, who were ‘concealed’ and apparently not watching the light beings, survived unharmed.
• The KGB document reported that the ‘froze fighters’ were moved to a place near Moscow for examination. It related that the soldiers were ‘transformed into a substance whose sub-atomic structure was indistinguishable to limestone’. A CIA agent noted that “this is an amazingly threatening case”.
The hair-raising report, which incorporates claims that 23 troopers were transformed into stone by the outsiders in the UFO after they changed into a bundle of light, was covered among a great many declassified documents distributed online by the US knowledge organization.
The report is referred to, made on March 27, 1993, is an interpretation by the CIA of news from the Ukrainian paper Ternopil vechirniy.
The paper report said that after Mikhail Gorbachev lost force in 1991, numerous KGB records advanced toward the CIA, remembering a supposed 250-page dossier for the peculiar UFO assault, which included pictures and witnesses declarations.
The report proposed that a low flying saucer had shown up over a military unit in preparing in Siberia, before one of the officers terminated a surface to air rocket, cutting it down.
It stated: “Five short humanoids with enormous heads and huge bruised eyes got out.”
Two troopers are said to have endured, who depicted how, in the wake of rising out of the garbage, the five creatures converged into a splendid white circular chunk of light that hummed and murmured.
It at that point detonated, and as it completed 23 warriors who stood watching were transformed into stone, the report guaranteed.
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Article by Christopher Mellon February 18, 2020 (legion.org)
• This article is a plea to the US government written by Christopher Mellon (pictured above), a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Today, Mellon is an adviser to Tom DeLonge’s ‘To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science’ and he serves as a contributor to HISTORY’s television series: “Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation.”
• Ever since the days of Project Sign in 1948 and Project Bluebook which ended in 1969, the US Government’s reports on UFOs were designed to debunk UFO sightings and discredit civilian UFO researchers. The government’s only objective was to reassure the public that no case “reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security,” and that there is “no evidence of developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge.” The stigma the Air Force sought to create worked only too well, causing most US military and intelligence personnel to conceal rather than report UFOs – a self-blinding process that resulted in decades of lost data.
• But on December 16, 2017, The New York Times ran a front-page story revealing the existence of a Congressionally mandated Pentagon program to study UFOs. The article was accompanied by two declassified DoD videos obtained by Navy F-18 fighter pilots. The UFOs were seen in broad daylight by numerous Navy personnel and demonstrated revolutionary aeronautical capabilities. These reports were independently corroborated by sophisticated military sensor systems. And a Navy spokesman admitted that the Navy videos were neither a hoax nor secret US test aircraft. They were “UAPs” – ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’. With this short statement, the Navy upended the conclusions of every prior US government examination of the UFO phenomenon.
• There is nothing more compelling than hearing the Navy pilots’ stories firsthand. Navy pilot Commander David Fravor who encountered the ‘tic tac’ UFO off of California in 2004 and Lieutenant Ryan Graves, a Navy pilot who said that the UFOs followed his Navy strike group for months, have expressed how anxious they are to find out what technology these strange craft are using to defy the laws of physics, tumbling through nonsensical angles to maintain a dominant position. In the “Gimbal” video (off of the coast of Florida in 2015) posted by The New York Times, one of the pilots is heard to exclaim, “There’s a whole fleet of them out there!” He was referring to a V-shaped formation of smaller craft approaching the fighters as they observed a larger “mothership” in the video. At close range, these bizarre craft appear to be black cubes, the corners of which are touching the inside of transparent spheres a mere six feet in diameter. There are no discernible air inlets, exhaust, wings, or means of lift or propulsion, yet they have been tracked at supersonic speeds and seem able to remain aloft indefinitely. Fravor’s anonymous female ‘wingman’ pilot noted, “We didn’t stand a chance against it.” Navy F-18 pilots would not say that about any Russian or Chinese fighter.
• This should be taken to heart by DoD officials and Congress. Commander Fravor and his colleagues expect their nation to find out where these things come from, why they are here, and how they work. A handful of senators and representatives on national security oversight committees have sought briefings. Yet an obdurate DoD bureaucracy seems to be making almost no effort to determine the origin of these craft or their means of propulsion.
• If we knew for certain that the Russian or Chinese militaries had leapfrogged the United States technologically, there would be a public uproar for increased investigation and action. Such initiatives were spurred on by the Soviet’s Sputnik satellite in the 1950s and paid handsome dividends with thousands of new patents and the US taking the lead in science and technology. The only response we’ve seen to these UAPs has been the Navy updating and formalizing its reporting process. No major investigations have been launched. There is no indication that DoD or the intelligence community leadership is engaged at all.
• There is still no process for collecting and integrating pertinent UFO/UAP information among the myriad US agencies and departments. At the same time, the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology directed NASA to begin looking for “technosignatures,” i.e.: alien space probes. There is no denying the possibility that some UAPs encountered by our military are probes launched by distant civilizations. Inability to identify the radical UAPs violating our airspace is an ongoing intelligence failure, one that arguably requires written notification to the House and Senate intelligence committees pursuant to Section 502 of the National Security Act of 1947.
• Indeed, there are things we could be doing. Analysts could review archived data of the ‘tic tac’ UFO incident in November 2004 from the Nimitz carrier strike group’s infrared radar system, or the International Monitoring System, or various space-based electronic sensors. Reviews of this kind for incidents occurring off the East Coast since 2015 should also be conducted. Direction from Congress or a senior administration official is all it would take to initiate the process. With little effort or expense, the Trump administration could request a National Intelligence Estimate on “anomalous aerospace threats”. Or Congress could fund an independent civilian panel under the auspices of the National Science Foundation.
• Our government’s failure to thoroughly investigate these UFO anomalies is due to our policymakers prioritizing political expediency over national security. This is a state of affairs reminiscent of the declining Roman Empire when the needs and concerns of troops in the field were largely ignored by self-serving politicians in Rome. Hopefully, support for our troops is one thing that still unites us.
On Dec. 16, 2017, The New York Times ran a front-page story revealing the existence of a congressionally mandated program to study unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The article was accompanied by two recently declassified DoD videos obtained by F-18 fighter pilots. On both occasions, the UFOs were seen in broad daylight by numerous Navy personnel, the reports were independently corroborated by sophisticated military sensor systems, and the unidentified aircraft demonstrated revolutionary aeronautical capabilities. For example, some of the craft were observed descending from altitudes above 80,000 feet, then hovering as low as 50 feet above the ocean before accelerating to hypersonic speeds from a dead stop.
As more information emerged, including the release of another official DoD UFO video, a handful of senators and representatives on the national security oversight committees sought briefings. At this point, the Navy and DoD could no longer conceal the truth.
Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations, admitted that the vehicles in the declassified Navy videos are neither a hoax nor secret U.S. test aircraft: “The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAP. In other words, they might be Russian, Chinese or even alien spacecraft. Whatever they are, they are real, they aren’t ours, and they continue to violate U.S. airspace with impunity.
With that short statement, the Navy upended the conclusions of every prior U.S. government examination of the UFO
phenomenon, from Project Sign in 1948 to Project Blue Book, which was terminated in 1969. Written when the Cold War was in full swing, these reports were designed to debunk UFO sightings and discredit civilian UFO researchers in order to reassure, rather than inform, the public. It is hardly surprising, then, that despite hundreds of cases defying explanation the Air Force concluded there was “no evidence of developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge” and that no case “reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security.”
The only scientist assigned full time to Project Blue Book, astronomer Allen Hynek, expressed his contempt for these findings, calling the project’s statistical methods “nothing less than a travesty” and the attitude and approach within Blue Book “illogical and unscientific.” It is now obvious that the stigma the Air Force sought to create worked only too well, causing most U.S. military and intelligence personnel to conceal rather than report UFO/UAPs – a process of self-blinding that resulted in decades of lost data.
The evidence provided by DoD videos and radar is vital for intelligence analysis, yet there is nothing more compelling than meeting the Navy pilots and hearing their stories firsthand. In my conversations with Cmdr. David Fravor, his excitement was palpable and contagious, as were the fears of his anonymous female wingman when she described the surreal manner in which the UAP seemed to defy the laws of physics, tumbling through nonsensical angles to maintain a dominant position vis-à-vis Fravor’s F-18.
Internet talking heads like to cast doubt on these accounts, proposing spurious theories of ghost aircraft lacking transponders lurking in restricted DoD airspace. Clearly they have not interviewed the pilots and radar operators who encountered these objects at close range. Had they done so, they would find no ambiguity, doubt or confusion. Fravor’s wingman told me, and Fravor agreed, “We didn’t stand a chance against it.” I cannot imagine Navy F-18 pilots saying that about any Russian or Chinese fighter. These sobering words from badass Navy combat pilots should be taken to heart by DoD officials and Congress.
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Article by Denis Bedoya February 15, 2020 (infosurhoy.com)
• On November 26, 2019, the Russian spacecraft, Cosmos 2542, was launched into orbit around the Earth. Two weeks later on December 6th, US military analysts noted that the satellite had unexpectedly split in two. A smaller satellite had effectively been ‘birthed’ from the larger one. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed the separation and said the purpose of the experiment was to ‘assess the technical condition of domestic satellites’.
• Operating in a polar oribit several hundred miles above the Earth, the pair of Russian satellites’ sensors and cameras are said to be focused on foreign adversaries’ top-secret military installations.
• But in mid-January, analysts noticed that the two Russian satellites were flying close by an American satellite dubbed USA 245. The American satellite is part of a reconnaissance constellation operated by the National Reconnaissance Office based in Virginia.
• On January 30, space enthusiast Michael Thompson raised concerns on Twitter, saying “there are a hell of a lot of circumstances that make it look like a known Russian inspection satellite is currently inspecting a known US spy satellite.” Thompson suggested that Cosmos 2542 may be getting close to USA 245 to take intelligence photos of the satellite or to debilitate it.
• Russia has a number of communications satellites positioned above the Earth that the Kremlin could use to gather intelligence, disable or destroy other satellites. This could potentially usher in a new era of ‘space war’.
• General John Raymond, the Chief of Space Operations for America’s Space Force, said the two Russian satellites began pursuing the multi-billion dollar US satellite in November and have at times flown within 100 miles it. “This is unusual and disturbing behavior and has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space,” said Raymond. “The United States finds these recent activities to be concerning and do not reflect the behavior of a responsible spacefaring nation.” The US has raised concerns about the matter through diplomatic channels with Moscow.
• The confrontation marks the first time the US military has publicly identified a direct threat to a specific American satellite by an adversary. The Pentagon, the White House, and Congressional backers say that Russia’s actions demonstrate the need for the Space Force, which was enacted into law in December.
A top Space Force official has lashed out at Russia for trailing a US spy satellite with two spacecraft.
Gen John Raymond, the chief of space operations for America’s newly-minted Space Force, said the two Russian satellites began pursuing the multi-billion dollar US satellite in November and have at times flown within 100 miles it.
‘This is unusual and disturbing behavior and has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space,’ Raymond said in a statement to Business Insider.
‘The United States finds these recent activities to be concerning and do not reflect the behavior of a responsible spacefaring nation.’
The US has raised concerns about the matter to Moscow through diplomatic channels, Raymond told Time magazine, which first reported the stalking on Monday.
The confrontation marks the first time the US military has publicly identified a direct threat to a specific American satellite by an adversary.
Pentagon, White House and Congressional backers have said that Russia’s actions demonstrate the need for the Space Force, which became the sixth military branch when President Donald Trump signed the $738billion National Defense Authorization Act into law in December.
US military analysts first took note of the Russian mission when a spacecraft that was launched into orbit on November 26 – the Cosmos 2542 – unexpectedly split into two about two weeks later.
Closer inspection revealed that the second smaller satellite – Cosmos 2543 – had been effectively ‘birthed’ from the first.
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Article by Mick Akers February 17, 2020 (reviewjournal.com)
• Last year, college student Matty Roberts created a Facebook meme to “storm the gate” of the secretive Air Force base known as Area 51 to “see them aliens.” The Alien Research Center in Hiko, Nevada and the ‘Little A’Le’Inn’ restaurant and hotel in Rachel, Nevada served as base camps for the 3,000 festivalgoers who actually attended what became “Alienstock”, a high-spirited festival of space alien enthusiasts featuring various musical acts, food vendors and activities.
• Lincoln County law enforcement anticipated a crowd of up to 30,000 people last year, and requested emergency funds to handle the expected crowds. As it turned out, the festival went off without a major incident. On the appointed day, September 20th, around 100 people showed up at the back gate of Area 51, chanted, and had fun with the law enforcement officials. A total of six arrests were made at the two Area 51 gates over the four-day event – five for trespassing and one for indecent exposure after a Canadian man urinated on the gate.
• Little A’Le’Inn owner Connie West was so pleased with the outcome of last year’s festival, she remarked that she would like to hold another Alienstock event in 2020. On the Little A’Le’Inn website, West has announced the dates for this year’s Alienstock – September 10-12.
• Citing safety and infrastructure concerns, the meme’s creator, Roberts, pulled out of the event last year. Roberts went on to host an alien-themed party in downtown Las Vegas. Roberts and his group, Hidden Sound LLC, are now in a legal battle with the Little A’Le’Inn owner, Connie West, for the rights to the ‘Alienstock’ name. The case is pending in the District Court.
• This year, Lincoln County commissioners have pre-signed a declaration of emergency for around $200,000 from the state of Nevada to help cover the costs of overseeing the alien-themed festival. But Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak says he doesn’t know why the state would have to bail the county when it approved the events. Still, Lincoln County commissioners have agreed to hear Connie West’s proposal for another Alienstock festival in a future commissioners meeting.
• Lincoln County emergency manager Eric Holt said that “Permits last year were approved in an effort to give order to the chaos and assist in the planning of such an unknown event.” But this year, some commissioners “have voiced their concerns with it and have requested a resolution in non-support of an Area 51 event that would require any support or response on behalf of Lincoln County.”
• Holt says that Lincoln County is not looking to provide an annual response to this event, similar to what Clark County (ie: Las Vegas) does on New Year’s Eve. “[A]ny future events would have to be self-supporting with no burden placed on the county.”
After attracting thousands of extraterrestrial fans from around the world to a rural Nevada desert town, Alienstock
organizers are preparing for a second go round.
Owners of restaurant and motel the Little A’Le’Inn in Rachel announced the dates for Alienstock 2020, listing the second annual festival will take place Sept. 10-12 on its website.
Last year’s event was created after a viral Facebook meme to storm the gate of the secretive Air Force base commonly known as Area 51 — long rumored to house extraterrestrial technology — to “see them aliens.” The Area 51 Basecamp event at the Alien Research Center in Hiko was also created in response to the attention the meme received.
The meme’s creator, college student Matty Roberts, initially signed on to be part of the Alienstock event, before pulling out, citing safety and infrastructure concerns. Roberts went on to host an alien-themed party in downtown Las Vegas.
Roberts and his group Hidden Sound LLC and Little A’Le’Inn owner Connie West are now in a legal battle for the
Alienstock name.
Their case is slated to be heard in a bench trial in District Court beginning next February, according to court records.
On the final day of Alienstock 2019, West mentioned her desire to hold the event again and said she already had someone book a room at the Little A’Le’Inn for the event.
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After the November 4, 2019 emergence of a former USAF Intelligence Specialist, Mike Turber, claiming that the 2004 Tic Tac sightings recorded by Navy pilots were antigravity spacecraft belonging to the USAF, three Navy witnesses have come forward confirming key parts of Turber’s ground-breaking testimony. Turber and the Navy witnesses testimonies are important since the US Navy has confirmed the authenticity of the video showing the Tic Tac incident, and given an official briefing to Congress and President Trump about what transpired.
Turber says the fleets of Tic Tac shaped craft recorded by ships and aircraft belonging to the Nimitz Aircraft Carrier group between November 10 to 14, 2004, were being flight-tested by the USAF against the Navy’s best radar recording technologies and intercept aircraft. Turber asserted that Air Force personnel boarded different Navy ships to confiscate the flight recordings of the UFOs that attained speeds of 24,000 mph in the air and over 500 mph under the water.
Turber claimed that there were five Tic Tac craft that had been sighted and recorded by the carrier group, but Navy commanders were not too perturbed. He said senior Navy officers were aware that the Tic Tac craft were highly classified USAF craft being tested against the Navy’s best surveillance, tracking and intercept technologies at the time.
Corroboration of Turber’s key claims emerged on January 20, 2020, when Patrick “PJ” Hughes, a Petty Officer on the aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz, was interviewed by Jim Breslo, who was the first to interview Turber back on November 4, and again on December 2, 2019.
Hughes says that he was responsible for preparing the electronic recording and communications systems for the E-2C Hawkeye aircraft based on the Nimitz, which provide eye-in-the-sky command and control functions for air traffic near the battle group. Hughes explained how all radar and other electronic surveillance data, some of which remains classified even today, was accumulated by the Hawkeye for subsequent analysis by Navy intelligence specialists.
The Hawkeye recorded all the radar and other electronic data acquired by the F/A-18 Super Hornets intercepting the Tic Tac craft, as well as its own data recordings.
Hughes says that after the Hawkeye landed with all the radar and other intelligence data accumulated of the flight behavior of the Tic Tac shaped craft, two USAF personnel were accompanied by his commander, and took the two bricks (hard drives) from the Hawkeye that Hughes had placed in a safe. Hughes added that when he began to sign out the two bricks as part of his standard operating procedure, his commanding officer told him to stop and made it clear that the bricks were to be taken by the Air Force personnel without any record being kept.
This incident is key evidence that senior Navy officials were aware that the Tic Tac craft were involved in some classified project, and that there was high-level cooperation between the USAF and Navy over the course of the week when the Tic Tacs were sighted and recorded.
Hughes’ testimony confirms Turber’s account that two Air Force officials took all the data of the Tic Tac craft, and that over the course of the week-long sightings, USAF officials were working closely with the Navy in controlling information about the UFO sightings.
This is important corroboration for Turber and his confidential sources on the true origins of the Tic Tac craft seen near the Nimitz carrier group, and the related January 16, 2015 UFO incidents off the coast of Florida Coast that were witnessed and recorded by military personnel from another carrier group led by the USS Roosevelt.
Hughes also confirmed that the two pilots and three crew members of the Hawkeye visually sighted the Tic Tac craft which flew only a mile away from them before speeding off. They gave similar descriptions of it being a white Tic Tac shaped craft that was about 40 feet long, and capable of fantastic flight maneuvers.
Hughes explained that all five crew members were debriefed after the incident and had to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA). This again helps corroborate what Turber revealed in his November 4, 2019 interview. Fortunately, Hughes was not required to sign an NDA on the Tic Tac incident, even though signing NDA’s was a regular occurrence during his Navy career.
In addition, Gary Voorhis, another Navy whistleblower has come forward to say that something similar happened on the USS Princeton, where two men in plain clothes confiscated all the ship’s sophisticated Aegis and other electronic tracking data recorded of the Tic Tac craft.
These technologies included the newly installed SPY-1 radar according to Paco Chierici, a former Navy pilot who wrote the first article on the Tic Tac incident based on a classified Naval Intelligence study he was given. In his March 14, 2005, article, Chierici said the SPY-1 radar tracked the Tic Tacs from as high as 80,000 feet to 50 feet above sea level in a few seconds, a capability that was not possible with previous Navy radar systems.
Voorhis was also interviewed by Breslo as part of an in-depth series of interviews casting new light on the true origins of the Tic Tac craft, and the mounting evidence that these were secret USAF craft being tested against the Navy’s best recording devices and pilots.
While Voorhis was unable to verify that the two officials were USAF personnel, he pointed out that the Princeton carried state of the art electronics surveillance equipment, which would be the logical place for testing prototype aircraft. Precisely what Turber had pointed out in his first interview.
Similarly, Hughes pointed out that the 2015 UFO incidents captured on video and generally known as the Gimbal and GoFast videos also involved the Navy’s latest generation of electronic surveillance and intercept craft.
Finally, Breslo interviewed another Navy witness to the Tic Tac events, Kevin Day, who was stationed on the USS Princeton and was in charge of the newly installed SPY-1 radar that was monitoring all air traffic. Day described the radar tracking of the Tic Tac’s dropping from 28,000 feet to only 50 feet above sea level in a matter of seconds, which in his opinion defied the known laws of physics.
Day described both the Captain of the USS Nimitz and the Admiral in charge of the Nimitz battle group showing a surprising “lack of curiosity” over the UFO sightings. This corroborates what Turber had to say about senior Navy officials having been briefed about the Tic Tacs.
Additionally, Day said that when he tried to find the radar tracking of the Tic Tac craft and the Navy interceptors to file an after-action-report, all data was gone. This corroborates what Voorhis claims happened after two unknown persons confiscated all the recorded data.
Consequently, Mike Turber’s testimony that the Tic Tac sightings in 2004 involved the testing of classified hybrid aerospace vehicles capable of traveling underwater and into space is supported to significant degrees by three Navy personnel who were eyewitnesses to events that transpired during the November 2004 Tic Tac sightings.
Hughes, Voorhis and Day’s respective testimonies adds to growing confidence that the Tic Tac shaped craft will be among the first declassified aerospace platforms to be revealed by the newly formed Space Force as predicted by Turber. Given the rapid advances in the setting up of Space Force, we may not have to wait to long to discover the truth behind the Navy UFO sightings in 2004 and 2015.
© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice
Further Reading
Article by Shaun Wooller February 15, 2020 (thesun.co.uk)
• Dr Andrew Siemion of the University of California (pictured above) has launched a project using a huge telescope in New Mexico to hunt for advanced extraterrestrials. (see yesterday’s ExoArticle) Siemion expects this enormous telescope array to find evidence of intelligent beings before others find so much as a simple bacteria.
• His team, which includes folks from the SETI Institute, will tune in to tens of billions of radio signals above our heads, filter out the “noise” ie: signals from Earth and other known sources, and explore a larger area than other teams have around a planet.
• Dr Siemion told a conference audience that he believes aliens exist. Siemion expects to discover a radio signal from a distant civilization emitted as they search for us or as part of their daily life. “Our solar system is 4.7 billion years old and the universe is 13.5 billion years old,” noted Siemion. “So, surely the first civilization that we encounter [is] likely to have had technology far longer than we have, and would be much more technologically sophisticated.”
• Siemion thinks that the first aliens we encounter will have been around the galaxy billions of years longer than humans. They are likely to be extremely intelligent and more advanced than we humans. They will “undoubtedly” be more clever than humans. They may be floating around in something like the Star Wars’ Death Star with technology that makes our gadgets look Stone Aged.
The first aliens will have been around billions of years longer than humans, according to Dr Andrew Siemion, who is leading the search for ET-like creatures, and are likely to be extremely intelligent and more advanced than humans.
And he warned they will “undoubtedly” be more clever than humans, with technology that makes our gadgets look Stone Aged.
They may be floating around in something like the Star Wars’ Death Star that makes our technology look Stone Age, he claims.
Dr Siemion told a conference he believes aliens exist.
He added: “Our solar system is 4.7billion years old and the ¬universe is 13.5billion years old.
“So, surely the first civilisation that we encounter are likely to have had technology far longer than we have, and would be much more technologically sophisticated.”
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Article by Georgina Torbet February 15, 2020 (digitaltrends.com)
• A collaboration between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the SETI Institute will use the NRAO’s “Very Large Array” (VLA) of radio telescopes (with operations center in Socorro, New Mexico) to search for the presence of extraterrestrial life in the universe by such indicators as laser beams, structures built around stars, constructed satellites, or atmospheric chemicals produced by industry.
• In a statement, Andrew Siemion, Chair of the SETI Institute and Principal Investigator for the Breakthrough Listen Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley, said “The SETI Institute will develop and install an interface on the VLA permitting unprecedented access to the rich data stream continuously produced by the telescope as it scans the sky. This interface will allow us to conduct a powerful, wide-area SETI survey that will be vastly more complete than any previous such search.”
• NRAO Director Tony Beasley stated, “As the VLA conducts standard observations, this new system will allow for an additional and important use for the data we’re already collecting.” “Determining whether we are alone in the universe as technologically capable life is among the most compelling questions in science, and NRAO telescopes can play a major role in answering it.”
• Bill Diamond, President and CEO of the SETI Institute said that “Having access to the most sensitive radio telescope in the northern hemisphere for SETI observations is perhaps the most transformative opportunity yet in the history of SETI programs,” giving SETI researchers the opportunity to search further than ever before. “We are delighted to have this opportunity to partner with NRAO, especially as we now understand the candidate pool of relevant planets numbers in the billions.”
• [Editor’s Note] Well this should be a huge waste of time and money for a few more years as SETI continues to search the skies in bad faith, desperately trying not to actually find any sign life in the universe, which is its true deep state objective. For if SETI ever admitted that there are signs of an extraterrestrial presence all around us, and has been for decades if not millennia, then they would be exposed as the frauds they are and find themselves out of a job.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is getting a boost through a collaboration that will use existing
radio telescopes to search for indicators of life elsewhere in the universe.
A new collaboration has been announced between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the SETI Institute, to add SETI capabilities to the NRAO’s radio telescopes. To begin the project, an interface will be added to the NRAO’s Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico to search for events or structures which could indicate the presence of life, such as laser beams, structures built around stars, indications of constructed satellites, or atmospheric chemicals produced by industry.
“The SETI Institute will develop and install an interface on the VLA permitting
unprecedented access to the rich data stream continuously produced by the telescope as it scans the sky,“ Andrew Siemion, Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute and Principal Investigator for the Breakthrough Listen Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement. “This interface will allow us to conduct a powerful, wide-area SETI survey that will be vastly more complete than any previous such search.”
As well as adding the new interface, the data collected by the VLA will be analyzed for signs of life. “As the VLA conducts standard observations, this new system will allow for an additional and important use for the data we’re already collecting,” NRAO Director Tony Beasley said in the statement. “Determining whether we are alone in the universe as technologically capable life is among the most compelling questions in science, and NRAO telescopes can play a major role in answering it.”
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February 10, 2020 (wired.com)
• Astrobiologists use telescopes to seek biochemical evidence of microbes on other planets. SETI scientists use telescopes to look for intelligent beings’ technological signatures. Then there are those who believe that intelligent extraterrestrials are here, now, buzzing the skies of planet Earth. The respective members of these three groups of ‘alien hunters’ do not necessarily get along with one another. Their interactions demonstrate a concept that sociologists call “boundary-work”, e.g.: building fences and enforcing ideas about who counts as a scientist, and who doesn’t. This ‘boundary’, however, is subjectively based on social mores, social fears, and politics.
• People who find themselves on the outside of mainstream science often foster a sense of antagonism. But the line of demarcation as to what is ‘outside’ of mainstream science shifts with time. Science’s ideas about which ET-seeking methods are valid and which are ‘fringey’ have changed over the past few decades.
• In the early years, astrobiologists and SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, worked together. ‘Perhaps those microbes on a far-off planet evolved and built radio transmitters.’ But then their respective disciplines parted ways. In order to study the conditions of life on other planets, astrobiologists tend to study conditions on this planet – drilling into frozen lakes, doing lab experiments, studying geological evolution, researching our genetics. They use this data to determine which exoplanets have the best chance for evolving life forms. SETI, on the other hand, search for electromagnetic transmissions and signatures of technologies that are not yet understood.
• In the early 1970s, NASA and the National Academy of Sciences considered SETI an important component of the search for extraterrestrial lifeforms. Then politicians such as Senator Richard Proxmire denounced SETI as a wasteful, useless, and futile endeavor. Congressional funding of SETI’s ‘High-Resolution Microwave Survey’ in the early 1990s was cut-off in 1993. The National Science Foundation banned SETI projects from its funding portfolio. Grant opportunities dried up. NASA and mainstream astrobiologists began to distance themselves from SETI.
• In the 2000s, SETI turned to private investors like Paul Allen and Yuri Milner and became associated with searching for ‘little green men’ and UFOs. The mainstream considered SETI ‘laughable pseudo-research’ outside the bounds of proper science. At the same time, astrobiology became a “legitimate” science. Astrobiologist Sara Seager told Congress in 2013, “We’re not looking for aliens or searching for UFOs. We’re using standard astronomy.”
• But SETI scientists have been clawing their way back to legitimacy. In April 2018, Congress directed NASA to start including searches for “technosignatures” in its broader search for life beyond Earth. The House Appropriations Committee is deciding whether SETI’s work will be sanctioned in the 2020s.
• One thing that both “legitimate” astrobiologists and SETI have in common is that they both consider ufology silly. They keep their distance from anyone who believes in UFOs or an extraterrestrial presence. But for someone at SETI who imagines light-years-away microbes growing into sentient beings that broadcast radio waves and beam lasers, is it that much harder to imagine these beings traveling here to Earth?
• Mainstream academic researchers claim that virtually no hard UFO data exists beyond personal accounts. Ufology doesn’t explain how or why alien spaceships could or would come all the way here. Then there are the standard variety of banal explanations for bogus UFO sightings. Ufology is not science in the way SETI researchers do science.
• Greg Eghigian, a Penn State researcher, points out that “From the early-1950s through the 1970s, a number of academics took the study of UFOs seriously and regularly engaged with ufologists.” Back then the military had official UFO research programs, even though their conclusions usually amounted to “nothing to see here.” Those programs ended. The Air Force-sponsored 1968 ‘Condon Report’ concluded that studying UFOs was a waste of time, and UFO research was consigned to the fringes.
• In 1983, Thomas F. Gieryn published his paper: “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science.” When researchers do ‘boundary-work’, they create and maintain lines around who qualifies as a scientist and who doesn’t, and what is and what is not science. In so doing, they bestow legitimacy onto themselves and deny it to others. But this can backfire on them. When the public perceives scientists arbitrarily establishing exclusive scientific authority, people themselves feel alienated, fostering conspiracy theories about the mainstream scientists’ true motives.
• Similar to anti-vaccination activists, GMO no-goers, and people who say climate change has nothing to do with people, many ufologists have decided that scholars and politicians are at best, narrow-minded or, at worst, engaged in a deliberate attempt to hide information.
• Psychologist Stuart Appelle wrote that ufology “is not simply rejected as a legitimate discipline, it is categorically dismissed.” Rejection suggests a conclusion based on close examination and careful reflection. But dismissal is a judgment that close examination is not warranted at all, which is not very scientific. This silencing is a form of ‘social stigmatization’.
• Adam Dodd, a communications instructor at the University of Queensland (in Australia) sees mainstream scientists’ dismissal of the UFO phenomenon as ‘saving face’ in order to maintain their reputation among their own peers. An example of this is when Stephen Hawking concluded that the absence of any evidence of aliens essentially equates with evidence of the absence of aliens. And therefore, for a ‘true scientist’, UFOs and aliens are not worthy of consideration.
• This ‘boundary-work’ by mainstream scientists is both frustrating and patronizing to UFO researchers who find themselves outside of the mainstream fence. They suspect a mainstream agenda is being formed against them. Ufologists become mistrustful of so-called ‘experts’, while the mainstream regards UFO followers as ‘cranks’. So they each band together to create an ‘us versus them’ scenario, and keep their distance from each other. Scientists cannot afford the professional consequences of being associated with fringe ufologists. As a consequence, science probably loses out on the ‘kernels of truth’ in the nut bin.
• The thing that both sides generally have in common is the desire to get to the truth. But with the elitist scientists’ blanket denial of all that is lumped together as ‘fringe conspiracy theories’, these ‘hard science’ practitioners also tend to ignore cultural knowledge, emotional knowledge, spiritual knowledge, and personal knowledge. Their plodding and myopic focus on hard science may slow the rate of scientific achievement.
• Today, mainstream science seems to be more willing to embrace SETI. In 2014, SETI astronomer Jill Tarter received radio astronomy’s highest honor, the Janksy Lectureship award. And this is slowly expanding into the field of ufology. The chair of the Harvard astronomy department has publically suggested that the ‘asteroid’ Oumuamua could be a visiting spaceship.
• A NASA scientist notes that both SETI and ufology are about ‘finding the signal in the noise’. There may be ‘signals’, however small, that indicate a phenomena associated with UFOs that cannot be explained or denied that should be taken into consideration. Rather than dismissing the research of a particular ‘fringe’ group outright, scientists might listen. If so, the reaction by the fringe might be to consider mainstream ‘expert’ analysis more. There can be important truths revealed from both sides of the spectrum.
Aliens—hypothetical beings from outer space—fall into roughly three categories. They could be far-away microbes or other creatures that don’t use technology humans can detect; they could be far-away creatures that use technology earthlings can identify; or they could be creatures that have used technology to come to Earth.
Each of these categories has a different branch of research dedicated to it, and each one is probably less likely than the last to actually find something: Astrobiologists use telescopes to seek biochemical evidence of microbes on other planets. SETI scientists, on the other hand, use telescopes to look for hints of intelligent beings’ technological signatures as they beam through the cosmos. Investigating the idea that aliens have traveled here and have skimmed the air with spaceships, meanwhile, is the province of pseudoscientists. Or so the narrative goes.
Although these three groups have a common goal—answering the question “Are we alone?”—they don’t always get along. Their interactions demonstrate a concept that sociologists call “boundary-work”: designing and building fences around Legitimate Science, and enforcing ideas about who counts as a scientist, who doesn’t, and why. Those fences are supposed to defend science’s honor, demonstrate scientists’ objectivity, and uphold the profession’s standards. That’s good! We want that! But the fence posts also demarcate a boundary that isn’t objective but is, in fact, a function of time, location, culture, social mores, social fears, and politics. The enforcement of this sometimes-shifting boundary can send people who find
themselves on the outside further away from mainstream science, fostering a sense of antagonism and slighted outsiderism. The history of hunting aliens is a good way to understand those unintended consequences of boundary-work in other disciplines. Because even though none of the groups actually knows, or has gained access to, whatever ET truth is out there, science’s ideas about which ET-seeking methods are valid and which are fringey have changed over the past few decades.
Astrobiology v. SETI
In the early years of astrobiology and SETI, the two groups worked more side by side than they later would. After all, they just existed at different locations on a spectrum: Maybe microbes arose on a far-off planet, and maybe those microbes evolved and built radio transmitters. Astrobiology technically just means the study of life in the universe. But that encompasses a lot: Astrobiologists look into questions like how life started, how it evolved, and what environments can support it. To study these questions, scientists can gather data on this planet, drilling into frozen lakes, doing lab experiments involving the chemistry of early Earth, studying geological evolution on Mars, or gaining a better understanding of genetics to get a better sense of what alternatives might exist to our own DNA. They also investigate what life might look like on another world, whether it has existed on other solar-system planets, and how to pick out a habitable or perhaps inhabited exoplanet from astronomical data.
SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, falls logically within the scope of astrobiology. But this search, usually for electromagnetic transmissions, is more speculative, since it deals less explicitly with the kinds of chemistry, geology, physics, and biology we can observe in the solar system—and so perhaps beyond—and instead seeks signatures of technology whose nature we don’t yet, and may never, know.
Still, NASA initially supported both sorts of searches (although it called astrobiology “exobiology”). The venerable National Academy of Sciences, in its 1972 recommendations for the search for life beyond the solar system, listed SETI as an important component of exobiology, stating that “SETI investigations are among the most far-reaching efforts underway in exobiology today.” Trouble bubbled up between the groups, though, after SETI became the object of political ire. The search for smart aliens had already proven to be a favorite football for politicians, a frequent contender for cancelation—because of the low probability of success, the speculation required, and the money that they said could be better spent on Earth. For instance, in 1978, Senator Richard Proxmire awarded the nascent project his infamous Golden Fleece Award, for wasting government funds on what he considered a useless, futile endeavor. In the early 1990s, NASA finally began its first SETI observations, part of the project that had been on the drawing board when Proxmire mocked it: then called the High-Resolution Microwave Survey. But the year after the survey began, in 1993, Congress shut down the program.
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Article by Leonard David February 9, 2020 (space.com)
• In December 2019, President Trump established the Space Force as a separate military branch. Space Force’s first chief of space operations, General John “Jay” Raymond, says that the new branch will be a “technology-focused service.” Officially, Space Force is designed to help protect the interests of the United States in space, deter aggression in the final frontier, and conduct prompt and sustained space operations.
• This effort was sparked by the increasing space ambitions of multiple countries, especially China and Russia. Last month, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said, “It’s just been recently that both China and Russia pushed us to the point where (space has) now become a warfighting domain.” “It’s important not just to our security, but to our commerce, our way of life… that we’re prepared to defend ourselves and preserve space.”
• Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, believes that a ‘flippant remark’ made by Trump in a March 2018 speech led to a Space Force to support (the US Air Force’s) Space Command. “Whether it will evolve into an organization that solves any of the problems that prompted it remains to be seen,” said Johnson-Freese. “It certainly increases the perception that the U.S. is leading the way on the weaponization of space.”
• Theresa Hitchens, the space and air reporter at the online magazine Breaking Defense and a former senior research associate at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies, and former director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, wonders whether the Air Force and DoD will accelerate the fielding of new military space capabilities necessary to ensure U.S. technological and military advantages in space, as Congressionally mandated in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. In response to this Act, the Space Development Agency was moved to the Space Force. Hitchens says that the DoD is implementing these changes slowly to make Congress back off. Hitchens also wonders whether other military branches will contribute personnel to the Space Force, “or are we talking simply about a renaming of Air Force Space Command where nothing changes except the uniforms and patches, wasting taxpayer dollars?”
• Laura Grego, a senior scientist in the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, thinks it may be easy to dismiss the Space Force as a vanity project because of the name. Grego thinks that the Space Force may prompt a space arms race that would threaten satellites, not protect them. “[I]t …organizes military space around deterring and responding to aggression.” Therefore, “there is a bureaucratic incentive to hype the threat and then build weapons to counter that threat.” Grego notes, “There is no commensurate effort from the State Department to shape the space environment to be more stable and peaceful, which would certainly benefit both military and civil space users.”
• Mark Gubrud, a physicist and adjunct professor in Peace, War and Defense at the University of North Carolina, says, “The existence of a Space Force implies the potential use of force in space… [t]hat is, having space weapons.” “[E]verybody assumes that a Space Force is going to be an armed force,” defending future asteroid-mining operations, moon bases and sundry fantasies. The U.S., China and Russia have been drifting toward a space arms race, because even unarmed satellites participate in military surveillance, targeting, communications and other war-fighting functions. Gubrud asks, “[W]ill we continue this course toward destabilization and nuclear war?” “[O]r will we renew our pursuit of arms control, disarmament, and the vision of a world free from this terrible danger?”
• Peter Martinez, executive director of the Colorado-based Secure World Foundation focuses on the underlying factors in the Space Force as they pertain to the stability of the space environment and the safety and sustainability of space activities. “[S]pace is already a domain dominated by civilian and commercial actors,” Martinez said, “so the new space race is really… among civilian commercial rivals to access an increasingly congested and contested domain.” Martinez notes the proliferation of “counterspace” activities. This leads to a narrative of the “inevitability” of armed conflict in outer space that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• The Space Force debate was initially about whether to establish the new branch at all, Martinez said. Now that it is established, the debate is about what such a Space Force will look like. “To date, what we have seen is mostly a reorganization of already existing activities, with nothing fundamentally new or additional. It remains to be seen how this Space Force will develop in the future and what its rules of engagement will be,” says Martinez. “[W]e would much prefer to see space preserved as a domain for peaceful use and exploration, for the benefit of all nations.” “But this will only happen if these developments are complemented by diplomatic efforts to communicate these messages to the international community to avoid mistrust based on misperceptions and misunderstandings of U.S. intentions in outer space.”
The Trump administration established the Space Force as a separate military branch in December 2019.
Since then, America’s Space Force has gotten its own official “Star Trek”-esque seal, with a logo being developed. Recently unveiled was a traditional camouflage uniform adorned with a blue “U.S. Space Force” nameplate on the chest and a full-color flag on the left arm.
Furthermore, the first official “space guy” has been formally sworn in. Gen. John “Jay” Raymond is the Space Force’s first chief of space operations and has said that the new branch will be a “technology-focused service.”
Sparking all of this activity are the increasing space ambitions and capabilities of multiple countries, especially China and Russia, U.S. officials have said. The Space Force is designed to help protect the interests of the United States in space, deter aggression in the final frontier and conduct prompt and sustained space operations.
As U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper noted last month, nations have been in space for many, many years. “It’s just been recently that both China and Russia pushed us to the point where it now became a warfighting domain,” Esper said during a Jan. 27 news conference.
As a result, Esper said, the United States has established the Space Command and just recently, Space Force, “to make sure that we can preserve space as a global commons,” he stressed. “It’s important not just to our security, but to our commerce, our way of life, our understanding of the planet, weather, you name it. So it’s very important that we — we now treat it that way and make sure that we’re prepared to defend ourselves and preserve space.”
What next for the Space Force?
Space.com asked a variety of experts in space policy about the practicalities, pathways and potential pitfalls ahead for the U.S. Space Force.
“Congress took a seemingly flippant remark and created a rational implementation plan, a Space Force to support Space Command,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, referring to a comment President Donald Trump made during a speech in March 2018. (Her views do not necessarily represent those of the Naval War College, the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.)
“Whether it will evolve into an organization that solves any of the problems that prompted it remains to be seen,” Johnson-Freese told Space.com. “On the negative side, it certainly increases the perception that the U.S. is leading the way on the weaponization of space.”
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Article by Jazz Shaw February 15, 2020 (hotair.com)
• In December 2017, the New York Times broke the story about a secret Pentagon program investigating UFOs called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Since then the Pentagon has remained secretive about the program. It has even denied that Luis Elizondo ever worked on the program, much less ran it for years. The DoD’s information keeps getting contradicted and the Pentagon can’t seem to get their story straight.
• Investigative journalist and retired Police Lieutenant Tim McMillan has been digging into the truth behind the conflicting information we’ve been getting from the Pentagon. It turns out that the Pentagon thwarted efforts by journalists using FOIA requests to get more information on AATIP by “shopping” them out to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) and other private operations. You may recall that BAASS received the lion’s share of the government funding when the AATIP program was created at the request of former Senator Harry Reid. Therefore, they aren’t technically “government documents” and not subject to FOIA requests. McMillan quotes sources who actually worked on the project, describing the situation as “a dizzying shell game that’s entirely consistent with how black budget intelligence programs are run.” (see Jazz Shaw’s interview of Tim McMillan below)
• BAASS would provide the AATIP and the DIA with technical reports on exotic and potential “game-changing” aerospace technology through their research of UFOs. But the reports themselves remained the commercial property of BAASS, and the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 prohibits the disclosure of proprietary materials provided to the government in confidence. Essentially, the DIA’s UFO program was set up to circumvent FOIA requests and avoid having to discuss UFOs publicly.
• McMillan was able to obtain some of those AATIP documents from the government and from the now-defunct Bigelow Aerospace to learn that not only was AATIP real, but the program absolutely focused on UFOs. Also, McMillan has the documents to prove that the Pentagon’s AATIP program still exists under a restructured program, even though the government claimed that it ended the program in 2012. It certainly was in operation in 2017 when Elizondo left the program, and it is still in operation today.
• Popular Mechanics learned that in October 2019, staffers with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Armed Service Committee were briefed on current UAP/UFO activities with former BAASS contractors and current AATIP leaders in attendance. During a closed session with the Senate Intelligence Committee, Brigadier General Richard Stapp, Director of the DoD Special Access Program Central Office, reportedly said that these highly advanced UFOs do not belong to a secret military project. This indicates that the US military does not have that kind of advanced technology. And it is likely that China and Russia do not have this technology either. So the extraterrestrial explanation is still in play.
In the more than two years since the New York Times broke their bombshell story about a secret Pentagon program investigating UFOs (or UAPs, if you insist), many questions have been raised by those investigating the topic. Unfortunately, the Pentagon has had very little to say, and even when they do offer to answer some questions, those answers frequently have a rather short shelf life. In the past, we’ve explored why there is still so much secrecy surrounding the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and how the Pentagon can’t seem to keep their stories straight. This is particularly true when it comes to their statements about Luis Elizondo, executive of To The Stars Academy and the former Defense Department official who ran AATIP for several years. (The Pentagon keeps insisting he never did, though Elizondo has his own theories as to why they’re doing this.)
Now, at long last, at least some of those mysteries have been solved. Yesterday another bombshell in this
saga dropped at Popular Mechanics. Investigative journalist Lt. Tim McMillan (ret) has been digging into the truth behind the conflicting information we’ve been getting for months and now he’s published a lengthy and incredibly well researched and documented article that peeks behind the curtains and shines some light on the subject. (If you’ve never watched my interview with McMillan, you might want to. He’s a fascinating person in his own right and well versed in the lore of ufology.)
This article provides most of the history of AATIP, some of which we already knew, but with some shocking new information that Tim uncovered through scores of interviews and by obtaining many documents from both the government and the now-defunct Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). BAASS, as you may recall, received the lion’s share of the government funding when the AATIP program was created at the request of former Senator Harry Reid. The first thing
McMillan clears up beyond a shadow of a doubt is that not only was AATIP real, but it was also absolutely a program focused on UFOs. (You may recall that after initially admitting it was a UAP program, the Pentagon turned around and said it wasn’t.)
So how is the Pentagon keeping everything secret and thwarting efforts by journalists using FOIA requests to get more information on AATIP? McMillan quotes sources who actually worked on the project, describing the situation as “a dizzying shell game that’s entirely consistent with how black budget intelligence programs are run.” The trick being used involves the fact that the documents many of us have been seeking were all shopped out to BAASS and other private operations, so they aren’t technically “government documents” and not subject to FOIA requests. (Emphasis added)
According to several former AATIP contractors, the “product” being produced for the DIA was technical reports on exotic and potential “game-changing” aerospace technologies, and the manner of determining what areas these radical airborne breakthroughs might emerge was through the research of UFOs.
42:55 minute Jazz Shaw interview of Tim McMillan on govt secrecy (‘Townhall Media’ YouTube)
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