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Is the Media Taking UFO Sightings Seriously?

May 31, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Dani Di Placido May 17, 2021 (forbes.com)

• It wasn’t long ago that the biggest media platform a ufologist could hope for was The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. But now, with UFO footage and eyewitness accounts being discussed in mainstream outlets like the New Yorker, the NYTimes, and 60 Minutes, there has been a dramatic tonal shift in how the subject is being treated. It’s an exciting time to be a UFO enthusiast.

• The timing isn’t coincidental. UFO enthusiasts are eagerly anticipating a declassified report on UFOs by the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon is due to be handed over to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June.

• On a recent 60 Minutes episode, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker delved into US government efforts to uncover the truth behind the UFO phenomenon, motivated by national security concerns. Whitaker interviewed Luis Elizondo, who ran a Pentagon UFO program called Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) back in 2010. When asked if he believes that UFOs are real, Elizondo said, “The government has already stated for the record that they’re real. I’m not telling you that. The United States government is telling you that.”

• Elizondo is not saying that intelligent extraterrestrials have visited Earth. While according to astrobiologists the likelihood of extraterrestrial life is almost a certainty, there is no evidence that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth. Skeptic UFO investigator Mick West sees the unidentified flying blobs in those grainy videos taken by Navy pilots – in an era where most people carry HD cameras in our pockets – as mundane (tricks of photography or common objects such as balloons). With the frequency of UFO sightings, crystal-clear footage of a gleaming alien spacecraft should have emerged somewhere on the internet by now.

• Many of us ‘want to believe’, and there’s no reason not to keep an open mind. But we should heed the wise words of Carl Sagan, that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” And unless the Pentagon is going to provide extraordinary evidence in June, those extraordinary claims have little merit.

• [Editor’s Note] Anyone who is not convinced that extraterrestrial beings and their craft have frequented the Earth for millennia is trying very hard to ignore the multitude of evidence. Skeptics like Mick West will never be convinced, even when extraterrestrial beings land, get out of their craft, walk up to West and said, “Hello, we are from the Alpha Centauri star system. Nice to meet you.” These media trolls would rather abide by sort of foreign invasion scenario than to accept that we have benevolent extraterrestrial cousins in our galaxy who would like to see the Earth join their space-faring ranks.

While the best UFO photos have been sequestered by governments (see ExoArticle: “British Military Has UFO Videos and Must Release Them”), there are still many great photos of UFOs out there. Of course, skeptics will always deny their authenticity. The US government is only providing the grainy photos at this time because they want a maddingly slow drip of UFO disclosure. They want to dominate the narrative with the ‘threat’ that UFOs may pose to our national security. Mainstream writers of articles such as this one are more than happy to go along with a limited threat narrative disclosure. And when the deep state government follows-up this threat narrative with a false flag ‘alien invasion’, these writers will dutifully go along with that as well – because the mainstream media has become a propaganda tool of the deep state, not a reporter of facts and truth.

And let’s not forget that the “wise” Carl Sagan, who demanded “extraordinary evidence”, was himself a member of the pseudo-governmental UFO overlord group known as Majestic-12 whose function is to suppress and ridicule all evidence of UFOs.

“We have tackled many strange stories on 60 Minutes, but perhaps none like this,”

**‘tic tac’ UFO off of San Diego in 2004**

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker said on Sunday night’s special, which investigated sightings of “unidentified aerial phenomena,” or UAPs, commonly known as UFOs.

The special focused on publicly released footage of UFOs recorded by Navy pilots, interviewed eyewitnesses, and delved into U.S. government efforts to uncover the truth behind the phenomenon.

**‘transmedium’ (air/underwater) UFO off of San Diego in 2019**

Whitaker interviewed Luis Elizondo, who began running a Pentagon program called Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) back in 2010, tasked with studying “the national security implications of unidentified aerial phenomena documented by U.S. service members.”

**the cognatively dissonant skeptic, Mick West**

When asked if he believes that UFOs are real, Elizondo stated: “I think we’re beyond that already. The government has already stated for the record that they’re real. I’m not telling you that. The United States government is telling you that.”

Elizondo, of course, is not saying that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth, but simply confirming the fact that there are regular sightings of unidentified objects in the sky, and that the U.S. government seeks an explanation, motivated by national security concerns.

Regardless, there has been a dramatic tonal shift in how the media discusses UFO footage and eyewitness accounts – it’s certainly an exciting time to be a UFO enthusiast. It wasn’t long ago that the biggest media platform a ufologist could hope for was The Joe Rogan Experience; now, the New Yorker, the NYTimes, and 60 Minutes have made efforts to seriously examine the phenomenon.

The timing isn’t coincidental – a declassified report from the directorate of national intelligence and the Pentagon is due to be handed over to the Senate Intelligence Committee in June, which UFO enthusiasts (along with everyone else) hope will shed some light on the mystery.

But perhaps the public shouldn’t get their hopes up – the likelihood of extraterrestrial life is, according to astrobiologists, almost a certainty – but there is no evidence that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth, or even has the ability (or motivation) to do so.

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Pentagon’s Release of UFO Videos a Big Deal for Believers in Extraterrestrial Life

May 13, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by CBC Radio May 1, 2020 (cbc.ca)

• On April 27th, the U.S. Department of Defense released three short UFO/UAP videos recorded in 2004 and 2015. Those same videos were posted online since 2017 by Tom DeLonge’s ‘To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences’. The DoD declassified the clips to “clear up any misconceptions” about whether the footage was real and “whether or not there is more to the videos.”

• Former British Defence Ministry UFO investigator Nick Pope says that “This new revelation, I think, takes us to some very interesting territory and at least lays the groundwork for serious adult conversation about this that goes beyond Sci-Fi memes.” For believers in extraterrestrial life, the Pentagon’s acknowledgement is a big deal. “After years of what they see as government denial, they think that this is a prelude to disclosure,” said Pope. “… the moment when the government formally acknowledges an extraterrestrial presence.”

• While the Pentagon offered no information about what’s actually seen in the three clips, some believe the pilots’ incredulous reactions to what they’re seeing indicates something bizarre. “The U.S. Navy top guns are not easily impressed in terms of things like speed and maneuverability,” Pope said. “So when they get excited, it tells you there’s something a little bit unusual about this, to say the least.” Whatever the videos show, it “doesn’t matter in a sense,” says Pope. “The important point is this subject has now come out of the fringe and into the mainstream.”

• Mick West, author of Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect, points out that the Navy essentially acknowledged the UAP videos back in September 2019. Says West, “These videos have been out for two years and the Navy has never really said that these are not real videos from Navy planes.”

• West isn’t fooled by UFO theories. He explains that the video of a rotating, potato-like object – indeed, “a whole fleet of them” as one Navy aviator exclaims in the Gimbal video, is simply “the heat signature of the jet engine” as it “flares up in the infrared [camera].” “It’s like if you shone a flashlight into a camera,” says West who is a licensed pilot, “you don’t see the flashlight itself, you just see a bright glare around it.” The rotation is nothing but a moving part in the camera’s lens. “[P]ilots will naturally see things in the sky that they can’t identify.”

• Although there may be logical explanations for the objects pictured in the videos, West says they may be kept confidential for national security reasons, no matter how benign. “The Navy probably has a very good idea of what types of things these are — that they’re drones or balloons or aircraft or whatever they are — but they’re not going to tell you about it because that’s part of a classified investigation,” he said.

• The Department of Defense said the objects in the video remain “characterized as ‘unidentified.'” Pope agrees that the government likely has the required intelligence to shed more clarity on what’s in the videos. West acknowledges that even when offered alternate explanations (ie: “drones or balloons or aircraft or whatever”), die-hard UFO believers won’t give up hope that the videos show proof of extraterrestrial life. West sees the UFO crowd’s interest as benign, so long as it veers into anti-government conspiracy that could prevent them from trusting important information, like health guidelines.

• That curiosity, Pope argues, allows humankind to ponder bigger, more philosophical questions. “What if there are other civilizations out there that will have profound implications for almost every aspect of human society: politics, religion, science, economics, philosophy?” “Let’s have that conversation, says Pope. “It would be interesting and it would be fun.”

• [Editor’s Note] Well, there it is folks. Mick West has provided irrefutable proof … that he’s a highly educated idiot.

The Pentagon’s official release of footage that appears to show unidentified flying objects sets the stage for an “adult conversation” about a once fringe topic, a former British defence ministry investigator argues.

“This new revelation, I think, takes us to some very interesting territory and at least lays the groundwork for serious adult conversation about this that goes beyond Sci-Fi memes,” said Nick Pope, former head of the British government’s UFO research project.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Defense released three short videos, recorded in 2004 and 2015, depicting what they call “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

Those same videos have been available online since 2017 when To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, a company founded by former Blink-182 musician Tom DeLonge, posted them online.

In a release, the department says it declassified the clips to “clear up any misconceptions” about whether the footage was real and “whether or not there is more to the videos.”

For believers in extraterrestrial life, the Pentagon’s acknowledgement is a big deal, Pope says.

“After years of what they see as government denial, they think that this is a prelude to disclosure, the moment when the government formally acknowledges an extraterrestrial presence,” he told The Current’s Matt Galloway.

While Pope is far more cautious in his assessment of the videos’ contents — he is “unsure” of what they depict — he says whatever is shown “doesn’t matter in a sense.”

“The important point is this subject has now come out of the fringe and into the mainstream.”

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