Tag: Sputnik

An Unmet Threat

 

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.

     David Fravor

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

                      Ryan Graves

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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The Navy Acknowledges UFOs – Why Aren’t They on Washington’s Radar?

Listen to “e167 The Navy Acknowledges UFOs – Why Aren’t They on Washington’s Radar?” on Spreaker.

Article by Christopher Mellon                        November 2, 2019                         (thehill.com)

• Government paralysis is something we’ve grown accustomed to on domestic matters but, when it affects national security as well, we truly are a nation at risk. Sixty years ago, Americans were shocked when the Soviet Union put Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, into orbit. Congress promptly acted on Americans’ concerns and spurred “the space race”, culminating in a Moon landing twelve years later.

• The U.S. Navy has publicly acknowledged that the vehicles observed and recorded by U.S. Navy fighter pilots (off of both the East and West coasts), which are able to maneuver above 80,000 feet; can hover and then instantly accelerate to supersonic and even hypersonic speeds; and use a means of propulsion and control that does not appear to involve combustion, exhaust, rotors, wings or flaps, are indeed ‘unidentified aerial phenomenon’.

• This shocking announcement has scarcely been noticed by Congress. To date, there have been congressional oversight committee briefings but no hearings, no funds appropriated to study the phenomenon, not even a request for a report or a threat assessment. It appears that Congress has no problem with being kept in the dark all of these years by the military regarding these UFOs. Is the information too radical to process? Is the U.S. government in denial? It would seem a matter of utmost urgency.

• The writer, former Defense Department and US Senate intelligence staffer Chris Mellon, has interviewed numerous active-duty and retired military personnel who have encountered these UFOs. Without exception they express grave concern for their colleagues and near disbelief that our government is not reacting more vigorously. Policymakers should pay close attention to the experiences of U.S. military personnel, investigate thoroughly, and respond effectively.

• Myriad services and agencies including the National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Intelligence Agency, CIA, Air Force and Navy, FBI and National Security Agency, possess a pool of relevant data on UFOs, says Mellon. But we are not analyzing the vast quantity of data already collected by America’s vast ‘sensor networks’. We simply need to implement a strategy for the centralized collection and analysis of this data.

• We have entered a new frontier. Similar to our forebears who settled the Western half of the continent, we must still confront the unknown. But as President Eisenhower said in a speech he gave in 1958 in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, nineteenth century frontiersmen “were not turned back by terror; they did not succumb to the tensions …encountered beyond the fringes of civilization. They moved ahead as companions in adventure, well-knowing that danger is often the inseparable partner of progress and honor.”

 

In what could be a precursor to further stunning developments, the U.S. Navy has publicly acknowledged that the advanced aircraft depicted in several recently declassified gun-camera videos are UFOs, or what the Navy prefers to call “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon” (UAPs). “The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena,” acknowledged Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations, referring to the bizarre vehicles that have brazenly operated in restricted U.S. military airspace.

Christopher Mellon

Strangely, this shocking announcement seems to have scarcely been noticed by Congress or the Trump administration. Is the information too jarring and radical to process? Are U.S. government officials in denial? One can only wonder, given the glaring disconnect between the Navy’s announcement and the limited government actions to protect U.S. military personnel and the nation as a whole.

The vehicles observed and recorded by U.S. Navy fighter pilots seem impervious to altitude or the elements; they are able to maneuver above 80,000 feet; they can hover and then instantly accelerate to supersonic and even hypersonic speeds; they have very low radar cross-sections and use a means of propulsion and control that does not appear to involve combustion, exhaust, rotors, wings or flaps.

Since the Navy asserts these are not U.S. aircraft, we are confronted by the daunting prospect that a potential adversary of the United States has achieved the ability to render our most sophisticated aircraft and air defense systems obsolete. Much like the Japanese reacting to the appearance of Admiral Perry’s steam-powered fleet in Tokyo Bay in the 1850s, it would seem a matter of utmost urgency to determine who is operating these craft, how they work and the intentions of those commanding them.

I’ve interviewed numerous active-duty and retired military personnel who have encountered these mysterious vehicles. Without exception they express grave concern for their colleagues and near disbelief that our government is not reacting more vigorously.

This situation is not altogether unprecedented. Some 60 years ago Americans were shocked when the Soviet Union orbited Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. Sputnik garnered sustained front-page coverage, however, and Congress promptly acted on Americans’ concerns by approving increased space and defense expenditures and enhanced education programs for math and science. The concerns roused by Sputnik spurred America to enter “the space race.” The nation rallied to the cause and the commitment paid off when astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon a mere 12 years later.

Consider by contrast our government’s tepid response to the latest news about UAPs. Some congressional oversight committees have asked for and received briefings, but none has held a hearing, either open or closed; none has appropriated funds for collection or analysis; none has even asked for a report or a threat assessment. Nor have Congress members expressed concern over apparently being kept in the dark on this issue for years by the executive branch, a situation that changed only after a small private organization — To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, which I advise on national security affairs — made Department of Defense gun-camera footage available to the press and to Congress.

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Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO ‘Close Encounters’

by Greg Daugherty                      November 19, 2018                      (history.com)

• In 1947, a rash of reports of UFOs had the public on edge. The Air Force created Project Sign to investigate these UFO sightings. But they needed outside expertise to sift through the reports and come up with explanations for all of these sightings. Enter J. Allen Hynek.

• In 1948, Hynek was the 37-year-old director at Ohio State University’s McMillin Observatory. He had worked for the government during WWII developing new defense technologies for the war effort with a high security clearance. The Air Force approached him to be a consultant on ‘flying saucers’ for the government. “I had scarcely heard of UFOs in 1948 and, like every other scientist I knew, assumed that they were nonsense,” Hynek recalled.

• Hynek’s UFO investigations under Project Sign resulted in twenty percent of the 237 cases that couldn’t be explained. In February 1949, Project Sign was succeeded by Project Grudge, which said Hynek, “took as its premise that UFOs simply could not be.” The 1949 Grudge report concluded that the phenomena posed no danger to the United States, and warranted no further study.

• But UFO incidents continued, even from the Air Force’s own radar operators. The national media began treating the phenomenon more seriously. The Air Force had little choice but to revive Project Grudge under a new name: Project Blue Book. Hynek joined Project Blue Book in 1952 and would remain with it until its demise in 1969. But he had changed his mind about the existence of UFOs. “The witnesses I interviewed could have been lying, could have been insane or could have been hallucinating collectively—but I do not think so,” he recalled in 1977. Hynek deplored the ridicule that people who reported a UFO sighting often had to endure, causing untold numbers of others to never come forward, not to mention the loss of useful research data.

• “Given the controversial nature of the subject, it’s understandable that both scientists and witnesses are reluctant to come forward,” said Jacques Vallee, co-author with Dr. Hynek of The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.

• On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union surprised the world by launching Sputnik, a serious blow to Americans’ sense of technological superiority. Hynek was on TV assuring Americans that their scientists were closely monitoring the situation. UFO sightings continued unabated.

• In the 1960s, Hynek was the top expert on UFOs as scientific consultant to Project Blue Book. But he chafed at what he perceived as the project’s mandate to debunk UFO sightings, and the inadequate resources at his disposal. Air Force Major Hector Quintanilla, who headed the project from 1963 to 1969, writes that he considered Hynek a “liability.”

• Hynek frustrated UFO debunkers such as the U.S. Air Force. But in 1966, after suggesting that a UFO sighting in Michigan may have been an optical illusion created by swamp gas, he became a punchline for UFO believers as well.

• In his testimony for a Congressional hearing in 1966, Hynek stated, “[I]t is my opinion that the body of data accumulated since 1948…deserves close scrutiny by a civilian panel of physical and social scientists…”. The Air Force established a civilian committee of scientists to investigate UFOs, chaired by physicist, Dr. Edward U. Condon. In 1968, Hynek assailed the Condon Report’s conclusion that “further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified.” In 1969, Project Blue Book shut down for good.

• UFO sightings continued around the world. Hynek later quipped, “apparently [they] did not read the Condon Report”. Hynek went on with his research, free from the compromises and bullying of the U.S. Air Force.

• In 1972, Hynek published his first book, The UFO Experience. It introduced Hynek’s classifications of UFO incidents, which he called Close Encounters. Close Encounters of the First Kind meant UFOs seen at a close enough range to make out some details. In a Close Encounter of the Second Kind, the UFO had a physical effect, such as scorching trees, frightening animals or causing car motors to suddenly conk out. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, witnesses reported seeing occupants in or near a UFO.

• In 1977, Steven Spielberg released the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hynek was paid $1,000 for the use of the title, another $1,000 for the rights to use stories from the book and $1,500 for three days of technical consulting. He also had a brief cameo in the film, playing an awestruck scientist when the alien spacecraft comes into view.

• In 1978, Hynek retired from teaching. In 1973 he had founded the Center for UFO Studies which continues to this day. Hynek died in 1986, at age 75, from a brain tumor.

 

It’s September 1947, and the U.S. Air Force has a problem. A rash of reports about mysterious objects in the skies has the public on edge and the military baffled. The Air Force needs to figure out what’s going on—and fast. It launches an investigation it calls Project Sign.

By early 1948 the team realizes it needs some outside expertise to sift through the reports it’s receiving—specifically an astronomer who can determine which cases are easily explained by astronomical phenomena, such as planets, stars or meteors.

For J. Allen Hynek, then the 37-year-old director at Ohio State University’s McMillin Observatory, it would be a classic case of being in the right place at the right time—or, as he may have occasionally lamented, the wrong place at the wrong one.

The adventure begins

Hynek had worked for the government during the war, developing new defense technologies like the first radio-controlled fuse, so he already had a high security clearance and was a natural go-to.

“One day I had a visit from several men from the technical center at Wright-Patterson Air Force base, which was only 60 miles away in Dayton,” Hynek later wrote. “With some obvious embarrassment, the men eventually brought up the subject of ‘flying saucers’ and asked me if I would care to serve as consultant to the Air Force on the matter… The job didn’t seem as though it would take too much time, so I agreed.”

Little did Hynek realize that he was about to begin a lifelong odyssey that would make him one of the most famous and, at times, controversial scientists of the 20 century. Nor could he have guessed how much his own thinking about UFOs would change over that period as he persisted in bringing rigorous scientific inquiry to the subject.

“I had scarcely heard of UFOs in 1948 and, like every other scientist I knew, assumed that they were nonsense,” he recalled.

Project Sign ran for a year, during which the team reviewed 237 cases. In Hynek’s final report, he noted that about 32 percent of incidents could be attributed to astronomical phenomena, while another 35 percent had other explanations, such as balloons, rockets, flares or birds. Of the remaining 33 percent, 13 percent didn’t offer enough evidence to yield an explanation. That left 20 percent that provided investigators with some evidence but still couldn’t be explained.

The Air Force was loath to use the term “unidentified flying object,” so the mysterious 20 percent were simply classified as “unidentified.”

In February 1949, Project Sign was succeeded by Project Grudge. While Sign offered at least a pretense of scientific objectivity, Grudge seems to have been dismissive from the start, just as its angry-sounding name suggests. Hynek, who played no role in Project Grudge, said it “took as its premise that UFOs simply could not be.” Perhaps not surprisingly, its report, issued at the end of 1949, concluded that the phenomena posed no danger to the United States, having resulted from mass hysteria, deliberate hoaxes, mental illness or conventional objects that the witnesses had misinterpreted as otherworldly. It also suggested the subject wasn’t worth further study.

Project Blue Book is born

That might’ve been the end of it. But UFO incidents continued, including some puzzling reports from the Air Force’s own radar operators. The national media began treating the phenomenon more seriously; LIFE magazine did a 1952 cover story, and even the widely respected TV journalist Edward R. Murrow devoted a program to the topic, including an interview with Kenneth Arnold, a pilot whose 1947 sighting of mysterious objects over Mount Rainier in Washington state popularized the term “flying saucer.” The Air Force had little choice but to revive Project Grudge, which soon morphed into the more benignly named Project Blue Book.

Hynek joined Project Blue Book in 1952 and would remain with it until its demise in 1969. For him, it was a side gig as he continued to teach and to pursue other, non-UFO research, at Ohio State. In 1960 he moved to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to chair its astronomy department.

As before, Hynek’s role was to review the reports of UFO sightings and determine whether there was a logical astronomical explanation. Typically that involved a lot of unglamorous paperwork; but now and then, for an especially puzzling case, he had a chance to get out into the field.

There he discovered something he might never have learned from simply reading the files: how normal the people who reported seeing UFOs tended to be. “The witnesses I interviewed could have been lying, could have been insane or could have been hallucinating collectively—but I do not think so,” he recalled in his 1977 book, The Hynek UFO Report.

“Their standing in the community, their lack of motive for perpetration of a hoax, their own puzzlement at the turn of events they believe they witnessed, and often their great reluctance to speak of the experience—all lend a subjective reality to their UFO experience.”

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