Article by Matt Spivey July 17, 2021 (dailystar.co.uk)
• On June 25th, a 9-page ‘unclassified’ version of the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force report was released to the public. According to ‘The Black Vault’ author and podcaster John Greenewald, Jr., the classified version of the report is only 17 pages long.
Article by Jazz Shaw June 1, 2021 (hotair.com)
• Luis “Lue” Elizondo ran AATIP Pentagon UFO investigation program for a number of years before retiring in 2017 and taking his fight for an end to government UFO secrecy to the public. Throughout this process, however, his history with the Pentagon has been shrouded in secrecy and conflicting stories. Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough has repeatedly stated that Lue had “no assigned responsibilities” related to AATIP or anything to do with UAPs/UFOs. Meanwhile, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vouched for Elizondo’s role as the director of the Pentagon program.
• One of the most dogged researchers of government documents via the FOIA process, John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault, has been seeking answers that are few and far between. For years, Greenewald has been submitting FOIA requests seeking some of Elizondo’s old emails from his time at the Pentagon. Greenewald was repeatedly told that there were no records responsive to his request. Finally, he learned why could be no such emails – they had all been deleted.
• A responsive letter to Greenewald read: “After thorough searches of the electronic records and files of OUSD (I&S), no records of the kind you described be identified. Please note that e-mails of former Department of Defense (DoD) employees are not retained unless they are considered historical records and retained by the National Records Center. There are currently no existing e-mail accounts for Mr. Elizondo.”
• Now, two months after this responsive letter, the DoD has confirmed that all of the email records of a man who spent his career working on some of the most sensitive programs and operations in the entire government – a lot more than just the AATIP UFO program – were scrubbed by the Pentagon. Beyond confirmation of that, the DoD offers no official statement explaining or expanding on the situation.
• According to DoD protocol, even if Elizondo had been a DoD employee responsible for nothing more critical than tracking the maintenance of the copy machines at the Pentagon, his emails should have been kept for seven years before being destroyed. He retired only four years ago. Department emails of anyone that might be considered of “historic” significance should never be destroyed, but instead transferred to the National Records Center. Not only was Elizondo in charge of a secret UFO program, the office he worked out of dealt with matters as significant as the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the 9/11 mastermind.
• How in the world could Elizondo’s emails not be considered of historic significance? This is a smoking gun of a government cover-up although much of this story is still flying under the MSM radar. Does this have anything to do with the imminent Inspector General’s Office investigation of the DoD and what they’re doing in terms of UAP investigations?
• Inadvertent admissions Greenewald received from the Pentagon indicate that the email accounts were not scrubbed until sometime after he retired in 2017. So when did they do it? Who at the Pentagon has been trying to sully Elizondo’s reputation? Is Susan Gough tasked with more than just fielding questions from reporters? Is any of this legal? Will anyone go to jail? To keep up with the story, see Greenewald’s full article on The Black Vault website (see here), an accompanying video report (see below), and a follow up podcast interview of Elizondo by Greenewald on June 1st (see here).
Hang on to your hats because this is going to sound like something out of a Tom
Clancy movie, but it’s absolutely real. If you’ve followed our coverage of the Pentagon’s secret UFO study program (AATIP) and the anticipated June 25th release to the Senate Select Intelligence and Armed Forces Committees from the UAP Task Force (unidentified aerial phenomena), you are already familiar with the name of Lue Elizondo. He ran AATIP for a number of years before retiring in 2017 and taking his fight for an end to government secrecy on the subject of UFOs to the public. That fight continues to this day.
All through this process, however, his history with the Pentagon has been shrouded in secrecy and conflicting stories that journalists have struggled to sort out. While officials no less high ranking than former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have vouched for Elizondo’s role as the director of the program and his extensive history working for our nation in counterintelligence, the Pentagon has appeared to try to discredit him. Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough (the only person in the entire DoD allowed to answer questions about AATIP, Elizondo or the UAP Task Force) has repeatedly stated that Lue had “no assigned
responsibilities” related to AATIP or anything to do with UAP. One of the most dogged
researchers of government documents via the FOIA process, John Greenewald jr. of The Black Vault, has been seeking answers ever since Elizondo’s name first popped up on the media’s radar. But answers were few and far between. This weekend we learned why and the reasons were shocking to even the most seasoned reporters covering the United States government and our military.
Greenewald had been submitting FOIA requests for years seeking some of Elizondo’s old emails from his time at the Pentagon, requesting any documents mentioning keywords, acronyms and phrases such as unidentified, AATIP, and AAWSAP (the program preceding AATIP), among many others. Each time the answer was the same. John didn’t receive heavily redacted documents lacking in interesting information as you might expect. He was told that there were no records responsive to his request. But this year he finally pried an answer from the Pentagon as to how there could be no such records. He wasn’t getting any of Elizondo’s emails because no such emails existed. They had been deleted. But as shocking as that sounds (and it is), there is much more to the story
than that.
“After thorough searches of the electronic records and files of OUSD (I&S), no records of the kind you described [Elizondo e-mails containing the word “unidentified”] could be identified. Please note that e-mails of former Department of Defense (DoD) employees are not retained unless they are considered historical records and retained by the National Records Center. There are currently no existing e-mail accounts for Mr. Elizondo. We believe that search methods were appropriate and could reasonably be expected to produce the requested records if they existed.”
Essentially saying the records were destroyed, The Black Vault reached out to clarify. The DoD has now confirmed nearly two months after they wrote the letter, that their final determination does equate to Elizondo’s emails being destroyed with no backup available. Beyond confirmation of that, they offer no official statement explaining or expanding on the situation.
What is unclear, is whether or not the deletion of these electronic records was authorized by protocol. To delete records such as these, set procedures followed by the agency called “record retention schedules” need to have certain prerequisites met in order to delete or destroy files.
54:15 minute “Inside the Black Vault” with John Greenewald on Lue Elizondo Emails
(‘The Black Vault Originals’ YouTube)
4:40 minute excerpt of Elizondo discussing intel failures on Tucker Carlson (‘TOOL BOSS’ YouTube)
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Article by Aliki Kraterou April 6, 2021 (thesun.co.uk)
• Former CIA director (between 1993-1995) R. James Woolsey, 79 (pictured above), was recently on John Greenewald Jr.’s the Black Vault YouTube channel to promote his new book, Operation Dragon, in which Woolsey says that Lee Harvey Oswald is behind JFK’s assassination.
• Woolsey also says he has become less skeptical about the possibility of extraterrestrial life as he has heard several stories of unexplained aerial phenomena over the years. “There have been over the years now events of one kind of another, usually involving some kind of aircraft-like airframe,” said Woolsey. “I never thought there was anything to all this, it always seemed pretty far-out to me.”
• “But, there was one case in which a friend of mine (someone Woolsey said he ‘respects’) was able to have his aircraft stop at 40,000 feet or so and not continue operating as a normal aircraft,” Woolsey revealed. “There had just been enough things like that that have occurred that I think there will be a lot of examination of what’s going on over the course of several months or years.”
• Greenewald pointed out that there have been other former CIA directors who shared Woolsey’s openness to the possibility of alien life. During an interview with George Mason University, John Brennan who served as CIA’s director under Trump’s administration between 2013 and 2017, spoke about UFOs and called videos that had emerged “quite eyebrow-raising.” Brennan said that “it’s a bit presumptuous and arrogant for us to believe there is no other form of life anywhere in the entire universe.”
• Last month former Director of Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News that there were far more UFO sightings than the ones that have been made public. “Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engages in actions that are difficult to explain… Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”
• Last summer, the Pentagon set up a UFO/UAP task force to “detect and analyze” sightings of a mystery aircraft that “could pose security risks” and “to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs.” The UAP Task Force is headed by the Department of the Navy and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
• Earlier this year, a dossier of CIA files containing information about UFO sightings all over the world was published online. “These people have reported very curious behavior by aircraft,” Woolsey continued. “And it may be something real that is an extraordinary change, for some unheralded reason… I am not as skeptical as I was a few years ago, to put it mildly. Something is going on that is surprising to a series of intelligent, experienced pilots and we’ll just have to see what it is.”
• “I’ve been in conversations with several individuals who have been close to aircraft performing in an extraordinary fashion, that performs in a fashion that has not yet come to be something that people are comfortable with or expecting to see,” says Woolsey. “[I] hope that we can be friendly and able to deal with…other creatures if they exist. I think we ought to be (open to) new possibilities. Some…are frauds but I don’t think this one is.”
• [Editor’s Note] It is remarkable that a former head of the CIA can be open and truthful about UFO and the extraterrestrial presence, tacitly confirming the government cover-up of UFOs, but the deep state still has such a stranglehold on these former officials that they still toe the line when it comes to the deep state/CIA’s 1963 murder of John F. Kennedy. Could these former government officials be coming forward to legitimize UFOs and extraterrestrials now to prepare us for a false flag alien invasion as described recently by Steven Greer?
You just can’t trust these rats. We won’t know the whole truth about our history and reality until we expel every deep state swamp creature from the halls of our government and start all over.
A FORMER CIA director says he believes UFOs could exist after his pal’s aircraft was
“paused at 40,000 feet.”
R. James Woolsey, 79, shared his friend’s story and said he hopes humanity would be friendly to aliens if they ever made contact.
Woolsey, who was CIA’s director between 1993-1995, spoke to the Black Vault’s YouTube channel on Friday to promote his new book Operation Dragon.
In the book, he claims that Lee Harvey Oswald is behind JFK’s assassination.
But the conversation shifted from the death of the former President to the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
The former intelligence chief said he has become less sceptical as he has heard several stories of unexplained aerial phenomena over the years.
“There have been over the years now events of one kind of another, usually involving
some kind of aircraft-like airframe.
“I never thought there was anything to all this, it always seemed pretty far-out to me.
“But, there was one case in which a friend of mine was able to have his aircraft stop at 40,000 feet or so and not continue operating as a normal aircraft.
“What was going on? I don’t know. Does anybody know?
“There had just been enough things like that that have occured that I think there will be a lot of examination of what’s going on over the course of several months or years.”
Woolsey added that the source was “someone he respects”.
The host of the show John Greenewald Jr, pointed out that there have been other former CIA directors who shared Woolsey’s openness to the possibility of alien life.
During an interview with George Mason University, John Brennan who served as CIA’s director under Trump’s administration between 2013 and 2017, spoke about UFOs and called videos that had emerged “quite eyebrow-raising.”
“I think it’s a bit presumptuous and arrogant for us to believe there is no other form of life anywhere in the entire universe,” he had said at the time.
Last month former Director of Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News that there were far more sightings than the ones that have been made public.
“There are a lot more sightings than have been made public.
“Some of those have been declassified. And when we talk about sightings, we are talking about objects that have seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engages in actions that are difficult to explain.
“Movements that are hard to replicate that we don’t have the technology for.
“Or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”
He added that the Pentagon plans to release a report declassifying UFO sightings on June 1.
Last summer, the Pentagon set up a UFO task force to “detect and analyze” sightings of a mystery aircraft that “could pose security risks.”
Officials approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force, which is headed by the Department of the Navy and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
The UAPTF was set up “to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs,” a press release at the time said.
It comes as earlier this year, a dossier of CIA files containing information about UFO sightings all over the world and top-secret information on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAPs) was published online.
“These people have reported very curious behavior by aircraft, Woolsey continued.
“And it may be something real that is an extraordinary change, for some unheralded reason.
“Or it may be a complex set of different views of what is going on in the world of cyber and so forth. I just don’t know.
“I am not as skeptical as I was a few years ago, to put it mildly.
“Something is going on that is surprising to a series of intelligent, experienced pilots and we’ll just have to see what it is.
“I have been, not in the presence of but I’ve been in conversations with several individuals who have been close to aircrafts performing in an extraordinary fashion, that performs in a fashion that has not yet come to be something that people are comfortable with or expecting to see.
“That’s how far I’d like to go, openness to new things.
“Willingness to examine them.
“Hope that we can be friendly and able to deal with a wide range of behaviors, in terms of dealing with our fellow human beings, or other creatures if they exist.
“I think we ought to be new possibilities, some new possibilities are frauds but I don’t think this one is.”
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Article by Duncan Phenix April 9, 2021 (mysterywire.com)
• Pentagon spokesperson, Susan Gough, has confirmed the photographs and video released by George Knapp at Mystery Wire and Jeremy Corbell are real and were taken by US Navy personnel. (see previous ExoArticle on 2019 encounters here) The following statement was sent to Mystery Wire: “I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel.” (see videos below)
• “The UAPTF (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force) has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations. As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.”
• The Pentagon had first confirmed this to The Black Vault.
• [Editor’s Note] Mystery drones, spheres and flying pyramids. George Knapp’s I-Team on Mystery Wire along with Jeremy Corbell have collected the images and video of several UFO encounters by the US Navy in spring and summer of 2019. These videos were leaked by technicians compiling the UAP Task Force’s declassified UFO report requested by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and due July 25th.
UFO incidents start with mechanical objects photographed over the ocean off of Virginia in March 2019 by the crew of an F-18 jet in broad daylight. Night vision video shows a swarm of ‘pyramid drones’ and disembodied colored lights that buzzed US Navy battleships off of Los Angeles over several days in mid-July 2019. Also in the summer of 2019, the USS Omaha, an Independence-class littoral combat ship, took video of a small round ‘transmedium vehicle’ that flew over the ocean and then dove beneath the water.
MYSTERY WIRE — A Pentagon spokesperson has confirmed the photographs and
video released by Mystery Wire and Jeremy Corbell this week are real and were taken by Navy personnel.
A Pentagon spokesperson sent Mystery Wire the following statement: “I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents
in their ongoing examinations. As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information
that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.” – Susan Gough, Pentagon Spokesperson
The Pentagon had first confirmed this to The Black Vault.
3:33 minute video of Jeremy Corbell discussing 2019 UFO incidents (‘Mystery Wire’ YouTube)
18-second night vision video of flying pyramids off of LA in July 2019 (‘Mystery Wire’ YouTube)
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Article by Nirmal Narayanan February 21, 2021 (ibtimes.co.in)
• A declassified CIA document released by The Black Vault has gone viral. Titled ‘Mars Exploration May 22, 1984’, the document suggests that the CIA may have observed alien life on the Martian surface by use of ‘remote viewing’ or ‘astral projection’ which helped the subject (ie: the viewer) observe ancient alien life on Mars.
• CIA officers asked the subject to watch Mars before one million years BC. The subject claimed that he saw pyramid-like structures on the Red Planet and added that he witnessed alien life forms on the Martian surface. “I’m seeing, ah, it’s like a perception of a shadow of people, very tall, thin, it’s only a shadow. It’s as if they were there and they’re not, not there anymore,” notes the subject in the CIA transcript. These humanoid creatures were also wearing strange clothing.
• A few weeks back, the former head of Israel’s space security program for more than 30 years Haim Eshed claimed that aliens do exist, and that world powers like the United States and Israel are working together with aliens. Eshed claims that there is a Galactic Federation with representatives of humans and aliens, and that there is a secret underground base on Mars where extraterrestrials and humans are working together.
A declassified CIA document from 1984 is now going viral on online spaces, and it suggests that the United States may have
observed alien life on the Martian surface. The document has been released by The Black Vault and it has gone viral at a time when NASA created history by landing its Perseverance Rover on the surface of the Red Planet, aiming to uncover secrets of ancient life on Mars.
Mars exploration mysteries
The document uncovered by The Black Vault has been simply titled ‘Mars Exploration May 22, 1984’, and it basically centers around a subject that made use of astral projection which helped him observe ancient alien life on Mars.
When the CIA officers asked the subject to watch Mars before one million years BC, the subject claimed that he saw pyramid-like structures on the Red Planet. The subject also added that he witnessed alien life forms on the Martian surface.
“I’m seeing, ah, it’s like a perception of a shadow of people, very tall, thin, it’s only a shadow. It’s as if they were there and they’re not, not there anymore,” said the subject.
The subject added that the humanoid creatures he saw roaming across the Red Planet were very tall and they were seen wearing strange clothing.
Alien underground base in Mars
A few weeks back, Haim Eshed who served as the head of Israel’s space security program for more than 30 years had claimed that
aliens do exist in the universe. The former space security chief also added that world powers like the United States and Israel are working together with aliens.
Eshed made these remarks during an interview given to Yediot Aharanot. During the interview, Eshed claimed that there is a galactic federation where there are representatives of humans and aliens. He also added that there is a secret underground base on Mars where extraterrestrials and humans are working together.
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Article by Harry Pettit February 8, 2021 (thesun.co.uk)
• Since 1996, John Greenewald Jr. has run the website, The Black Vault, (see here), where he has filed more than 10,000 Freedom of Information Act requests and published over 2 million sensitive files from the CIA, NSA and other government agencies. His trove of documents dates back to World War One and covers topics including UFOs, Bigfoot, alien encounters, the JFK assassination and the CIA’s mind-control research.
• Each month, The Black Vault site attracts more than 300,000 visitors, who download a combined ten terabytes of documents. Most are so heavily classified you can’t read anything on the page. “A lot of people get frustrated at that,” Greenewald said. “But that to me… proves that the phenomena is real, that it’s unidentified, and that it’s highly classified. Whatever it is, they just don’t want us to know about it.”
• Greenewald believes that there are plenty of secrets stored in the various national archives that agency staff don’t even know are there. “[T]here’s a lot of evidence to suggest that most government agencies don’t know what they have in their holdings,” said Greenewald. “The National Archive here in America alone, they measure documents by cubic feet due to the amount of information they have. So it’s hard for me to believe they’ve found every UFO document that they have.”
• The cyber detective has made his fair share of head-spinning finds. They include the story of an explosion in a small Russian town in the 1970s which ripped off roofs, blew out windows and left a 90ft-wide crater. Residents there reported seeing a “moving fiery sphere”. Another tells of a Bosnian fugitive who claimed to have made contact with aliens. Perhaps the site’s biggest scoop are files relating to MKUltra, the CIA mind-control experiments conducted on dozens of US citizens to control human behavior, often using hallucinogens like LSD.
• Based in the town of Castaic in Los Angeles county California with his wife of nine years, Sabrena, and two children, Christian, aged six, and Anabelle, two, Greenewald has tirelessly investigated the shady activities of US government sleuths since the age of 15. He wakes up at 4:30am each day to investigate unexplained phenomena the world over, juggling his hobby with his day job running an online business that sells earphones to gyms and schools.
• In January, Greenewald published hundreds more declassified CIA files containing once top secret information on sightings of UFOs across the globe. But Greenewald says that there are still reams of documents held by the government regarding UFO sightings that are yet to be uncovered, and that spy agencies know a lot more about “alien” encounters than they’re letting on.
• In an interview with The Sun, the 39-year-old revealed that some files simply go “missing”. “Often they search their archives and tell you they didn’t find anything,” said Greenewald. “You really can’t fight it and you just have to trust them.” “Sometimes, the evidence is so explosive that they don’t really search as well as they say they do.”
• “I once filed requests on DIA and NSA material on UFOs that’s been classified for years,” said Greenewald. “Both agencies told me the same thing: They ‘lost everything’. They just can’t find it. That doesn’t make sense, that doesn’t fly. The government generally doesn’t lose anything. …For them to claim (they’ve lost) UFO material is very convenient.”
• Still, Greenewald hopes that The Black Vault can educate the general public by giving them as much of the story as possible. He’s kept the website free and allows people to download anything from the site without charging a fee. “I want visitors to have as many pieces of the puzzle as possible when it comes to UFOs or mind control or whatever the topic is,” he said. “They want this information, and they should have access to it.” “It’s the most amazing feeling I get when people benefit from that.”
A SEASONED UFO-hunter who has spent 25 years exposing US government secrets says that spy agencies know a lot more about
“alien” encounters than they’re letting on.
John Greenewald Jr, who runs a website where he has published more than 2million sensitive files from the CIA, National Security Agency and more, said reams of documents regarding mysterious sightings are yet to be uncovered.
Based in California, the father-of-two has tirelessly investigated the shady activities of US government sleuths since the age of 15.
Last month, he published hundreds of declassified CIA files containing once top secret information on sightings of UFOs across the globe to his website, The Black Vault.
Within the pages are a bizarre story of an explosion in a Russian town in the 1970s, and a dispute with a Bosnian fugitive who claimed to have made contact with aliens.
Since 1996, John says he’s filed more then 10,000 Freedom Of Information Act requests to get hold of elusive government papers.
They date back to World War One and cover topics including Bigfoot, alien encounters, the JFK assassination and the CIA’s mind-control research.
In an interview with The Sun, the 39-year-old revealed that some files are so explosive that they simply go “missing”.
“Often they search their archives and tell you they didn’t find anything,” John said. “You really can’t fight it and you just have to trust them.”
“Sometimes, the evidence is so explosive that they don’t really search as well as they say they do.”
On top of that, he believes that there are plenty of juicy secrets stored up in the national archives that agency staff don’t know are there.
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Article by Harry Pettit January 20, 2021 (thesun.co.uk)
• John Greenewald Jr., proprietor of the ‘The Black Vault’ website, a repository of over 2 million declassified government documents on UFOs, recently topped off his data collection with a final data dump from the CIA, which the CIA claims to be everything they have on UFOs. While many UFO (or ‘UAP’ – unidentified aerial phenomenon) claims may turn out to be tricks of the light or a faulty airplane instruments, a handful of them are real targets of investigations by the Pentagon.
• Within the pages of these declassified CIA documents is a bizarre story of a mysterious explosion in a small Russian town, which ripped off roofs, blew out windows, and left a 90ft-wide crater. Another file details a Bosnian fugitive who claimed to have made contact with aliens. While Britain’s secret UFO files were also opened up to the public recently, the British government acknowledges that they plan to keep one particular UFO dossier secret for another 50 years, to the chagrin of the UFO community. Last year, one researcher claimed that the discovery of alien life was not only “inevitable” but “imminent”. And a NASA scientist has admitted it’s entirely possible that aliens have already visited Earth – and we simply never noticed.
• One intriguing CIA report details a mysterious occurrence reported by multiple terrified townspeople of Petrozavodsk near the border of Finland in northeastern Russia in 1977. Witnesses described “very fine rays” raining down from the high-speed object, which appeared like a “huge star” over the town. The CIA file appears to be a copy of a story published at the time by Russia’s TASS news agency. According to the report, “On 20 September, at about 0400 a huge star suddenly flared up in the night sky, impulsively sending shafts of light to the Earth. The star moved slowly toward Petrozavodsk and spread out over it in the form of a medusa.” The light then “hung there, showering the city with a multitude of very fine rays which created an image of pouring rain.” After the rays ceased, the “medusa” turned into a bright semi-circle and moved in the direction of nearby Lake Onega. A semi-circular pool of bright light, “red in the middle and white at the sides”, then formed in a shroud of grey cloud on the lake’s horizon.
• According to citizen reports, the ordeal lasted between 10 and 12 minutes. The CIA document states that what caused the phenomenon “remains a riddle”. Russian weather experts reported having never seen anything like it, and that no “technical experiments” were being carried out at the time. “Many eyewitnesses” from various parts of the city reported sightings, meaning it was unlikely to be a mirage.
DETAILS of a mysterious UFO that shined bright rays of light onto a Soviet city in the 1970s have emerged from a treasure trove of declassified CIA documents published online.
Multiple reports from terrified locals described “very fine rays” raining down from the high-speed object, which appeared like a “huge star” over Petrozavodsk in what is now western Russia.
Dated September 1977, the once top secret CIA file appears to be a copy of a story published at the time by Russia’s TASS news agency.
It was released earlier this month as part of a dossier of newly uncovered declassified records on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAPs).
Known as the “Black Vault”, the database is available thanks to a decades-long effort to access CIA records dating back as far as the 1970s.
According to one of hundreds of files in the vault, a peculiar UFO sighting above Petrozavodsk peaked the interest of agents almost 54 years ago.
“On 20 September, at about 0400 a huge star suddenly flared up in the night sky, impulsively sending shafts of light to the Earth” the report reads.
“The star moved slowly toward Petrozavodsk and spread out over it in the form of a medusa.”
The light then “hung there, showering the city with a multitude of very fine rays which created an image of pouring rain.”
After the rays ceased, the “medusa” turned into a bright semi-circle and moved in the direction of nearby Lake Onega.
A semi-circular pool of bright light, “red in the middle and white at the sides”, then formed in a shroud of grey cloud on the lake’s horizon.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.
Article by Isis Davis-Marks January 15, 2021 (smithsonianmag.com)
Article by AJ Vicens November 2, 2020 (motherjones.com)
• Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton and her key staff were talking about UFOs. The issue was treated as a joke on late-night television. But time has shown that clearly there was something afoot.
• In December 2017, the New York Times published a groundbreaking story which included DoD videos of unexplained aerial objects. While credible UFO reports go back decades, the Times story advanced the UFO discussion into the mainstream media. (see previous ExoArticle) Since then, the Times has published a series of additional pieces, as have a host of other respected publications.
• In April 2019, the US Navy announced it was updating its procedures for pilots to report encounters with UFOs – to destigmatize the issue and collect better data. (see previous ExoArticle) By September, the US Navy confirmed to John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault website that the published UFO videos were officially “unidentified aerial phenomena”. In February 2020, Popular Mechanics published a piece concluding that “unidentified flying objects are neither myth nor figment of overactive imagination,” elaborating that evidence suggests UFOs are real.
• In June, the Senate Intelligence Committee tasked the director of national intelligence with submitting a public report outlining the government’s work on UFO/UAPs. Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the committee, confirmed that he had been given a classified briefing on UAPs. “The military and others are taking this issue seriously,” Warner said, “which, I think in previous generations may not have been the case.” A month later, Senator Marco Rubio, acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, characterized it as a national security issue. “We have things flying over our military bases and places where we’re conducting military exercises and we don’t know what it is, and it isn’t ours,” Rubio said. “[F]rankly, if it’s something from outside this planet, that might actually be better” than the possibility novel aerial technology is being used by a foreign power. (see previous ExoArticle)
• The fact that two powerful senators are saying these sorts of things in public, with total earnestness, is huge. Greenewald, who has used the Freedom of Information Act to pry UFO documents from government vaults, agrees there is reason for optimism about further disclosures, but offered a note of caution. “The last two years have been fascinating in UAP world.” The Navy’s revelations provided renewed hope of transparency, and its acknowledgement that the objects on those famous videos were, in fact, UAPs, “was huge,” he said. “I never expected that.”
• However, Greenewald says a string of recently denied FOIA requests he filed indicates “that that door has shut,” and he warns that indications the government is taking UFOs as a serious potential threat could ultimately mean it will refuse to honestly disclose what it knows. “Whether or not we’re talking about a foreign adversary that has technology that we haven’t mastered yet, whether it’s one branch that’s being tested on by another branch of the military—which I think is a big possibility—or, what everybody wants, which is extraterrestrials, regardless, all of the above would be a national security risk,” said Greenewald.
• Greenewald is probably right. The government is not likely to tell us all it knows about these objects that can seemingly toy with the most advanced and sophisticated military equipment on the planet. But at least it’s now okay to talk about them in public. We must appreciate the wins where we can find them.
Over the last few years, amid the daily avalanche of scandal, corruption, and intrigue, one could be forgiven for tuning it all out in favor of something else. Anything else. One storyline I’ve found intriguing and exciting: the US government and UFOs.
Before the 2016 election, I wrote a series of pieces about how Hillary Clinton and her key staff were saying interesting things about UFOs. Most laughed. The issue was treated as a joke on late-night television. But time has shown that clearly there was something afoot.
In December 2017, the New York Times published a groundbreaking story: “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program,” which included Department of Defense videos of aerial objects the government could not explain. While credible UFO reports go back decades, the Times story increased the latitude for discussion of the issue under mainstream mastheads. Since then, the Times has published a series of additional pieces, as have a host of other respected publications.
In April 2019, the US Navy announced it was updating its procedures for pilots who wish to report encounters with UFOs to destigmatize the issue and collect better data. By September, the US Navy confirmed to John Greenewald Jr., the founder of a repository of publicly available government documents called the Black Vault, that the videos published by the Times were officially “unidentified aerial phenomena,” a the term used for “unauthorized/unidentified aircraft/objects that have been observed entering/operating in the airspace of various military-controlled training ranges.” In February 2020, Popular Mechanics published a deeply reported piece concluding that “unidentified flying objects are neither myth nor figment of overactive imagination,” elaborating that documentary evidence and people who would know both suggest “UFOs are real.”
In June, the Senate Intelligence Committee tasked the director of national intelligence with submitting a public report, with a classified annex, outlining the government’s work on “unexplained aerial phenomena.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the committee, confirmed that he had been given a classified briefing on UAP. “The military and others are taking this issue seriously,” Warner said, “which, I think in previous generations may not have been the case.” A month later, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, characterized it as a national security issue. “We have things flying over our military bases and places where we’re conducting military exercises and we don’t know what it is, and it isn’t ours,” Rubio said, adding that “frankly, if it’s something from outside this planet, that might actually be better” than the possibility novel aerial technology is being used by a foreign power.
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Article by Jazz Shaw May 18, 2020 (hotair.com)
• John Greenewald Jr is the owner and proprietor of the The Black Vault website where he has collected literally millions of declassified government documents on an array of subjects for well over a decade. Greenewald has a new book entitled: Secrets from the Black Vault where he takes readers down a series of government rabbit holes, exploring a wide range of programs you might have never heard of and, frankly, that the government would probably have preferred not to tell you about.
• Greenewald also provides a fascinating and occasionally dismaying look at the process involved in obtaining all of this government information. There are some subjects where Greenewald had to wait over a decade, filing one Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request after another, before finally getting the information. Greenewald lets you peer behind the curtain and see all of the blood, sweat and tears involved in these efforts.
• So what sort of intriguing United States government secrets will John be revealing this time? For instance, did you know that the company that made your sugary breakfast cereal was possibly involved in the development of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction? And that the same cereal company was blamed for the UFO crash at Roswell in 1947?
• Greenewald provides documented details about the CIA’s mind control program, the recruitment of Nazi scientists into the U.S. and Soviet Union after World War II, and the Pentagon’s plans to build a military base on the Moon. And of course, there’s an entire section on UFOs and what the government has been doing about them.
• Greenewald’s Secrets from the Black Vault is a quick read that might change the way you think about the American government. Or, if nothing else, you’ll become the keeper of a ton of fascinating trivia to dazzle your friends. Secrets from the Black Vault gets a hearty two thumbs up.
With many of us still on lockdown, if you’re like me you’ve been burning through your backlog of books that you always meant to get around to reading. In case you’re running short, you may want to order a copy of the latest book from John Greenewald jr. titled “Secrets from the Black Vault.”
You may remember John from an interview he did for us last year when he was talking about the Pentagon’s secret UFO program. He’s also the owner of the indispensable website The Black Vault, where John has been collecting literally millions of declassified government documents for well over a decade on a dizzying array of subjects.
In this latest offering, Greenewald takes readers down another series of government rabbit holes, exploring a wide range of programs you might have never heard of and, frankly, that the government would probably have preferred to not tell you about. But he also gives us a fascinating and occasionally dismaying look at the process involved in obtaining all of this information. There are some subjects where Greenewald had to wait literally over a decade, filing one FOIA request after another, requesting interviews and answers, before finally getting the information he was looking for. As consumers of news, many of us likely take for granted that someone will go out there, flush out the information, and deliver it in a digestible form. John Greenewald lets you peer behind the curtain and see all of the blood, sweat and tears involved in these efforts.
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Do you know that, recently, Mrs. Susan Gough (PR spokeswoman of the OSD – Office of the Secretary of Defense) allegedly/apparently wrote an email to Mr. John Greenwald (The Black Vault) saying (according to Mr. Greenwald) that AATIP did not investigate UAP (UFOs)? I still haven’t read the original letter but it is something that has to be known.
I expect more information to come out soon, from Mr. Greenwald, perhaps from Mrs. Gough, perhaps from the Navy and from TTSA. Is it a misunderstanding or a fundamental conflict of factual information? Is it a strange strategy to confuse people?
These declarations would have to deny not only Mr. Elizondo’s but also Mr. Jim Semivan, Chris Mellon, H. Puthoff and other serious people (such as Senator Harry Reid), not only knowledgeable about classified information (and intelligence clearances) but also linked to TTSA, credible persons who today – as a whole – guarantee that AATIP did investigate UAPs (UFOs).
Is all of this a confusion or a reversal of policy?
It doesn’t seem to make sense but (if the information shared by Mr. Greenwald is accurate) WHY would this be happening now? Do some persons “in the know” want to lock the cat back after it came out of the box?
Or is Mr. Greenwald’s information not very clear? Or perhaps is this the old pattern of those who try to control what the population knows, using the practice of revelation followed by denial? (However, this revealing was to one or a few individuals only before the denial).
Is it a mistake from Mrs. Gough who doesn’t know all the information? Or has she been told to say that? Is this a strategy from a faction inside those “in the know” because something else is in the offing? Is this apart of an old plan or a new move?
In terms of UFO disclosure, the “powers that be” follow a pattern of revealing and denying information to society as Randy Koppang and Grant Cameron would likely agree. They usually reveal something to one or a few individuals and later deny it after these individuals have been used to deliver a message to society. But this time they would be denying a whole team of intelligence- savy VIPs gathered in TTSA.
A few days before, another letter by Mrs. Gough (in response to an SCU (Scientific Coalition for Ufology request) publicly shared by Mr. Greenwald) stated that the U.S. Navy only had the “source” videos similar in quality and in length of the 3 videos shown to the public through TTSA (“GIMBAL” “GO FAST” and “FLIR 1”). That these were not classified. She doesn’t actually deny that there may be full-length and higher quality “original ” videos somewhere else but seems to be minimizing or trying to minimize expectations from the general public regarding what the U.S. Navy (and, by extrapolation, the Government in general) may have.
What is happening here?
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LINK to John Greenwald’s report in The Black Vault:
Listen to “E130 The Navy Has Admitted That UFOs Exist – Will USOs Be Next?” on Spreaker.
Article by Alex Hollings October 9, 2019 (sofrep.com)
• In September, the US Navy confirmed that while the Navy videos of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (or UFOs) were not meant for release to the public, they were authentic. John Greenewald, Jr of ‘The Black Vault’ website was the man that got the Navy to discuss the videos, leading to the video confirmation. The Navy, however, didn’t know what these phenomenon were.
• Similarly, there is another unusual phenomenon that gets far less attention in the press: ‘Unidentified Submerged Objects’. A ‘USO’ is a catch-all term used to describe anything seen operating beneath the surface of water that defies explanation. Legends of USOs have permeated the maritime community for centuries. Many UFO witness, including military aviators, have suggested that UFOs operate just as well underwater as they do in the sky.
• Christopher Columbus reported seeing a USO sighting during his 1492 voyage to the New World. According to Columbus’ log, he spotted “a small wax candle that rose and lifted up, which too few seemed to be an indication of land.” They soon determined that it wasn’t a light source from land, but had instead come from the sea.
• In 1967, witnesses in Shag Harbor, Nova Scotia Canada, reported a UFO crashing into the harbor’s waters. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched rescue efforts for a ‘downed aircraft’, which turned up nothing.
• Earlier this year, Tylor Rogoway of ‘The War Zone’ website interviewed veteran U.S. Navy submariners, some of whom were SONAR operators with first-hand experience spotting these USO anomalies. That story can be traced back to Marc D’Antonio who, during a ‘courtesy ride’ on a U.S. Navy fast attack submarine, watched as the sub’s sonar operator detected a “fast mover” moving at hundreds of knots under the water in close proximity. Such a scenario of a fast moving, unidentified underwater object spotted by Navy personnel and then disregarded, rings true with veteran American submariners. Said one former submariner, “We were instructed that nothing is ever ‘unknown.” “[So] we usually logged it as seismic or biologic.”
• Such underwater anomalies typically go ignored unless they represent a threat to the vessel or an obstacle to the crew. The ocean is full of man made ships and living creatures. So encountering ‘strange’ objects is just a part of business when you’re operating a fast attack sub. One infamous unexplained ocean phenomena was the “Bloop” – a massive underwater sound recorded in 1997. (see 3:37 minute video of the “Bloop” below) The Bloop sound was so loud that it was recorded simultaneously on underwater microphones located more than 3,000 miles apart.
• As a policy, the Navy doesn’t investigate strange sonar readings, so unusual underwater phenomenon largely go unreported so long as it doesn’t interfere with the mission. But sub-mariner accounts confirm that ‘weird stuff’ is normal in the dark depths of Earth’s oceans. But ‘weird’ doesn’t necessarily mean alien, it just means unexplained… for now.
Last month, the United States Navy confirmed formally that two high profile videos allegedly captured from the nose of an F/A-18 Super Hornet attempting an intercept on an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena were real and notably, weren’t meant for release to the public. The Navy did not suggest that the strange craft shown in the videos was alien in origin, but rather did acknowledge that they truly didn’t know what they were seeing that night in January of 2015.
“I truly thought the official word on these videos would be ‘drones’ or something similar; but explainable,” John Greenewald, Jr, who runs the popular website The Black Vault, told SOFREP at the time. Greenewald was the man that got the Navy to discuss the videos, leading to a landslide of headlines throughout the media in the weeks that followed.
“We have official documents that have surfaced through FOIA that state just that. However, for the Navy to contradict that, and say that this ‘phenomena’ represents something ‘unidentified’ – that’s pretty amazing to me and proves yet again why we can’t lock ourselves into any one way of thinking or assume anything.”
Reports of unusual lights in the sky date all the way back to the beginning of recorded history, but there’s another unusual phenomena that often seems to coincide with these strange sightings that gets far less attention in the press: USOs, or Unidentified Submerged Objects. Like UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects), USO is a sort of catch-all term used to describe anything seen operating beneath the surface of a body of water that defies explanation. Legends of USOs have permeated the maritime community for centuries, and remain a common facet of discussion among UFO researchers to this day. In fact, many UFO witness statements, including those provided by military aviators, have suggested that the unusual crafts they’ve spotted flying in the sky seem to operate just as readily in the far denser medium of water — suggesting that these unusual objects can function beneath the surface of the ocean just as well as they can in the air.
3:37 minute video of “the Bloop” sounds from the Deep Pacific Ocean (‘AS N’ YouTube)
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Article by Thomas L. Knapp September 25, 2019 (duluthnewstribune.com)
• The US Navy recently confirmed that three online videos of military jet encounters with UAPs: ‘unidentified aerial phenomenon’ are authentic. But what is more disturbing is that the Navy seems less concerned with the UAPs themselves, than with the notion that the videos, while not classified, had not been “cleared for public release”. A Pentagon spokesperson told The Black Vault website, “The videos were never officially released to the general public by the (Department of Defense) and should still be withheld.”
• The oldest ‘Tic Tac’ UFO video is from 2004. Now, 15 years later the Navy still hasn’t determined what these UAPs are. But the Navy’s biggest concern is that the videos were released? The videos are not “confidential,” “secret,” or “top secret,” based on degrees of potential damage to national security. No such long-term category as “not cleared for public release” should exist with respect to information generated or acquired by the government.
• If the government works for the people, why should it keep so many secrets from the people in the first place? There should be a time limit in which any given piece of information must either be classified or made available to the public. All government information not classified within 30 days of its creation or acquisition should be stored in databases that the public can search at will. Concealing information from the public should be incredibly difficult — not a matter of course. “Not cleared for public release” shouldn’t exist as a new category.
• UFOs may be extraterrestrial in origin. The public needs more information. But it shouldn’t be the government’s prerogative to conceal such information from the rest of us indefinitely, tell us tall tales about weather balloons and swamp gas, and offer lame “national security” excuses when called out. A bigger problem than determining what these UFOs are may be the how the post-World War II national security state apparatus has developed a culture of general secrecy that we accommodate at our peril.
The U.S. Navy confirms that three online videos showing two military air encounters with what it calls “unexplained aerial phenomena” and the rest of us call “unidentified flying objects” are authentic, as Popular Mechanics reported.
The videos are interesting, and some might find them disturbing. What’s more disturbing to me is that the Navy thinks the videos are none of our business, not even 15, or even four, years after they were recorded in 2004 and 2015.
Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough told The Black Vault website, “The videos were never officially released to the general public by the DoD (U.S. Department of Defense) and should still be withheld.”
The videos aren’t classified. They just haven’t been “cleared for public release.”
No such long-term category as “not cleared for public release” should exist with respect to information generated or acquired by government.
There are legal standards for “classifying” information as “confidential,” “secret,” or “top secret,” based on supposed degrees of damage to national security disclosure of the information might cause.
I’m personally against allowing the state to keep secrets at all. They claim to work for us. If we’re really their bosses, we should get to look over their shoulders any time we please.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE
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Listen to “E101 9-20-19 The Navy Says Those UFO Videos Are Real” on Spreaker.
Article by Kyle Mizokami September 16, 2019 (popularmechanics.com)
• The US Navy has confirmed that, while they should never been released to the public, the three online videos taken by Navy pilots of UFOs: the “FLIR1” (aka “Tic Tac”), “Gimbal”, and “GoFast”, are indeed genuine.
• (The “FLIR1”/ “Tic Tac” video was taken November 14, 2004 over the Pacific Ocean off of the coast of San Diego. The “GoFast” video was taken January 21, 2015 over the Atlantic Ocean off of Virginia, and the “Gimbal” video was taken January 21, 2015 over the Atlantic Ocean off of Florida.) In the videos, air crews debate what the objects are and where they came from.
• The videos were released by The New York Times and ‘To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences’, a UFO research group headed by former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge.
• In each case, the UFOs (or ‘UAPs’ – ‘unidentified aerial phenomenon’) undertook aerial maneuvers that aren’t possible with current aviation technology. In the 2004 incident, according to The New York Times article, the ‘Tic Tac UFO’ “appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, and then hurtled toward the sea, eventually stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering. Then they either dropped out of radar range or shot straight back up.”
• The Department of Defense told The Black Vault website that the videos were unclassified but never cleared for public release, and that there had been no review process within the Pentagon for releasing them. The Pentagon now says the aerial objects in the videos are simply unidentified, and for now, unexplained. The Navy is pointedly not saying the objects are flying saucers or otherwise controlled by aliens.
• [Editor’s Note] And the full disclosure of the Deep State government cover-up of a flourishing extraterrestrial presence takes another step forward.
The U.S. Navy has confirmed that three online videos purportedly showing UFOs are genuine. The service says the videos, taken by Navy pilots, show “unexplained aerial phenomena,” but also states that the clips should have never been released to the public in the first place.
The three videos in question are titled “FLIR1,” “Gimbal,” and “GoFast.” They show two separate encounters between Navy aircraft and UFOs.
One video was taken in 2015 off the East Coast by a F/A-18F fighter jet using the aircraft’s onboard Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) Pod. The other clip, also recorded with a Super Hornet ATFLIR pod, was taken off the coast of California in 2004 by pilots flying from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. In the videos, air crews loudly debate what the objects are and where they came from.
The videos were released for public viewing by The New York Times and To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, a UFO research group from former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge.
In each case, the objects in the videos undertook aerial maneuvers that aren’t possible with current aviation technology. In the 2004 incident, according to The New York Times, the objects “appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, and then hurtled toward the sea, eventually stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering. Then they either dropped out of radar range or shot straight back up.”
2:46 minute FLIR1 ‘Tic Tac’ Video (To The Stars Academy YouTube)
1:53 minute Gimbal Video (To The Stars Academy YouTube)
2:04 minute Go Fast Video (To The Stars Academy YouTube)
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With a honorable citizen’s effort the Black Vault’s John Greenwald had painstakingly placed in PDF format for the general public to read and to easily research previously USAF declassified Project Blue Book files held at the National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/foia/ufos.html (I’m correcting my previous erroneous statement that what had just been released to the public were recently declassified files). It was a major effort and this was newsworthy as it would help anyone interested at how research had been conduceted take a good look at these files produced by an iconic UFO research project.
Unfortunately, in a letter by John Greenwald director of The Black Vault dated January 29, 2015 he announced that, due to a copyright claim (!!), he’s decided to take these files off the internet for now. Here’s the link: http://www.openminds.tv/usaf-ufo-blue-book-files-forced-taken/31946
“It is with great frustration to announce, that Ancestry.com, and their subsidiary Fold3, has laid down a claim to copyright on the Project Blue Book material – which has long been labeled as “public domain” by the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA). Ancestry.com is claiming ownership to the digital version of this material – despite me having records that Fold3 doesn’t even have in their archive and I received under the FOIA starting back in 1996. They simply claimed it was 100% theirs and I was forced to remove it.”
Still, the availability of these files at the National Archives should be a step in the right direction of transparency on an issue that cannot (and should not!) be hidden for ever. Other countries have already been open about much of their files as very few of them may be of direct security interest. I would say in some Latin American countries an average of 2-3 out of 1000-1500 files may be of conventional security interest. In the U.S. part of the reason given for the debunking and classification was fear of disruption of emergency channels that the Soviet Union could take advantage of.
Even reviewing these old Project Blue Book files related with what may be “average” types of sightings – as normally reported worldwide – would be of scientific interest today as conventional explanations could not be found to explain away a remarkable % of them. That in itself should make them of scientific interest. That percentage varied according to how much freedom the Blue Book researchers had or how much they were expected to debunk. A fair review of the UFO cases reported could still be helpful today when we have no access to any other investigations that might be secretely accruing somewhere else.
Optimistically, in spite of this hopefully temporary setback, more events pointing towards the reality of an intelligent extraterrestrial presence will keep coming en force to change the psychological discomfort, scorn, fear and shame felt by so many of our political and cultural leaders who prefer to remain in their comfort zones without taking a serious look at an ever-increasing pile of “anomalies” that indicate that our classical concepts about “reality” are way our of phase with that reality.
