The Military Keeps Encountering UFOs. Why Doesn’t the Pentagon Care?
“We have no idea what’s behind these weird incidents because we’re not investigating.”
by Christopher Mellon March 9, 2018 (washingtonpost.com)
• A December 16, 2018 New York Times article revealed a $22M Pentagon UFO program and released a Navy F-18 cockpit video of a “pill-shaped UFO” off of the coast of California in 2004. Now, Defense Department intelligence officials confirm more than a dozen such incidents off of the East Coast since 2015. Last October, the Air Force sent F-15 fighter jets to intercept a high-speed UFO traveling from northern California into Oregon, which was confirmed by ground radar and commercial airline pilots visually. ‘To The Stars Academy’ has released two more videos of the U.S. military capturing UFOs on video (see both of them below).
• Prior to capturing the Navy F-18 cockpit video of the original pill-shaped UFO off of the coast of San Diego in 2004, the Navy had been tracking these UFOs for a couple of weeks. They witnessed UFOs descending at supersonic speeds from altitudes higher than 60,000 feet, only to suddenly stop and hover as low as 50 feet above the ocean, in broad daylight and without a discernible means of propulsion. The United States possesses nothing capable of such feats.
• Whether these are advanced technologies from Russia or China or intelligent extraterrestrials, the U.S. government doesn’t appear to be very interested in learning more about them.
• This article’s writer, Christopher Mellon, is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, and was Staff Director for the Senate Intelligence Committee. He is currently an adviser to ‘To The Stars Academy’ and raises private funds to enable the Academy to investigate incidents like the 2004 UFO encounter off of San Diego. Says Mellon, “military departments and agencies treat such [UFO] incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation.”
• Reports from different services and agencies remain largely ignored and unevaluated inside their respective bureaucratic stovepipes. The current approach is equivalent to having the Army conduct a submarine search without the Navy. “A colleague of mine at To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run a Pentagon intelligence program that examined evidence of “anomalous” aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data.” The Pentagon officially discontinued the UFO program in 2012.
• Mellon says that ‘To the Stars Academy’ is being approached by military personnel who are concerned about national security and frustrated by how the Defense Department is handling such UFO reports. “Nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue… This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress… It is time to set aside taboos regarding UFOs and instead listen to our pilots and radar operators.”
• “The task needs to be assigned to an official with the clout to compel collaboration among disparate and often quarrelsome national security bureaucracies. A truly serious effort would involve, among other things, analysts able to review infrared satellite data, NORAD radar databases and signals, and human intelligence reporting. Congress should require an all-source study by the secretary of defense while promoting research into new forms of propulsion that might explain how these vehicles achieve such extraordinary power and maneuverability,” says Mellon. “Who knows what perils we may avoid or opportunities we might identify? The future belongs to not only the physically brave but also the intellectually agile.”
In December, the Defense Department declassified two videos documenting encounters between U.S. Navy F-18 fighters and unidentified aircraft. The first video captures multiple pilots observing and discussing a strange, hovering, egg-shaped craft, apparently one of a “fleet” of such objects, according to cockpit audio. The second shows a similar incident involving an F-18 attached to the USS Nimitz carrier battle group in 2004.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest.
A third declassified video, released by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science , a privately owned media and scientific research company to which I’m an adviser, reveals a previously undisclosed Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast in 2015.
Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China? Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization? Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.
I served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and as staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I know from numerous discussions with Pentagon officials over the past two years that military departments and agencies treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation. A colleague of mine at To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run a Pentagon intelligence program that examined evidence of “anomalous” aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data.
Meanwhile, reports from different services and agencies remain largely ignored and unevaluated inside their respective bureaucratic stovepipes. There is no Pentagon process for synthesizing all the observations the military is making. The current approach is equivalent to having the Army conduct a submarine search without the Navy. It is also reminiscent of the counterterrorism efforts of the CIA and the FBI before Sept. 11, 2001, when each had information on the hijackers that they kept to themselves. In this instance, the truth may ultimately prove benign, but why leave it to chance?
(A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to requests from The Washington Post for comment, but in December, the military confirmed the existence of a program to investigate UFOs and said it had stopped funding the research in 2012.)
UFO off of the West Coast
UFO off of the East Coast
The military personnel who are encountering these phenomena tell remarkable stories. In one example, over the course of two weeks in November 2004, the USS Princeton, a guided-missile cruiser operating advanced naval radar, repeatedly detected unidentified aircraft operating in and around the Nimitz carrier battle group, which it was guarding off the coast of San Diego. In some cases, according to incident reports and interviews with military personnel, these vehicles descended from altitudes higher than 60,000 feet at supersonic speeds, only to suddenly stop and hover as low as 50 feet above the ocean. The United States possesses nothing capable of such feats.
On at least two occasions, F-18 fighters were guided to intercept these vehicles and were able to verify their location, appearance and performance. Notably, these encounters occurred in broad daylight and were independently monitored by radars aboard multiple ships and aircraft. According to naval aviators I have spoken with at length, the vehicles were roughly 45 feet long and white. Yet these mysterious aircraft easily sped away from and outmaneuvered America’s front-line fighters without a discernible means of propulsion.
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advanced technologies, Christopher Mellon, Luis Elizondo, To the Stars Academy
