PART 1– What’s going on?
As if a global pandemic in the Spring of 2020 wasn’t unsettling enough for the American public, in late April of that year the Department of Defense released three videos purporting to show Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) recorded from the cockpits of Navy fighter jets. The three clips had already been seen by prominent Ufologists and had gained traction within the underground community, when the Pentagon finally stepped in to confirm that they were in fact unaltered videos of US military incidents.
The videos, taken from encounters in 2004, 2014 and 2015, were grainy and in black and white but appeared to show “tic-tac”-shaped objects flying in US airspace at remarkable speeds and demonstrating strange maneuvering capabilities. The release of these videos coincided with the public testimonies of several pilots and Navy personnel, who were eyewitnesses to these unexplained events.
Stories of flying saucers have become as much a part of American lore as Paul Bunyan and Babe Ruth. The basis for most of the modern saucer myth stems from the infamous Roswell Incident of 1947, in which the US military allegedly recovered an extraterrestrial craft along with its occupants. The supposed government cover-up of this event helped to fuel an ever-growing underground amalgam of self-styled investigators, conspiracy theorists, sci-fi writers and dreamers prone to looking at the stars. In the ensuing decades, that group has included notable public figures like filmmaker Steven Spielberg, President Jimmy Carter, and some god-awful pop-punk guitarist named Tom DeLonge.
Over the past four years, the result of the Pentagon “tic tac” videos has been a steady stream of public testimonies from credible eyewitnesses, new military videos confirmed as authentic by the Pentagon and corresponding hunger from the American public for more information about this unexplained phenomena.
Everyone from a retired Lt. Commander who vectored-in on these objects in 2004, to Commander David Fravor who had a clear visual on the famous tic-tac object from his cockpit , to pop star Camilla Cabello who filmed a bizarre disc-shaped object with her parents, have added their two cents to the public dialogue.
But nothing has stirred the UFO pot quite like “whistleblower” David Grusch’s testimony before congress in July 2023, in which he alleged that the US has a top secret UAP crash retrieval program as well as “non-human biologics” in their possession. And apparently, they have had these items in their possession for a very long time.
Critics have attacked the glaring lack of evidence for any of Grusch’s claims. They’ve also engaged in below-the-belt ad hominin attacks regarding his history of PTSD, related to combat in Afghanistan. But in my estimation, neither Grusch nor his claims are so easy to dismiss out of hand.
He has none of the common characteristics of a charlatan.
He’s a decorated war vet with an impeccable record as an Air Force Intelligence Officer. He also had high security clearances within the US government, having worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). This guy is no slouch.
He also was the co-lead on the Pentagon’s own Unexplained Anomalous Phenomenon (UAP) task force. In his sworn testimony before congress, he claimed to possess an extensive list of of co-operative (and non-cooperative!) firsthand government witnesses to the US crash retrieval program. Because of the classified nature of the disclosure, he offered to provide this list to members of Congress in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). We learned after the hearing that this SCIF was denied by Intelligence officials due to Grusch lacking the security clearance to discuss such matters.
Whether Grusch is a crackpot or not, these recent facts certainly make his claims all the more curious:
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), along with a bipartisan group of five other senators, introduced legislation in the summer of 2023 suggesting that the U.S. government or private contractors may secretly possess recovered UFOs and “biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence.” The bill refers to non-human intelligence 26 times.
- Following Grusch’s testimony, members of the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, requesting information related to Grusch’s testimony and UAP crash retrieval programs, by September 15, 2023.
- On August 31, 2023, the US Department of Defense announced the launch of a new website and office to provide the public with information regarding UAP’s. The site is still being built, but already contains a number of authentic, military videos of UAP’s (see: Cases).
- At the risk of traversing crackpot terrain, although admittedly some may believe I’ve already gone there– one bizarre footnote to the new DoD office and website acknowledging UAP’s, is the logo itself for the AARO. It reads, in Latin: Universum Mutao Est, Vita Nostra Est Quod Cogitationes Nostra Facere Est ,which woodenly interpreted means “The universe is changing. Our life is what our thoughts make it” . Huh???
- On September 5th, a classified UAP memo provided to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau was revealed to the public. Obtained through a freedom of information request, the heavily redacted document offered a glimpse into how the Canadian government responded to the unidentified object that was detected and shot down over northern Canada’s Yukon territory on Feb. 11, 2023 .The confidential memo reveals that the Yukon incident marked the 23rd UAP occurrence tracked over North America in early 2023.
- On September 7th Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) confirmed that he met with the new head of the Pentagon’s AARO program, physicist Sean M. Kirkpatrick, to discuss more robust whistleblower protections for government employees with knowledge of UAP programs.
- NASA is holding a media briefing on UAP’s, September 14th at 10am EST.
Doesn’t this seem like another example of wishful thinking from the conspiracy-driven UFO community?
YES. It very well could be.
Could sightings of “tic tac” UAP’s just be our own advanced US military tech? Aren’t they most likely drone prototypes being tested?
Uncertain.
But I’m beginning to lean towards “unlikely”.
Typically prototypes of new aerospace technology are carefully tested inside very restricted airspace. And usually affected military within the testing area are alerted. Also… small, silver spherical objects maneuvering at high rates of speed have been reported by pilots since the 1950’s– long before conventional drone technology existed.
Is this escalation of disclosure about UAP’s, from the highest offices within our federal government, suspicious and/or unusual?
YES. I think it is.
In future posts I will discuss the implications of possible advanced tech/UAP disclosure on American politics and religion. Regardless of whether Grusch’s claims can ever be verified by firsthand eyewitness accounts or with actual physical evidence of crash materials and/or non-human intelligence, our collective view of the federal government will be impacted. And even more profound could be the impact of potential UAP evidence upon the gatekeepers of organized religion and the cherished dogmas that they enshrine.
“There’s UFO’s over New York and I ain’t too surprised… Strange days indeed. Most peculiar mama!” — John Lennon, “Nobody Told Me”
