1 – The environment
The third millennium started with silence about UAP
activity, exception made by the fringe of people that could look at the sky and
get confused by optical, meteorological, astronomical phenomena and
technological developments, and those that experts in psychology qualify as
fantasy-prone personalities. They
continue producing UAP reports, but the media and the general public were not
concerned about the subject.
Behind the scenes, a group of individuals moved by different
but coincidental interests (political, influential, economic) pushed the UAP subject by reaching two major
newspapers: The New York Times and The Washington Post. Both of them were
chosen to reveal on April 27 of 2017 a couple of videos that initially escaped
the control of the Pentagon.
Those videos were old, one from 2004 and the other from
2015.
The Pentagon was forced to recognize those videos taken
through infrared cameras, not knowing exactly how they escaped to their
control. The DoD said that they were “authentic”, not in the sense that they
showed the existence of strange crafts flying near US Navy airplanes, but that
they were not the elaborated result of tricks or the use of Computer Generated
Imagery.
Behind the scenes appeared 22 million dollars approved by
the Senate of the United States and supposedly given to the Pentagon to finance
a program that would study the UAP, but that went mostly to Robert Bigelow, an
eccentric owner of a chain of hotels and a company named “Bigelow
Aerospace”. The multimillionaire was an
important donor to the political campaign of who was then the Senate Majority
Leader, Harry Read.
But there appeared some other names that were pushing the UAP
subject like Christopher Mellon (a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and later
for Security and Information Operations), John Ratcliffe,( former Director of
National Intelligence under President Donald Trump) Helene Cooper, Leslie Kean
and Ralph Blumenthal (journalists pro-E.T.) and on a lower level but very
active, Luis Elizondo a former Pentagon employee that never directed any
project related to UAP, Jeremy Corbell (filmmaker specialized in showing faked
“ufos”) and the rocker Tom DeLonge, (founder of To The Stars- Academy of Arts
and Science).
Please, see our article “Dissecting the U.S. NAVY U.A.P.
CASE” of October 7, 2019, in the UAPSG
webpage (https://www.uapsg.com/).
All these people made a lot of noise using the media.
And these people got it! To the point that the Department of
Defense created an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) that is the
one responsible for the Report presented to the Intelligence Committee of the
US Senate.
The creation of this Task Force and the announcement that it
would have to present a report to the Capitol determined that those believers
in extraterrestrials felt like a push to their position, developing exaggerated
expectations about what the report would say.
Of course, once the report was known their reaction was one
of great disappointment.
To us, this shows that they live in an environment of
fantasy that doesn't allow them to think rationally and with feet on the
ground.
What is needed to understand is that –in the existent relationship
between institutions of the Government— the request of a report, and the
presentation of it, is a bureaucratic procedure.
The subject of the report could attract attention
–obviously— but not to the point of going beyond reasonable boundaries.
2 – Threat
The Report starts by saying that it “is
to submit an intelligence assessment of the threat posed by unidentified aerial
phenomena (UAP) and the progress the Department of Defense Unidentified Aerial
Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) has made in understanding this threat.”
Just in one initial phrase the word “threat”
appears twice. And the second paragraph speaks once again about “the potential threat posed by UAP”.
Even further, in the same tenor, the report goes so
far as to say: “UAP would also represent a
national security challenge if they are foreign adversary collection
platforms or provide evidence a potential adversary has developed either a breakthrough
or disruptive technology.”
Moreover, in a sub-title, the Report says: “UAP
THREATEN FLIGHT SAFETY AND, POSSIBLY, NATIONAL SECURITY” and explains: "UAP pose a hazard to the safety of flight and could pose a
broader danger if some instances represent sophisticated collection against
U.S. military activities by a foreign government or demonstrate a breakthrough
aerospace technology by a potential adversary.”
We deduct that, on the one hand, the real concern
of the Department of Defense is to tackle this threat, --based only on military
pilots reports— and on the other hand, there couldn’t be possible a more
persuasive argument to the legislators to get the approval of money for the
investigation than talk about a threat, and suggesting that the national
security is at stake.
In other words, this report is used to ask for
money.
3 – About the
phenomena
The Report is based on the consideration of incidents
reported between “November 2004 to March
2021” although it adds that “Data
continues to be collected and analyzed”.
This –therefore— is a very restricted period in time for a
subject that goes beyond that little window, and it is obvious that it is
mainly related to UAP reports by US Navy pilots, as the UAPTF explicitly
recognizes:
“The
majority of UAP data is from U.S. Navy reporting, but efforts are underway to
standardize incident reporting across U.S. military services and other
government agencies to ensure all relevant data is captured concerning
particular incidents and any U.S. activities that might be relevant. The UAPTF
is currently working to acquire additional reporting, including from the U.S.
Air Force (USAF), and has begun receiving data from the Federal Aviation
Administration(FAA).”
Although the reports were made by military pilots, this
situation corroborates that they are not the best observers/witnesses that some
people suppose. This is corroborated when the Report alludes to “observer misperception”.
The people working at the UAPTF recognized that: “The limited amount of high-quality
reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) hampers our ability to draw
firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP.” [underline mine]
This word “intent” clearly presupposes that the phenomena
considered by the UAPTF are not only natural
but artificial too.
As they say: “Our
analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP
incidents are resolved they will fall into one of the five potential
explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG
[United States Government] or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign
adversary systems and a catchall
“other” bin”. [underline mine].
We have given opportune information about the development of
hypersonic by Russia and China on the UAPSG web page –in articles published on
June 4, 13 and 15.
And this is because “The UAPTF has 11 reports of documented instances in which pilots
reported near misses with a UAP.”
“Most
reports described UAP as objects that interrupted pre-planned training or other
military activity.”
This worrisome situation is at the core of the
effort to identify the reported UAP.
The good thing is that the members of the UAPTF are
aware that:
“Some UAP
observations could be attributable to developments and classified programs by
U.S. entities”, and a paragraph later the Report says: “Some UAP may be technologies deployed by China, Russia, another
nation, or a non-governmental entity.” [subrayado
mío]
About these technologies, the Report establishes
that: “observers reported unusual UAP
movement patterns or flight characteristics.”
“Some
UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind,
maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of
propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed
radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings. [underline
mine].The
UAPTF holds a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating
acceleration or a degree of signature management.”
From our viewpoint, the people at the UAPTF have a
realistic approach, and that is essentially important.
Fortunately. they are not speculative, and there is
not even a hint about aliens in the whole document.
The Report indicates that “In a limited number of incidents,
UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics. These
observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer
misperception and require additional rigorous analysis.”
About sensor errors, the same Report clarifies
that: "The sensors mounted on U.S.
military platforms are typically designed to fulfill specific missions. As a
result, those sensors are not generally suited for identifying UAP.”
There is also a touch with reality concerning the
environment that could surround the pilots when the Report mentions “spoofing”
as the cause of some observations. It is known that this happened on board the
"USS Nimitz" carrier.
The UAPTF recognizes that from 144 reports received
they “were able to identify one reported
UAP with high confidence. In that case, we identified the object as a large,
deflating balloon. The others remain unexplained.”
4
– Summing up
The Report argues that a series of basic but very
important activities “would require
additional investment”.
The Report also points out that “Additional rigorous analysis are necessary
by multiple teams or groups of technical experts to determine the nature and
validity of these data”, and even more “we
may require additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyze
and characterize some of them.”
Finally: “The
UAPTF has indicated that additional funding for research and development could
further the future study of the topics laid out in this report. Such
investments should be guided by a UAP Collection Strategy, UAP R&D
Technical Roadmap, and a UAP Program Plan.”
And, last but not least, a great and clear
definition of what is called a UAP. It says:
Unidentified
Aerial Phenomena (UAP): Airborne
objects not immediately identifiable. The acronym UAP represents the broadest
category of airborne objects reviewed for analysis.
With this definition, the Report is indicating that
a UAP will be finally identified, that it does not forever remain Unidentified
and that the key factor in the work of the UAPTF is identification.
We agree totally with the work planned –provided it
is funded— and more importantly, with the honest position of the UAPTF.
There is no place for fantasy or speculation. The
matter is serious and could compromise national security.
Mag. Milton W. Hourcade
UAPSG International Coordinator
Iowa City – July 7, 2021
