Top government officials speak out
In our first article in this UAP category, my colleague Jessica briefly mentioned the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. Announced by the US Department of Defense on 14th August 2020, the Task Force is being led by the Department of the Navy, under the cognisance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. With the deadline for the UAP Task Force report fast approaching, enticing clues have been divulged by several top officials about the briefings going on behind closed doors.
It’s surprising to hear anyone in a prominent government position saying anything about the UAP subject because of the stigma attached to it, with nobody wanting to be associated with tales of “little green men”. After the three Navy UAP videos were leaked and then confirmed to be authentic, mainstream news outlets have been taking a close interest in the next chapter of this intriguing story.
John Brennan, former Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Public Domain image
John Brennan spent 25 years of his career with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), finally becoming the Director of the CIA from March 2013 to January 2017. His expertise included intelligence analysis and counterterrorism. On 16th December 2020, Brennan was interviewed by Tyler Cowen for his podcast and he spoke guardedly about the government Task Force looking into UAPs. He begins:
I’ve seen some of those videos from Navy pilots, and I must tell you that they are quite eyebrow-raising when you look at them. You try to ensure that you have as much data as possible in terms of visuals and also different types of maybe technical collection of sensors that you have at the time. Also, I believe, it’s important to reach out into other environments and find out, were there any type of weather phenomena at that time that might have, in fact, created the appearance of the phenomenon that you’re looking at? Were there some things that were happening on the ground, or other types of phenomena that could help explain what seems to be quite a mystery as far as what is there?
I think an important thing for analysts to do is not to go into this type of challenge either discounting certain types of possibilities or believing in advance that it is likely X, Y, or Z. You really have to approach it with an open mind, but get as much data as possible and get as much expertise as possible brought to bear.
Cowen then asks “At the end of all that sifting and interpreting, what do you think is the most likely hypothesis?” The former Director of the CIA responds:
I don’t know. When people talk about it, is there other life besides what’s in the States, in the world, the globe? Life is defined in many different ways. I think it’s a bit presumptuous and arrogant for us to believe that there’s no other form of life anywhere in the entire universe. What that might be is subject to a lot of different views.
But I think some of the phenomena we’re going to be seeing continues to be unexplained and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon that is the result of something that we don’t yet understand and that could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.
John Ratcliffe, former Director of National Intelligence Credit: Office of the Director of Intelligence
More recently, on 22nd March 2021, the former Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe spoke with Maria Bartiromo of Fox News. He was asked about the UAP Task Force:
There are a lot more sightings that have been reported than have been made public. Some of those have been declassified. When we talk about sightings, we’re talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage 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. In short, things that we are observing that are difficult to explain. There’s actually quite a few of those. That information is being gathered and will be put out in a way that the American people can see.
When we see these things, we always look for a plausible explanation. Weather can cause disturbances, visual disturbances. Sometime we wonder if our adversaries have technologies that are a little bit further down the road than we thought. But there are instances where we don’t have good explanations for some of the things that we’ve seen. When that information becomes declassified, I’ll be able to talk a little bit more about that.
On the same day, Senator Marco Rubio, Vice-Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said:
There’s stuff flying over military installations and nobody knows what it is. And it isn’t ours. So, for me, that’s logical, you want to know what it is.
Two days later he repeated:
We have things flying over military installations, over military exercises, and other places, and we don’t know what it is. It isn’t ours. It isn’t anything that’s registered to the FAA, and in many cases exhibits attributes of things we’ve never seen.
Meanwhile, further video and photos of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena taken by US Navy personnel have been leaked. In April 2021, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed they’re authentic. The quality isn’t great and it’s hard to know what they might be. In one instance, a spherical object is shown entering the sea, without any wreckage found, and there’s speculation about it being a “trans-medium vehicle” able to go through air and water.
The UAP Task Force is obliged to make a report on its findings by 25th June 2021. The UAP subject has long been stigmatised. It might raise more questions than are answered. Unsurprisingly, there’s been talk of the report possibly being delayed. This week, on 4th May - which sounds better as “May the 4th be with you” - the US Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General announced the launch of an evaluation into The Pentagon’s actions. “The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the DoD has taken actions regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).” It’s understood to have been prompted by complaints from congressional leadership about the DoD’s handling of the UAP topic.
It would be foolish to think the US authorities are about to announce that UAPs are craft from beyond Earth. Senator Rubio has stated the technology “isn’t ours”, which seems to rule out American black projects. So is it advanced technology from China or Russia, which would be an alarming situation? Or does it originate from elsewhere? I think the best we can hope for is some announcement that the questions of “what?” and “where from?” remain open, with additional data needed. The worst outcome would be an unconvincing whitewash, swipe, or denial. Sooner or later, we need answers.
Written by Callum Cushen, 7th May 2021