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Written by Dr. Binoy Kampmark.
Those of you drawing sustenance and stimulation from the traditional acronym UFO best brace yourselves. The less exciting and dull term accepted by the defence clerks – unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – is renewing its march into the extra-terrestrial hinterland.
On June 25, the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force will release a declassified report to Congress that will do little to shift ground or alter debate on the nature of such phenomena. For those exercised about green creatures, ancient aliens and that roguish charlatan Erich von Däniken, nothing would have changed. For sceptics, it will be a case of tired yawn before returning to work. There will be many “I told you so” moments and no one will be any wiser.
Since 2017, various eyewitness accounts and videos have been circulating in such measure as to worry members of Congress. This came a decade after Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) first began tooting the horn on the subject, a measure that led to the creation of the $22 million Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. That program, along with the even lesser known Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program, saw the involvement of such proponents of extra-terrestrial life as billionaire Robert Bigelow.
Such programs were hardly the first. From 1966 to 1968, the University of Colorado’s UFO Project, which lead to the publication of the tome heavy Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, was funded by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Led by physicist Edward U. Condon, the report, totalling almost a thousand pages, covered 56 “cases” (UFO sightings), of which 33 were suitably explained as “normal phenomena”.
The unexplained cases were not sufficient for Condon and his co-authors to encourage further government study or scientific investigation of UFO sightings. The words of the report are unequivocally damning: “nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record … leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
Decades after, with interest rekindled, the Pentagon was duly pressed by US lawmakers into compiling a report examining UAP sightings. Legislation passed in December stipulated that the resulting work should contain “detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence” gathered by the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. The latter was created in August 2020 on the direction of Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist. It was done so with a view to improving “understanding of” and to “gain insight into the nature and origins of UAPs. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalogue UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to US national security.”
The focus of the report is bound to be workmanlike, given the DOD’s concern about “the safety of our personnel and the security of our operations”. Emphasis is placed on the potential risks posed by “any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace”. “This includes examinations of incursions that are initially reported as UAP when the observer cannot immediately identify what he or she is observing.”
So far, news outlets have veered between panting anticipation and bemused interest. The BBC suggested that, “The review of 120 incidents is expected to conclude that US technology was not involved in most cases.” The Hill, not quite grasping the meaning of secrecy, concluded that this fact “effectively rules out any secret government operations conducted by the American government”.
Both the New York Times and Washington Post went for common ground. The Times reported that senior administration officials briefed about the report found no evidence that the sighted objects seen over the past decade by Navy pilots were not of this planet. But these same officials “still cannot explain the unusual movements that have mystified scientists and the military.” US technology, it was confirmed, was not involved in the sightings. The report, according to the Post, “finds no proof of extraterrestrial activity, but cannot provide a definitive explanation for scores of incidents in which strange objects have been spotted in the sky”.
The Post goes on to make some broad claims, detecting a shift from “fringe conspiracy theory” to the “mainstream”. To justify the assertion, they cite such figures as Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official who told reporters on an April roundtable call that many objects recorded in the videos under review had “baffled pilots, military and intelligence officials for their apparent defiance of known laws of flight and gravity”.
Fox News, for its part, can call upon the observations of former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe. Those interested in the report would read of “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.”
The minds of former presidents are also being tickled with interest. “[W]hat is true, and I’m actually being serious here,” Barack Obama claimed in May on the Late Late Show With James Corden, “is that there are, there’s footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory.”
A good number in the scientific and sceptical fraternity have been much cooler to this excitement. “Recently,” a reproachful Andrew Franknoi, astronomer at the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco observes, “there has been a flurry of misleading publicity about UFOs [based on military reports]. A sober examination of these claims reveals there is a lot less to them than first meets the eye.”
Science writer Mick West, who has viewed much UAP footage released by the US military, affords a good perspective for debunkers. Most sightings can be put down to distortions in the image or problems in the instruments themselves. For all that, he admitted that unidentified objects appearing “in restricted airspace” presents “a real problem that needs solving.”
UFO sceptic Robert Sheaffer sees no reason for a Damascene conversion. “There are no aliens here on Earth, and so the government cannot ‘disclose’ what it does not have.” With a measure of unflagging confidence, he suggested that government sources knew “less on the subject than our best civilian UFO investigators, not more.”
Another good reason for dampening any excitement around the UAP Report is the motivation of the Pentagon. Instances of costly bungles are many, from the vast expenditure in such failed conflicts as Afghanistan to the $1.6 trillion debacle over the F-35. Perhaps, writes Matt Stieb, the DOD “simply wants a flashy reason to demand more money.”
Reid, for his part, expects little but urges continued interest in funding ventures in UAP investigations. “I don’t think the report is going to tell us too much. I think they need to study it more and not just have one shot at it.” Condon and his research team might have set him straight.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Is this a joke?
The condon report was far from being an objective research project.
The conclusion was already pre determined before the investigation even started.
Stanton T. Friedman in his excellent book Flying saucers and science essentially destroys the condon report amongst other excellent points he raises, check it out, a fantastic book!
Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.
Its also pretty narcissistic to think we are alone out there. We are primitive apes that spend most of their ressources killing each other. Why would space cultures want to talk to us, when all we will do is kill them to steal their stuff?
Von Daniken was not far off the mark, the ancient structures he points out are weird if you view them as monolithic blocks of rock that had to be dragged in place. But what if they were cast in place, like concrete? Not portland cement concrete you see everyday but a different kind, what we today call geopolymers.
Concrete is a mix of water, aggregate and a binder, wether its portland cement, asphalt or some other binder, its concrete. Natron salt is the key ;).
You dont mix politics and science, wich is what is happening at this very moment, all you will get is bad science, because the conclusions are pre determined.
I often think the Universe is so big, there has to be someone else out there.
Now that the US military says they are out there, my belief is gone.
The thought of visitors coming here just so they can look at out dated nuclear weapons the US have is sooo silly. It’s beyond belief that people listen to this new pack of lies from the people who told you about WMDs, and that all of Asia would become Communist if the Vietnamese were ever to get independence.
Von Danken was wrong, the old civilisations were formed by humans, who then went on to destroy their own world through war and probably vaccines. Not enough survivors remained to start off where they finished, and so civilisation was set off on a long road of recovery.
If a nuclear war starts tomorrow, we’ll be doing the same thing. Starting off from scratch, with a few funny guys who would know how to build a power station, if only they had some power tools and refined oil to build it.
It is a cycle that has probably repeated itself many times on this planet.
Either that, or the supposed ETs are just as poor at inter species relations as we are. Why any ET would need to come here for gold when the interstellar spaces are full of it, is just to inconvenient an answer for the people who just love to have an overlord to bear.
ET fighting wars on Earth against the dumb slaves is nearly as crazy an idea as Moses getting to have a chat with his god in the sky.
I myself am a proponent of the geopolymer theory, though that will immediately get the “Egyptologists” to attack you.
Would you happen to have any links to some good articles by Von Daniken? I would be very interested to read what he says about the subject
Because of my knowledge on how the Jews’ propaganda and gaslighting functions, I predicted in July that the Jews would role out their ol’ UFO and “aliens” canard as yet another distraction for my fellow Americans to bleat about–like the sheeple they are.
Oh, my poor, poor country.
Of course the report will tell nothing huge – but (of course, again) it will further legitimize institutional investigation into phenomenon that is REAL. There are no scientific insights without serious and institutionalized research. And, given the topic, results will not and can not come in short term. It will take decades for mankind to find some rough answers to this mystery.
All evidence, and lack thereof, prove there are no space aliens. The idea is only believed by those who get their education from Hollywood.
One glaring evidence is that there have been absolutely no signals of any kind detected that would indicate extraterrestrial life. These signals would precede any alien visitation by many many years.
Hollywood is an anti God institution and their alien propaganda indoctrination is just one more attempt to convert people into degenerate atheists. Sadly it works on a lot of ignorant people.
First they said there was life on the moon, then they said there was life on Venus, then they said their was life on Mars and it just keeps going and going. No life at all and it doesn’t matter how far they send their probes the result will be the same.
The last thing we need is a load of ETs coming here to find themselves, and where they come from.
We have enough bleeding heart liberal war hawks on this planet already.
the pentagon doesn’t know whether to welcome them or surrender….the world just changed and their place in it did also