How the Pentagon learned to start worrying and investigate UFOs
(National Geographic)
The government’s UFO report has landed: It concludes that strange aircraft have been haunting U.S. warships for years, marking a new era for “unidentified aerial phenomena.”
PUBLISHED JUNE 25, 2021
U.S. national security officials today delivered a report to Congress about investigations into a series of unidentified flying object sightings, a landmark sign that this previously fringe topic has gained mainstream acceptance. And while the report, produced by the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), does provide some new information about the inexplicable occurrences, it leaves many of the biggest questions unanswered.
Yes, Navy pilots and other military personnel have been seeing mysterious flying objects for decades; a Navy task force reviewed 144 sightings by U.S. government personnel that occurred between 2004 and 2021. No, the Pentagon doesn’t know what they are. There’s no evidence that the objects were sent by space aliens, but the report, mandated by Congress as part of the 2021 National Intelligence Authorization Act, confirms that the sightings remain “unidentified.”
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The report, which includes a classified section available only to lawmakers, details the results of investigations by the Defense Department’s UAP Task Force, established in 2017. Strange flying objects with seemingly bizarre aerodynamic abilities have been spotted by pilots, on radar, and with infrared sensors.
The report does state that the UAP Task Force was not able to attribute any of the sightings to American military or other advanced U.S. government technology. “Some UAP observations could be attributable to developments and classified programs by U.S. entities,” the report says. “We were unable to confirm, however, that these systems accounted for any of the UAP reports we collected.”
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| Dietrich |
The most famous UAP encounters in modern aviation history—cases from 2004, 2014, and 2015 that involve pilot sightings, radar tracking, and objects caught on video—remain unsolved.
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Even without answers, the report is a welcome validation for those in the military who witnessed unknown objects in the sky. “We were ridiculed and mocked by so many, so now it feels nice to have people ask good questions and to have them really be interested in getting to the bottom of it,” says Alex Dietrich, a former Navy pilot who observed a UAP in 2004. “Then, of course, there’s that underlying sense of urgency that we all have: Is this a threat to national security?”
A number of U.S. officials are now posing that same question. What Dietrich saw in the sky 16 years ago started a series of events that changed the discussion about unidentified aerial sightings forever.
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Consensus has gelled around the idea that at least some physical aircraft were flying during the encounters reported by Navy pilots. The DNI report supports this point of view: “Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects, given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation.”
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There is an ongoing, invisible cat-and-mouse game between designers of U.S. weapon systems and those made by Russia and China. In places like Syria, Taiwan, and Ukraine, military specialists, nicknamed crows, vie for dominance over the electromagnetic spectrum.
“Over time, the sensors on an aircraft or a missile get more and more sophisticated,” says Mike Meaney, Northrop Grumman’s vice president of Land and Maritime Sensors. “On the flip side, usually within short order, they have new and different ways to spoof or fool those sensors to make them think something’s happening that really isn’t.”
When radar operators receive returns showing things that are impossible—like extremely fast-moving objects and vanishing swarms of aircraft—electronic warfare is the first thing a crow considers. “If I see one enemy plane, and all of a sudden it becomes 20 planes in my display—I’m being spoofed,” Meany says. Such funhouse mirror tricks are useful for avoiding anti-aircraft weapons, which often initially rely on radar to track targets.
Spoofing sounds a lot like what happened in the Gimbal encounters, and the DNI report addresses the possibility. “UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics,” it states. “These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis.” But if spoofing was involved, it would be very advanced tech for 2015. “That’s really the higher level of electronic warfare,” Meany notes.
If the Russian spy ship in Cuba was part of an intelligence gathering operation using covert tools of electronic warfare, that would mean the Kremlin unveiled a potentially sensitive system that would be more valuable as a surprise during an actual conflict. There are vast military ranges in Russia and China where sensitive systems can be tested without tipping their hand—just as there are within the United States.
Meaney says a cardinal rule in electronic warfare is: The less shown, the better. “As far as the cat-and-mouse goes, all sides are very careful in what they show and when they show it,” he says. “We don’t show it until we need it, and it’s been that way for five decades.”
Even if spoofing can explain some of the strange things seen on radar screens, it can’t explain what pilots saw with their own eyes, or the objects captured on video. Perhaps a combination of physical objects and electronic warfare is responsible for some of the UAP incidents, but no one seems to be able to put all the puzzle pieces together in a way that makes sense….
Government report can't explain UFOs, but offers no evidence of aliens
(Politico)
Out of 144 encounters with mysterious aircraft, 143 are literally unidentifiable, according to a newly released report to Congress.
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