Are The Pentagon’s UFO Program Statements Simply Misinformation?

[nivek]

Are The Pentagon’s UFO Program Statements Simply Misinformation?

The Pentagon have seemingly made a big mistake with regards to reporting on AATIP, AAWSAP and Elizondo. At some point in 2019, someone decided to walk back the verified admissions of the December 16th NYT and Politico articles that acknowledged and verified the United States Government studied unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). This may be a simple case of misinformation between unfamiliar offices, but that argument is becoming increasingly unlikely.

I genuinely do feel sorry for the Pentagon spokesperson, whoever it may be, they certainly have to front a lot of obvious mistruths. The most recent AATIP article from Tim McMillan pretty much destroyed the reconstructed narrative of 2019 that AATIP/AAWSAP had nothing to do with UFOs and Elizondo wasn’t the director or involved in any way.

Many have since speculated that the specific data fed to Susan Gough and others ensured that it couldn’t have simply been a case of misinformation. The statements given were precise, particular and full of intentional purpose. In short, they appeared to be coming from a disingenuous source from within the DOD which almost ruled out the misinformation angle.

So, what has that meant?

Well, the release of McMillan’s article has since left the Pentagon in an awkward position.

Either way, the upcoming statement from Gough goes straight into the mainstream regardless of what direction they take. Confirm AATIP was UAP and the media cycle goes again, deny it and the media cycle goes again but with a big black question mark over their integrity.

For me it was very poor management, if they had left the initial acknowledgment in place this would have died down, people would have been accepting that the Pentagon studied UFOs. Big deal.

Now, it is a big deal. Now, it looks to the world like the Pentagon have been intentionally lying in 2019. But no big deal right?

Have the pentagon and DOD been less than accurate about UFOs previously?

This wouldn’t be the first time we have seen this happen. Under pressure from President Clinton and others in the 1990, the Air Force and DOD were forced to give a conference on the famous Roswell case alongside a surprisingly subjective, opinion based paper entitled ‘The RoswellReport: Case Closed’ by James McAndrew.

*Disclaimer, I don’t know what happened at Roswell, I am focused on the changing opinion of the Pentagon towards the case.

In their investigation, the Air Force made no attempt to contact or put on record the hundred plus witnesses who were alive and available at the time, they made no attempt to back up claims of a mogul balloon with supporting evidence and documentation, and furthermore, made no attempt to explain how crash test dummies could be appropriately and conclusively explained for the testimony of reports that saw alledged ‘beings’. Interesting, the army didn’t start using crash test dummies for another 10 years following 1947.

Col. Haynes at the 1997 Roswell press conference.


What they did do however, was to confirm their first press statement on 1947 about a ‘captured crashed disc’ was false. Their second statement in 1947, that the object was a weather balloon, was actually an active lie to protect the classified project mogul program.

And thirdly, their statement that the objects (two crashes) were simply a mogul balloon was not backed up by documentation, testimony or data, plus Major Marcel (below) would later go on record to say it was all a lie.

At Fort Worth Army Air Field, Major Jesse A. Marcel (looking left) of Houma, LA – holding foil debris from Roswell, New Mexico, UFO incident, 07/08/1947

The Roswell Record 1947. The Pentagon admit they capture a flying saucer.

The Pentagon change the story to that of a weather balloon in 1947.

Now, whether the crashes at Roswell were German, Russian or Alien, it doesn’t really make a difference, the point that can be proven here is that the Pentagon gave contradictorystatements over and over, one confirmed false and one confirmed a lie.

Sound familiar? Confusing, contradictory statements seemingly are a part of UFO research and the Pentagon.

As we await Susan Gough to come back to us with an updated statement on AATIP, AAWSAP and Elizondo(?), we know we shouldn’t expect the complete truth. Even if they come back and shockingly tell us AATIP studied little grey men and they had a body stored in Bigelow fridge, I wouldn’t trust it (obviously).

This is an organisation that has fractured, moving parts, all with their own agendas, all with a say and influence in how classified material is released. Potentially, this phenomenon is being studied by multiple agencies in secret with no oversight.

Special access programs with counter intelligence may effectively stove pipe information from the public, potential enemies and other agencies but the question must be asked, is this impending progress in the long term?

It has taken two years of acclimatisation for the public to understand the position of why certain decisions were made by DOD in the best interest of the Western powers. But, if you walk back AATIP, you walk back the understanding and trust which has been delicately built between the Pentagon and the people.

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[Spaceman spiff]

Funnily enough, I think the wikileaks e-mails leak gave some credence that Tom supposedly pitched the idea to come clean to these government people partly cause "people were loosing their trust in officials and government". Then this happened, again. I think this shows what we can at best expect, unfortunately. Conflicting agendas, denials and arguments, but never the truth.

And even if they somehow gave you the truth, would you believe the guys who have already cried wolf?

 

[pigfarmer]

I just heard a Black Vault episode with McMillan. I heard this in several pieces and probably missed stuff but what I took away was that Bigelow got government funding for what had been his private interest. Not new.

McMillan said that the two programs that resulted from that - AATIP and AAWSAP - were 'intelligence operations'.
He also mentioned that as such 'you don't admit what you don't know' as it can give potential competitors an advantage.
But the Navy did actually admit that they didn't know what was on those videos.

Just passing along what he said.

somehow gave you the truth, would you believe

Believing 'the truth' from sources which have provided only conflicting information is a tough sell.

 

[Rick Hunter]

Believing 'the truth' from sources which have provided only conflicting information is a tough sell.

Word! The 1997 report was the THIRD explanation given by the USAF on Roswell. Maybe they will give another one in a generation or two.

 

[nivek]

But the Navy did actually admit that they didn't know what was on those videos.

I keep coming back to this and pondering over this occasionally, why would they admit they don't know?...

One unspoken golden rule at the company I work for, never tell the owner of the company that you don't know...Tell him you're looking into it, or you are working on it, or something, anything but never say "I don't know"...

...

 

[pigfarmer]

I keep coming back to this and pondering over this occasionally, why would they admit they don't know?...

One unspoken golden rule at the company I work for, never tell the owner of the company that you don't know...Tell him you're looking into it, or you are working on it, or something, anything but never say "I don't know"...

...

Yeah, something's just not quite right there. I can understand conflicting statements - John B Alexander has laid the case out about the size of the government, it's demographic, etc that can explain away a lot. But not all.

I made an obscure reference to in the Nimitz Encounters thread I'd like to repeat here. Whatever we're hearing it's for a reason. We speculate - argue - over what those reasons might be but regardless of whether this is all bullshit or they really have had ET locked up in Hanger 18 all these years 'the military' which includes 'the intelligence community' is quite happy to let others wonder if we have some really advanced tech they need to worry about. On one hand we have Navy fighters encountering what they call genuine UAPs and on the other we have Dr.Salvatore Pais. I just don't think that 'soft disclosure' or any of that is the point behind this. It has produced a lot of confusion and speculation and argument - which I think probably is the point.

Actually, we have produced a lot of amazing things and believing we still do is a safe bet. It seems to be a matter of drawing a line between what could be ours and what couldn't possibly be based on current models.

The opinion I am most comfortable with is that yes, sometimes things come and go that really are extraterrestrial but genuine occurrences are exceedingly rare. Any contact seems confined to individuals or small groups, not ostentatious displays we've been conditioned to expect from pop culture. I notice that we Americans just always seem to assume that the White House lawn is the obvious place to do this.

There are so many actors involved in all this from government agencies, military contractors to outright exploiters with an undercurrent of money that I literally can't separate Signal from Noise.

 

[Thomas R. Morrison]

I keep coming back to this and pondering over this occasionally, why would they admit they don't know?...

One unspoken golden rule at the company I work for, never tell the owner of the company that you don't know...Tell him you're looking into it, or you are working on it, or something, anything but never say "I don't know"...

...

They're caught between a rock and a hard place. For decades they've had a public position and a private position: publicly they've been denying that there's anything to the ETH, but privately they've been collecting data and studying the subject - it's safe to assume that the AATIP was only one such program.

So now that the public has been made aware of the AATIP (and the existence of other on-going but as-yet-unnamed programs studying UAP), they can't publicly deny that there's anything to study without jeopardizing the funding for those programs and being criticized for spending money on them in the first place. But they're still invested in the cover-up/denial policy. So they're caught in a "no win" scenario of their own making.

That's how I see it anyway, and I think that view is consistent with all of the available facts.

 

[Dejan Corovic]

Well, it more likely seems as a slow admission that UFOs are out there.

Existence of the exo-planets is now well accepted norm. So sooner or latter new astronomical information will come up that will nudge perceptions even more in a direction of existence of intelligent life. Like for example a Goldilock green-zone planet with oxygen in atmosphere might accidentally be discovered within few years. Or, even more planet with both oxygen and CO2 might be discovered and so on through all the shades of gray till final confirmation of non-terrestrial the intelligent life.

Notably, during the latest UFO Nimitz disclosure Michio Kaku, openly questioned what more data governments have about UFOs. If more of mainstream scientists ask that same question flood-gates would open.

 

[Thomas R. Morrison]

Well, it more likely seems as a slow admission that UFOs are out there.

The problem that I have with this line of reasoning is that it presumes that the launching of TTSA and the release of the videos and the revelations about the existence of the AATIP, were all some kind of deliberate intelligence operation controlled by the existing establishment.

And that's just not true. I realize that the fact that there are "insiders" on the board of TTSA gives the impression that TTSA is a cut-out of some kind, but all the indications point to a simpler explanation: the only people who have had access to the UAP intelligence owned by the government (and to some extent, their contractors), are insiders - nobody outside of the intelligence/military/defense establishment has any access to the kind of data that proves the existence of these devices. So for anything to be revealed, it had to come from insiders.

The establishment did not want this story to come out; they're not behind this. And their efforts to muddy the waters and walk back even the most modest revelations (such as "yes the military sometimes encounters advanced technology that can't be explained as any human tech"), only demonstrates the fact that they oppose the public revelations of the last 2+ years. There are other indications as well; right after the AATIP story broke in the NYT, YouTube got flooded by unmonetized bogus videos labeled with titles including "Pentagon" "AATIP" and "UFO" - the IC was spewing ink into the information stream to obscure the story. And Luis Elizondo publicly stated that he received a lot of hard push-back from Pentagon insiders - in some cases threats - for going public.

So this isn't a case of the establishment changing their public relations policy regarding this subject; this is a case of a few people who oppose the decades-long policy of denial getting together and trying to make a little hole in the wall of secrecy and denial.

 

[Spaceman spiff]

Not sure if i should put this here, but since Roswell is already in this thread, heres something regarding the official explanations. Just listened to this and need to rant for a bit:



Michael Shermer was interviewed by the Roswell reseacher Kevin Randle. Pay attention when the Mogul explanation comes up. Shermer(among other skeptics for sure) had never heard of the documents Randle had found and investigated, which according to Randle make it a hard case for the explanation to be Mogul. What did Stanton Friedman say about these people:

"Do one’s research by proclamation rather than investigation. It is much easier, and nobody will know the difference anyway."

Well there you go. An UFO researcher once again has to do the job for you, Shermer, cause you are so lazy and biased you dont even bother, because in your mind there simply cant be anything to it and thats that. Yet you are constantly attacking and lecturing all of the UFO researchers, cause of some who do it in a bad way.

His arguments about Wikileaks and that proving the government doesnt hide or know anything about UFOs was facepalm worthy alone. Somehow Wikileaks along with Snowden managed to miss AATIP tough, which wasnt even granted SAP status.

This guy shouldnt be running the Skeptic Magazine, id give his job to a better skeptic, like Mick West.

 

[pigfarmer]

Not sure if i should put this here, but since Roswell is already in this thread, heres something regarding the official explanations. Just listened to this and need to rant for a bit:



Michael Shermer was interviewed by the Roswell reseacher Kevin Randle. Pay attention when the Mogul explanation comes up. Shermer(among other skeptics for sure) had never heard of the documents Randle had found and investigated, which according to Randle make it a hard case for the explanation to be Mogul. What did Stanton Friedman say about these people:

"Do one’s research by proclamation rather than investigation. It is much easier, and nobody will know the difference anyway."

Well there you go. An UFO researcher once again has to do the job for you, Shermer, cause you are so lazy and biased you dont even bother, because in your mind there simply cant be anything to it and thats that. Yet you are constantly attacking and lecturing all of the UFO researchers, cause of some who do it in a bad way.

His arguments about Wikileaks and that proving the government doesnt hide or know anything about UFOs was facepalm worthy alone. Somehow Wikileaks along with Snowden managed to miss AATIP tough, which wasnt even granted SAP status.

This guy shouldnt be running the Skeptic Magazine, id give his job to a better skeptic, like Mick West.

Just listened to it and I see Schermer's point. I have to tune the babel fish in my ear a bit but I like Kevin Randle too and respect the research he's done. It isn't like you have to pick one or the other or that by agreeing with what someone said puts you squarely in that camp. I like to turn the 'oh come on' dial up a little with Shermer and turn the 'overexcited' dial down a little on Randle. They've both already made up their minds.

These days there are extreme viewpoints about everything and rather than talking and actually listening to one another that seems to be falling by the wayside in favor of instantaneous public speechifying and shit slinging. At least these two had a polite chat. All I'd say is that I'd have preferred to have heard a discussion about current topics, not wrangling over the Mogul explanation.

Both UFO researchers and skeptics can be flat out wrong, full of shit or have an agenda more concerned about the media they produce, their lectures and so forth than 'the truth.' Roswell Slides, Hector Quintanilla, etc. Maybe a Mogul balloon got launched and the date was incorrect due to human error or maybe somebody just F'd up and was covering their ass. If it wasn't Mogul it was something else, but that doesn't say it's ET. Schermer was absolutely right by saying the Cold War had a lot to do with all of it with or without the belief in alien visitation.

All I got from that episode is that yup, something weird's been going on that can't all be explained away and that bears further investigation. The only way 'proof' will be accepted by the majority will be by some dramatic event that makes it unavoidable. You'd think the three videos we have seen would be a step in the right direction, but look at how all that's played out. It would be fantastic to see an independent project like Chris O'Brien's actually catch something that defies explanation and flip the bird to the military with FOIA requests, lying and secrecy.

 

[Spaceman spiff]

Im not sure its ET either, i think the trail has run cold on most part for Roswell, and thats not the point. The point is Shermer usually claims skeptics like him do better investigations than the "UFO nuts", but here we again see hes done no deeper digging at all. He just happily goes with whatever narrative the governments give him, especially if it goes with his predetermined (non) belief. These mainstream lemmings are no better than those that claim every random anomaly out there is for sure a nordic/zeta reticulan/reptilian craft or some ultra dimensional god playing with us puny mortals.

Like Shostak, these people tend to do little homework on this subject, but love to opinionate loudly regardless, seemingly like experts.

 

[nivek]

Not sure if i should put this here, but since Roswell is already in this thread, heres something regarding the official explanations. Just listened to this and need to rant for a bit:



Michael Shermer was interviewed by the Roswell reseacher Kevin Randle. Pay attention when the Mogul explanation comes up. Shermer(among other skeptics for sure) had never heard of the documents Randle had found and investigated, which according to Randle make it a hard case for the explanation to be Mogul. What did Stanton Friedman say about these people:

"Do one’s research by proclamation rather than investigation. It is much easier, and nobody will know the difference anyway."

Well there you go. An UFO researcher once again has to do the job for you, Shermer, cause you are so lazy and biased you dont even bother, because in your mind there simply cant be anything to it and thats that. Yet you are constantly attacking and lecturing all of the UFO researchers, cause of some who do it in a bad way.

His arguments about Wikileaks and that proving the government doesnt hide or know anything about UFOs was facepalm worthy alone. Somehow Wikileaks along with Snowden managed to miss AATIP tough, which wasnt even granted SAP status.

This guy shouldnt be running the Skeptic Magazine, id give his job to a better skeptic, like Mick West.

I'm listening to this now, thanks!...

...

 

[pigfarmer]

Im not sure its ET either, i think the trail has run cold on most part for Roswell, and thats not the point. The point is Shermer usually claims skeptics like him do better investigations than the "UFO nuts", but here we again see hes done no deeper digging at all. He just happily goes with whatever narrative the governments give him, especially if it goes with his predetermined (non) belief. These mainstream lemmings are no better than those that claim every random anomaly out there is for sure a nordic/zeta reticulan/reptilian craft or some ultra dimensional god playing with us puny mortals.

Like Shostak, these people tend to do little homework on this subject, but love to opinionate loudly regardless, seemingly like experts.

Schermer said Ted Bloecher wrote a comprehensive report about UFO reports from 1947 onward and didn't mention Roswell. I have attached what I think is the report he mentioned - but haven't read it yet myself to see if what Schermer said is true. I will. In fact, it looks familiar and maybe I have read it but so long ago don't remember. I think the skepticism for many (me included) is the origin of the Roswell story - Charles Berlitz and Bill Moore.

I actually spoke to Ted Bloecher on the phone a couple of times. This is my address book circa 1976 or so - you can see who else I was interested in writing to. Wished I'd saved the letter from Ackerman. I don't remember exactly how I found Bloecher but part of my origin story with UFOs is a close range sighting that my brother added a huge pile of horseshit to by claiming a second CE3K type encounter a thousand miles away. He definitely wasn't expecting me to actually do anything and ignored any attempts from whoever it was (in Chicago I think) who was trying to contact him. I remember Bloecher as polite but probably annoyed by me as a doofy kid and his brother. I later figured out the first incident was a blimp and the second incident a just a gratuitous hoax played on me by my brother. This is why I take a lot of this with a grain of salt - not being dismissive, just careful.

Bloecher, Ted

 

[Cosmic Cat]

Not sure if i should put this here, but since Roswell is already in this thread, heres something regarding the official explanations. Just listened to this and need to rant for a bit:



Michael Shermer was interviewed by the Roswell reseacher Kevin Randle. Pay attention when the Mogul explanation comes up. Shermer(among other skeptics for sure) had never heard of the documents Randle had found and investigated, which according to Randle make it a hard case for the explanation to be Mogul. What did Stanton Friedman say about these people:

"Do one’s research by proclamation rather than investigation. It is much easier, and nobody will know the difference anyway."

Well there you go. An UFO researcher once again has to do the job for you, Shermer, cause you are so lazy and biased you dont even bother, because in your mind there simply cant be anything to it and thats that. Yet you are constantly attacking and lecturing all of the UFO researchers, cause of some who do it in a bad way.

His arguments about Wikileaks and that proving the government doesnt hide or know anything about UFOs was facepalm worthy alone. Somehow Wikileaks along with Snowden managed to miss AATIP tough, which wasnt even granted SAP status.

This guy shouldnt be running the Skeptic Magazine, id give his job to a better skeptic, like Mick West.

This guy shouldnt be running the Skeptic Magazine, id give his job to a better skeptic, like Mick West.

West is a debunker not a skeptic....And like Shermer, West thinks he's a legend in his own mind....

 

[Spaceman spiff]

West at least usually discusses in length and gives good reasons and demonstrations for his debunking on his site Metabunk, even if he does some stretching in some cases, like suggesting that Fravor and the other pilots saw seagulls during the Nimitz encounter.

 

[Rick Hunter]

Im not sure its ET either, i think the trail has run cold on most part for Roswell, and thats not the point. The point is Shermer usually claims skeptics like him do better investigations than the "UFO nuts", but here we again see hes done no deeper digging at all. He just happily goes with whatever narrative the governments give him, especially if it goes with his predetermined (non) belief. These mainstream lemmings are no better than those that claim every random anomaly out there is for sure a nordic/zeta reticulan/reptilian craft or some ultra dimensional god playing with us puny mortals.

Like Shostak, these people tend to do little homework on this subject, but love to opinionate loudly regardless, seemingly like experts.

I don't see anything groundbreaking happening with the Roswell story anytime soon. Most witnesses are dead, the few that remain are elderly and have probably told all they will ever tell. The only thing that could change is if more primary documents emerge, or if the USAF decides to issue yet another explanation for it.

Which, I think the latter is unlikely but not impossible. Just the fact that the military admits to studying "UAP" and didn't send out MIB to stop the publication of the Tic Tac encounter footage is progress after decades of severe recalcitrance. Within my lifetime, i could see them at least saying something like "we have on occasion recovered advanced technologies from unknown sources. It is not clear whether they are of Earth origin, nor do they present any known threats to national security."

 

[Cosmic Cat]

West at least usually discusses in length and gives good reasons and demonstrations for his debunking on his site Metabunk, even if he does some stretching in some cases, like suggesting that Fravor and the other pilots saw seagulls during the Nimitz encounter.

They saw something maybe seagulls or just a bad software glitch in the radar system....And just because the Navy admits to studying UAPs does not mean they are aliens.

 

[Thomas R. Morrison]

Where are you coming from? First you say this, which suggests that you don't subscribe to the facetious view of the debunkers:

West is a debunker not a skeptic....And like Shermer, West thinks he's a legend in his own mind....

But then you parrot Mick West's stupid theory as if you believe it completely:

They saw something maybe seagulls or just a bad software glitch in the radar system....And just because the Navy admits to studying UAPs does not mean they are aliens.

I don't understand how you can simultaneously be both against, and for, the debunkers.

 

[Dejan Corovic]

It downed on me how we can find out where aliens came from.

Homo Sapiens, as a hominid sub-species, is about 150-200k years old. So we need to search for habitable planets that are not more than 200k light years away. Pity that all current planet searches are looking just in one direction and an at much greater distances than 200k light years.