Saturday 13 January 2018

‘The X-Files’ Returns as Pentagon Acknowledges Secret UFO Program



In light of the Pentagon’s UFO investigation program, suddenly ‘The X-Files’ doesn’t seem so far-fetched.


In December, I spent a lot of time thinking about UFOs and paranormal activity as I impatiently counted down the days until Fox Mulder and Dana Scully returned to my small screen for season 11 of The X-Files. Then fascinating reports published by The New York Times and Politico confirmed the existence of the AATIP (Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program), a UFO program that had secretly operated within the Pentagon starting in 2007. Suddenly The X-Files didn’t seem quite so improbable.
Much of the exact nature of the AATIP’s work remains shrouded in secrecy. But Luis Elizondo, the military intelligence official who served as the program’s leader until October 2017, confirmed that the team studied UFOs and observed activity that couldn’t be explained by science.
As reported by The New York Times, AATIP received government funding between the years of 2007 and 2012. The Defense Department denied its existence and now states that the program has been shut down completely. But Elizondo says AATIP officials, who are still employed by the Defense Department in various capacities, continue to study these cases to this day.

The existence of AATIP is a major revelation, and one that left many of us wondering why we’d been kept in the dark about its existence. Alejandro Rojas, a UFO/paranormal researcher, journalist and host of Open Minds Radio, told me it would have been kept secret for two main reasons. First, a large portion of the program’s work hinged on studying the technology of UFOs and using this knowledge to develop advanced weapons systems for military use.
“If we are developing advanced weapon systems, we wouldn’t want anyone else to know. We wouldn’t want the enemy to know, even in cases where we retrieve foreign technologies from Russia or China,” Rojas explained.
The second major reason is what Rojas describes as “the ridicule factor.” Simply put, the officials who are doing this important work don’t want to be mocked or have their efforts dismissed and undermined. “When [the government] is spending millions of dollars on a project centered around a topic that’s often seen as silly, then that budget is going to be questioned. It’s going to bring up uncomfortable interviews and questions. So that’s another reason you’d want to keep something like this under wraps,” Rojas said, noting that Senator Harry Reid, who was integral to forming AATIP in 2007, has alluded to the fact that he and the program’s intelligence officials didn’t want AATIP to be publicized because the ridicule factor could hamper their efforts.

And that’s where aspects of The X-Files undeniably ring true, whether you’re a skeptic like Scully or a believer like Mulder.

“If you look at someone like Fox Mulder, they call him ‘Spooky Mulder’ and he gets made fun of for investigating UFOs and paranormal activity. And that does happen in real life. Pilots in the military and otherwise, law enforcement, and people who look into these areas and take them seriously are subjected to ridicule, and a lot of people don’t want that ridicule,” Rojas said. “So The X-Files highlights some of the problem with looking into these areas. That’s completely demonstrated in the way that Mulder’s fellow FBI agents and the public interact with him. It’s one of the reasons they wanted to keep [AATIP] under wraps. It’s the same reason that, if the X-Files was a real FBI department, it wouldn’t be advertised. The FBI wouldn’t want it out there that they’re looking into ‘weird’ stuff like this. Every government agency undergoes a lot of scrutiny from the public and from rival departments, so they have to be very careful about how they’re perceived. The X-Files is really good at exemplifying some of that.”
But while The X-Files gives viewers an up-close-and-personal look at every case investigated by Mulder and Scully, very little information has been made public about what exactly AATIP’s work entailed. (Although I think it’s safe to assume that AATIP officials didn’t spend their time running through abandoned buildings and dark woods with flashlights like my two favorite fictional FBI agents, who’ve never solved a case and spent a whole lot of time flirting on the job.)


Based on his knowledge of the subject, Rojas told me the program’s officials would receive reports of unidentified objects that had been observed or recorded on video and they’d investigate those reports. AATIP only received cases that were submitted to them by the military. “They were genuinely aircrafts that couldn’t be identified. The military would go through the basics and attempt to figure out what they were before they sent it to the department,” Rojas said.
Although none of these reports are public at this time, two videos have been released by To The Stars Academy, where Elizondo currently serves as director of Global Security & Special Programs. Elizondo believes both these videos show unidentified crafts that exhibit characteristics indicating some sort of advanced technology. The “Gimbal Video” was released with no accompanying information or context. “[Elizondo] is only releasing what the Defense Department has given him permission to release,” Rojas explained. The Gimbal video can be viewed here:


There’s more information about the second video, which is from a 2004 incident outside San Diego. It was recorded by an aircraft carrier group whose members report seeing what they call a “Tic Tac” UFO, because the object looked like a Tic Tac.




“It was maneuvering in ways that were mysterious to them. [The group] did dispatch 18 fighter jets who then recorded infrared videos of these objects,” Rojas said. The pilots have since spoken to the media and confirmed that they couldn’t identify the objects — and one of them speculated that the objects were indeed otherworldly because they acted in a manner that’s beyond the technology we possess. “It was a real object, it exists and I saw it,” U.S. Navy pilot Cmdr. David Fravor told The Washington Post in December. “[It was] something not from the Earth.”


Rojas said there’s a third video that hasn’t been released — but we can expect to learn more about it in the coming months. News organizations and interested members of the public will undoubtedly put pressure on the Pentagon to release more information and the video itself. “If these pilots witnessed it, where did those reports go and who investigated it? How did they go about the investigation? Now that we know AATIP existed, a lot of people are going after that information,” Rojas said. “At some point they’re going to have to, through the Freedom of Information Act, release some information.”
The confirmation that AATIP existed and was kept secret from the public for years raises other questions, many of which tie into themes of The X-Files, such as government cover-ups and conspiracies. “There are obviously secrets, and how big are these secrets? That’s what The X-Files plays with,” Rojas said. “This whole situation has shown that, hey, some people have been saying the government’s been lying to us about investigating UFOs and they’ve been viewed as kooks. In actuality, we have now discovered that the government has been indeed investigating UFOs.”
In 1969 the Air Force shut down their official UFO project, Project BLUE BOOK. For decades the government denied that it had continued to research and investigate UFO cases — and that these investigations detected unexplained activity. “Finally we have an acknowledgement to this. The good part is that at least we have some transparency and we know that this was happening so people can be validated. Now what I write about has been substantiated,” Rojas said. “But it does make people think, ‘If [the government] is lying about this, then what else are they lying about? Is everything on The X-Files true?’ And people go down that rabbit hole.”

Of course, none of this new knowledge means The X-Files has suddenly become a realistic show. Its creators have certainly never strived for realistic plotlines and those iconic “monster of the week” episodes aren’t exactly meant to remind us of real life. But what is realistic are The X-Files’ overarching themes of what the government may be hiding and, perhaps more importantly, why they’re hiding it.
In addition to the recent revelations about the Pentagon’s program, The X-Files is arguably more relevant to viewers in 2018 than it was during its initial run in the 1990s and early 2000s. Certain aspects of season 11 certainly draw directly from our current political climate — the term “fake news” is used more than once and it’s mentioned that the unnamed president detests the FBI. But the themes of general mistrust of the government and the question of what is being hidden from the public have been the cornerstone of The X-Files since it hit our small screens in 1993. In the ’90s those themes felt almost as far-fetched as the monsters of the week. In 2018 they ring eerily true.

US Military Release Footage Of UFO Witnessed By Two Navy Airmen

By Forces Network

 

The Pentagon has released classified footage filmed from a US fighter jet showing a mysterious flying object over San Diego, California.

In the video, the pilots can be heard reacting with astonishment: “Look at that thing, dude,” one says to the other, “It’s rotating.”

According to the New York Times, the US Department of Defence (DoD) admitted to a secret $22m ($15m) programme that was created to investigate reports of such Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme looked into what it called "advanced aviation threats" and it ran for five years, from 2007 to 2012.

The programme was the brainchild of Harry Reid, a former US senator.

He told the New York Times:
"I'm not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going. I've done something that no one has done before."
He later tweeted that the programme was about science and national security.

Most of the funding went to a space research company run by the billionaire entrepreneur Robert Bigelow who has said he is convinced that aliens exist.



The money went to Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program. (Picture: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Earlier this year, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released millions of pages of declassified documents online, including some from the programme.
These describe sightings of unidentified objects - sometimes filmed by US fighter pilots - speeding through the skies.
However, scientists have stressed that unexplained phenomena are not proof of alien life or interstellar visitors.

85 UFO Sightings In New York City Over Past Two Years


By International Business Times
New York City experienced 85 UFO sightings in the past two years, according to the New York Post Saturday.
The information comes from a database collected by the National UFO Reporting Center based in Washington state. The organization takes submission of UFO sightings by phone and online.
“Do I believe in UFOs? I absolutely believe . . . I believe what the data says,” Peter Davenport, the center’s director told the Post. “Read the cases and you come to the realization that these objects we’ve been calling UFOs for 70 years are being seen across the country and around the world on a daily basis.”
New York City’s borough of Manhattan experienced the most sightings — racking up 27 since 2016. The details of the sightings run the gamut from a paltry amount of information to much more descriptive.
“[I was] Looking out my 5th-floor apartment window in Astoria, Queens, which overlooks the East River and Manhattan's Skyline of the Empire State Building. All of the sudden, I see 2 triangles made up of lights floating by in the sky. There 1 second gone the next. One triangle was made of red lights and the other craft made of blue,” reads one entry from Oct. 20, 2017.
The bulk of sightings are mysterious lights viewed in the sky, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for much longer. 
“Three very bright lights in sky, still. One would move away, then rejoin. Often a pair would be so close as to look as one light. Hovered over Queens … for at least 15 minutes. I saw from more than a mile away and the lights were very big and bright. Very still,” reads one report from the New York City borough of Queens from Nov. 1, 2017.
Davenport said that reliable and clear photos of these mysterious UFO sightings are hard to come by because people typically only have a few seconds to react. The sightings the organization compiles are self-reported, meaning there are only verified by the viewer. 

In December, the New York Times revealed that the Defense Department ran a classified program between 2007 and 2012 to study UFO sightings, dedicating $22 million a year to the research. Former NASA space shuttle engineer James Oberg told the Times he was doubtful about the possibility of extraterrestrials but welcomed the research.
“There are plenty of prosaic events and human perceptual traits that can account for these stories,” Oberg said. “Lots of people are active in the air and don’t want others to know about it. They are happy to lurk unrecognized in the noise, or even to stir it up as camouflage.”

Report of UFO sighting in the north


By Staff Reporter

A UFO was spotted over the Kasivera area in the north on Thursday night, according to Turkish Cypriot Kibris newspaper.
The paper published photos of the purple flying object along the coastal area which were reportedly taken by astronomer who uploaded it to his website.
UFO sightings have been reported in the north on occasion in the past.

UFOs are Real & They're Here!



In 1947 a UFO crashed near Roswell, New Mexico.  The modern age of UFO reports and denials began. The event is well-detailed at The UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico.  The evidence is impressive.


Since 1947, for the past seventy years, there has been a systematic campaign to undermine UFO reports, to make those who see them and report them appear to be less than credible.  Mainstream media has typically scoffed at the notion, citing government information which attempts to rebut those claims.


Suddenly, in recent weeks, the dam has broken. Suddenly, government investigators have provided compelling evidence to none other than The New York Times, which has published stories which make clear: UFOs have been here. They are intelligently designed and operated aircraft. They possess speeds and skills far in excess of anything ever created by humans on this planet.

Reports by Navy pilots have been provided, with tracking for alien aircraft, demonstrating speeds far beyond anything we have ever seen in aircraft, and revealing maneuvers we have never seen in aircraft created by humans.


A few years ago, a group was formed and funded to investigate UFOs anew.  For several years the group, led by people with significant military and intelligence backgrounds, went about their work.  Their findings are nothing short of earth shattering.


Consider the statements of Luis Elizondo.  He headed up the Pentagon's group tasked with investigating UFOs anew.   He is a heavyweight in his arena. He is a career intelligence officer whose experience includes working with the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, the National Counterintelligence Executive, and the Director of National Intelligence.


"My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone," Luis Elizondo said in an interview on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."  He has stated that beyond a reasonable doubt, UFOs exist.  We may not be alone.  Let those words sink in.

"These aircraft -- we'll call them aircraft -- are displaying characteristics that are not currently within the US inventory nor in any foreign inventory that we are aware of," Elizondo said in a published report by CNN.


From The New York Times to other well known news organizations, these stories have come out the past month and it appears they are just the leading edge of the what could be a massive amount of new information provided the public this new year of 2018.  


Fifty years ago, I wrote my term paper in the 12th grade about UFOs. My teacher scoffed at them.  Too bad she never lived to see the top news organizations reveal such information direct from the Pentagon.  It's about time the public found out what its government has known about UFOs for the past seventy years.

Government agency on ETs means we need to share message



The truth is out there. And we need to spin it. Stat!
A report last month by The New York Times confirmed what those of us who celebrated the crop circles near Larry’s Produce in 2003 have long believed: Extraterrestrial aliens are real.
Just ask the U.S. Department of Defense.
Well, kind of.

The DoD (as insiders call it) may not confirm that extraterrestrials are real, but it takes them
seriously enough to investigate.

The Times reported that an agency called Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) existed for years, getting about $20 million a year in funding from the government until it was shut down in 2012.
Allegedly shut down.
Insiders say it still exists.

AATIP began in 2007, largely at the request of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (Area 51 is in Nevada, by the way. Coincidence? Hardly). Most of the government money went to a research company headed by a man who told “60 Minutes” that he was convinced that aliens exist and have visited Earth.

They have visited Earth! That part’s obvious. Is there any other explanation for Gilbert Gottfried?
But our government pursued them.

During the AATIP’s years of official standing (which coincided with Alex Smith’s career with the 49ers. Coincidence? Hardly.), the program compiled reports that described sightings of aircraft with technology that went beyond contemporary aeronautical science. The UFOs weren’t possible for humans.

Members also studied video of encounters between UFOs and American military aircraft.
Of course, this is nothing new: The Air Force investigated more than 12,000 UFO sightings from 1947 to 1969 (Which is when Woodstock happened, which allowed the government to ascribe all UFO sightings to brown acid. Coincidence? Hardly.).

Regardless, let’s make the obvious jump: UFOs are real and the government knows it. Otherwise, why spend millions of dollars every year?
Fellow humans, we need to be proactive. Aliens are investigating us, so we need to communicate with them.
The next step is to fashion our message. They are among us.

I’m here to help and the work begins with where marketing professionals always begin: Who is our audience? What is our message? How do we best communicate it?
Audience: It’s obviously extraterrestrials who are curious enough to visit us.
Message: It should be simple: Don’t hurt us. We stay in peace. We want to be your friend. Phone home. Dilly dilly.

Method: Social media is likely outdated to anyone with technology to visit far-off planets. Television and radio signals – the preferred method in decades past – are already passe on Earth. Sometimes the best method is simple and here’s my recommendation:
Reprint this column. Leave it out for the aliens to see. Refer extraterrestrials to the Daily Republic web page. Read it aloud, in case they’re listening.

And if you’re an ET and you’re reading this, here’s what we have to say:
Don’t hurt us.
We stay in peace.
We want to be your friends.
Phone home.
Dilly dilly.