Pentagon’s flawed UFO report demands congressional action
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4526160-pentagons-flawed-ufo-report-demands-congressional-action/

On March 8, the Department of Defense published the most significant report on UFOs in at least two generations — a congressionally mandated historical review of U.S. government involvement with unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP.

Unfortunately, the report from the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) contains an array of striking omissions and one particularly egregious misrepresentation. The result is a misleading report which, like so much government UFO-related propaganda over seven decades, tells the reader just to move on, nothing to see here.

To start, it makes no mention of how the U.S. government’s official investigation of UFOs began. In a landmark 1947 memo, Lt. Gen. (and future chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Nathan Twining stated that UFOs are “real and not visionary or fictitious.” He also described their flight characteristics as including “extreme rates of climb, maneuverability…and action which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar.”

Nor does AARO’s report mention the earliest surviving intelligence assessment of UFOs — a late 1948 analysis that found many UFO reports came from observers “who, because of their technical background and experience, do not appear to be influenced by unfounded sensationalism nor inclined to report explainable phenomena as new types of aerial devices.”

Citing reports from “trained and experienced U.S. Weather Bureau personnel” from early 1947, the omitted document noted multiple observations of “strange metallic disks” with “a flat bottom and a round top.” (Note that these incidents predated by several months the widely-publicized June 1947 incident that catalyzed the “flying saucer” era.)

Other incidents involved “silver disks or balls” and “balls of fire” that stalked World War II aircrews over the European and Pacific theaters. The Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, Newsweek, Stars and Stripes and the now-defunct International News Service referred contemporaneously to mysterious “silver colored spheres” and “silver balls which float in the air.”

Although omitted by AARO, all of this historical background remains significant because, to this day, images and videos continue to emerge of objects fitting similar descriptions. In fact, AARO’s ex-director openly stated as much during a May 2023 NASA presentation on UAP, that U.S. military personnel are observing “metallic orbs” “all over the world…making very interesting apparent maneuvers.”

Moreover, AARO has not provided a plausible explanation for naval aviators’ more recent encounters — including one harrowing near-collision — with spherical objects exhibiting extraordinary flight characteristics.

Worst of all, AARO’s review misrepresents the most exhaustive, comprehensive historical analysis of UFO incidents, conducted on behalf of the Air Force by the Battelle Memorial Institute in the early 1950s. According to AARO, the resulting report found that “all cases that had enough data were resolved and explainable.”

But this is not what Battelle’s analysis found at all, and AARO’s misrepresentation of its conclusions speaks volumes.

According to the Battelle analysis, as the quality of UFO reports improved, so too did the number with “unknown” explanations. Of the UFO cases considered “Excellent” and with sufficient data to draw a conclusion, 33 percent were categorized as having “unknown” origin.

Lastly, AARO states that it found no “empirical evidence…that the [U.S. government] and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology.” But the report’s categorical denials, alongside recent commentary from AARO’s former director, place the agency in an awkward position. Christopher Mellon, the Pentagon’s former top civilian intelligence official, recently stated that key UAP whistleblowers did not trust AARO and went instead to Congress or the inspector general of the intelligence community.

AARO appears to have conducted little investigation beyond superficial interviews, whereas the intelligence community inspector general is a law enforcement official with formal investigative authorities.

The result is a remarkable disconnect between AARO’s report and what members of Congress revealed after the inspector general briefed them in January. Following the classified briefing of a bipartisan group of 16 members, five were quoted saying they found UAP whistleblower David Grusch or his allegations to be “credible,” “legit,” or to have “merit.” Several members noted that the briefing gave them insights into specific locations and private defense contractors, seemingly aligning with Grusch’s claims.

Such reactions, in tandem with the inspector general’s ongoing, two-year investigation of Grusch’s complaint, seem incongruous with AARO’s conclusion.

The inspector general found Grusch’s allegation that “information was inappropriately concealed from Congress” to be “credible and urgent.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has since corroborated this finding.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), along with a bipartisan group of five other senators, sponsored extraordinary legislation largely mirroring Grusch’s shocking allegations. In extraordinary comments on the Senate floor, Schumer stated that, according to “multiple credible sources,” elements of the U.S. government have been withholding UFO-related information from Congress illegally.

Despite AARO’s former director repeatedly characterizing allegations of illicit UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering efforts as baseless, the principal cosponsor of Schumer’s UAP Disclosure Act, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), indicated last week that the Senate will proceed with the legislation.

In short, there seems to be a classic conflict of interest in the executive branch investigating itself. Congress, a coequal branch of government does not suffer from this. And so in the wake of AARO’s flawed report, a congressional select UAP committee, like the one requested by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), should step forward to separate fact from fiction.

Congress needs to just skip the Pentagon bullshit and go straight to the whistleblowers.  It has been clear for about 80 years that the DOD is just going to run cover for the whole damn issue.

This. Sadly the DoD will obfuscate and continue to lie until the very end.   They almost feel like it has gotten them this far, why stop now.

This seems like the reason Sheehan has been so vocal of late. He’s basically daring the deep state/powers-that-be to correct him.

Do you guys think the deep state folks keeping this buried are in cahoots with an NHI? Involuntarily under the influence of an NHI? Perhaps even NHI themselves?

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit

I think it's much simpler than that.  They're worried about the fallout from admitting the DOD and MIC collectively lied to the American public, lied to Congress, and purposefully obfuscated the biggest story in human history.  There's also the multiple accusations that they have harassed, threatened, ruined careers, and purportedly killed people to keep the secret.  The potential legal and civil consequences are huge if certain defense contractors benefitted from having access to exotic technology while others did not.  This is a major point made by some insiders.


If the full truth came out, Congress would demand more stringent oversight of the allocation of funds and the Pentagon does NOT want that.

This...along with the defense industry who get billions in literally untraceable funds that are all part of it.

Imagine a scenario where the US government obtains technology so advanced we study it for decades or centuries trying to replicate it. Perhaps we gleam bits of wisdom from it and are able to implement lower level breakthroughs, but the really impressive stuff remains unknown to us. In order to keep this technology all to ourselves we give it to companies loyal to the US goverment, so we can avoid oversight. Companies are protected from oversight as "their" technology is a trade secret and not to be shared.

We created a procedural lockbox and put non-human technology into it. I don't think the Executive Branch will ever have the desire to reclaim what they've surrendered.

That IS the scenario according to multiple insiders.

It makes a lot of sense and keeps the secret safe from snooping politicians.

I agree. Yes it's protected greater than anything possible under government oversight, but we're beholden to these company(s) now for decades, maybe even centuries now. I've seen how they operate in the open, I'd hate to see the shakedowns that occur in black budget programs.

 You think money is actually real or that the budget matters? It's all just imaginary numbers people shuffle around, and it's gone so far beyond ridiculous at this point there's no bringing it back. It could just as well be 1.2 quintillion for all the reality it represents.

It's much easier to believe in little green men and Samsquatch than it is any politician will even manage to bring .gov spending under control.

At this point the Pentagon probably does not disclosure, becouse they would be ratting themselves out.

AARO = PBB v2.0

The only difference is I doubt we'll see Kirkpatrick become a UFO advocate the way Hynek did.

Kirkpatrick was hired to do one thing and one thing only: deliver the Pentagon's narrative while appearing to be impartial.

Sorry. I think I got trolled.

There will never be a full accounting on this issue. Decades of lying, disinformation, countless crimes, even capital ones, etc.  The knowledge and power gleaned from the phenomena and the insane amounts of funding heaped upon the MIC to "study" it all under the false pretense of national security is indefensible

Our elected officials do not run this country at the national level. They are disposable figureheads.

MJ-12 has evolved but is still very much in control of all aspects of this. If the names were revealed, it would reveal a Who's-Who of power brokers, including reps from powerful Foundations and international business.  

These people and Foundations crave absolute power over world governments, economies and populations. There is no greater lever to take control than the  technology and power the Phenomenon represents.

Do you think they will give that up?  

At best, we will see a tightly controlled and managed disclosure of choice bits of information. It won't come quickly.