Frustrated pilots got Navy to stop dismissing UFO sightings

[alexander koryagin]

Hi, all!

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Frustrated pilots got Navy to stop dismissing UFO sightings
by Deanna Paul, Washington Post


A recent uptick in sightings of unidentified flying objects - or, as the
military calls them, "unexplained aerial phenomena" - prompted the U.S.
Navy to draft formal procedures for pilots to document encounters, a
corrective measure that former officials say is long overdue.

"Since 2014, these intrusions have been happening on a regular basis,"
Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations for
information warfare, told the Washington Post on Wednesday. Recently,
unidentified aircraft entered military-designated airspace as often as
multiple times per month. "We want to get to the bottom of this. We need
to determine who's doing it, where it's coming from, and what their
intent is. We need to try to find ways to prevent it from happening again."

Citing safety and security concerns, Gradisher vowed to "investigate
each and every report."

Luis Elizondo, a former senior intelligence officer, told the Post that
the new Navy guidelines formalized the reporting process, facilitating
data-driven analysis while removing the stigma from talking about UFOs,
calling it "the single greatest decision the Navy has made in decades."

Chris Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for
intelligence and a staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was
less laudatory.

"I don't believe in safety through ignorance," he said, scolding the
intelligence community for its lack of "curiosity and courage" and
"failure to react" to a strong pattern of sightings.

In some cases, pilots - many of whom are engineers and academy graduates
- say they observed small spherical objects flying in formation. Others
say they've seen white, Tic-Tac-shaped vehicles. Aside from drones, all
engines rely on burning fuel to generate power, but these vehicles all
had no air intake, no wind, and no exhaust.

"It's very mysterious, and they still seem to exceed our aircraft in
speed," he said, calling it a "truly radical technology."

According to Mellon, awestruck and baffled pilots, concerned that
reporting unidentified flying aircraft would adversely affect their
careers, tended not to speak up. And when they did, he said there was
little interest in investigating their reports.

"Imagine you see highly advanced vehicles, they appear on radar systems,
they look bizarre, no one knows where they're from. This happens on a
recurring basis, and no one does anything," said Mellon, who now works
with UFODATA, a private organization. Because agencies don't share this
type of information, it's difficult to know the full extent of activity.
Still, he estimated that dozens of incidents were witnessed by naval
officers in a single year, enough to force the service to address the issue.

"Pilots are upset, and they're trying to help wake up a slumbering
system," he told the Post.

Lawmakers' growing curiosity and concern also appeared to coax action
out of the Navy.

In 2017, the Pentagon first confirmed the existence of the Advanced
Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a government operation launched
in 2007 to collect and analyze "anomalous aerospace threats." As the
Post's Joby Warrick reported, the investigation ranged from "advanced
aircraft fielded by traditional U.S. adversaries to commercial drones to
possible alien encounters."

According to former Pentagon officials and documents previously seen by
the Post, program funding, which totaled at least $22 million, was
suspended in 2012.

Gradisher, the Navy spokesman, said that "in response to requests for
information from congressional members and staff, officials have
provided a series of briefings by senior Naval Intelligence officials as
well as aviators who reported hazards to aviation safety."

Elizondo, who also ran AATIP, said the newly drafted guidelines were a
culmination of many things. Most notably: that the Navy had enough
credible evidence - including eyewitness accounts and corroborating
radar information - to "know this is occurring."

"If I came to you and said, 'There are these things that can fly over
our country with impunity, defying the laws of physics, and within
moments could deploy a nuclear device at will' - that would be a matter
of national security."

With the number of U.S. military people in the Air Force and Navy who
described the same observations, the noise level could not be ignored.

"This type of activity is very alarming," Elizondo said, "and people are
recognizing there are things in our aerospace that lie beyond our
understanding."

https://www.philly.com/news/nation-world/unidentified-flying-objects-ufos-navy-document-encounters-20190424.html
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Bye, all!
Alexander Koryagin