Until recently, to even mention you had seen a U.F.O. got you public and private ridicule and branded as some tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatic who read too many comic books and watched too many science fiction movies.
But now, suddenly, not only are such reports being taken seriously, but agencies of the federal government are preparing to release (at the direction of congress) what they know about Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP-with plural Phenomena interchangeable). Yes, the subject is so serious that the designation U.F.O. has been changed to UAP in order to remove some of the negative stigma.
The sudden change in attitude was helped by the release of video footage showing U.S. Navy F-18 Super Hornet fighter pilots engaging UAPs during incidents in 2004 and again in 2015. In cockpit voice recordings, the pilots express alarm at the speed and maneuverability of the objects, and frustration over their inability to maintain weapons lock on them. Scientists analyzed the aerobatics of the objects and concluded that one executed a maneuver that would have pulled more than 50 Gs (an expression of pressure on a human body during flight maneuvers). No human could survive that, and the U.S. military has no aircraft – manned or unmanned – capable of such maneuvers. The mysterious craft showed no exhaust systems or external evidence of a propulsion systems. Yet, there they were.
The release of the videos and the New York Times piece that broke the story into the mainstream brought to light a shadowy government agency called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) that was a part of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from 2007 to 2012, and now supposedly replaced by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force as part of U.S. Navy Intelligence. From 1952 to 1969 the U.S. Airforce ran Project Blue Book, which is said to have investigated thousands of U.F.O. reports in the years of its existence.
It ultimately concluded the vast majority of sightings were explainable. And that, we were told, was that. Now we discover the subject was not dropped, and our tax dollars have continued to fund the study of UAP over the years since in some form or another. If they’re explainable, why?
You may recall from December 2019 through January of 2020, northeast Colorado and the Nebraska Panhandle were hotbeds for sightings of “drones” and UAP. I saw and pursued one across Cheyenne County with my wife at times (sorry sheriff) at velocities exceeding the speed limit, only to be outrun. Many others reported similar experiences. So by January 6, 2020, a multi-agency taskforce comprised of the FBI, Federal Aviation Authority, Air Force and local law-enforcement officials had been formed to investigate. The effort produced reams of paperwork but no definitive conclusion.
Now the military has made a startling confession. What people are seeing is real and they don’t know what they are, where they’re from or why they’re here. For that reason, they have been designated a threat to national security.
It’s important to understand at NO point has anyone publicly intimated UAPs are extraterrestrial. They’re also not not saying that they are. But in a few weeks the government has promised to make public what its agencies do know about UAPs.
Will it be a revelation marking a turning point in history that we’re not alone in the universe? Or will it be thousands of pages of redacted papers from which we’ll know nothing more than we do now.
We shall see.
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