__DEGRADED__ The Hill brings you special coverage of the ultimate gathering of “who’s who” in the UFO world. Lawmakers, military and agency leaders will gather in Washington, D.C,. to discuss cutting-edge insights on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)-related policy, transparency, security, congressional oversight, whistleblowers and balancing disclosure for the American people with national security. Hear from Senate…
__DEGRADED__ Suppose NASA astronauts had images of technological objects hovering above Earth that are not identified as human-made. Should they share the data with the public or worry that such an act would generate turmoil in society? As a scientist, it is obvious to me that we must be aware of the reality around us in order to adapt to it. Ignoring climate change will not make our climate better. Ignoring the moons of Jupiter will not keep the Earth stationary. As Galileo Galilei noted: “E pur si muove“. On June 4, 2021, NASA’s leading Administrator, Bill Nelson, said on CNN that scientists should study the nature of what is now labeled as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). The following morning, I emailed Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, then NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science, about possible funding of a scientific research project that would make his boss happy. Thomas graciously called my phone and asked me to send a 2-page white paper. I followed his request within hours, but he never got back to me. As a result of not hearing back, I decided to establish the Galileo Project in collaboration with Dr. Frank Laukien two months later. This scientific research project followed the narrative of my original White Paper and is supported by private donations, now totaling more than 5 million dollars, to my research program at Harvard University. Two years later, in May 2023, the Galileo Project published 8 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the construction of its first operating UAP observatory at Harvard University. The observatory is monitoring the entire sky in the infrared, optical, radio, and audio at all times from one location. The data stream is analyzed by artificial intelligence software, which uses machine learning to classify known objects of natural or human-made origin in the search of objects that exhibit anomalous images or maneuvers. Over the past week, I was contacted by donors who are interested in funding five copies of the first Galileo Project observatory. The data volume that we accumulated from the Harvard site is already larger than the sum of all the data associated with publicly available UAP reports from the past. The advantage of collecting new data with well-calibrated instruments that are fully characterized, rather than relying on past anecdotal reports from uncalibrated sensors, is that we can study anomalies systematically relative to the background of known objects and aim to gather exquisite data that will resolve their nature. Claims for new physics can only be substantiated by exceptional data that cannot be interpreted otherwise. They should not be believed based on eyewitness testimonies or events that took place decades ago with compromised or classified quality. The known correlation between the rate of UAP reports and population density or holidays like July 4th suggests that most UAP are human-made. Indeed the 2022 report of the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, suggested that half of UAP might be balloons. A few months ago, four objects were shot down by the US military, with one being a giant spy balloon made in China. Shooting down terrestrial objects reduced the clutter or noise for the Galileo Project, which aims to study truly anomalous objects. When seeking a needle in the haystack, it helps to reduce the volume of the haystack in which the needle might lie. As head of the Galileo Project, I am interested in objects that were not made by any terrestrial manufacturer. The mission of the Galileo Project is complementary to that of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), led by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, which focuses on the relevance of UAP to national security. In past years, it was common practice among scientists to ridicule the scientific study of UAP. Even the SETI community pushed back against the research program of the Galileo Project. At a recent conference, a member of the SETI leadership team approached me with one pressing question: “Avi, what is wrong with the SETI community?” Today, NASA held a public meeting in which its UAP Study team reviewed its deliberations over the past year. The conclusion echoed the narrative of the Galileo Project. As Oscar Wilde noted: “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery.” I was delighted to see that some of the statements made today reiterated points I expressed in my writings over the past year on https://avi-loeb.medium.com/ Dr. Nicky Fox, who now heads NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in place of Dr. Zurbuchen, said that “right now there is very limited data on UAP… the lack of high-quality data does not allow us to figure out the nature of UAP… The NASA Study relies on open unclassified data … all of NASA’s data is calibrated based on rigorous protocols.” Dr.
Tim Gallaudet, a retired Navy rear admiral who ran NOAA under Trump, sat down with Ross Coulthart to talk about the whole UFO thing that’s been blowing up the news. He’s the kind of guy who’s seen a lot of classified stuff, and he says he’s pretty convinced that the whistleblower David Grusch is telling the truth about a hidden Pentagon program that’s been pulling in alien craft. Gallaudet says the evidence isn’t just “some guy’s wild story” – it’s backed up by a chain of people who’ve been in the loop for years. He walked us through the 2023 congressional hearing where Grusch laid out his case, and then he shared a personal anecdote that still gives him chills. While he was still on active duty, Gallaquet received a classified video – the infamous “Go Fast” clip – that showed a mysterious object zipping over the ocean at speeds no known aircraft could match. He never got the full picture, but the footage was enough to convince him that something odd was happening, and that the military was quietly keeping it under wraps. When asked why the government keeps denying what’s out there, Gallaquet points to a mix of bureaucracy and fear. He says the Pentagon’s culture is built on secrecy, and admitting a UFO program would open a floodgate of questions about national security, funding, and public panic. The denial, he argues, isn’t about being lazy; it’s a deliberate choice to protect a system that isn’t ready to be transparent. Looking forward, Gallaquet thinks the next step is a serious scientific approach. He wants a dedicated research team, clear data pipelines, and collaboration with civilian scientists who aren’t bound by the same chain‑of‑command constraints. He believes that if the data were openly analyzed, the mystery would shrink dramatically, and we could finally separate the hype from the real phenomena. Bottom line: Gallaquet isn’t just buying into a conspiracy for the sake of it. He’s saying his career, his access to classified material, and his own gut tell him there’s something legit happening behind the scenes, and it’s time the conversation moved from “maybe” to “let’s study it properly.”
__DEGRADED__ Are we getting closer to exposing the truth about UAPs? On Wednesday, we just might. Congress is putting UAPs and UFOs back on the agenda with a joint hearing being called “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.” On this week’s Reality Check, “Ross Coulthart” speaks with one of the hearings main witnesses: Retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, Ph. D. Gallaudet’s message to Ross: “We have evidence that we are not alone,” and he finds the government’s lack of transparency when it comes to UAPs “very troubling.” Gallaudet outlines what this evidence is and why he’s ready to take an oath and tell the world and this bipartisan group of lawmakers what he knows. Gallaudet stresses to Ross that he is proud to be a champion for finding and exposing the truth about UAPs. His book on his service and experiences “Holding Fast in Heavy Seas: Leadership Lessons for Turbulent Times” comes out in July 2025. Join Ross for a LIVE Q&A about the hearing. He will answer your questions on YouTube and X this Wednesday at 4p.m. ET. #UAPs #UFOs #RossCoulthart On "Reality Check," NewsNation Special Correspondent Ross Coulthart takes a fact-based approach to tackle everything from unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) to mysteries often missing from the headlines. More Reality Check: https://www.newsnationnow.com/podcast... Email your questions to [email redacted] Host: Ross Coulthart Executive Producer: Andy Gipson Editorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Cheryl Hwang Associate Producer: Holly Durgan Editor: Anthony Diasio :00-1:11 TheHealthyFat.com/Ross promo 1:24-3:26 Outline of Gallaudet’s extensive experience and credibility 3:40-7:54 History of Gallaudet’s UAP advocacy 8:19-10:49 Alleged government obstruction and UAP disclosure 11:10-20:18 Gallaudet’s personal evidence with UAPs 23:06-25:19 Why Gallaudet takes his oath to the Constitution so seriously 26:33-29:06 Submarine encounters and UAP research 36:36-37:44 Why UAPs might be in the ocean 41:18-43:35 Gallaudet’s belief in government secrecy 49:08-54:10 Future hopes 54:11-56:33 Final thoughts and goodbye Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
__DEGRADED__ The director of the Pentagon’s investigations into unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) says the U.S. acknowledges concerns over the possibility of being caught off guard by developments related to extraterrestrial technologies, just days before a UAP hearing where a National Security Subcommittee will receive testimony from former U.S. government personnel about unexplained military encounters. Scheduled for next Wednesday, a hearing by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs will convene following widely reported statements in recent weeks claiming that information about UAP has been illegally withheld from members of Congress. The subcommittee hearing “will explore firsthand accounts of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and assess the federal government’s transparency and accountability regarding UAPs’ possible threats to U.S. national security,” according to a release on the Subcommittee’s website. On Thursday morning, it was announced that the three witnesses in attendance at the hearing will be Rt. Commander David Fravor, a former fighter pilot and Commanding Officer of the U.S. Navy’s Black Aces Squadron; Ryan Graves, also a former fighter pilot and Executive Director of the advocacy organization Americans for Safe Aerospace; and David Grusch, a former National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency employee who was a representative to the UAP Task Force (UAPTF). In 2004, Fravor was among the pilot witnesses to an incident that occurred off the Baja California peninsula involving observations of an unidentified flying object the pilot later characterized as resembling a “Tic Tac.” Similarly, Graves was among Navy personnel who had similar experiences between late 2014 and early 2015 while in service to the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group during training exercises off the Eastern United States coast. Grusch has remained a focal point of the UAP debate in recent weeks after it was revealed he had filed an Intelligence Community Inspector General complaint alleging that information about recoveries of exotic craft has been unlawfully withheld from Congress and the American public. Grusch’s claims, first reported by The Debrief on June 5, 2023, immediately preceded recent efforts by lawmakers to produce new legislation aimed at bringing about greater government transparency on the UAP issue. Last week, early draft language for an Act put forward by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer appeared online, submitted as an amendment to the forthcoming Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 National Defense Authorization (NDAA) titled the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023. Next week’s Subcommittee hearing will be overseen by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and in addition to receiving witness testimony, will focus on the recent legislative effort, which has received bipartisan support from elected officials. The hearing will also address requirements that the U.S. federal government provide Americans “with information about potential risks to public safety and national security” that UAP could represent. “Last year, the House Intelligence Committee held a hearing on UAPs,” Burchett said Thursday morning. “They brought in some Pentagon bureaucrats who only had two answers to the questions they were asked: ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘That’s classified.’ This hearing is going to be different.” “We’re going to have witnesses who can speak frankly to the public about their experiences,” Burchett added. “We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing,” Burchett said, citing opposition from members of Congress and the Intelligence Community. “There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” Burchett said, citing legislation he recently unsuccessfully attempted to advance as an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Bill. “The status quo on the part of the U.S. government has been to leave the American public in the dark regarding information about UAPs,” Rep. Luna said in a statement, adding that government agencies “default to extreme and unnecessary over-classification.” “If the last few months have taught me anything, it is that this is an issue that matters to Americans,” Luna said. Last year, the Department of Defense established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) as its official investigative office to examine the UAP issue at the direction of Congress following an amendment to the FY 2022 NDAA that was passed into law. Additional provisions were included in the FY 2023 NDAA, which included language that offered protections for whistleblowers possessing knowledge of legacy programs within the government and other information about UAP, who may have previously been unable to come forward and discuss such matters without suffering legal repercussions. Speaking with ABC News, AARO Director Dr.
__DEGRADED__ Testimony from three witnesses knowledgeable of the U.S. government’s dealings with unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), including firsthand accounts from Navy pilots and allegations involving the retrieval of craft of non-human origin, were presented before members of Congress on Wednesday. The widely anticipated Congressional hearing, held by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, featured testimony from two former U.S. Navy pilots and a former intelligence officer who worked with the UAP Task Force. “This is an issue of transparency,” said Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN) during opening remarks. “We can’t trust a government that doesn’t trust its people.” Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), speaking after Burchett, referenced “mountains of classified documents that have been withheld from the American people,” citing widespread public belief that significant amounts of information about the U.S. government’s UAP investigations are being withheld from Americans. “From my personal experience, I believe the same thing,” Luna said. “Today is the first hearing of its kind that will attempt to get to the bottom of what’s behind UAPs,” Luna said, noting that she and other Representatives were recently denied information during their inquiries on the matter. “The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplained phenomena,” said Representative Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), referencing language recently used in a statement by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has joined the push for transparency on the issue with the presentation of a proposed amendment to the forthcoming National Defense Authorization Act. Moskowitz also cited concerns over possible special access programs, weapons development, and other government activities that Congress and the American public should be informed about. The first of the witnesses to speak, former fighter pilot Ryan Graves said during his opening statement that he and fellow members of U.S. Navy Fighter/Attack Squadron VFA-11 had similar encounters off the U.S. Eastern Coast between 2014 and 2015. “Upon an upgrade to our radar system, we began to detect unknown objects in our airspace,” Graves said. “Initially dismissed as software glitches, we soon corroborated these radar tracks with infrared sensors, confirming their physical presence.” Graves said his squadron’s encounters with UAP became “so frequent that they became part of daily briefs.” Since retiring from military service, Graves founded the advocacy organization Americans for Safe Aerospace to raise awareness about pilot safety issues resulting from UAP. David Grusch, the whistleblower behind a PPD-19 Urgent Concern filing with the Intelligence Community Inspector General first reported by The Debrief in June, said during Wednesday’s hearing that he came forward based on credible information others had conveyed to him about an alleged government program involved in the recovery of craft of non-human origin. “My testimony is based on information I have been given by individuals with a longstanding track record of legitimacy and service to this country – many of whom also shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation, and classified oral testimony,” Grusch said during opening statements. “I have taken every step I can to corroborate this evidence over a period of four years and to do my due diligence on the individuals sharing it,” Grusch said, “and it is because of these steps that I believe strongly in the importance of bringing this information before you.” Notably, Charles McCullough, former Intelligence Community Inspector General and the attorney now representing David Grusch, according to several sources The Debrief has spoken with on background, appeared to be present among the attendees seated behind Grusch during the hearing. In June, The Debrief reported that Compass Rose Legal Group, who had previously represented Grusch, was no longer formally working in this capacity. During his opening statement, Rt. Commander David Fravor, the former Commanding Officer of the Navy’s Strike Fighter Squadron Forty-One and one of the pilot witnesses to give testimony during Wednesday’s hearing, recounted his participation in a 2004 incident involving an encounter with an anomalous aerial object off the Baja California peninsula. “We saw a small white Tic Tac-shaped object,” Fravor said during his opening statement, “moving very abruptly over the white water.” “There were no rotors, no rotor wash, or any visible flight control surfaces like wings,” Fravor said, describing an event that has since become one of the most talked about UAP encounters in recent years, noting that multiple radar detections of UAP preceded the observation he and his fellow pilots made, thanks to the upgraded radar systems U.S.
__DEGRADED__ Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) says he was recently shown evidence of unidentified anomalous phenomena by military personnel that included a UAP image he was “not able to attach to any human capability.” Gaetz revealed details about the incident during a widely viewed Congressional hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena Wednesday morning. Held by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, the hearing featured witnesses that included two former U.S. Navy pilots, Dave Fravor and Ryan Graves, as well as a former intelligence officer turned whistleblower named David Grusch. Gaetz was reportedly shown the image several months ago during a visit to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, where he was accompanied by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL). “Several months ago, my office received a protected disclosure from Eglin Air Force Base indicating there was a UAP incident that required my attention,” Gaetz later wrote in a post on X, the social media site previously known as Twitter before its recent rebranding by Elon Musk. Gaetz says that after learning of the incident, he requested a briefing on the situation and brought Burchett and Luna along with him during a visit to the base. “We were initially denied access to images, radar, and conversation with all members of the flight crew,” Gaetz said. However, after the initial denial, additional demands by the Representatives for the release of imagery resulted in Gaetz being allowed to see a photograph captured by a member of the flight crew involved in the UAP encounter. Gaetz said that he was the only one who was shown the UAP image, and that he was allowed to speak directly to the pilot who took the photo afterward. “The image was of a UAP that I am not able to attach to any human capability,” Gaetz wrote, “either from the United States or from any of our adversaries.” According to Gaetz’s account, the pilot had reportedly encountered what he characterized as a fleet of four UAPs “flying in a diamond formation” while conducting training exercise over the Gulf of Mexico. The visual observations were also corroborated with radar data that personnel at Eglin Air Force Base allowed Gaetz to review. “There is a radar sequence that I, and I alone, have observed in the United States Congress,” Gaetz said during Wednesday morning’s hearing. According to the account the pilot provided Gaetz, as he went to investigate and came in near proximity to the objects, the approach of the UAPs apparently caused his radar system and Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) to malfunction, requiring him to have to rely on manual controls in order to obtain an image of the UAP. When attempting to characterize the object he observed in the pilot’s photo, Gaetz said it resembled “what I can only describe as an orb,” adding that it did not appear to be “of any human capability that I’m aware of.” During Wednesday’s hearing, Gaetz asked witness Dave Fravor how incidents where UAP appear capable of disarming onboard systems on military aircraft should be addressed. “I think this goes to that national security side,” Fravor said. “And you can go back through [the] history of things showing up at certain areas and disabling our capabilities, which is disheartening. Fravor added that footage obtained by Chad Underwood, at the time the Weapons System Officer on board a F/A-18 Super Hornet who captured FLIR imagery of the famous Tic Tac during a widely-discussed 2004 incident, “completely disabled the radar on the aircraft.” “The only way [Underwood] could do it was passively, which is how he got that image,” Fravor said on Wednesday. In the past, instrumental disturbance of onboard electronics is a feature commonly reported during pilot UAP encounters.
__DEGRADED__ The Pentagon’s chief scientist involved in the investigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) fired back at assertions that his Office was not being fully transparent with its findings, and other claims made during a Congressional hearing this week. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, Director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), responded to several claims made during Wednesday’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs hearing, which featured testimony from two former U.S. Navy pilots and a former intelligence officer involving allegations about information the U.S. federal government may be withholding about UAP. In a statement posted on LinkedIn, Kirkpatrick praised Congressional efforts to get to the bottom of the UAP issue while expressing displeasure with how AARO and its employees were portrayed during portions of the hearing. “As the Director of AARO’s amazingly talented, devoted, and highly motivated team,” Kirkpatrick wrote, “I cannot let yesterday’s hearing pass without sharing how insulting it was to the officers of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community who chose to join AARO,” adding that many of his staff have worked “often in the face of harassment and animosity, to satisfy their Congressionally-mandated mission.” “They are truth-seekers, as am I,” Kirkpatrick wrote. “But you certainly would not get that impression from yesterday’s hearing.” The Debrief was able to verify the statement posted on LinkedIn was authored and issued by Kirkpatrick, with the caveat that the comments represented his own personal observations and opinions and not the official position of the U.S. Department of Defense or Intelligence Community. Kirkpatrick’s statement was widely shared on social media after it appeared online. AARO DIRECTOR ISSUES STATEMENT ON U.S. HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE’S UFO HEARINGThe statement below was issued July 27, 2023, by Sean Kirkpatrick, Ph.D., director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). I received verification directly from Dr. Kirkpatrick that he wrote it. pic.twitter.com/DjU1SIu6Sq — D. Dean Johnson (@ddeanjohnson) July 28, 2023 During Wednesday’s hearing, former Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves discussed repeated encounters with UAP that he and fellow pilots in U.S. Navy Fighter/Attack Squadron VFA-11 experienced off the U.S. Eastern Coast between 2014 and 2015. Former F/A-18 pilot and Commander of the Navy’s fighter squadron VFA-41, Commander David Fravor, Ret., similarly recounted how he and several other Naval aviators encountered an anomalous “white Tic-Tac-shaped object” off the Baja California peninsula in November 2004. Of the witnesses, it was testimony by former intelligence officer David Grusch, a representative to the Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) while employed with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which attracted the most public attention. Speaking under oath, Grusch repeated claims first reported by The Debrief in June that the U.S. government had been involved in the recovery and reverse engineering of craft of “non-human origin.” When asked by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) if the remains of pilots from alleged craft of non-human origin had ever been obtained by the government, Grusch stated that “biologics came with some of these recoveries.” Amidst these remarkable claims, when questioned by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) if Grusch had “any personal knowledge of people who have been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal these extraterrestrial technology,” Grusch responded, “Yes. Personally.” However, the former intelligence officer declined to elaborate during a follow-up question from Burchett on whether he was aware of anyone being murdered to maintain UAP secrecy. “I have to be careful answering that question,” Grusch replied. “I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.” Asked by Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL) if, in recent years, he had experienced instances that made him concerned for his life for addressing the issue of UAP, Grusch once again answered, “Yes.
__DEGRADED__ Recently, I delivered the opening lecture to an auditorium full of team members of the Galileo Project, who traveled from all over the world to celebrate our second-year research accomplishments. The project’s conception was triggered by anecdotal reports from military and intelligence personnel who happened to be at the right place to make observations of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). In contrast, the Project’s research program involves a systematic study of the sky based on well-calibrated and fully-controlled sensors in the infrared, optical, radio, and audio. During our recent event, the Galileo team visited the first operational Galileo Observatory at Harvard University, out of which data is currently being analyzed by machine learning software trained to identify terrestrial objects like birds, balloons, drones, or airplanes and check for anything extraterrestrial. Over the past couple of years since we announced the launch of the Galileo Project with Dr. Frank Laukien, public awareness of UAP changed dramatically. Merely a week ago, David Fravor, Ryan Graves, and David Grusch testified under oath in the US House of Representatives about their encounters with UAP. Grusch promised to provide contact details of individuals who were involved in programs to retrieve and reverse-engineer alien spacecraft from crash sites. His cooperation offers a path forward to a factual verification or dismissal of his claims. The fundamental question is whether the disclosure of UAP information from the government will happen before or after the Galileo Project finds independent evidence for UAP materials. In particular, is it easier to learn what lies in interstellar space from scooping a 2-kilometer depth in the Pacific Ocean than from politicians in Washington DC? The Galileo Project expedition that I led to the crash site of the first recognized interstellar meteor, IM1, retrieved droplets that melted off IM1’s surface when it was exposed to the immense heat from the fireball created by its friction on air about 20 kilometers over the Pacific Ocean. Melting was inevitable as the fireball released a few percent of the Hiroshima atomic bomb energy into 500 kilograms of materials. Following our return from the expedition, my summer intern, Sophie Bergstrom, increased the total census of spherules to 727, more than an order of magnitude above the harvest on our ship, Silver Star. Subsequently, my Galileo-Keto postdoc, Laura Domine, created a map of the yield of spherules per unit mass of background material collected. The map demonstrates a clear excess of spherules around the meteor path, well over background levels far away from the meteor crash site. By analyzing the composition of the spherules along the meteor path, defined by the three flares in the fireball’s lightcurve, we plan to check in the laboratory of my Harvard colleague, Professor Stein Jacobsen, whether the composition of the spherules is different from solar system’s materials in terms of elemental and radioactive isotope abundances. The results will be reported in a scientific paper to be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. After visiting Jacobsen’s laboratory in the late afternoon, I rushed for the conference’s banquet dinner at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Harvard Square. On the way to the dinner hall, I notice at the periphery of my vision some familiar faces sitting on bar stools in the adjacent room. They were Tim Gallaudet, Ryan Graves, Garry Nolan, and Danny Sheehan. After greeting them, I asked whether they might be interested in having a panel discussion in front of the conference attendees prior to our planned banquet lecture. They all agreed. The panel discussion which I moderated, focused on the congressional hearing, bipartisan legislation, and implications for the immediate future. All panelists were excited about the months to come. Is humanity at the cusp of a transformative revolution in its cosmic perspective and its aspirations for interstellar space? Here’s hoping for an even more exciting panel discussion in the third-year banquet of the Galileo Project, involving scientists, politicians, philosophers, theologians, and with some luck – maybe an interstellar visitor who happened to stop by at the bar of the Sheraton Commander hotel. Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s – Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011-2020). He chairs the advisory board for the Breakthrough Starshot project and is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies.
__DEGRADED__ Ross Coulthart tackles questions about whistleblowers gearing up for a congressional hearing, what is going on with James Fowler and Skywatcher and reverse engineering efforts by Lockheed Martin. “Reality Check with Ross Coulthart” explores untold stories using a fact-based approach to address various topics, from unidentified aerial phenomena to mysteries that often go unreported. #lockheedmartin #realitycheck #ufo Credits: Host: Ross Coulthart Executive Producer: Andy Gipson Editorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Christine Jenkinson Associate Producer: Will Tomasi, Rebecca Pacchiano Editor: Anthony Diasio On "Reality Check," NewsNation Special Correspondent Ross Coulthart takes a fact-based approach to tackle everything from unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) to mysteries often missing from the headlines. More Reality Check: https://www.newsnationnow.com/podcast... Email your questions to [email redacted] NewsNation is your source for fact-based, unbiased news for all Americans. More from NewsNation: https://www.newsnationnow.com/ Get our app: https://trib.al/TBXgYpp Find us on your screen: https://www.joinnn.com/ Chapter Summary: 2:05 Is Ross impressed with the whistleblowers from the upcoming congressional hearing 6:41 David Grusch ICIG investigation 10:55 James Fowler and SkyWatcher 18:12 Has Ross heard about interdimensional beings from his sources 21:18 Reverse engineering efforts by China and Lockheed Martin 29:17 Has Ross seen the film “Men in Black” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
__DEGRADED__ Ross Coulthart explores untold stories using a fact-based approach to address various topics, from unidentified aerial phenomena to other mysteries that often go unreported. Now, he is turning to viewers, answering their pressing questions each week. In this week's episode, Coulthart tackles questions about the upcoming Congressional UAP hearing, his interview with UAP witness and Veteran: Caison Best and he touches on if there is a psyop against him. Join Ross and Meagan on September 9th, 2025 for the live stream of the Congressional UAP Hearing, get Ross's reaction and viewer questions will be answered. SOCIALS https://www.instagram.com/realitychecknn/ https://www.instagram.com/newsnationnow/ https://www.instagram.com/producermeagan/ https://www.tiktok.com/@realitychecknn https://www.tiktok.com/@newsnationnow Caison Best interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ud-5Ld48Y&t=181s Telepathy Tapes interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHp43kKxatM Russell Targ interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NHQBoEmYBo CHAPTER SUMMARY 00:00-1:57 New information on the UAP Congressional Hearing 1:57 -5:02 Exclusive reaction from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna 5:02-11:01 Questions on Whistleblower Caison Best 11:01-15:28 Are there FAA whistleblowers? 15:28-19:46 Telepathy Tapes interview and Stargate 19:46-23:15 TicTac and Psyop reaction 23:15-25:41 Is there a Cobra Sims operation? 25:41-31:20 Why are "aliens" making themselves fully public? 31:20-end UAP hearing coverage live with Ross and Meagan CREDITS Host: Ross Coulthart Executive Producer: Andy Gipson Editorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Christine Jenkinson Associate Producer: Will Tomasi, Rebecca Pacchiano Editor: Sarah Jackson & Anthony Diasio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
__DEGRADED__ A historic House subcommittee hearing Tuesday unveiled never-before-seen video appearing to show a Hellfire fail to take down an unidentified “orb.” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., shared the video, which was taken on Oct. 30, 2024, off the coast of Yemen. As the missile appeared to bounce off the object rather than destroy it, journalist and hearing witness George Knapp observed “it kept going.” The hearing centered on unidentified anomalous phenomena, government disclosure and protection for whistleblowers. NewsNation special correspondent and investigative journalist Ross Coulthart watched along and gave his analysis, live on stream. Chapters List 0:00 Countdown to Livestream 0:59 UAP Hearing Pre-Show with Ross Coulthart and Meagan Ourada 15:38 UAP Hearing Begins - Rep. Luna's opening remarks 23:37 Ross reacts to Rep. Luna and Rep. Crockett offers her opening remarks 28:17 Witnesses introduced and sworn in 31:49 Jeffrey Nuccetelli, former military police officer, gives opening statement 38:01 U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins gives opening statement 43:28 journalist George Knapp gives opening statement 51:25 U.S. Air Force veteran Dylan Borland gives opening statement 58:02 Joe Spielberger, a policy counsel for the Project on Government Oversight gives opening statement 1:03:15 Rep. Luna begins first line of questioning 1:07:40 Dylan Borland speaks about AARO's former leader Sean Kirkpatrick 1:09:00 Rep. Moskowitz questioning 1:16:28 Rep. Mace questioning 1:40:32 Rep. Burlison (with David Grusch in background) reveals new alleged UFO video surviving Hellfire missile strike 2:48:45 UAP Hearing Post-Show begins with LIVE viewer questions 3:14:42 George Knapp gives interview to NewsNation's Joe Khalil George Knapp documentary and Robert Bigelow interviewhttps://youtu.be/hD7uPnXQDSo?si=bRPbcN7WjYSx96zf https://youtu.be/6u7-_kSP0wU?si=trQuo8KNHWMR460B https://youtu.be/Gn3o7uC8yq4?si=DkHVBWUizaOPMy5t https://youtu.be/9Sv66dG6Ldc?si=MeK6XWjnT-gNPHFW Ross Coulthart interviews with names mentioned in the hearing David Grusch: https://youtu.be/RBAISwCZ2v0?si=I-FZgKNVaT0hEzd0 Michael Herrera: https://youtu.be/RhrH0KzKft4?si=uAtkcjdH-W7rhCSp Tim Gallaudet: https://youtu.be/rEYDY2EMm8c?si=tEuS0k6w1uS3fTDh Lue Elizondo: https://youtu.be/wgM5V44eQHU?si=g_73cgmhO-733Htj Chris Mellon: https://youtu.be/IYShNNH3UTM?si=mRb7jLmIMIMpoUYg Rep. Tim Burchett: https://youtu.be/c5iPtsQy2cg?si=x_olEcAM7eJAltQ0 Ryan Graves: https://youtu.be/QjVJLO6CK2I?si=MsZiifuyrg_cYjoH Previous UAP hearingshttps://youtu.be/vUnKRknLVSA?si=c-cjF5YUsnPiIdFWhttps://www.youtube.com/live/bEMVdPqMjHI?si=G1Xho-U5hHtzq6q4 CREDITS Host: Ross CoulthartExecutive Producer: Andy Gipson Editorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Christine Jenkinson Associate Producers: Will Tomasi, Rebecca Pacchiano Tech Managers: Mike Ewing, Brett Kotheimer FOLLOW THE TEAM ON SOCIAL MEDIA Ross https://www.instagram.com/rosscoulthart/ Producer Meagan https://www.instagram.com/producermeagan/ Reality Check
__DEGRADED__ Ross Coulthart explores untold stories using a fact-based approach to address various topics, from unidentified aerial phenomena to other mysteries that often go unreported. Now, he is turning to viewers, answering their pressing questions each week. In this week's episode, Coulthart tackles questions about the news of possible signs of life found on Mars, Congress’ UAP hearing, and what comes after disclosure. UFO whistleblower Jake Barber would '100% testify' under oath to Congress | Reality Check: UFO whistleblower Jake Barber would '100% testify' under oath to Congress | Reality Check Jake Barber: Skywatcher is ‘finding things that are not known objects' | Reality Check: Jake Barber: Skywatcher is ‘finding things that are not known objects' | Reality Check UFO whistleblower David Grusch: 'We are not alone' | Official Ross Coulthart NewsNation interview: UFO whistleblower David Grusch: 'We are not alone' | Official Ross Coulthart NewsNation interview FULL House UAP hearing with analysis by Ross Coulthart | NewsNation: FULL House UAP hearing with analysis by Ross Coulthart | NewsNation CHAPTER SUMMARY :22 Life on Mars? 2:30 UAP/Hellfire missile video 10:09 Video analysis 11:22 Why is the U.S. govt shooting at UAPs 14:32 Immunity for congressional witnesses 16:27 Should congress stop funding the CIA? 24:14 Whistleblower protections/secrecy 25:49 What follows disclosure? 29:36 The Alaskan black pyramids CREDITS: Host: Ross CoulthartExecutive Producer: Andy GipsonEditorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Christine Jenkinson Associate Producer: Will Tomasi, Rebecca Pacchiano Editor: Sarah Jackson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
__DEGRADED__ In this episode of Reality Check, Ross Coulthart sits down with Author Chris Bledsoe, Former Intelligence Analyst for the UAP Task Force Sarah Gamm, and Founding Partner of American DeepTech and Advisory Board Member for UAP Disclosure Foundation, Dr. Anna Brady-Estevez. One night in Washington D.C., Sarah, Chris, and Anna watched the sky as Chris called on UAP. Sarah captured their sightings on camera, just one night before Congress' UAP Hearing. Together, they discuss what they saw that night, and dive into Chris' telepathic engagement with UAP. Chris Bledsoe on presidents' interest in UAPs, NASA missions and summoning orbs | Reality Check Former UAP Task Force insider tells Ross Coulthart: We are not alone | Reality Check CHAPTERS LIST 0:00 - 3:46 - INTRO 3:47 - 7:07 - SARAH & ANNA ON WHAT THEY'VE SEEN 7:08 -9:39 - HOW DOES CHRIS ATTRACT THESE BEINGS? 9:40 - 13:27 - DIFFERENT VIEWS OF UAP 13:28 - 23:16 - WHAT DID SARAH SEE IN THE VIDEO? 23:17 - 29:18 - WHY WAS THE CRAFT A TECHNOLOGY? 29:19 - 30:54 - LEADERS IN SPACE 30:55 - 32:57 - DOES THE GOV. KNOW UAP HAVE BEEN RECOVERED?32:28 - 36:41 - CHRIS' TELEPATHIC ENGAGEMENT WITH UAP 36:42 - 44:09 - RELIGION AND UAP 44:10 - 50:59 - ANNA'S MIC DROP MOMENT 51:00 - 54:59 - COINSIDENCE SIGHTING? 55:00 - END CREDITS Host: Ross Coulthart Executive Producer: Andy Gipson Editorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Christine Jenkinson Associate Producer: William Tomasi Editor: Irit Nayden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
__DEGRADED__ In this episode of Reality Check, Ross Coulthart interviews members of Japan's DIET, the national legislature of Japan. Together, they discuss if the U.S. and Japan are working together to combat UAP, why it's important to hear from other countries on their UAP reports, and just how active the U.S. military is over Japanese UAP hotspots. Mr. John Callahan Faa Head of Accidents & Investigations on Disclosure Project Amazing UFO Fleet Over Fukushima Japan March 26, 2011 CHAPTERS LIST 0:00 - 6:22 - INTRO 6:23 - 19:28 - PANEL INTERVIEW 19:29 - 21:19 - JOHN CALLAHAN 21:20 - 28:54 - PANEL INTERVIEW 28:55 - 31:11 - FUKUSHIMA 31:12 - 45:41 - PANEL INTERVIEW 45:42 - END - OUTRO CREDITS Host: Ross Coulthart Executive Producer: Andy Gipson Editorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Christine Jenkinson Associate Producer: William Tomasi Editor: Anthony Diasio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
__DEGRADED__ In this episode of Reality Check, Ross Coulthart explores the new documentary film "Age of Disclosure," by Dan Farah and Luis Elizondo. You'll hear testimonies from 35 U.S. government, military, and intelligence community members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio (before he held this position), Luis Elizondo, and Rep. Tim Burchett. Ross also floats an idea: will the U.S. offer leaders in Washington D.C. a treason reconciliation commission? About the film — The Age of Disclosure World-changing confession: Doctor describes studying live alien | Reality Check CHAPTERS LIST 0:00 - INTRO 0:35 - ABOUT "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 3:49 - "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" TRAILER 5:54 - LUIS ELIZONDO IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 9:53 - CHRISTOPHER MELLON IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE "11:07 - HAL PUTHOFF IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 13:43 - SEC. MARCO RUBIO IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 17:00 - SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 18:08 - REP. TIM BURCHETT IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 19:44 - JAMES CLAPPER IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 20:47 - TIM GALLAUDET IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 21:27 - CRASHES DISCUSSED IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 23:10 - WILL THE U.S. GOVT OFFER A TREASON RECONCILIATION COMMISSION? 24:00 - UAP STIGMA AND HEARINGS IN "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 26:16 - INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY PUSHBACK ON "AGE OF DISCLOSURE" 27:08 - ELIZONDO POINTS 30:19 - OUTRO CREDITS Host: Ross Coulthart Executive Producer: Andy Gipson Editorial Producer: Meagan Ourada Segment Producer: Christine Jenkinson Associate Producer: William Tomasi Editor: Irit Nayden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
__DEGRADED__ Documents released by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) have revealed new details about incidents involving the unauthorized operation of unmanned aerial systems near American nuclear sites and sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The documents, comprised mainly of Operations Reports filed by the Protective Force Division of the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), involve suspected unauthorized drone incidents near Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and other DOE facilities that occurred between May 2018 and April 2021, along with a series of correspondences that include historical references to UAP observations and related subjects. A semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), the NNSA is responsible for maintaining the security of the U.S.’s nuclear weapons and responding to nuclear emergencies, along with providing the U.S. Navy with nuclear propulsion and maintaining the safety of its reactors. According to the DOE documents, Site 300, an experimental site 15 miles east of LLNL’s main site used in the testing of high-explosives and materials to aid research into the development of nuclear weapons, was the location of several of the recent UAS incidents. The documents were included on a page that also included links to other U.S. government resources related to UAP that appeared on the DOE’s website in late September 2023. One Operations Report filed in September 2021 describes an incident that occurred on the morning of April 1 of that year, where an LLNL employee reported seeing a suspected drone operating over the facility. “At approximately 0635 hours I was driving on West Perimeter Drive and noticed a possible drone hovering 50-75 feet off the ground in the buffer zone,” a portion of a witness statement included in the report reads. “Due to the darkness I only saw the red and white lights.” The employee notified the Central Alarm Station following the observation, but no security camera footage or other corroborating evidence for the sighting could be found. A similar incident that occurred at LLNL on July 22, 2020, described a “white fixed wing drone flying over at approximately 100 feet above building 271 heading west bound.” The aircraft was monitored until it left the area, after which Oakland Flight Standards District Office, the FAA, and other regional authorities were notified. Another Operations Report describing events that occurred in the early morning hours of October 18, 2019, describes a sighting of a UAS with “two red lights and one white light” believed to be equipped with a camera that was observed by an LLNL Site 300 Maintenance Mechanic. The object passed between 20 and 30 feet above the employee’s vehicle, and despite the close distance, no identifying marks could be seen on the UAS. Another incident involving a possible drone observed near Site 300 was also reported on July 3 of that year, which followed a June 24, 2019 incident involving a “four rotor propeller drone” with blue and red lights observed 40 feet above building 583 that “appeared to be recording.” In the U.S., drone flights over designated national security sensitive facilities is prohibited. On December 18, 2017, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) first announced that it would begin restricting drone flights up to 400 feet within the lateral boundaries of several U.S. Department of Energy facilities. Although Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was not among the sites listed by the FAA at that time, a joint announcement by the FAA and the DOE later that month restricted drone flights above all DOE facilities, which includes the agency’s nuclear assembly facilities, laboratories, and research centers. Despite the FAA restrictions, FOIA documents later obtained by researcher Douglas D. Johnson revealed sightings of swarms of large drones that were observed on September 29, 2019, at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Maricopa County, Arizona. Subsequent FOIA documents Johnson obtained revealed additional incidents that occurred at a total of 24 nuclear sites, involving 57 drone incursions reported between 2015 and 2019. Although the FAA had already issued a Notice to Airmen as early as 2004 advising pilots to avoid airspace over nuclear power plants (with later updated versions also extended to include drone operations), in late 2019 ongoing drone incidents over nuclear facilities prompted the nuclear industry to begin working with the FAA and the DOE to try to impose formal flight restrictions over nuclear power plants. A classified technical analysis produced jointly by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Sandia National Laboratory in October 2019 found that nuclear power plants in the U.S. did not appear to possess any significant vulnerabilities that were believed to be exploitable by foreign adversaries employing drones near such facilities (an unclassified summary of that analysis can be found here).
__DEGRADED__ The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the official investigative authority within the DoD tasked with evaluating unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), has just launched a secure portal for receiving information from U.S. military personnel. The Pentagon announced on Tuesday, October 31, that the secure reporting mechanism would now be accessible through AARO’s official website, which launched earlier this year. “Today, consistent with Section 1673 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, the department launched the second phase of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s secure mechanism for authorized reporting of unidentified anomalous phenomena,” read a Pentagon statement issued Tuesday afternoon. However, in contrast to the DoD’s official statement released on Tuesday, the new secure system is not intended as a reporting mechanism for military personnel who have made actual observations of UAP themselves. Instead, the new reporting page on AARO’s website emphasizes that information should only be provided by those who have personal knowledge of U.S. government programs related to UAP. “AARO is accepting reports from current or former U.S. Government employees, service members, or contractor personnel with direct knowledge of U.S. Government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945,” reads a portion of the new secure reporting page. “These reports will be used to inform AARO’s congressionally directed Historical Record Report.” While the new reporting mechanism offers the assurance of protection for military personnel who use it to submit such information, those who believe they have information related to UAP programs that may be of interest to AARO and its investigations are nonetheless cautioned against submitting any classified information. “Please do NOT submit any information that is potentially CLASSIFIED, or unclassified information that is not publicly releasable (e.g. subject to export control regulations),” reads one of the advisory statements on the site’s new secure reporting page. “If you are unsure whether the information you have is classified or CUI, please do not submit it on this website,” it adds. The Pentagon says the reports AARO collects through the new secure mechanism, which can be voluntarily submitted by military personnel, “will be used to inform AARO’s congressionally directed Historical Record Report, due to Congress by June 2024, and its investigations into alleged U.S. government UAP programs.” In June, The Debrief was the first to report on a complaint filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, alleging that the existence of a secret U.S. crash retrieval program involved in the acquisition of vehicles believed to be of non-human origin had been illegally withheld from Congress. The allegations were made by David Grusch, a former employee with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) who worked with AARO’s predecessor organization, the UAP Task Force, while he was still a U.S. government employee. On July 26, 2023, Grusch, along with former U.S. Navy fighter pilots David Fravor and Ryan Graves, testified under oath during a Congressional hearing held by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs. Grusch told members of Congress during the hearing that he had spoken with close to 40 members of the U.S. intelligence community who reportedly knew about the highly secretive U.S. government UAP program, although he declined to provide further details during an open hearing. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the current director of AARO, later pushed back on several of the claims that were provided under oath during the hearing. “As the Director of AARO’s amazingly talented, devoted, and highly motivated team, I cannot let yesterday’s hearing pass without sharing how insulting it was to the officers of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community who chose to join AARO,” Kirkpatrick wrote in a statement that appeared on his personal LinkedIn page. Kirkpatrick added that many of his staff have worked “often in the face of harassment and animosity, to satisfy their Congressionally-mandated mission.” “They are truth-seekers, as am I. But you certainly would not get that impression from yesterday’s hearing,” read Kirkpatrick’s statement, which resulted in minor controversy after it appeared online. Currently, U.S. military personnel or other government employees who have observed what they believe to be UAP are advised to continue to “follow the process established by your service branch or federal agency to report the information to AARO,” according to the new secure reporting page that appeared on AARO’s website on Wednesday. The launch of the new secure reporting system follows the release of AARO’s 2023 Annual Report on UAP, which added 291 new UAP reports to the growing number that AARO and its director, Dr.
__DEGRADED__ When I was a young fast-stream civil servant at the UK Cabinet Office in the 1990s, the Government seemed to have a line-to-take on everything. There would be an official, maybe in a far-flung division of an obscure department, responsible for each policy, as hard as it might be to find that person and track them down. I think my observation remains true today concerning the UK Government’s policy on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), even if the Government tries hard to make it appear as though there is no policy and that no one is in charge. The UK’s Ministry of Defence used to have a ‘UFO Desk,’ which is where Nick Pope is said to have worked in the 1990s. Famously, the then-Secretary of State, Bob Ainsworth, announced the closure of the desk in 2009 under the following logic: “In more than 50 years, no UFO sighting … has indicated the existence of any military threat to the UK; there is no defence benefit in … recording, collating, analysing, or investigating UFO sightings” and “the level of resources devoted to this task is … diverting staff from more valuable defence-related activities”. Yet, at a time when the United States has set up the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to investigate UAP sightings, have held a hearing on UAPs in the House of Representatives, and have the Schumer amendment on UAP transparency making its way through Congress, are we really to believe that the UK Government has no resources focusing on UAPs? Speaking to Julian Worricker on the World Tonight program on August 3rd, David Grusch, one of those UAP whistleblowers who provided testimony under oath to the U.S. Congress, said information about UAPs “does cross into other countries and other allies to include the Five Eyes alliance,” which echoes the statement from Sean Kirkpatrick, Director of AARO, on May 31st that in the previous week, he had met with the Five Eyes to discuss UAP data collection and collaboration. The Five Eyes Alliance is an intelligence-sharing network between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. So clearly, the UK is interested and involved in some capacity. According to files from the National Archives, Carl Mantell of the RAF’s Air Command was the civil servant who penned the advice to Sir Bob Ainsworth in 2009 on the UFO desk closure. So, presumably, he was in the UFO policy hot seat then. But who might be in charge of UAP policymaking today? Looking across the Machinery of Government, I suspect that policy for UAPs is spread across the Cabinet Office, Ministry of Defence, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). With operational involvement of the Royal Air Force, DE&S, and DSTL. Plus, in all likelihood, some private contractor support, both from UK Aerospace companies and UK subsidiaries of US contractors. Somewhere within the U.K. Government, someone is responsible. The ‘UFO desk’ lives on under another name. I suspect, too, that the civil servant in question is growing increasingly alarmed at the level of dissonance between the current line-to-take and the way in which events are unfolding. A friend of mine received a reply from “Air Command Secretariat” at the MOD that contained the following rather extraordinary paragraph: “I must inform you that the MOD has no opinion on the existence of either extraterrestrials, Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). While I recognise you have used the term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, the Department does not recognise this term, and I have therefore answered your question using our definition of UAP.” The response goes on to repeat the 2009 Sir Bob Ainsworth line about there being no military threat. This feels like a tired reply that is past its sell-by date. I am sure that there are civil servants in the areas in question who are coming to this view, too. By continuing to employ this line-to-take, the Government is delegitimizing conversations about UAPs. Taking away people’s voices on the topic leads to bad policymaking. If civil servants are inhibited from discussing the UAP topic – not only with the public but also with other branches of government – they cannot fully consider people’s needs, develop options, and offer their thinking up for constructive challenge. Take flight safety risks.
__DEGRADED__ Imagine you were just elected President of the United States. During one of your first classified briefings, you learn that the US military has recovered advanced extraterrestrial technology. You are told we’ve made only modest headway in understanding how this technology works, where it is from, or why these intelligently controlled machines are here. What would you do in that circumstance? As President, your top priority is to keep the American people safe from all threats, both foreign and domestic. Hundreds of millions of people, including tens of millions of children, place their faith in you. Are you going to hold a press conference revealing that aliens are visiting planet Earth, but we don’t know where they’re coming from, why they are here, or whether we can defend ourselves from them? It is hard for me to imagine any of the politicians I’ve worked for over the years leaping at that opportunity. The sudden, unexpected confirmation of an ET presence on Earth would not only unsettle but inevitably terrify millions—if not billions—of people. And for what purpose? What chance would you have as President of moving forward on other vital issues on your agenda, given the tumult that would result? What reason is there to believe the net effect for society would be positive rather than negative? These are questions that need to be addressed by those advocating the release of information confirming an extraterrestrial presence on Earth. Such information has the potential to be a genuine Pandora’s box, and it is, therefore, vital we think this through carefully before proceeding. This is a pressing issue, as various committees and members of Congress are seeking to determine whether the US government has incontrovertible proof of an extraterrestrial presence on Earth. Such a revelation would undoubtedly be the most shocking, profound, and transformative discovery in human history. Yet, despite the gravity of the issue, Congress has been proceeding without holding any hearings or requesting any studies to assess the impact of this potential bombshell. It appears that our legislators are failing to heed the maxim, “Don’t ask the question if you aren’t prepared for the answer.” Strangely, there is little discussion of this critical issue among proponents of disclosure in the UAP community. Perhaps advocates of disclosure simply assume that truth and transparency are always for the better. Although I applaud the sentiment, the issue is not so simple for government officials bearing the weighty responsibility of governing. I therefore thought I would offer some thoughts from the standpoint of a former national security official because national security concerns are inescapably central to this discussion. The first question that arises is, “How can we make a fair determination about the potential risks and benefits of disclosure without access to all the facts?” Suppose the US government recovered extraterrestrial technology decades ago. In that case, there has inevitably been some progress in assessing it and, hopefully, some insights gleaned regarding the nature and intent of its designers. However, no credible individuals purporting to have access to such information have provided any details. One of the only things we can say with certainty is that unless ETs prove to be angelic, which is not what our military is reporting, disclosure would undeniably frighten, if not terrify, large segments of the population. Moreover, what if disclosure precipitated a change in the behavior of an alien civilization, given that they no longer had an incentive to remain elusive and clandestine? What is the risk potential that disclosure might cause some governments to overreact, precipitating fearful and aggressive interactions? If these risks are substantial, does it still make sense to release such disruptive information? When I first became publicly involved in the UAP topic, the alleged recovery of ET technology was not an issue. My immediate goal was to alert policymakers to a dangerous intelligence failure, namely, the fact of serious and recurring intrusions into restricted DoD airspace by strange, unidentified aircraft. It was shocking to learn our vaunted multi-billion-dollar intelligence system was paralyzed by ineffable stigma, as effectively as any electromagnetic warfare (EW) weapon, placing US personnel and the nation at risk. This situation reminded me of both Pearl Harbor, where vital warning information was not forwarded up the chain of command, as well as 9/11, when intelligence agencies failed to share vital information that could have saved the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. Having survived the attack on the Pentagon myself, this was not a purely theoretical consideration. Admittedly, I was also hoping to generate enough Congressional pressure to compel the DoD and the Intelligence Community to use their vast capabilities to study UAP.
__DEGRADED__ Allow me to start with a confession: although the topic of UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, previously called UFOs) has always fascinated me, my reaction to confronting much of the related literature—beyond the safe harbour of a few serious authors—has been one of considered dismissiveness. In my view, a significant portion of the published material could benefit from greater rigor, empirical grounding, theoretical clarity, and logical reasoning. This field often appears to diverge from the standards of intellectual precision and level-headed analysis that hold in academia. However, recent developments over the past six or seven years invite us to re-examine the subject from a more open and inquisitive perspective. Because there are so few—if any—consensus launchpads for such a polemical topic, I must explicitly justify each step of my thinking and, thus, cover a lot of ground in this long essay. I shall start, below, by motivating the validity of the mystery: UAPs are no longer just tall and questionable tales shared on social media, accompanied by grainy, out-of-focus cellular phone footage. Enough has been officially acknowledged since 2017 that the topic is now undoubtedly deserving of serious treatment. After laying foundations for my argument, I will then proceed to elaborate on what I currently consider to be the most level-headed and plausible account of the phenomenon. And to anticipate a question you are bound to be already asking, no, I don’t think it is aliens from Zeta Reticuli; the facts may be a lot more surprising and closer to home than that. In 2017, several videos of UAPs—soon to become known as the ‘Pentagon UFO videos,’ as they were recorded by infrared cameras in military aircraft—were circulating widely on the Internet. At around the same time, the story behind the videos was covered in a now-seminal report by The New York Times. The videos seem to show airborne craft without wings or engines, flying and hovering deliberately, sometimes against high winds. They perform maneuvers despite the absence of flight control means—no rudder, elevators, ailerons, thrusters, etc.—and display surprisingly high acceleration with no detectable means of propulsion. The US Department of Defense later officially acknowledged the authenticity of the videos, as well as the fact that the objects visible in them remain unidentified. Years later, in the summer of 2023, US Navy pilots involved in these incidents provided public testimony to Congress, under oath, adding detail and background to the odd images. Asked whether the UAP he saw with his own eyes moved in a way that defied the laws of physics, Commander David Fravor replied: “The way we understand them [i.e., the laws of physics], yes.” He then confirmed that the UAPs were not only captured on camera, but also tracked by radar from three different vessels: “The Princeton tracked it. The Nimitz tracked it. The E2 tracked it.” Asked to describe how the UAP maneuvered, CDR Fravor said, “Abruptly, very determinant. It knew exactly what it was doing. It was aware of our presence and it had acceleration rates—I mean, it went from zero to matching our speed in no time at all.” Finally, asked if any human technology could emulate the UAP’s flight characteristics he observed, he said: “No, not even close.” Navy F-18 pilot Ryan Graves—another military witness giving sworn testimony—described a UAP sighted from 50 feet away as “A dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere,” something that cannot be conflated with a drone or ordinary aircraft. Still in 2023, United States Air Force officer and former intelligence official David Grusch became a UAP whistleblower. In interviews with various media outlets, he claimed that several defense officials had confirmed to him that the US government maintains a secretive UAP crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program, and is in the possession of several technological craft with Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) provenance. Mr. Grusch, too, provided sworn testimony during the congressional UAP hearing of July 2023. Asked whether the US has the bodies of the pilots of the recovered UAPs, he said: “As I have stated publicly already … biologics came with some of these recoveries.” Pressed on whether these “biologics” were nonhuman, he confirmed without ambiguity: “Nonhuman, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.” Mr. Grusch understands that the penalty for lying under oath is jail, and offered several times during his testimony to confidentially—as required by law—provide specific details to lawmakers. Mr. Grusch, Mr. Graves, and CDR Fravor are far from alone. In recent times, other individuals in a position to plausibly be privy to what the US government knows about the subject have come forward.
__DEGRADED__ A new bipartisan bill, the Safe Airspace for Americans Act, has been introduced to encourage reporting of sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) by pilots and other civilian aviation personnel and offer legal protection against repercussions from sharing their sightings. The bill, introduced by Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA) and Congressman Glenn Grothman (R-WI), will help to facilitate reporting of UAP sightings by civilian aircrew, air traffic controllers, flight attendants, maintenance workers, dispatchers, and airlines to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA will also be required to collect data and conduct investigations into UAP reports it receives under the bill’s provisions, after which the information is to be shared with the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Significantly, the legislation also aims to provide legal protections for pilots against possible retaliations that may result from reporting their UAP sightings, such as medical disqualifications or cease-and-desist notifications from airlines. “UAP transparency is incredibly important for our national security, which is why we need to create a space where those working in aviation have the ability to report their findings and experiences,” Congressman Garcia said in a statement. Calling the bill “another step forward for disclosure,” Garcia added that the newly proposed legislation will offer a safe means by which civilian and commercial aviation personnel may report UAP sightings. “UAPs continue to raise serious questions and pose a unique risk to our national security,” Congressman Grothman said, calling the Safe Airspace for Americans Act “a crucial initiative that empowers those on the frontline of our skies to contribute valuable intelligence regarding UAP sightings that can help ensure that potential threats are thoroughly investigated.” Grothman, currently the Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, added that the bipartisan effort “highlights our need for transparency from the federal government regarding UAPs to better protect the safety and security of American citizens.” The text of the bill was made available on Thursday and can be read online. Sighting reports of UAP by civilian pilots have long been impeded by fears of possible consequences despite their significance to aviation safety. In one recent incident The Debrief learned of, a pilot flying over Maryland in December 2023 reported observing a 30-foot-tall triangular object during his final approach to Frederick Municipal Airport. The sighting prompted a follow-up call with ATC supervisors, who had reportedly expressed concerns about the incident. The Debrief contacted Frederick Municipal Airport and the FAA for comment about the 2023 incident, but no responses have been received at this time. Last July, former U.S. Navy pilots Ryan Graves and David Fravor participated in a Congressional hearing held by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, portions of which addressed both U.S. military and commercial pilot sightings of UAP and their potential safety ramifications. In an email to The Debrief on Thursday, Graves expressed his support for the new bill, criticizing the current lack of data being collected from pilots. “I’m thrilled that Reps. Garcia and Grothman are taking this issue seriously,” Graves told The Debrief, “and standing with commercial pilots as a key way to solve this mystery.” Graves, who is now the Executive Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA), a nonprofit organization focused on UAP that boasts more than 11,000 members, said that data obtained from pilot observations of UAP is “essential to driving disclosure,” calling it “a disservice to our national security, to aviation safety, and science to ignore pilots and overlook UAP as a significant domain awareness gap.” The newly introduced Safe Airspace for Americans Act also seeks to strengthen the use of the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), a publicly searchable database of potential aviation safety hazards maintained by NASA on behalf of the FAA, along with directing the establishment of “a new and separate system similar to such Program” for collecting pilot UAP reports. Last August, The Debrief reported on several incidents involving UAP submitted by pilots and aviation personnel to the ASRS. Currently, data collected by the program is used to help mitigate potential problems and provides support for policy formulation, planning, and improvement in the National Aviation System (NAS).
__DEGRADED__ New details involving a military pilot UAP incident over the Gulf of Mexico revealed by a U.S. Representative last summer have come to light, following the release of documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The incident, first described by Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) last year during a widely viewed Congressional hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, reportedly occurred on January 26, 2023, during a test mission operated out of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Now, additional confirmation of the incident has been obtained by Abbas Michael Dharamsey through documents he obtained through a FOIA request, copies of which were subsequently made available by researcher John Greenewald at his website, The Black Vault. Although most of the information in the documents is redacted, a declassified summary of the incident is provided, along with a sketch depicting the appearance of one of the UAPs the pilot encountered. According to the declassified summary, the United States Air Force pilot successfully obtained a radar lock on four unidentified objects and subsequently obtained a screen capture of one of the UAPs, the only one with which visual contact was made. The declassified summary, as well as the sketch provided to Dharamsey in the FOIA release, both depict an object resembling a NASA Apollo-era space capsule, which possessed a rounded, reddish orange illuminated bottom portion, while the upper section was described as “a three-dimensional cone shape” which featured what resembled “gunmetal gray segmented panels.” The object, referred to as “UAP-1” in the summary, was observed operating at an altitude of around 16,000 feet, while two of the other objects detected solely on radar were observed at 17,000 and 18,000 feet above ground level. The fourth object was reportedly lost from radar, making any estimates of its altitude impossible for the pilot to obtain. Although the above data on altitude was obtained, the summary states that no airspeeds were noted for the unidentified objects, although they did not outpace the pilot, who was able to close to within 4,000 feet of UAP-1, at which time the aircraft’s radar began to malfunction and remained disabled. “Post-mission investigation revealed that a circuit breaker had triggered,” the brief declassified summary concludes, “but that maintenance technicians were unable to conclusively diagnose the fault.” Sometime after the events described in the summary, Gaetz was reportedly shown the image obtained by the pilot during a visit to Eglin Air Force Base. “Several months ago, my office received a protected disclosure from Eglin Air Force Base indicating there was a UAP incident that required my attention,” Gaetz later wrote in a post on X. Gaetz said that after learning of the incident, he requested a briefing on the situation and traveled to Eglin, accompanied during the visit by Reps. Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL). “We were initially denied access to images, radar, and conversation with all members of the flight crew,” Gaetz said. However, Gaetz was eventually allowed to review the photograph obtained by the pilot involved in the UAP encounter. Gaetz said that he was the only one who was shown the UAP image at the time and that he had an opportunity to speak with the pilot, who told him the objects were observed on radar “flying in a diamond formation.” “The image was of a UAP that I am not able to attach to any human capability, from the United States or from any of our adversaries,” Gaetz said of the image he was shown. Describing the incident during a hearing held by the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs last July, Gaetz also said he had observed a radar sequence obtained by personnel at Eglin during the incident that further corroborated the sighting. Despite the object’s superficial resemblance to an “Apollo spacecraft,” the description of the incident provided in the newly released FOIA documents appears to describe four objects flying in formation, three of which were detected on radar and maintained altitudes close to 16,000, 17,000, and 18,000 feet respectively, and for a duration long enough that imagery of the nearest object, UAP-1, was obtained.
__DEGRADED__ Advocates for the disclosure of U.S. government records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) will attend a sidewalk rally in New York this week in support of Senator Chuck Schumer and his efforts toward greater government transparency, and to urge for future Congressional hearings on the matter. Citizens for Disclosure NOW is a New York City-based partner of the California-based New Paradigm Institute’s Citizens for Disclosure (NPI), founded by UAP transparency activist and longtime constitutional and public interest lawyer Danny Sheehan. The inaugural rally event is to be the first in a series of similar gatherings, which has reportedly attracted more than 344 volunteers, and NPI says it is currently vetting candidates to start local and state chapters in 45 U.S. states. The objective of the event is both to engage Americans on the UAP subject, but also to foster global participation, with New Paradigm volunteers currently also working to coordinate rallies in as many as 17 countries. Known for representing notable clients such as Lue Elizondo, former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and former employee of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Sheehan created the NPI to focus on transparency and disclosure regarding UAPs. The group aims to raise awareness, gather support, and urge government officials to release information related to UAP sightings. The group engages in activities that include organizing rallies, lobbying officials, and spreading information to the public to further their cause. NPI’s recent calls to action have resulted in over 22,000 emails to Capitol Hill, and now the initiative is beginning to allocate funding to support its ongoing efforts. On February 12, 2024, NPI issued a press release announcing a series of social media advertisements aiming “to educate and mobilize the public” to call on Congress for future UAP hearings. The advertisements feature imagery from a Congressional hearing held last summer that featured testimony from former U.S. personnel including Ryan Graves, a former fighter pilot and founder of Americans for Safe Aerospace, and David Grusch, who logged a whistleblower complaint last June with the Intelligence Community Inspector General. “Our right as citizens to know the truth and what elements of our government has discovered about this is essential to the Constitutional functioning of our government,” Sheehan told The Debrief. “We, citizens, will secure the truth about this deeply buried secret only if we get our Congress engaged in digging this truth out of the Pentagon and our Intelligence Community – because both of these once-respected institutions have been lying about this issue not only to us but also to our elected Representatives in Congress,” he added. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been a vocal and active supporter of government transparency and updated legislation regarding UAP. Schumer, along with U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD), co-sponsored the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023 (UAPDA), a bipartisan amendment to the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that was modeled after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. The amendment aimed to enact a “controlled disclosure campaign plan,” which would have involved revealing to the public as much as possible about the UAP phenomenon without compromising national security. However, much of the language in the Schumer-Rounds Act was removed from the final legislation, allegedly due to pressure from elements within the military intelligence community and defense aerospace contractors. The recent release of a widely anticipated historical report published this month by the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has further propelled the call for transparency and disclosure among UAP advocates.
__DEGRADED__ On May 14 and 15, 2024, the French Astronautics and Aeronautics Association (3AF) held a major conference on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (UAP) in Paris. The event was organized by Sigma 2, 3AF’s Technical Committee on UAP, which has conducted multidisciplinary scientific investigations into anomalous aerospace encounters since 2013. It researches the most anomalous cases from the Information and Study Group on UAP (GEIPAN) and other sources. 3AF, a non-profit academic society with 15,000 members, collaborates with key French institutions including the National Center for Space Studies (CNES), the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA), and the Civil Aviation Directorate (DGAC). The conference brought together experts in science, defense, and policy to share research, eyewitness testimony, and strategic frameworks for addressing UAP phenomena. The conference opened with remarks from Alain Juillet, former director of France’s external intelligence agency, who called for a rigorous scientific investigation of UAP. “Having agreed that UAPs are real phenomena with remarkable observables, we need to continuously improve our knowledge,” he stated. Luc Dini, director of Sigma 2, launched the technical discussions with a presentation on optical signatures linked to plasma phenomena and their potential relevance to UAP. He referenced the 2023 U.S. Senate hearing where (now former) AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick testified, noting frequent radio frequency emissions associated with UAP. Dini emphasized the need for synchronized data collection using multiple sensor types—infrared, electromagnetic, optical, and radar—to reduce misinterpretation and improve reliability. Following Dini, Dr. Beatriz Villarroel delivered a critical analysis of the limitations in current UAP research, citing social stigma, lack of peer-reviewed journals, and inadequate funding. She advocated for hypothesis-driven studies focused on clearly defined terms like “flying saucers” or “discs,” arguing that this approach helps isolate specific observable phenomena such as sunlight reflectivity from orbiting objects. Her team uses photographic plates from the 1950s, predating the satellite era, to distinguish artificial from potentially non-human sources to analyze transient sky phenomena. Villarroel also highlighted the Exoprobe Project, which uses a network of synchronized telescopes to detect and analyze unusual light spectra. She suggested that if a compelling object is located, orbital debris-collection companies could assist with potential recovery. Raymond Piccoli, director of the Lightning Research Laboratory, demonstrated how sky-monitoring cameras, once considered mythical, can capture fast-moving natural UAPs, such as red sprites. Using France’s Farfadet camera network, researchers can now record these rare, high-atmosphere electrical discharges. Next, Dr. Hakan Kayal of the University of Würzburg’s IFEX center presented several initiatives to detect and monitor UAP, including the Sonate 1 and 2 satellites and SkyCam autonomous detection systems, one of which is deployed in Norway’s Hessdalen Valley. He introduced the Anomaly Detection and Observation System (ADEOS), a modular platform designed to observe indirect effects caused by UAPs rather than the objects themselves. Like Villarroel, he emphasized that lack of funding remains a critical bottleneck to progress. Both Villarroel and Kayal addressed speculation that UAP might actively avoid detection. Regarding the possibility that UAP could choose to avoid detection or conceal themselves in areas where telescopes may be present (should they be sentient), Villarroel told The Debrief that with the Exoprobe Project reaching far out Earth’s atmosphere, UAP could potentially also be detected in space if any are operating beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Kayal added that even if UAPs can conceal themselves, their entry and exit from concealment might still leave observable traces—potentially the most scientifically valuable moments to study. In a roundtable discussion, Kayal demonstrated how machine vision systems can mistakenly interpret birds as sci-fi-like craft, underscoring the need for precise identification tools. The session also featured retired Brig. Gen. Jean-Marc André, who presented a reanalysis of the 2007 Jersey UAP case involving veteran pilot Capt. Ray Bowyer. Capt. Bowyer described flying a Trislander aircraft with nine passengers on April 23, 2007, when he observed a bright, stationary light over the English Channel. Air traffic control initially saw nothing on radar, but later confirmed an anomalous return 45 miles away. Bowyer estimated the object’s shape as elongated with sharp ends and a dark angled band emitting sparkling lights. A second, more distant object appeared shortly afterward.
__DEGRADED__ After more than three years of planning, hardware assembly, data collection, and analysis, the Galileo Project, under my leadership, released the commissioning data from its first Observatory at Harvard University in a new paper (posted here and currently under peer review), with my Galileo Project postdoc Dr. Laura Domine as first author. The Galileo Project Observatory is the first of its kind. Standard astronomical observatories focus on a small portion of the sky at any given time, seeking sources at great distances and ignoring objects flying overhead. The Galileo Project research team developed an original design of an array of sensors that monitor the entire sky at all times and collect infrared, optical, radio, magnetic, and audio data. Altogether, the Galileo Project Observatory is recording a continuous movie of the sky. The data is uploaded to a computer system and subsequently analyzed by machine-learning algorithms. The computer software is optimized to identify outliers among familiar insects, birds, leaves, clouds, balloons, drones, airplanes, and satellites that appear in the data stream. The Galileo Project was inaugurated on July 26, 2021. Our exceptional research team took two years to design and assemble the hardware components, another half a year to calibrate the instruments, and a full year to analyze the preliminary commissioning data collected from January through May 2024. This data contains half a million objects observed during these five months. The Galileo Project team is currently in the process of establishing two additional observatories in other locations, with the goal of tripling its data collection rate within the next six months. The workhorse of the uniquely designed GP Observatories is called Dalek, an array of eight uncooled infrared cameras placed on half a sphere. Despite its name being inspired by the famous villains of Doctor Who, Dalek more closely resembles the head of the fictional robot character R2-D2 in the film Star Wars. U.S. government officials have publicly admitted the puzzling appearance of unfamiliar objects near Earth. Reports on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Avril Haines, led in 2022 to the establishment of a new office under DNI and the Department of Defense called the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). “To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently,” the office has previously conveyed as its official position on claims that extraterrestrial technologies might have been recovered and studied by the United States in the past. As of now, there is little publicly available scientific data on UAPs with flight properties that lie outside the performance envelope of known phenomena. The Galileo Project Observatories offer an array of multimodal, multispectral sensors that continuously monitor the sky and acquire UAP data via a rigorous long-term census of all aerial phenomena to check for any object that may not be of terrestrial origin. In addition to performing intrinsic and thermal calibrations, Dalek was commissioned through a novel extrinsic calibration method. The Galileo Project radio sensor collected airplane positions from Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data. Using machine learning software, such as the You Only Look Once (YOLO) model for object detection and the Simple Online and Realtime Tracking (SORT) algorithm for trajectory reconstruction, the GP team established a baseline for assessing the performance of the GP Observatory over five months of field operation. Using an automatically generated data set derived from ADS-B-data, a dataset of synthetic three-dimensional trajectories, and a hand-labeled real-world dataset, the GP team found an acceptance rate (fraction of airplanes passing in the effective field of view of at least one camera that is recorded) of 41% for ADS-B equipped aircraft and a mean frame-by-frame aircraft detection efficiency (fraction of recorded airplanes in individual frames which are successfully detected) of 36%. The detection efficiency depends on weather conditions, distance, and object size. Approximately half a million trajectories of aerial objects were reconstructed during the five-month observation period. These trajectories were analyzed with an outlier search algorithm. About 16% of the monitored trajectories were flagged as outliers and manually examined. From these 80,000 outliers, 144 trajectories remained ambiguous. These are likely mundane objects but cannot be further identified without distance information.
__DEGRADED__ With a sweeping victory that followed one of the most divisive U.S. elections in recent memory, Donald Trump is now set to return to the White House as the 47th President of the United States. Although many questions remain about how the next administration’s policies could shape America over the next four years in terms of national defense, foreign policy, social issues, and the U.S. economy, another question on the minds of some Americans involves what Trump’s next term in office could mean for government transparency on the issue of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). Trump’s past statements involving mysterious aerial objects—traditionally known as UFOs—have been wide and varied. In a 2019 ABC News interview, Trump told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos that he didn’t necessarily believe in UFOs himself, although he didn’t doubt the claims made by U.S. military personnel who have told him they have had encounters. “I want them to think whatever they think,” Trump told Stephanopoulos of U.S. Navy pilot reports involving UFOs in 2019, mentioning that he had “one very brief meeting on it.” “But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs,” Trump continued. “Do I believe it? Not particular.” More recently, Trump’s tone on the subject seemed to have changed, if only slightly, when he told celebrity influencer Logan Paul on his podcast that “there are some really strange things they see flying around out there,” adding that personnel he has met with “will tell you there’s something going on.” However, while speaking with Joe Rogan in a long-form interview on the comedian’s podcast shortly before the recent U.S. election, Trump seemingly reaffirmed that despite what he hears from others who claim to have had firsthand experiences, he is still not a believer himself. “It’s never been my thing,” Trump told Rogan on the podcast. “I have to be honest; I never have been a believer.” Trump then proceeded to tell Rogan about a description provided by one military pilot he spoke with, who observed “a round ball, but it wasn’t a comet or a meteor.” “It was something,” Trump told Rogan, adding that he is frequently asked about UFOs. “I get that question as much as almost any question,” Trump said. Although Trump’s own position on UFOs appears to lean skeptical, several individuals he is believed to be eyeing for positions in his new administration have expressed views on the subject in the past that could help offer a clearer perspective on how the issue of UAP transparency might be treated over the next four years. Presently, several outlets have reported Marco Rubio (R-FL) is among the leading contenders for the position of Secretary of State in Trump’s new administration (Update: Senator Rubio was subsequently confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of State following the publication of this article). Rubio, who has served for years on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has a long history of speaking publicly about UAP, and in many instances arguing against what he perceives as unnecessary government secrecy toward the subject. Last February, after the appearance of a Chinese spy balloon that was followed by a series of incidents where objects were shot down over the U.S. and Canada, Rubio expressed frustration over information that he and other lawmakers were shown during a classified briefing on Capitol Hill being withheld from the public. “95% percent of what was being discussed in that room today could be made public without compromising the security of this country,” Rubio said, adding that he had been made aware of additional reports of unusual aerial objects numbering “dozens this year alone.” “An interagency task force was created to study all of this from a scientific perspective,” Rubio said, adding that “my concern now is that the Department of Defense is not sharing that information with those scientists, so that you can compare the data we have on these instances, from the ones we have retroactively in the past, some of which have been explained, so that we have a better understanding of this.” Although Rubio has not yet been confirmed as Trump’s pick for Secretary of State as of the time of this reporting, it has recently been revealed that Mike Waltz (R-FL.) will serve as his new National Security Adviser, and like Rubio, Waltz has a past record of speaking openly about the need for U.S. government transparency on the UAP issue. “I think we need to take this incredibly seriously,” Waltz said during an interview last year, adding that he planned to ask for a briefing regarding the whistleblower claims made by David Grusch, which The Debrief was first to report on June 5, 2023. “Congress directed the Pentagon to put together an interagency task force across the intelligence community to look at all of these anomalies,” Waltz said during the interview.
__DEGRADED__ A group of former government officials and disclosure advocates told lawmakers on Wednesday that the United States government is not being transparent enough on what it knows about UFOs. The latest in a series of congressional hearings to address what the Pentagon now calls unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, the joint session was held by the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, chaired by Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), and the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, chaired by Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI.). Testifying during the hearing were Dr. Tim Gallaudet, a retired Rear Admiral of the U.S. Navy and current CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC; Luis Elizondo, a former Department of Defense official and well-known advocate for UAP disclosure; Michael Gold, former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy and Partnerships and a member of NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team, and Michael Shellenberger, founder of the website Public, where he published a recent article alleging the existence of a secretive UAP-related special access program (SAP) based on statements he says were provided to him by a U.S. government employee who remained on background. During opening remarks provided at the outset of the session, Rep. Mace alluded to pushback she reportedly received in advance of holding the hearing, adding that congressional efforts to understand the full scope of the U.S. government’s involvement with UAP investigations have had only limited success. “Congress has tried in recent years to lift the veil and find out if information about UAPs is being withheld,” Mace said, noting significant criticisms she and other lawmakers were aware of regarding a historical report produced by the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), one of several factors she said has undermined confidence in the office’s investigations. “We know there are advanced technology programs,” Rep. Moskowitz said during opening remarks, referencing past programs developed at the high-security facility in the Nevada desert known as Area 51, which has long been associated with experimental aircraft development and UFO conspiracy theories. “Americans have questions about whistleblowers that have come forward to talk about retribution,” Moskowitz added. Mace also referenced a 12-page document (a copy of which subsequently appeared online) relating to “Immaculate Constellation,” the alleged program revealed in Mr. Shellenberger’s reporting. This document, provided by Shellenberger before the hearing, was formally entered into the congressional record prior to the conclusion of opening remarks during the hearing. “Representative Luna just told me that if I say ‘Immaculate Constellation,’ I’ll be on some list,” Mace joked as she referred to the document. “Maybe a FISA warrant, so uh, come at me, bro.” During his opening remarks, Rear Admiral Gallaudet referred to his personal experience coming to learn of a now-famous U.S. Navy video, popularly known as “Go Fast,” and how an email he and others received from another U.S. Navy official disappeared following the incident. “I concluded that the UAP information must have been classified within a special access program managed by an intelligence agency — a compartmented program that even senior officials, including myself, were not read into,” Gallaudet said. “Last year’s UAP hearing before this oversight committee confirmed that UAP-related information is being withheld from senior officials and members of Congress,” Gallaudet said, adding that as recently as this week, he had “learned from former DoD official Chris Mellon that satellite imagery of UAP from a few years ago still has not been shared with Congress.” “Equally concerning, last year’s UAP hearing also revealed that elements of the government are engaged in a disinformation campaign to include personal attacks designed to discredit UAP whistleblowers,” Gallaudet added. “Let me be clear,” Mr. Elizondo said following Gallaudet’s remarks. “UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government—or any other government—are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe.” “I believe that America’s greatness depends on three elements,” Elizondo added.
__DEGRADED__ The new director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) confirmed to lawmakers on Tuesday that the U.S. is investigating what he characterized as “some very anomalous objects,” while providing an update on the Defense Department’s ongoing investigations into unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). Dr. Jon Kosloski, who assumed the role of Director of AARO in August, made the comments during a hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities overseen by U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). In his opening statements, Kosloski pledged that his office would continue to share information about AARO’s findings at the unclassified level, discussing several UAP cases his office has investigated, including a series of incidents which AARO says have now been resolved. One of these, referred to as “The Puerto Rico Object,” involved a video of a purported UAP filmed in April 2013 from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The video has been been a subject of independent public investigation and debate now for many years. Kosloski told lawmakers the object in the video was assessed with high confidence by his office not to display any evidence of anomalous speeds or flight characteristics, and was “likely a pair of balloons or sky lanterns,” which Kosloski said had been “floating at about seven knots over the airport.” Examples of AARO’s resolved reports also included a now-famous U.S. Navy video commonly known as “Go Fast” that first came to public knowledge in 2017, which Kosloski says represents an example of parallax. “Through a very careful geospatial and intelligence analysis using trigonometry, we assess with high confidence that the object is not actually close to the water, but is rather closer to 13,000 feet,” Kosloski said. “A trick of the eye called parallax makes it look like the object is moving much faster,” Kosloski added, referencing a report on parallax previously uploaded to AARO’s official website. Another resolved UAP case, filmed in the Mediterranean from a drone observing the eruption of Mount Etna in 2018, appears to show a small object passing through the plume of superheated gas and ash produced by the volcano. “This was a rather difficult case to resolve,” Kosloski said. “Through very detailed 3D modeling and pixel by pixel analysis of the object as it’s traversing across the clouds, the assess that the object was actually 170 meters away from the plume, and not flying through it.” However, while many cases have been resolved by AARO, Dr. Kosloski cautioned against any perception that his office does not find at least some of the reports it receives genuinely anomalous. “To be clear, AARO does not believe that every object is a bird, a balloon, or a UAV,” Kosloski said, adding that “we do have some very anomalous objects.” Kosloski also said that his office has worked to ensure that U.S. personnel with information related to UAP or alleged U.S. government programs associated with such phenomena feel comfortable coming forward and speaking to AARO. “We take that responsibility and those authorities very seriously,” Kosloski said, adding that he and his staff “have been reaching out to the broader community, encouraging folks who had talked to AARO personnel in the past, and maybe felt uncomfortable to come back to us.” Prior to Kosloski’s appointment as AARO Director, the office’s investigations were led by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, who is currently the Chief Technology Officer for Defense and Intelligence Programs within the National Security Sciences Directorate (NSSD) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was unclear during Tuesday’s hearing whether Kosloski’s references to past instances where U.S. personnel may have felt uncomfortable speaking with AARO investigators had occurred during Kirkpatrick’s tenure. However, Kosloski told lawmakers that AARO has recently been “making great progress,” adding that several firsthand witnesses his office had spoken to about their UAP sightings “do feel comfortable coming back to us.” Asked by Senator Gillibrand about UAP cases that merit further investigation, Kosloski explained that while some cases with insufficient data are placed into an active archive, there are others involving reportedly anomalous objects that AARO deems to be worthy of additional analysis. One particularly intriguing unresolved case that Kosloski described involved a large orange orb or sphere observed floating several hundred feet above the ground by a law enforcement officer in the Western United States.
__DEGRADED__ A new petition is urging the Canadian government to establish a national task force and standardized protocols for UAP investigations, advocating transparency, public trust, and international collaboration. Conservative party member Larry Maguire is no stranger to actively petitioning the Canadian government for UAP transparency. Recently, Maguire published a petition on the Canadian Parliament of Canada House of Commons Chamber website, asking Canadians to sign a UAP transparency petition before Jan 19 at 2:17 p.m. EST. Labeled as e-5178 (National defence and military operations) and initiated by Benjamin Bruce Schofield from Winnipeg, Manitoba, the petition sponsored by Maguire establishes the grounds for why they are asking Canadians to take action. These include recent discussions about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) highlight the need for a coordinated and transparent approach in Canada, and how UAP-related information is scattered across departments, leading to inconsistent responses. “I was approached by Benjamin Schofield who initiated the petition and I agreed to act as its official parliamentary sponsor,” Maguire told The Debrief. “It’s great to see some grassroots advocacy on this topic and it ultimately aligns well with my long-standing efforts to push for UAP transparency.” The petition also argues that Canadian allies, like the United States, have made significant strides with dedicated offices and public reporting mechanisms, and Canada could benefit from similar efforts to enhance national security, public safety, and scientific understanding. Both Maguire and Schofield advise that the citizens of Canada should call on the government to take action regarding UAP, urging the establishment of a National Task Force on UAPs, comprising representatives from the Department of National Defence, Transport Canada, Public Safety Canada, and scientific experts, to investigate, analyze, and publicly report UAP activities. They also request the development of standardized protocols for UAP reporting and investigation to ensure timely information sharing across government and scientific bodies for consistent and effective responses, and advocate for creating a secure, centralized public reporting system for UAPs that is accessible to all Canadians and has regular updates to promote transparency and public trust. “In general, Canadians want their government to be transparent, and this extends to UAP,” Maguire said. “I’ve heard from folks across the country who want some forward momentum on determining the origin and intent of UAP. In order to achieve this, we need the coordinated and transparent approach this petition calls for.” The petition also calls for active engagement in international collaborations for UAP research and study, leveraging collective expertise and data from allied nations to better understand these phenomena. “I have always been clear that our current approach to UAP monitoring is haphazard and leaves too much room for speculation,” Maguire said. “At the end of the day, the main call behind this petition is for a coordinated and transparent approach to determine the origin and intent of UAPs.” Asked whether he was concerned about potential stigma or skepticism surrounding UAP research, and what approaches might be most effective in addressing it, Maguire said that he feels more work is needed to help overcome stigmas that currently still hamper UAP reporting. “Stigma has always played a role in limiting the advancement of important research on this topic. As more and more reputable individuals come forward and share what they know, such as the recent congressional hearings in the US, the public will have more opportunities to engage with the facts and reconsider how they might view this issue,” Maguire said. “In Canada, this will hopefully include recommendations from the Chief Science Advisor’s upcoming Sky Canada Project,” he added. MP Larry Maguire is the second Canadian politician to step forward and actively ask for government UAP transparency since Former Minister of Defense Paul Hellyer went public in 2005 with his positions on the issue, which included his belief that the U.S. government and other world powers have had ongoing interactions with extraterrestrials. Starting in 2021, Maguire has called for further investigation into UAPs and advocated for an official response from the Canadian government to address the potential national security implications. “Transparency is important to all of us,” Maguire told The Debrief. “We should expect our public institutions to coordinate with one another and be transparent with the public in general, but especially when we’re talking about UAP reports in our skies.” “The excessive secrecy is absurd,” Maguire also said.
