Thursday, May 19, 2022

Coast to Coast AM - More on the Congressional UAP Hearings

 

I sat through the 87 minutes of the public hearing on UFOs, I mean UAPs, and have to say, I pretty much predicted what would happen. The very second question or comment wondered about Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security Ronald Moultier’s interest in science fiction and claim that he had even attended science fiction conventions. I might be a little sensitive about this because for decades, many criticized me as a science fiction writer who was capable of creating imaginative scenarios. I often wondered why my day job disqualified me from UFO research when dozens of members of the Science Fiction Writers of America were working scientists.

Moultier and Carson, the committee chairman, mentioned their discussion about all this last week, in which, I suppose, the science fiction connection was the topic. And watching the hearing as it progressed, or rather thinking about it later, I wondered if that was the only feature that was stage managed. Although the media reports focused on UFOs, I mean UAPs, I noticed, that as I had feared, the emphasis was on national security. There was repeated discussion about Russia and China developing technologies that were beyond those we had. They mentioned that it was necessary to collect intelligence on these encounters and because the collection methods and sensor arrays used could provide our competitors with information about our abilities, much of this will remain classified.

There was talk about reducing the ridicule factor so that our military personnel, regardless of job, would feel comfortable in reporting their observations and encounters. I wonder how affective that might be given the long history of ridicule directed at those who did report UFOs in some official way. It is very difficult to stamp out behavior that is decades old.

And, while some say that it is already working based on an “increase” in reports, that seems to be inaccurate. The increase from 144 to 400 refers to historic reports and very few new sightings. Everything in those hearings seemed to be misdirection and obscuration.

Almost all the discussion dealt with national security, though we were treated with two videos. One was used to explain the fleeting nature of some of the encounters. On the video, the image flashed by so fast that almost no one saw it. The presenter, Scott Bray, described as the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, repeated the video, attempting to freeze the frame on the image for several minutes. I have to wonder why he didn’t think to also bring in a still to show that image.

Scott Bray trying to find the UAP image at the congressional hearing.


The other video was of a triangular object that had been filmed through night vision goggles with a digital camera. I talked about that here months ago, complete with a link to show how it was done and what it meant.

Only one of the congressional representatives seemed to have arrived with any knowledge of UFO history. He asked about the sightings from Malstrom Air Force Base in April 1967. While a UFO was reported over a launch control facility, a flight of ten ballistic missiles went off-line, which meant, in the event of a war and a command to launch, they would have remained in the silos. A true matter of national security. Neither man said they knew of the sightings, but then one said he’d heard rumors. You can learn more about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/12/coast-to-coast-belt-montana-ufo-sighting.html

And, I have a longer analysis about this case in Government UFO Files. You can find a link to the book on the left side of the blog.

This, of course, takes us to the short discussion of subject matter experts. I had thought they were referring to UFO researchers who’d been around for decades such as Jerry Clark, Michael Swords, Barry Greenwood and Jan Alrich, to name but a few. No, they were talking about physicists, meteorologists, aviation experts and the like. Apparently, no thought was given to asking for a little assistance in dealing with all the UFO information that has been collected over the years. I guess looking at some of this information like the Levelland sightings, or Rendlesham Forest or the Socorro Landing would lead in directions they might not want to follow.

To me, and many of my colleagues, these hearing were a great disappointment and the idea of alien visitation was rarely mentioned. As I say, the full analysis can be found in a couple of earlier postings here.

That doesn’t mean that good work isn’t being done even if it is considered as amateurist by these new experts. From MUFON’s Case Management System comes a report from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on January 26 of this year. The witness said that he watched as a craft hover over the woods. There were three lights, that he thought were field lights until they moved. He said they performed low-level stealth maneuvers for three minutes. A military helicopter arrived, following the lights. The witness took video.

The sighting was investigated by Samuel Whittington, Kentucky’s MUFON Chief Field Investigator. In his report, he wrote:

The craft hovered about a forested area where… it then dipped below the trees as if to land. The craft remained briefly below the trees before I rose again and flew off, only to be intercepted by a military helicopter. Both aircraft soon left the area…. The way the object banks to maneuver is not unprecedented…

Although it was thought the UFO might have landed, Whittington was unable to visit that area. Weather, both rain and ice, intervened, and the witness wasn’t positive about the landing or where the craft might have touched down anyway.

Whittington’s conclusion was that the witness saw an Unknown Aerial Vehicle. This was reported in the May issue of The MUFON Journal.

For those interested, I’ll keep an eye on this new UFO investigating organization, but given what we have been told, and although they claim transparency, I suspect we won’t see much that will be of interest to us.

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