Friday, August 04, 2023

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick Responds to David Grusch Testimony

 

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, who heads up the AARO program seems to disagree with some of the statements made by David Grusch about a multi-decade program to collect and reverse engine UFOs. Kirkpatrick has said that in his official capacity to investigate UFOs, he had seen nothing to suggest that there is alien visitation but there are some sightings that are not easily explained. Grush is saying, that in his capacity as a whistleblower that he had heard reports of alien visitation, that he has talked with those who have direct, meaning first-hand knowledge of crash/retrievals, saying that the government not only knows more but that they have recovered alien spacecraft and the bodies of the flight crews.

Sean Kirkpatrick at the Senate Hearing.


If you ask me which of these two I believe, I’m going to say that I want to believe Grusch because his statements validate my research and investigation over the last five decades. But that is what I want to believe.

Grusch giving testimony at the Congressional Hearing.


Kirkpatrick, saying that he had seen no evidence of this crash retrieval program and knows of no such program, is probably telling the truth. I will note, however, that his not knowing of the program is not quite the same thing as saying there is no such program.

What can we deduce from all of this?

I look back on the history of UFO research and investigation by various components of the US Government and see they make these sorts of opposing statements. Those who are supposedly in the loop and those outside the loop often contradict each other. In 1948, the Navy and the Air Force launched an investigation into UFOs. The officers who prepared the document, “Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79,” which was dated December 10, 1948, noted that they did not have access to all areas of military secrecy. They wrote, in part:

THE ORIGIN of the devices is not ascertainable. There are two reasonable possibilities: (1) The objects are domestic devices, and if so, their identification or origin can be established by a survey of the launchings of airborne devices… (2) Objects are foreign, and if so, it would seem most logical to consider that they are from a Soviet Source…

SINCE the Air Force is responsible for control of the air in defense of the U.S., it is imperative that all other agencies cooperate in confirming or denying the possibility that these objects are of domestic origin. Otherwise, if it is firmly indicated that there is no domestic explanation, the objects are a threat and warrant more active efforts of identification and interception…

IT must be accepted that some type of flying objects have been observed, although their identification and origin are not discernible. In the interest of national defense it would be unwise to overlook the possibility that some of the objects are of foreign origin.

I thought this important because this is where we are today. Please note the language used here and the conclusions drawn. And please note that we are no closer to an answer today then we were way back then.

What we have are two rather credible people, and I say rather because there is still much, we don’t know, who are at opposite ends of the spectrum. One of them saying yes there are and the other saying no there are not.

Others have suggested, after reading Kirkpatrick’s letter that he, Kirkpatrick, was calling the witnesses, that is Grush, David Fravor and Ryan Graves, liars. I see nothing to suggest that Kirkpatrick was calling either of the Navy pilots liars and it seems he might be annoyed with Grasch, he wasn’t really calling him a liar either.

Kirkpatrick, expressing his displeasure with the Congressional hearings that feature those three had written:

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, many with not unreasonable anxieties about career risks this would entail.

They are truth-seekers, as am I. But you certainly would not get that impression from yesterday’s hearing.

Well, that wasn’t my impression. True, Grusch hinted at some strong consequences from his blowing the whistle, but it might be said that those problems came from the possible exposure of classified material. It might be that his superiors were worried about the compromise of legally classified material, some of which might not have a thing to do with UFOs, or UAPs.

Yes, what Grusch said was spectacular, but it must also be remembered that he was talking about things he had been told and things he had heard, but almost nothing of a first-hand nature. He would reveal those in closed sessions.

The problem for me was his claim that there had been a crash of an alien craft in Italy in 1933. This has been researched by colleagues in Italy including Edordo Russo. who has provided evidence of a hoax. Certainly, nothing revealed about this case could adversely affect national security. Certainly, if Grusch was on the inside as he claims, he would not have been fooled by this hoax.

So, while the news media, and many in the UFO community, are talking about lies and infighting, I think it boils down to two separate entities with ties to intelligence and information about UFOs, disagreeing with the importance of that evidence and the reliability of the sources. As I have said before, if we don’t know the sources and the cases, we can’t draw intelligent conclusions about the veracity of the information. All we can say is that Grush seems to be credible and that Kirkpatrick is the man in charge of AARO. At the moment, they seem to be opposed to one another but there might become a time when they are in agreement.

All we have are some rather astonishing allegations by Grusch and some hints that many of the most recent sightings have mundane solutions according to Kirkpatrick. Currently, we just don’t know which path to follow to the end but all the speculation isn’t really helping.

The mainstream media, when they don’t have facts or information, resort to repeating themselves and speculating about what is happening. They don’t really know either and have no special inside knowledge but that hasn’t ever stopped them from throwing out whatever strange comment they can think of.

I will point out that all the calls for transparency have been ignored and until we can lift that shroud of silence, we really won’t have the answers we seek. As many have suggested, we need a little patience, but I fear the bloom will come off this rose, especially with all the election nonsense going on (and what I mean here is that the election is more than a year in the future and can’t we take a break from the campaigning), interest in solving the UFO puzzle might just be switched to the back burner until it is conveniently forgotten.

11 comments:

Sky70 said...

At the end of the day, NO evidence in any form was presented to the investigation team by the whistleblowers. They came with wagging tongues but no proof at all, how can anyone take them as credible, witnesses? What they have presented is all hearsay, and nothing more, and their hearsay would never be admitted into any court of law. I like (and laugh) when they are questioned about their claims, and then they fall back on the "classified" & "national security" card(s), for not revealing what they claim! Yet they are blabbing about it to anyone who will listen.

Paul Young said...

@ Sky70...
What are you talking about?
Both David Fravor and Ryan Graves presented first hand accounts, not "hearsay".
Not only did they have eyeballs on the UFO's, but what they were seeing was backed by camera footage and with radar, on both the aircraft they were flying and on the ships they were operating from.
You don't become highly trained Navy fighter pilots if you are some unstable mug off the streets.
If they are not "credible witnesses" then I have to wonder, who is?

KRandle said...

Paul Young -

My concern is not Fravor or Graves. They both offered firsthand accounts of what they saw... however, I was referring to Sean Kirkpatrick's letter in which he lumped all three together. I have no quarrel with either Navy pilots (other than they were in the Navy... just a little humor). I do see some red flags in the testimony provided by David Grusch. He provided no sources, said he had seen nothing himself and deflected questions by suggesting he would discuss it in closed sessions. To make it worse, he did reference, obliquely, the 1933 Italian crash which colleagues in Italy have suggested is a hoax.

So, the point here was to respond to Kirkpatrick's assessment, to suggest that we have gone through all this before and to point out some of the problems with the testimony... offered, not by Fravor or Graves, but with that of Grusch.

Sky70 said...

@Paul Young: When a witness(s) brings a hard-core piece of evidence to an investigation so that the scientific method can be used on it, then they might be credible. And ALL discovery information must be shared with its associated peer group for a double check. None of this was even presented in that media/TV meeting, except for a lot of wagging tongues expressing hearsay. This was just a UAP/UFO circus show case, that has happened before, and you know it. Like, "where's the beef?"

Louis Nicholson said...

Kevin and Sku70-

I hear what you are saying, but (1) like I said before, Grush could not legally divulge his sources in public but made it clear under oath that he was willing to give Congress those sources in a classified setting the same day of the hearing, and (2) its my understanding that Congress (including the certain Senators) and the Inspector General investigating Grusch's claims have already been given the names of the firsthand crash retrieval witnesses and locations, that is why Schumer has introduced that very strong UFO bill and (3) several more UFO hearings are planned.

I think we have since 2017 seen a sea change on this UFO issue and we should be patient to see what develops in stead of labeling things that don't nullify our impatience as "circus show case(s)."

Matt Colborn said...

Hi Kevin --

This is a more general comment on the current UFO (or UAP) controversy. I've been interested in the UFO/UAP problem for many years, so I'm aware of the long-standing controversies over the best interpretations of the UAP problem. However, with respect to the current controversies, I'm finding it hard to make a judgment. The main question that keeps occurring is this:

With respect to the recent data, do we really have any grounds at all for thinking that there is anything exotic, let alone Extraterrestrial, going on?

For some time, I've been following the work of Vicent-Juan Ballester Olmos. He seems to be emerging as a major critic of UFOlogy. And I often find his arguments stronger/more persuasive than those of the advocates of an ET explanation of some UAPS.

(Or at least, I've read very few strong refutations of the points he makes — one frustrating thing about this is when advocates ignore the strongest arguments of their opponents.)

In fact, he just published a damning analysis of the hearing, readable here:

https://www.academia.edu/105349567/The_UFO_Whistleblower_Hearing?email_work_card=title

The article includes a more general, scathing critique of pilot testimony.

Quote: "....dispassionate research proves that well-documented and properly briefed air encounters tend to lead to full rational explanations, or reasonably match naturally occurring phenomena or man-made objects. Those that remain debatable are likely due to a lack of comprehensive information." (p. 3)

This seems to me a re-iteration of the old skeptical argument that if we had all of the relevant data, then the UAP/UFO problem would not exist. I'm not sure that I 100 % buy that claim, but every time a major case dissolves I think that Olmos' basic position is strengthened. And from my POV, rather a lot of major UFO/UAP claims do seem to have dissolved over the years.

I would like to ask what you think: do we still have any strong reason to think that there is more to the UAP/UFO problem than witness errors, hoaxes and/or disinformation? I have read some of your books, so I guess you think that there are some more or less compelling historical cases out there (e.g. Levelland). But what about the recent material, say post-2000? Is this really all a storm in a tea cup?

John-Paul Gagliano said...

Kevin, I appreciated your reference to Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79. I have a friend currently working in Air Force geo-spatial intel, and he seems to be another victim of the notion that if his employer were sitting on recovered alien spacecraft, he'd know about it. Nothing I said could convince him of the highly compartmented nature of the national security state. "Need to know" were, apparently, words with which he was unfamiliar.

Also, I think you make a good point about Kirkpatrick. I admit that, when watching the hearing, I became more than a little frustrated at learning that he had "called out" the witnesses, yet I know it's wise to pause and remember that he could be as much in the dark as the general public.

Lastly, Grusch promised to meet with house reps in SCIFs at later times. Do you believe these follow-up meetings will materialize?

John-Paul Gagliano said...

Kevin, I appreciated your reference to Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79. I have a friend currently working in Air Force geo-spatial intel, and he seems to be another victim of the notion that if his employer were sitting on recovered alien spacecraft, he'd know about it. Nothing I said could convince him of the highly compartmented nature of the national security state. "Need to know" were, apparently, words with which he was unfamiliar.

Also, I think you make a good point about Kirkpatrick. I admit that, when watching the hearing, I became more than a little frustrated at learning that he had "called out" the witnesses, yet I know it's wise to pause and remember that he could be as much in the dark as the general public.

Lastly, Grusch promised to meet with house reps in SCIFs at later times. Do you believe these follow-up meetings will materialize?

John-Paul Gagliano said...

Kevin, I appreciated your reference to Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79. I have a friend currently working in Air Force geo-spatial intel, and he seems to be another victim of the notion that if his employer were sitting on recovered alien spacecraft, he'd know about it. Nothing I said could convince him of the highly compartmented nature of the national security state. "Need to know" were, apparently, words with which he was unfamiliar.

Also, I think you make a good point about Kirkpatrick. I admit that, when watching the hearing, I became more than a little frustrated at learning that he had "called out" the witnesses, yet I know it's wise to pause and remember that he could be as much in the dark as the general public.

Lastly, Grusch promised to meet with house reps in SCIFs at later times. Do you believe these follow-up meetings will materialize?

Moonman said...

What is this show on your Itunes channel about Kenneth Hopkins? Are you trying to be funny?

Byron Weber said...

Regarding the 1933 Italian ufo, research the Naval Ordnance Laboratory built in 1944 in Maryland, the same year the ufo was purportedly recovered by the USA. The lab subsequently invented a memory metal (recall the Roswell statements, and it is now described as "like no other metal on earth") and a metal (BiMg) described by Hal Putoff as a recovered crash retrieval metal. In addition, Bardeen, one of the Nobel Prize recipients for the invention of the transistor, worked there. It's worth checking out.