Restoring Public Trust through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection - An Analysis

 Well, that was a colossal waste of time. There was nothing there that we haven’t seen before. Oh, don’t get me wrong, a few nuggets dropped, but I don’t think many picked them up.

I’m talking about the “Restoring Public Trust through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection,” hearing. That long title tells us little about what we witnessed as Congressional representatives, led by Anna Paulina Luna, talked about the importance of transparency and the courage of those who had come forward to tell us tales that are basically unsupported by additional witnesses or evidence gathered through instrumentality such as radar and other sensor arrays.

Just last week, I reported on a man who appeared in the documentary Age of Disclosure. He said that he had seen non-human craft and non-human bodies. One of the representatives at this meeting, Eric Burlison was so unimpressed by this revelation that he mentioned he wasn’t interested in talking with Jay Stratton. I believed that when it as announced that first-hand witnesses would be interrogated at this hearing, we would be hearing from other first-hand sources about their encounters with those non-human aliens and description of close-up examination of those non-human craft.

After having to listen to the opening statements by Luna and Representative Jasmine Crockett, which told us more about her political bias than it did about alien visitation, we got down to the witnesses. Not one of them talked about first-hand experience that involved those non-human aliens. They didn’t talk about seeing the bodies rumored to have been stored at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, or at the now closed Lowry Air Force Base near Denver. They had personal sightings or some experience in the government that dealt with whistleblowers or George Knapp, who managed to see Soviet and now Russian files on their UFO investigations.

Representative Anna Paulina Luna, committee chair.

I will note that Representative Luna was not overly impressed with the former head of AARO, Sean Kirkpatrick. She called him a documented liar and believed he dismissed all evidence that might suggest that UFOs were nothing more than Earth-based technology or misidentifications without proper investigation. In other arenas she said that he blocked information and discredited witnesses. She was responding to Kirkpatrick’s claim calling the hearings a parade of “charlatans and grifters.” This suggested a somewhat open hostility by Kirkpatrick to the idea of alien visitation which was the problem with Project Blue Book until it was closed in 1969. That is, a long list of those in charge of Blue Book rejected the idea of alien visitation out of hand with no regard to any evidence presented to the contrary.

The hearing room with the witnesses standing to take their oath.

At this latest hearing, there was Jeff Nuccetelli, who is an Air Force veteran who had a role in the investigation of a mass UFO sightings at Vandenberg AFB beginning in 2003. Yes, he saw a strange craft and he spoke with the witnesses and gathered evidence of the sightings there. His sighting wasn’t particularly impressive but it was a first-hand account.

Alexandro Wiggins, a former Navy Chief Petty Officer, talked about his sighting on the USS Jackson in 2023, that involved all sorts of instrumentality. He saw four glowing objects come out of the ocean and take off into the sky without breaking formation. A somewhat better documented case but didn’t involve a close-up view of alien bodies or those craft that shot out of the ocean.

Dylan Borland, who tells us about harassment by government officials, including the loss of his job as a Geospatial Intelligence Analyst for the Air Force. That was a result of his sighting of glowing triangle that took off from Langley AFB. Although there were no other witnesses because of the late hour, the close approach of the UFO caused his cell phone to fail. After he reported his sighting, his life and career took a dramatic turn. He lost his job and can’t find another in his field of expertise. For those paying attention, apparently his unemployment benefits are going to expire in just a few weeks.

And then there was Joe Spielberger, who was described as the Senior Policy Counsel with the Project On Government Oversight, known as POGO. He wasn’t there to talk about a first-hand UFO sighting or an observation of those rumored alien bodies, but to talk about whistleblowers and the way the government operates when dealing with them. If he had any first-hand knowledge of UFOs (like Representative Burkett, I don’t like UAP) he never mentioned it.

Here’s where the hearing, at least for me, slipped off the rails. Not one of the witnesses had any first-hand knowledge of alien creatures. Those who had seen craft, were talking about watching something anomalous in the atmosphere and not the remains of a wrecked, well, flying saucer. They were witnesses to their own sightings, often without the benefit, for the most part, of corroborating witnesses or electronic data.

It was George Knapp’s talk of his investigations in Russia that caught my attention. I’m not sure if others caught it, but he talked of a Russian colonel who told him about an intrusion at a Russian missile base that knocked out the base’s ability to respond, if necessary, to an attack by another nation. I found this interesting because of the 1967 intrusion on one of the missile fields controlled by Malmstrom Air Force Base. A large glowing disc seemed to knockout one and possibly two flights of missiles. According to the theory of the time, an outside force taking the missiles off-line is something that was supposed to be impossible. Our Air Force claimed that it was some sort of technical glitch such as an EMP, but that would have taken out more than just the missiles. Knapp did mention that the Russians didn’t spring the EMP excuse on him as the source of the problem. It was something off-world.

George Knapp talking about a Russian 
missile site intrusion.

For those might be interested in more about the Malmstrom Air Force Base intrusion, see:

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

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2025/06/aaro-uap-wall-street-journal-somewhat.html

There is some duplication of information in these two postings, but they provide a good analysis of those sightings and the activity around Belt, Montana at the time. There are other links embedded in those articles.

The other point is that each of the men telling their whistleblower tales, talked about harassment by government officials, careers that were derailed, loss of security clearances and therefore income, and now having reputations that suggest they are less than reliable keeping them from finding other work.

Okay, much of that was somewhat interesting, but we’ve heard all this before by others. We have heard impressive first-hand reports of UFOs and we have heard about the suppression of the information. Just watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind when the air traffic controllers ask the pilots of an airliner if they want to report their UFO sighting. They say, “No,” telling us that there is a price to pay for saying they have seen a UFO. I could list several pilots who have found themselves grounded after reporting UFOs and few return to the cockpit. Just ask Captain Kenju Terauchi of JAL 1628 about his experiences after reporting a UFO.

We were treated to another video was what has been called a drone flying near US Naval vessels. That drone was attacked by a hellfire missile and we see the impact but moments later, the drone, apparently undamaged flies away at highspeed. An interesting bit of video that was kept under wraps for months and tends to support the theory of alien technology. This was not the first report of an attempted intercept that failed. At one point, orders had been issued to fighter pilots to shoot down a UFO.

One frame from the video showing the UFO after it
had been hit by a hellfire missile.

Even with that video, I was disappointed because I thought we might get to learn who some of those first-hand witnesses to alien bodies might be. David Grusch talked about them months ago but we still don’t know who they are. (I was going to say that we have no clue, but I believe I do have clues about who they are.) You can see my long list of Grusch’s sources here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/04/david-grusch-and-his-ufo-crashes.html

I will note one other thing. I reported last week on Coast-to-Coast AM that Eric Burlison was unimpressed with Jay Stratton, who claimed to have seen non-human bodies. Burlison made a couple of comments that suggested he was pretending to have an open mind on the subject but it was clear to me he was on the far side of the fence. Apparently, he didn’t want someone who would claim to have seen non-human bodies to testify in front of a congressional committee. That might be a reason that the Roswell case was ignored.

And I can’t close this rather limited and quick analysis without making one other comment. “Roswell.” Here is the case that would break this all wide open. Don Schmitt, Tom Carey and I have spoken with many first-hand witnesses to the alien nature of the crash, we have gathered some interesting written evidence, and have statements from the children of the witnesses, including Jesse Marcel, Jr., whose father was the Air Intelligence Officer at the Roswell Army Air Field during those days in early July 1947. That’s not to mention that Marcel had talks with his father about what he had seen. Jesse Jr. also handled some of that strange metallic debris collected by his father. Yes, those witnesses have passed, but we have written and audio and videotaped interviews with those claiming first-hand knowledge of non-human entities and craft.

My take away from this hearing was that nothing has changed. Here we are, years down the road, and while Congress is expressing an interest in the topic, they have had yet to get to the heart of the matter. Sightings by sincere witnesses who have nothing other than their tales of seeing the unusual craft. Stories of government harassment to keep them quiet and a still somewhat skeptical press that refuses to spend any time digging for more information… Sorry, George, I don’t include you in with those who wink at the tales of alien visitation. You have put in the work.

The point is, we are now decades down this road and we are doing the same thing we have done before. We even had a “scientific” study of UFOs by scientists at the University of Colorado, who fifty years ago told us there was nothing to UFO sightings and it was a waste of time and money to continue the investigations. This was accepted as gospel. This latest round of interest in UFOs proves that their conclusions were wrong.

How long will this charade last? Are we really on the road to Disclosure, or are we being set up for another eventually conclusion there is nothing alien about UFO sightings? We can then spend another fifty years wondering about the truth because we don’t have it yet.

David Grusch and the Canadian Letter

 

For all those who had asked, yes, I have seen the Canadian letter that George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell talked about. Yes, it is interesting, but not necessarily for the reasons some have suggested. And while it is interesting, it doesn’t, exactly, validate the information shared by David Grusch but does suggest an interest in the topic of UFO crashes by a Canadian government official.

George Knapp

Oh, and while some have questioned the authenticity of the letter, it is real.

In the last several weeks, we have been bombarded by UFO stories, NASA committee meetings and Senate hearings. Although nothing of real substance came from the meetings, hearings and now this letter, it does suggest a change in attitude. The letter does not confirm what David Crush was saying, but it does demonstrate a new interest in the topic at the higher levels of various governments. No longer are we subjected to the tongue-in-the-cheek snide comments by educated people who are too sophisticated to believe that UFOs might represent an alien technology. Now, we see those educated people wondering if the information leaking might not have an undercurrent of legitimacy. Just maybe this is something that should be watched.

I see from the various Internet discussions I have with colleagues around the world, that all this demands a cautious approach. We don’t want to be overly enthusiastic about the information without having the opportunity to vet that information. We need sources and documents to do that.

There is one point in the Canadian Letter that I haven’t seen addressed anywhere and that refers to a 1950 interest in the topic. A Manitoba member of Parliament, Larry Maguire, wrote to the Canadian Minister of Defence, concerning the new or renewed interest in what is now called UAPs. The sentence that caught my eye said, “As Minister of National Defence, you may not be aware Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) has participated in efforts to analyze UAP [UFO], which is publicly traceable to circa 1950.”

Larry Maguire

It was the 1950 date that drew my attention because that seems to relate to what has become known as the Sarbacher episode. According to William Steinman, he received a copy of an interview between Robert I. Sarbacher and Wilbert B. Smith that was conducted on September 15, 1950. The interview notes apparently were made by Lieutenant Colonel Bremer:

Smith: I am doing some work on the collapse of the earth’s magnetic field as a source of energy, and I think our work may have a bearing on the flying saucers.

Sarbacher: What do you want to know?

Smith: I have read Scully’s book [Behind the Flying Saucers] on the saucers and I would like to know how much of it is true.

Sarbacher: The facts reported in the book are substantially true.

Smith: Then the saucers exist?

Sarbacher: Yes, they exist.

Smith: Do they operate as Scully suggests on magnetic principles?

Sarbacher: We have not been able to duplicate their performance.

Smith: Do they come from some other planet?

Sarbacher: All we know is, we didn’t make them, and it’s pretty certain they didn’t originate on earth.

Smith: I understand the whole subject of saucers is classified.

Sarbacher: Yes, it is classified two points higher than the H-bomb. In fact it is the most highly classified subject in the U.S. Government at the present time.

Smith: May I ask the reason for the classification?

Sarbacher: You may ask, but I can’t tell you.

There was a final note that said the interview was written from memory but he, and I don’t know which he it was, though I suspect it was Lieutenant Colonel Bremer who “tried to keep it as nearly verbatum [sic] as possible.”

Steinman contacted Sarbacher about the conversation. Sarbacher confirmed that the interview had taken place. Steinman followed up with additional questions, which Sarbacher answered. On November 29, 1983, Sarbacher sent a letter to Steinman. The pertinent parts of that letter follow:

Relating to my own experiences regarding recovered flying saucers, I had no association with any of the people involved in the recovery [Steinman had supplied a list of names who were alleged members of MJ-12] and have no knowledge regarding the dates of recovery.

I did receive some official reports when I was in my office at the Pentagon but all those were left there as at the time, we were never supposed to take them out of the office.

About the only thing I remember at this time is that certain material reported to have come from flying saucer crashes were extremely light and tough.

I will note here that this exchange took place in 1983, after the publication of The Roswell Incident, but the idea of UFO crashes was not wide spread in the general public and I have no way of knowing if Sarbacher was familiar with the story. It was only after 1990 that the Roswell information exploded.

However, and relevant to the discussion is information reported by others. According to Dr. Bruce Maccabee and Jerry Clark, Sarbacher was “ignorant of UFO history.” They reported that he didn’t even know what Project Blue Book was, which suggests that Sarbacher had not been contaminated by all the reporting about the Roswell crash.

Sarbacher, in that same letter, wrote, “I remember in talking with some of the people at the office that I got the impression these ‘aliens’ were constructed like certain insects we have observed on earth, wherein because of the low mass the inertial forces involved in operation of these instruments would be quite low.”

This story received widespread coverage in the UFO community. Both Stan Friedman and Jerry Clark contacted Sarbacher and he confirmed the accuracy of what Steinman had reported, meaning that the notes and conclusions were accurate, but the information might be considered speculative. It was also noted that Sarbacher’s information was all second hand. He had read reports, he had talked with people involved but he had seen nothing himself.

There is one other important point. Sarbacher had been a member of the Research and Development Board, where some of the UFO information had been discussed. T. Scott Crain interviewed Fred A. Darwin who had served as the executive director of the board. Darwin told Crain:

Bob Sarbacher… had virtually no connection with the activities of the Research and Development Board… I got Bob appointed to membership on the Guidance and Control Panel. After a couple of months, the Chairman requested his replacement; he never came to the meetings.

This does not, of course, negate what Sarbacher had written to Steinman and told others. It only suggests that his information about the flying saucer crashes falls into the category of hearsay rather than observation.

I believe that the reference in Maguire’s letter was to this information, the Canadian connection to it and a desire to ensure that proper authorities in Canada were aware of some of the UFO history.

What this letter tells me is that Maguire was concerned about Canadian involvement in the renewed interest in UFOs, and that he wanted to alert the Defence Minister about it, in case he wasn’t current on UFO history.

While the letter does mention the renewed interest in UFOs, and the US Congress interest in the topic, it says nothing about the reliability of David Grusch’s information. And, if he was referring to the 1950 information, I suspect he was, then this does little to validate that data. We are left right where we began, which is without public corroboration of Grusch’s claims. It is just another instant of second-hand stories that seem to provide important clues about UFOs and it does suggest where some of the information that Grusch talks about originated. It just is not the smoking gun that we need.

Coast to Coast - EM Effects and UAPs

 

As those of you who visit here know, I am not a fan of the latest UAP report, which I think of as little more than a poor high school report. It tells us nothing, really, other than there have been incidents, most of which are unexplained. We don’t really know much about them.

However, I am a fan of tales of Electromagnetic Effects such as those encountered in Levelland, Texas, in 1957. I have been working on a book about that and made a of couple interesting discoveries. First, it seems to me that these cases, in which the UFO interacted with the environment provide something more than just a witness statement about the passing of the UFO. It caused engines to stall, lights to dim, and other assorted effects which is an important side effect.

I will note here that there was a wave of these types of sightings in 1954 in Europe, notably France and in South America. In many of these cases, the witness not only had a vehicle stopped by the approach of the UFO, they also reported that they felt a tingling and sometimes paralysis.

There were also reports of alien creatures associated with many of the sightings. For example, near Sassier, France, Henri Gallois and Louis Vigneron, were driving to a fair when they felt electric shocks, the engine died and the headlights failed. They were paralyzed and some fifty yards away saw t round object sitting on the ground. Three small figures disappeared into the UFO, which took off. At that point the headlights came on, the paralysis ended and they could start the engine. A resident living nearby also reported the UFO.

James Stokes

Then came to wave of 1957 which began with the series of sightings in Levelland. Rather than some of the witnesses being paralyzed, they reported a light, sunburn like redness to the skin. James Stokes whose car was stalled near Orogrande, New Mexico, was one of those. The Air Force worked overtime to discredit him by character assassination. Interestingly, his employers at Holloman Air Force Base, supported him, contradicting the claims made against him.

You can read more about Levelland here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Levelland

And read about the Stokes sighting here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Stokes

There was another, smaller wave in 1973. As but a couple of examples, a policeman near Laurel, Mississippi, said that he followed a glowing yellow, top-shaped object for several miles on October 8. When he got close to it, his engine, lights and radio failed. As the UFO moved away, the lights and radio began to work but it was several minutes before he could restart the car.

On November 3, in Lewisville, Texas, a saucer-shaped UFO hovered low over a golf course. The radio, lights and engine of a passing truck died. The truck vibrated as if driving over a bumpy road.

After 1973, the reports of electromagnetic effects have diminished. They do pop up sporadically. What caught my interest, and I’m sure that George Knapp can speak about this, was that the Navy’s encounter with the “Tic-tac” seems to have an element of electromagnetic effects to it.

Although we’re all aware of the video, it is only recently and through the efforts of Jeremy Corbell, that we learn of some similar effects. Now, in an interview conducted by Corbell, we hear Lt. Commander Chad Underwood, saying that there was interference with the weapons systems of his F/A-18 Super Hornet.

Tic Tac of Navy fame.

According to a statement made by Underwood, “Once I got the target of interest on my radar, I took a lock and that’s when all the kinda funky things started happening. The erratic nature of the tic-tac. The air speed was very telling to me. Then we started seeing what we call jam strobe lines. Strobe lines are vertical lines that show up on your radar that are indications that you are being jammed.”

He suggested that this was an act of war, meaning it was much more serious than we have been led to believe. You can read the whole story here:

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2021/07/navy-pilot-claims-tic-tac-ufo-disabled-his-weapons-system/

I have to wonder if those earlier sightings, in France, in Texas, and around the world weren’t just the testing of alien weapons systems on terrestrial equipment. We do have reports, verified reports, of UFO activity around atomic weapons storage facilities that disabled missile launch systems. And now this.

It does seem that they are testing our capabilities.

UFOs, USOs and the US Navy

 

Just last Friday, May 14, another video taken by Naval personnel was released into the public arena by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. It shows an object, a black, somewhat indistinct sphere, as it flies near the USS Omaha. At the end of the video, the object drops into the ocean. The Navy has confirmed the authenticity of the video, meaning that it was recorded by Navy personnel on July 15, 2019 in the Combat Information Center on the ship using FLIR which is Forward Looking Infrared. There is a lot of data available about this sighting, and many others involving Navy ships. George Knapp has been onto of this as well. You can read George Knapp’s interview with Jermey Corbell here:

https://kfor.com/mystery-wire/new-video-from-uss-omaha-shows-unknown-aerial-sphere-vanishing-into-ocean/

George Knapp

What I have been unable to learn is if this sighting, as some of the other, equally interesting sightings, was strictly on the CIC equipment or of there were sailors who saw the object without the aid of a digital display. There have been cockpit photographs taken with cell phones that are not limited to video displays but this isn’t really the same thing as the videos.

This latest video ends with the object dropping into the ocean. At that point, it becomes, what is known around the UFO community as an unidentified submerged object or USO.

This isn’t, of course, the first instance of a UFO dropping into the ocean. One of the best documented cases is that from Shag Harbour, Canada on October 4, 1967. A day later, on October 5, 1967, Jim Lorenzen of APRO, called the Condon Committee to alert them of the events that had taken place in and around Shag Harbour. With that, the committee launched their telephonic investigation and it was Dr. Norman E. Levine who wrote the report on what they labeled as Case No. 34, in the North Atlantic and dated as Fall 1967. Levine wrote:

He [Jim Lorenzen] stated that the original report had come from two teenagers and that the Navy was searching for wreckage. No aircraft were reported missing in the area... A corporal of the RCMP [Victor Werbicki] stated that the first report had come from five young people, 15 - 20 yr. old, who while driving near the shore had seen three or four yellow lights in a horizontal pattern comparable in size to a ‘fair-sized’ aircraft... They observed the light while they drove about .25 mi., then reported the incident to the RCMP detachment.

Chris Styles and Don Ledger, two Canadian researchers who have, between them, decades of experience in UFO investigations, provided me with a thick file on the case. According to them, the events began on the night of October 4, 1967, near the small fishing village of Shag Harbour. Something, estimated to be about sixty feet in diameter, with four bright flashing lights, descended to the surface of the water about a half mile from shore.

Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada

Halifax Herald, reported that Laurie Wickens, with four others, spotted something above and in front of them at about 11:00 p.m. It was a large object that had four flashing amber-colored lights that was descending, as opposed to falling, toward the harbor.

As it struck the water, there seemed to be a bright flash and explosion. Wickens decided to contact the police drove to a nearby town, attempting to keep the object in sight so that he could provide precise information. Eventually parking, all five of the witnesses, Wickens included, ran to the water’s edge when they could see what they would later describe as a dark object floating or hovering just about the water. Now the flashing lights were gone and only a single, pale yellow light that seemed to be on top of the object could be seen.

Wickens then reported the sighting to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He contacted Corporal Victor Werbicki who initially, wasn’t very impressed with the report. Instead of asking him anything about the crash, Werbicki asked him if he had been drinking but then told Wickens to hang up but to wait by the telephone.

Several other witnesses, some of them thinking that some sort of aircraft had crashed, also called that same RCMP detachment at Barrington Passage. Mary Banks, who was on Maggie Garron’s Point, which is near the harbor, told Werbicki that she had seen an airplane crash into the sound. A third call came in from two women who were about thirteen miles away and who had seen the same thing.  A man, in a fourth call said that he had also heard a whistle and a bang. Although they all talked in terms of an aircraft accident and others mentioned only bright flashing lights, no one suggested that this was a UFO, meaning alien craft.

It was now apparent to Werbicki that something had happened out there. He called Wickens back and told him to meet him at the Moss plant. Three of RCMP officers made it to the shoreline and one of them, Constable Ron Pond, said that he had seen the lights from his car and that he’d seen the object, or the lights, or whatever, dive toward the water. He thought he saw a shape behind the lights which certainly changed the dynamic of the sighting. In other words, Pond saw, not only the lights, but believed those lights had been attached to something solid.

Standing on the shore with the Mounties were a number of other witnesses. These included Wickens and his four friends, and the occupants of a pick-up truck that pulled into the lot. Norm and Wilfred Smith had seen the object in the air before stopping for a better look. Although Werbicki didn’t see anything until Wickens pointed it out to him, all could see the pale-yellow light that floated about a half mile from shore. Through binoculars, they could see that whatever floated on the surface was creating a foaming, yellow wake as it moved. Because the object was in the water off shore, the Coast Guard was notified and fishing boats were called in to look around. Although the cause of the yellow foam disappeared before the boats arrived, they could still see some evidence of its passing. The Coast Guard cutter arrived too late to see anything and by three in the morning the search was suspended for the night.

This is the situation as it stood when Jim Lorenzen notified the members of the Condon Committee.  Levine, in his preliminary statement, suggests that the first reports were made by teenagers and he seems to be suggesting that others saw lights on the water, but nothing in the sky. Levine went on to write:

Two officers [RCMP constables Ron O’Brien and Ron Pond] and the corporal [Werbicki] had arrived about 15 min. later, in time to see the light on the water. It persisted about five minutes longer. Ten minutes after it went out the two officers were at the site in a rowboat; a Coast Guard boat and six fishing boats were on the scene. They found only patches of foam 30 - 40 yd. wide that the fishermen though was not normal tide foam...

The site of the presumed impact was in between an island and the mainland, about 200 - 300 yd. off shore. Apparently, no one actually saw anything enter the water [though I must point out that a number of people saw the object descend to the water, which is, essentially, the same thing]. However, two young women driving on the island reported that a horizontal pattern of three yellow lights had tilted and descended, and then a yellow light had appeared... The RCMP corporal stated that the light on the water was not on any boat, that Air Search and Rescue had no reports of missing aircraft in the area, and an RCAF radar station nearby reported no Canadian of U.S. air operations in the area at the time, nor any usual radar object... A search by Navy divers during the days immediately following the sighting disclosed nothing relevant.

Five days later the Naval Maritime Command advised the project [that is, the Condon Committee] that the search had been terminated. The watch officer read a report from the RCMP indicating that at the time in question a 60 ft. object had been seen to explode upon impact with the water... A captain of a fishing boat that had been about 16 mi. from the site of the earlier reports, reported to the project that he and his crew had seen three stationary bright red flashing lights on the water, from sundown until about 11 p.m. The ship’s radar showed four objects forming a six mile square; the three lights were associated with one of these objects [so now we see that Levine is contradicting himself with radar reports and people seeing the object descend]. At about 11:00 p.m., one of the lights went straight up. The captain had judged that the radar objects were naval vessels and the ascending light a helicopter; he had attached no significance to these observations until he had heard on the radio of the sightings; he then reported the foregoing observations... However, since the position he reported for the objects was about 175 n. mi. from the original site, the two situations do not appear related.

No further investigation by the project was considered justifiable particularly in view of the immediate and thorough search [that had failed to find anything which would suggest that the Condon Committee should be interested in the case] that had been carried out by the RCMP and the Maritime Command.

This shows that the on the scene investigation by the Condon Committee was a telephone call and then a dismissal of the case. This was a case of multiple witnesses, certainly more than just the teenagers that Levine mentioned, and there was a possibility of physical evidence, they declined go to Canada. Levine seemed to believe, or at the very least claimed he believed, that the sightings had been thoroughly investigated by others on the scene, that nothing of interest was found, and that the search had been called off.

Years later, an investigation by Canadian researchers Chris Styles and Don Ledger uncovered not only additional witnesses, a photograph of the object in the sky, but also documentation and testimony from high-ranking Canadian officials. Styles, in writing about the case would say that he had met with a former general who had served with the DOPS section of the Canadian Forces Headquarters. The officer was annoyed with Styles for finding him but did supply some interesting information about the case.

According to Styles:

The story told to me in Ottawa by the Brigadier contained all the verifiable bits and earlier partial stories of ships sitting over a submerged U.F.O off C.F.S. Shelburne’s government point. The Brigadier’s source was [sic] men who were loyal to him that were commandeered by NORAD and the navy to play the role of identification team if they found something physical. Apparently, they did and according to the Brigadier the men claim that ‘There was no doubt.’ It was not a conventional aircraft or spacejunk [sic] originating from either 1967 superpower. They told their regular Canadian C.O. that ‘There was activity down there.’ In fact, incredibly they say that there was a second craft. In the Brigadier’s own lingo, “It was standing nines for the damaged saucer.’ The basic outline of the story ends when a russian [sic] sub enters the then 12 mile offshore international limit. The small flotilla sails toward the intruder to offer challenge. This is after a weeks [sic] observation by sonar and T.V. remote over the U.F.O.’s resting place. It is at this point that both U.F.O.’s [sic] begin moving under the water back towards the Shag Harbour area. Once they clear open water in the Gulf of Maine they surface and fly away. The Brigadier closed our meeting by stating that he doubles I will find any paperwork on this operation in Canada.”

That Styles and Ledger were able to uncover the documentation and testimony from the event suggests that this was something that the Condon Committee should have done as well. It happened on their watch, would have provided them with a very interesting case that hinted at the extraterrestrial, and met the criterion for an investigation with the exception of it happening in Canada. Even with that problem, there were American military forces involved, and the scientists could have arrived before the conclusion of the incident, but they were content to ignore it as a prank by teenagers.

Condon had said, in various meetings and to various groups, “I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything other than actually getting a vehicle, with or without occupants, so under my control that I could take it and exhibit it to something like this committee so that all of you saw it, or take you to a place where I had it ‘captured’. Anything less than that I wouldn’t believe.”

This meant, clearly, that the observations, regardless of the training, integrity, expertise or ability of the witnesses wouldn’t be sufficient for him. He wanted a vehicle to study, which brings us back to Shag Harbour. The witnesses said the object fell into the harbor. There are indications that he was maneuvering under water which changed it into a USO. And there are indications, based on the research of Styles and Ledger, that the object eventually maneuvered itself out of the harbor and disappeared

This is a singular, or even rare event. As I say, there is a long history of these USOs, and as just another example, a woman, described as 79-years old, said that her father, a Naval officer based in San Franciso, said these were seen all the time. She said that her father showed her a telegram that reported UFOs had been seen entering and leaving the water and was complete with the geographical coordinates.

On April 19, 1957, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat saw two silver objects, about 30 long without wings, descend. They hit the water, creating an area of turbulence. The objects did not reappear.

Which, I suppose brings us back to 2021. We have another good sighting of something unidentified, disappearing into the ocean. We know that a search for wreckage failed, which suggests the object entered the water intact and did not break up. It suggests a transition from one environment, air, into another, water. That transition is not something easily accomplished and suggests a technology that is superior to ours.

This sighting would be even stronger if there were some sailors who watched the UFO with an unaided eye. It would add another chain of evidence to the sighting but it seems this all took place at night with no sailors seeing the UFO other than those watching in the CIC. There must be more to the story here and I wonder what that is.

Unidentified and Luis Elizondo

For those who think I have missed it, I have, of course, seen the article and information about John Greenewald and his attempt to verify Luis Elizondo’s claim of leadership of the AATIP program. It is a disturbing document because it suggests that Elizondo wasn’t in a leadership position, although that it how he is

John Greenewald. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle.

“credentialled” on History’s Unidentified program.

First, however, let’s separate the UFO sightings on the USS Nimitz from this controversy around Elizondo. We do have the video, limited though it is, and the testimony from several members and former members of the US Navy including fighter pilots. The sighting should stand or fall on its own merits. The controversy around Elizondo has nothing to do with the sighting itself. We judge the sighting on the information we have and don’t discredit it because someone who was not there and had no role in the case, finds himself in wrapped controversy.

Now, we move onto the other part of this. What do we know about Luis Elizondo? Was he one of the leaders of the AATIP program? Or was his name merely on a distribution list? What has been learned?

John Greenewald attempted to answer some of these questions. In the article The Intercept that seems to kick off the controversy, Greenewald reported that Elizondo had no real role in AATIP. You can read the article here:

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/

And you can pick up more information on this controversy at Curt Collin’s Blue Burry Lines blog that can be found here:

http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2019/06/documenting-luis-elizondos-leadership.html

The article in The Intercept, as you can see from the first link, was written by Keith Kloor, and said, in essence, that Elizondo “…had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked [in the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence], up until the time he resigned.”

Much of this was based on information provided by Greenewald. I will say that I know John, have talked with him on a number of occasions and have used his Black Vault in my research. I find him to be a careful researcher who does not leap to conclusions and doesn’t print anything until he is sure of the information. Greenewald’s suggestions about the accuracy of Elizondo’s job description is quite worrisome.

However, I have also learned that even those with good intentions and careful research methodology can make errors. In looking at this, I reached out to George

George Knapp. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle

Knapp. He responded to me quickly, but didn’t provide any useful information to me directly. I suspect now that he had put it all up on Twitter so that he assumed that I would see it there.

That tweet, or series of tweets, did not help. What he provided was a letter from Senator Harry Reid of Nevada that did have Elizondo’s name on an “FY 10 Preliminary Bigoted List of Government Personnel.” Elizondo was listed as a Special Agent, USDI (Gov’t). Interesting, but it doesn’t make Elizondo a leader of AATIP, only that he was on the list of those who knew about the program and had some sort of connection to it.

Harry Reid was interviewed on the radio about all this recently. He told the interviewer that he’d talked with Elizondo many times. He said, “So, I know Elizondo is a real guy. People are out there – a few people are trying to punch holes in what he is saying and what he does, but he was part of the Defense Department, no question about it, and a man of, I think, veracity.”

This doesn’t, however, provide us with any new information about Elizondo’s role in AATIP. It seems to be confirmed that Elizondo had a role in the DoD, and that Reid knew who he is, but that doesn’t make him the chief of ATTIP.

Hal Puthoff, who has hovered around the UFO field for a while and who is now a contractor of some sort with the To The Stars Academy, an organization with which Elizondo is also associated, told John Greenewald, “I have no problem asserting... Elizondo’s leadership and responsibility for maintaining continuity of the Program…”

An article in Politico, written by Bryan Bender, didn’t do much to clear up the controversy. According to Bender “Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White confirmed to POLITICO that the program [AATIP] existed and was run by Elizondo. But she could not say how long he was in charge of it and declined to answer detailed questions about the office or its work…”

Given the nature of classified programs, that really doesn’t surprise me. If the information is classified, then any spokesperson is going to be reluctant to answer questions about it. But she apparently no longer works in that same job, so you have to wonder about the value of her endorsement, which doesn’t really help us.

There is another player in all this and it is Wired. Apparently, they were able to confirm that Elizondo worked for the DoD but could not confirm that he had worked on AATIP. George Knapp’s letter does not confirm it either. It only confirms that Elizondo was on a distribution list for AATIP information or association.

John Greenewald got into it again, with another posting to his Black Vault website. He contacted Susan Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson. He asked her specifically about Luis Elizondo's name listed on Reid’s letter. As reported by Greenewald:

“I can confirm that the memo you’re referring to is authentic. DOD received it and responded to Sen. Reid,” Ms. Gough said. She then explains that her office is unable to provide The Black Vault a full copy of the response, since the Public Affairs office does not release Congressional correspondence, but she adds, “It makes no change to previous statements. Mr. Elizondo had no assigned responsibilities for AATIP while he was in OUSD(I). DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] administered AATIP, and Elizondo was never assigned to DIA. Elizondo did interact with the DIA office managing the program while the program was still ongoing, but he did not lead it.

You can read all of what Greenewald had to say in the article he posted to the Black Vault here:

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/pentagon-reinforces-mr-luis-elizondo-had-no-responsibilities-on-aatip-senator-harry-reids-2009-memo-changes-nothing/

Everything seems to suggest that Elizondo had some sort of involvement with the program, but that suggesting he was leading it appears to be something of an embellishment. But you have to wonder if there isn’t something else going on here… oh, not about the USS Nimitz and the UFO sighting, but in the promotion of the television show. Having the leader of the AATIP program leading the TV investigation makes it a little more credible. But that only works if the credential can be verified. Does merely having some association with the program, rather than actually leading it reduce the credibility? Or more importantly, does embellishing the role of the lead investigator on the History program diminish that credibility of that program?

The question arises from that. In a world in which so much information is now available to so many of us with so little effort, isn’t it a little reckless to inflate credentials? In the end, if the inflation is discovered, and it will be if it exists, it hurts the overall program and in fact, hides the importance of the USS Nimitz sightings. You almost have to wonder if that wasn’t the whole point.

Again, all this controversy about Elizondo (which could be cleared up in a candid statement) does not detract from the AATIP program nor the sightings by those in the USS Nimitz battle group. They are separate issues. I suppose I’m suggesting that we ignore the trouble about Elizondo until it can be resolved and concentrate on the information from the witnesses and attempt to learn more about the video that has been released. One does not depend on the other and we shouldn’t get caught up in the controversy to the exclusion of investigation of the sighting. Surely, there will be more about that in the weeks to come.

Unidentified - The New History Series

Yes, like many of you, I tuned in for the first installment of Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation, Friday night. Let me say, up front, that there really was nothing new here, except that it had the trappings of a serious program. Before I explain what I mean by “nothing new,” let point out a couple of other things.

We open, more or less, with the tale by a Navy pilot with her face blacked out and a warning to never mention her name, even in private emails. She’s worried about her career if she talks about seeing a flying saucer. But we learn that she was assigned to the USS Nimitz, and the 41 Squadron, which would serve to identify her for the Navy, if they chose to pursue it. How many female pilots were in that particular unit on that particular ship at that particular time? Her identify is hidden only from those of us out here in the civilian world… but this sort of thing makes for good television.

We do learn the name of the lead pilot , CMR David Fravor, and we see him in his rather nice house. He tells the story that he has been told before. He tells of seeing the object, shaped like a tic-tac, that is about 40 feet in diameter, and which makes amazing maneuvers that are impossible for any aircraft in the current inventory. There is video footage from the Heads Up Display that tends to corroborate what he is saying… though no real analysis of the image was presented. You can watch an interview with him here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUyGnFFilP0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0iUiJW-w8gqEAJHNjQrn5PHB-0Wm9_XlmHFHdGfXpcRzBxBzIpRZcBSQ4

We do hear from a number of former power players from the Washington establishment, though John Podesta has been talking about UFOs for a long time. Luis Elizondo was part of the AATIP program, that is, the newest and latest of the government investigations about UFOs. However, John Greenewald has supplied some disturbing information about this. You can read about this aspect of it here:

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/

I will note that George Knapp has allegedly released a document that has Elizondo’s name on some sort of distribution list. I haven’t been able to find it, and a name on a distribution list does nothing to confirm the claim that Elizondo was in charge of the AATIP program. This is one of those things that pop up in UFO research all the time to complicate matters.

Moving on, the interesting thing about this new television series, was that rather than delving into all the wild theories and putting up fake documents as if they were real, they stuck to a conservative point of view. We are shown, for the most part, the witnesses and we see their testimony corroborated by video. We learn that many military pilots have seen UFOs, interacted with them, but fail to report the sightings because of the stigma attached to them. No rational person wants to be tarred with the nut case label that so often accompanies a UFO report.

Now, I said earlier that there wasn’t really anything new here. I meant, simply, that this program could have been made 75 years ago, if we had TV documentaries then. We had military pilots reporting UFOs. We had high-level military and government officials worried about these craft. We had serious research being conducted.

As first example, an Army Air Corps National Guard pilot flying near Mt. Baldy, California, on July 8, 1947, reported a UFO. The flat object, reflecting light, was about the size of a fighter. The pilot said that he gave chase attempting to keep the object in sight but was unable to do so. He, of course, didn’t have a Heads Up Display, or in this case gun camera film to back up his report. Technology had moved a long way in the last 75 years.

And then there is this sighting: Three airmen, including Major Archie B. Browning, flying a B-25, near Clay Center, Kansas said they saw a silver-colored object pacing their aircraft at 1:45 p.m. Browning said that a bright flash called his attention to the object, which he said was thirty to fifty feet in diameter and very bright. He said the object appeared to be pacing the aircraft at 210 miles an hour. When they turned toward it, the object seemed to accelerate to high speed and disappeared.  Again, the technology didn’t allow for any sort of photographic evidence. Eventually, the Air Force would suggest that the sighting was caused by a sunshine reflection on the windshield.

The point is that here are military pilots who were seeing something they could not explain and who had reported it for the last 75 years. They did not have the ability to record the event, given the technology in 1947, but that is about the only difference. These sightings were originally taken seriously by Army intelligence officers, and were reported up the chain of command. Eventually, a curtain of ridicule has been pulled down and the pilots are said to have mistaken sunshine reflections for real objects.

In fact, the movie, UFO, was released in 1956 that had the same trappings of authenticity as Friday night’s documentary. UFO included movie footage and pilot reports and eyewitness testimony. The Air Force moved quickly to undermine the film’s credibility.

There was another aspect to this that I thought of as slightly overblown. Elizondo was in his car when he received a telephone call about a secret briefing given to selected members of Congress. We don’t know who they were, but we hear that this is a history making breakthrough. UFO witnesses and members of Congress seriously discussing flying saucers… except it wasn’t the first time that it happened. Two decades ago Jesse Marcel, Jr. met, secretly, with members of Congress to discuss his handling of the strange metallic debris recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. This meeting did not inspire a change in the situation. The status quo had been preserved.

At the end of the program was one final thing that bothered me. One of the men said that the only thing we didn’t know was if we would meet E.T. or Independence Day.” He was wondering if those flying the UFOs were interested in benign contact or an invasion of Earth.

Back in the summer of 1947, according to Ed Ruppelt, who had been the chief of Project Blue Book in 1952, the Pentagon was in a panic. They didn’t know what the flying saucers represented. Could it be a terrestrial threat or one from outer space? Could alien invasion be far off?

Now, some 75 years later, we can answer half the question. It doesn’t seem to be Independence Day. After 75 years, there is little chance that an invasion was coming. That might be the reason that the panic evaporated 75 years ago. They realized that there was no invasion fleet and that they had time to try to understand what was going on. Since then, it appears that they have failed to find any additional answers, at least according to what we know.

Now, we’re beginning all over again, with the same type of investigation, with some formerly highly placed people saying the same things that we have heard for decades from other formerly important people. The problem is, at this point, we have nothing but the eyewitness testimony of the military pilots and the interest of some formerly important people which doesn’t really move the needle. We are in the same place we were nearly three-quarters of a century ago… there is just more hype today than there was then.