UAP Analysis, The Enigma Lab and Sightings

I think that I’ve made it very clear that I’m critical of the latest in government investigations into UFOs, I mean UAPs. I have noted that any time they wish to change and challenge our perceptions, they change the nomenclature of the phenomenon, as if to erase the past history. We all knew that UFO didn’t mean alien spacecraft exclusively but any unidentified object. Now we’ve weakened the term UAP to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon that could mean anything from an alien spacecraft to an encounter with a ghost…

We are still locked out of the real UAP study because it is classified but this is the same excuse they have been using since 1947. Although the Condon Committee at the University of Colorado announced in 1969 that there were no national security issues, here we are being told that some of the information is being withheld because of national security. I suppose that if the UAP is of foreign manufacture rather than alien, and that UAP is observing our military on maneuvers or overflying military facilities that are engaged in classified work, then national security is an issue. It doesn’t help us resolve the question; it just obscures the problem.

Here is some proof of that. A company, Enigma Labs, is wanting to use machine learning to search for patterns in UFO sightings. Okay. However, they are in business with the DoD. Again, okay. 

Here’s the problem. They want the public to ignore the National UFO Reporting Center and MUFON, and report sightings directly to them. Which, again, is okay. The problem is that they do not make their database publicly available. Or, in other words, they are attempting to syphon off the UFO sightings from other organizations and then provide no data on them. Something like the classified reports being collected by the DoD with no avenue to share the data with the civilian population.

I did look up Enigma Labs and read their mission statement. It said:

To advance progress on UAP using cutting-edge technology and social intelligence. Only through thoughtful, open-mined study of unidentified phenomena can we get answers. We are focused on building and keep our team low profile for privacy.

It sounds good, or looks good, and is almost meaningless. It provides nothing of value in attempting to understand who they are, other than the claim to be open-mined and that they want to keep a low profile. I am bothered by their continued reference in other parts of their website to UAP. They have adopted the current lingo, but I’m not all that sure they actually understand the subtleties of the whole UFO phenomena. That leads us to another part of their explanations which said:

There are individuals who have dedicated their lives to researching UAP. We are indebted to them and stand on their shoulders. Yet UAP remains a mystery. That is why Enigma adopted a fresh approach taking advantage of modern tools, business models and skillsets. In order to attract the brightest minds and build for the long term, we formed as a private company. We take the mission seriously and embrace the complexity. We are a team of full-time professionals from many backgrounds – data science, machine learning, aerospace, citizen science, consumer product design, particle physics, sailing, visual arts, finance, journalism, military service and public policy, to name a few. We are grateful to everyone who has supported us so far.

Without a little more data, I’m not sure what expertise they bring to the table. They mention military service, and while there are certain military specialties that would be beneficial, there are many that are not. An infantry soldier has no special skills that would help in identifying UFOs. Journalism would be helpful, unless the journalist spent his or her career attending local political meetings or covering feature stories.

I will note, apropos of nothing really, that there are job offerings at the website which pay in the low six figures, up to a quarter of a million annually. Since I have no engineering background, though I do have experience in security and intelligence, I’m really not qualified. The real point is that they are offering these high paying jobs which suggests a rather substantial financial position. You can access their website here:

https://enigmalabs.io/

The last thing to say, I suppose, is that I’m reminded of the To The Stars Academy from a couple of years ago. They too, seemed to have some astonishing financial support and they too were going to take UFO research, back when we could talk about UFOs rather than UAPs, in a new direction. That soon fizzled out.

The problem here might be the alleged connection to the official investigations, and the call for sightings to be reported to them. It could have an adverse effect on overall UFO research and could stymie communication among the various players in the field today.

This could be much ado about nothing because we don’t have an overload of information. I just think that this doesn’t bode well for overall UFO research. Sure, we need to wait and see, but in the meantime, access to sighting data might suffer.

Even with all this there are still interesting UFO sightings that are not being collected by the DoD and stored in vaults hidden from public view. What has been called the first UFO photo of 2023, and they, not I, used the term UFO, was taken in Venezuela on January 7.

The picture was taken by Ricardo Monzon, in the San Antonio de Los Altos area. Journalist Hector Esclanate, said that he thought it might be a reflection of the street light but said the object had light and shaded areas and was a different shape than the street light. He also suggested that the orientation of the UFO didn’t match up. Here’s the link to the photograph:

http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2023/01/venezuela-first-ufo-photo-of-2023.html

In keeping with the international flavor, the witness in Didcot, Oxfordshire, England, reported five lights in a low cloud on December 21 of last year. The witness thought the lights, which were moving in a random circle might be a laser display, or maybe drones. The lights were in sight for about two minutes, were bright but not blinding. The five balls of light flew over the car and the radio began to act up and was filled with white noise, which, of course, is suggestive of something other than a laser or a drone.

The lights passed over the car, about a hundred feet in the air. Apparently, they turned, and passed overhead twice more. They eventually disappeared. Not an exciting sighting except for the possible EM Effect on the radio.