Tag: close encounters

FRAGMENTED FACTS: AARO REPORT UNEARTHS ODD CLAIMS INVOLVING U.S. RECOVERY OF MATERIAL FROM 1952 UFO INCIDENT

During the summer of 1952, the United States was on high alert as UFO sightings over the nation’s capital were making frequent headlines. Buried amid the otherworldly clamor occupying the minds of Americans around that time, an obscure report conveyed that one of the objects—a small, glowing disc—was pursued and shot at by a military aircraft, blasting off a fragment that fell into a field near Washington D.C., which a naval officer later retrieved.

More than a decade later, an official government-funded scientific inquiry into UFOs—or what the United States government now calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)—would investigate the incident, ultimately determining claims involving the 1952 UFO incident were unlikely to be true.

Without question, the notion that a fragment might have been recovered after a shoot-out with a flying saucer in the 1950s offers a textbook example of what most would call a dubious claim. Yet a deeper look into this Cold War-era rumor reveals, surprisingly, that there could potentially be more to this odd story than past assessments would seem to indicate.

However, you would never have gleaned that from reading the latest report issued by the U.S. Defense Department’s official UAP investigative office.

Last week, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released a long-awaited historical report on its findings involving the United States government’s involvement with UAP and related programs since the end of World War II.

In the report, AARO investigators maintained the U.S. federal government’s longstanding position that it has never found any convincing evidence of extraterrestrial technologies operating near Earth, nor of any secret programs involving the acquisition or reverse engineering of crashed exotic technologies that have remained hidden from Congress.

The report was met with heavy criticism following its publication, partly due to a number of errors it was revealed to contain. Despite this, there were also a few intriguing inclusions made by AARO’s investigators, based on their relevance to the question of whether UAP materials have ever crashed on Earth and been studied.

One of these appears in a section of the AARO report that discusses the University of Colorado UFO Project, more commonly called the Condon Committee, a U.S. Air Force-funded evaluation of cases that were collected under its long-running Project Blue Book investigations that studied UFOs during the 1950s and 1960s.

According to AARO’s recent report, the Colorado scientific panel, led by American physicist Edward U. Condon, “investigated a claim made by radio broadcaster Frank Edwards in a 1966 book that a piece of a UFO was recovered near Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1952 during the spike in UFO sightings over the U.S. Capitol in July and August.”

The account in question appeared in Edward’s book Flying Saucers: Serious Business, of which AARO’s investigators recount that Edwards “claimed that a USN jet fired on a two-foot diameter glowing disc and dislodged a one-pound fragment that was recovered by a ground team.” At the time of their study, the Condon Committee’s investigators inquired about the incident with Project Blue Book, who told the University of Colorado team that they were unaware of the purported 1952 incident.

Keep reading

PENTAGON UAP REPORT SAYS NO EVIDENCE U.S. HAS COLLECTED EXOTIC TECHNOLOGY, KEPT PROGRAMS HIDDEN FROM CONGRESS

A historical report issued by the Pentagon’s office tasked with the investigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), commonly referred to as UFOs, says it found no evidence that sightings of mysterious aerial objects represent extraterrestrial technology, or that secret programs related to the recovery of crashed exotic vehicles have been hidden from Congress.

Released on Friday, the report is the first installment in a two-volume series produced by the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and explores the history of the U.S. government’s involvement in investigations of UAP under a requirement established in the fiscal year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress,” the report said.

Citing investigations that revealed most sightings to result from the “misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena,” the report acknowledged that “many UAP reports remain unsolved,” though adding that better data could lead to the resolution of some of the currently unresolved cases.

In advance of the report’s release, Tim Phillips, acting director of AARO on assignment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), provided a briefing to a limited number of reporters on Wednesday, where he discussed the new report and revealed details about a new system called “Gremlin” designed to acquire real-time data on UAP. The Debrief did not participate in Wednesday’s media briefing.

Following the release of the report, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said in an email to The Debrief that “AARO reviewed all official USG investigatory efforts since 1945, researched classified and unclassified archives, conducted dozens of interviews and site visits, and partnered with the Intelligence Community and DoD officials responsible for special access program oversight.”

“AARO created a secure process in partnership with the highest-level security officials within the DoD, IC, and other organizations to research and investigate these claims,” Gough said. “AARO was granted full, unrestricted access by all organizations.”

Keep reading

‘Is that a UFO?’ Oklahoma family spot bizarre other-worldly sighting in night sky

A bizarre other-wordly object was captured on camera by an Oklahoma family in the night sky on Monday night.

A TikTok video that has amassed almost half a million views, shows a bright, slow-moving object in the sky.

Steve Aragona was outside with his kids and his neighbours when the video was captured on Monday at 7.30pm.

In the full-length video given to KFOR by Mr Aragona, people question what the unexplained object could possibly be. A child asks if it is a shooting star, to which an adult responds that it is moving too slow to be one.

Another person asks if it could be a UFO. The object appears to start separating from itself, one person pointed out, while another said that it could be sound waves.

Mr Aragona told KFOR, “Everybody was playing out front, and my neighbour Kevin says, ‘Steve, take a look at this.’”

“I looked up, and this white thing appeared in the sky. Everybody had their opinions about what it was.”

In the TikTok comments, some theorised that it could have been the Space X mission that also occurred on Monday, that set satellites up into orbit on their Falcon 9 rocket from Florida.

However, the satellites took off at 6.56pm ET, an hour and a half after the video was purportedly shot at 7.30pm CT.

Keep reading

UAP INCIDENT OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO REVEALED BY U.S. CONGRESSMAN CONFIRMED IN NEWLY DECLASSIFIED FILES AND IMAGES

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.

Keep reading

Minnesota UFOs: A look at Project Blue Book case files

An archive of recently released UFO documents reveals a few unexplainable and unidentified sightings in Minnesota.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) created the “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection” required under the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

The collection will feature government documents related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs. The agencies have until the end of the year to “review, identify, and organize each unidentified anomalous phenomena record in the custody or possession of the office for disclosure to the public.” 

The collection currently includes thousands of documents pertaining to Project Blue Book. Of those, the NARA released files on dozens of Minnesota sightings investigated by the government program.

Keep reading

America’s UFO hotspots revealed in new map that shows nearly 100,000 sightings spanning two decades … is YOUR hometown in the ‘red zone?’

The first step toward identifying what unidentified flying objects (UFOs) actually are might just be mapping where these enigmas are most sighted, a new study says.

Geographers with the University of Utah — working with the Pentagon‘s recently retired UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick — analyzed roughly 98,000 total UFO reports spanning a 20-year period across the 21st Century, from 2001 to 2020.

The researchers aggressively cross-referenced the data by local population density, light pollution levels, annual cloud cover, ‘tree canopy’ cover, proximity to airports and military bases and a host of other factors that effect the number UFO sightings.

What they found was statistical proof of the long assumed ‘historical relationship’ between UFOs and the American West. 

Their study’s county-by-county assessment turned up hot spots or ‘red zones’ most often just east of the Rockies or off toward the Pacific Ocean — but also a few odd outliers, including Georgetown county, South Carolina and Union, Kentucky.

Keep reading

Strange ‘Flying Saucer’ Filmed by Reconnaissance Drone in Ukraine

A group of Ukrainian soldiers were left scratching their heads when their reconnaissance drone spotted a sizeable saucer-shaped object hovering in the sky. The peculiar UFO sighting reportedly occurred earlier this month as the country’s 406th Battalion was using a thermal-imaging UAV to keep an eye out for Russian adversaries. The exercise took a strange turn, however, when the drone caught sight of a cylindrical craft off in the distance.

The weird anomaly understandably sparked a spirited debate among the soldiers operating the UAV with one of the men wondering what the object could be and why it was not moving. As the group observed the object, one of the soldiers marveled that it was a UFO, while another expressed confusion over the fact that the sizeable object was not firing on the drone. Although they attempted to get a closer look at the oddity by zooming in on it, this provided little clarity as it simply resembled a floating disc.

Keep reading

My Dad Was A Famous Alien Abductee. I Thought He Was A Joke — Now I’m Not So Sure.

There’s one video available on the internet concerning my father, Patrick McGuire. It’s strange. Uploaded to YouTube 15 years ago — though clearly recorded much earlier — the video frames another TV screen. There is constant static, and the image is fractured as if the broadcast comes from far away. My father is discussing cattle mutilations under hypnosis.

“We come up on a cow that was dead. They cut the nose off, tongues out and the sex organs were gone,” he recounts as though he is sleepwalking through a nightmare. He goes on to describe in great detail a “spaceship” that landed on his ranch and took members of his herd ― their distant, terrified animal cries filling those dark prairie nights.

One comment below the video reads, “Having lived and worked with cow-men, can you imagine this guy going to town after this got out publicly. I mean they are a finicky bunch to say the least.”

I don’t have to imagine. I grew up with him walking through our small Western town, his life by then fractured like that broadcast. He was completely destitute, picking through my classmates’ garbage, and when a classmate came to school the next day and told me what they saw, their grin, and subsequent laughter, left little to the imagination. However, I then joined in with their laughter. That commenter was right: We are a finicky bunch, to say the least.

On May 14, 2009, my father passed away in a Colorado hospital due to cancer. He was 67. I did not speak to him before he died. His last years were spent in homelessness, though he hadn’t always lived that way. His last words, so I heard, were about grand conspiracies and sinister deep states, though he hadn’t always spoken about such topics. My father’s legacy in our small Wyoming town ― and inside our family ― is stained with his tales of alien abduction, interstellar prophecy and the insistence he was chosen, though he had not always been chosen. There was a time before my birth when he was obsessed with the lore of his rural community, the spiralling complexities of high school dances and the schemes of enlarging his Roman Catholic family. He was normal, caring and complete. That was before the stars came knocking.

When I first saw the bold headline “Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin,” published June 5, 2023, in The Debrief, I initially didn’t think about whether the headline was true. I didn’t contemplate what the recovered crafts might look like or that “non-human” was just another euphemism for the same thing we have been talking about since 1947 ― I thought about my father.

I can see him now as though he were alive today, black cowboy hat tilted, face tanned and cracked from the high plains sun, saying, “Who’s laughing now?” I’m not laughing anymore, but not because I know what that headline is saying is absolutely true and proof lies just around the corner; I’m not laughing because I should never have laughed in the first place.

Keep reading

UFO report: No evidence of alien spacecraft, but can’t rule it out

Are there alien spacecraft flying above us?

A highly anticipated government report sheds little light on the mystery, finding no evidence of extraterrestrial activity but not ruling it out either, according to two U.S. officials.

The report also does not rule out the possibility that the flying objects seen by U.S. military planes are highly advanced aircraft developed by other nations, the officials said. Further deepening the mystery, the report says the objects also do not appear to be evidence of secret U.S. technology but it doesn’t definitively rule that out either.

One of the officials said the report suggests the videos do not appear to show any known U.S. assets.

Keep reading

PEMA Director Reports There Have Been UFO Sightings In Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee hearing meeting last week left some lawmakers laughing, though maybe a little nervously. 

Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Randy Padfield, in response to a Democratic lawmaker’s question, said Wednesday:

“We have had reports of unidentified flying objects in the past. Sometimes they are attributable to astronomic [sic] phenomena, or astrologic [sic] phenomena. But we look at actually making sure that we’re sharing that information with the proper authorities. We have a great relationship with the Pennsylvania State Police and obviously local law enforcement.”

This seemed to have left Majority Appropriations Chair Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) a bit gobsmacked at the revelation, who asked Padfield to elaborate a bit, as the two had a light back and forth about what “most” sightings, and those not included in “most,” can be attributed to. 

Keep reading