Tag: pentagon

Mysterious Triangular Object with Advanced Flying Capability Revealed in Latest Tranche of UAP Files

The Department of War released its seventh tranche of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) files on Friday, including a memo detailing a recently sighted triangular object in the western United States that disappeared at a fighter jet-like speed of an estimated 1,800 miles per hour.

The memo states the incident happened in 2026, with two observers, described as “federal law enforcement agents,” documenting their accounts.

From an observation post on a ridgeline on an evening with clear skies, the agents witnessed the craft, estimated to have a 13 to 15-foot wingspan, a 6 to 9-foot fuselage, and a maximum thickness of 1 to 2 feet vertically.

The aircraft is described as making “a slow, controlled, perfectly vertical ascent directly over the ridge line” for “approximately 10 seconds,” climbing a few hundred feet “without tilting, swaying, or wobbling.”

It did so silently, without the agents observing any “propulsive apertures, rotating elements, rivets, panels, windows, canopy,” or cabin structures. From there, it “entered a stable hover” for approximately 20 seconds, without drift or oscillation.

During that time, the agents used infrared to gauge the aircraft’s thermal signature, and “the entire airframe presented a spatially uniform thermal signature with no localized hot spots, engine heat signature, or exhaust plumes.”

“No heat shimmer, vapor trail, or particulate discharge was detected,” the memo adds.

The craft then transitioned rapidly into a “high-speed horizontal flight” from the hover and maneuvered with speed like a “military fighter jet” for two to three seconds in silence before disappearing, per the memo. No instrumented speed measurement was obtained.

The transition from stable hover to high-speed horizontal flight occurred without observable acceleration ramp, gradual pitching, or momentum, and immediately following the hover, the unidentified craft appeared to transition from a stationary position to rapid horizontal flight.

The unidentified craft executed a fluid banking turn and steep, terrain-conforming descent into the canyon and did not wobble, oscillate, or drift in the wind during any part of its transit, and as it banked to follow the canyon’s path its physical profile shifted relative to the observers. The entire horizontal transition, bank, and descent lasted approximately two to three seconds before the craft disappeared behind intervening terrain.

No wreckage, vegetation damage, or ground scarring was observed the next morning during a ground survey of the canyon.

This is one of many documents released in the seventh tranche of UAP files. The tranche also includes a report on an investigation into Sherman Ranch, nicknamed “Skinwalker Ranch,” in Utah. The tranche of files is available for public viewing here.

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Trump’s War Department Declares Chinese Communist Party-Backed Confucius Institutes a NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT — Hegseth Says 80 Chinese Propaganda Operations at 30 US Universities Have Been Dismantled

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the Department of War has formally designated Confucius Institutes as a threat to U.S. national security.

In a video posted to his official X account, Hegseth detailed how Chinese Communist Party-backed operations that Congress restricted years ago had simply rebranded and continued operating on American campuses.

Hegseth drew a direct parallel to the DEI bureaucracy the War Department has been dismantling.

“When I took office, one thing we knew was that the cancer of DEI, it was going to be difficult to kill here in the Department of War. You see, instead of complying, promoters of this ideology just tried to rebrand it and thought they would be safe,” he said. “Now, today, in a similar example, I want to tell you about Confucius Institutes.”

He continued: “These Chinese government-backed propaganda cultural programs had infiltrated our nation’s universities in almost every state. Now, thankfully, Congress banned them a few years ago, these Confucius Institutes but they came back disguised in new forms just like DEI does. Just call it a different name. Well, the Department of War has taken action to stop this as well. We added these sleeper organizations to our list of institutions that threaten our national security.”

Hegseth stated that investigators uncovered “80 new propaganda cells across 30 universities” operating under different names and charters but with the same mission “to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students.”

Over the past two months, the War Department “systematically dismantled every single one of these organizations” using its funding and contracting leverage.

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Hegseth Barred Trans Troops – Yet Navy And Marine Boards Are Voting To Keep Them

Military boards set up to push transgender troops out of the service are instead voting to keep many of them, the New York Times reported Friday, in a quiet break with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ban.

Nine of the 12 service members who have come before the boards have been approved to stay, according to the Times. Boards at Marine Corps Base Quantico, assigned to carry out the removals, “were doing the opposite,” the paper said, and Navy boards given strict instructions to force out sailors were “voting to let them stay.” A Marine staff sergeant who appeared in August thought his career was over, and the panel approved him.

The Air Force is the exception. The Times found no similar pattern there, where transgender airmen are being discharged quickly. The Pentagon has not said how many hearings have been held or how many people have been removed, and the proceedings are closed, even to spouses.

Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force lawyer now at Southwestern Law School, told the Times the boards “are being told to do something that they know is wrong.”

The boards are the last step in a removal campaign that began with a January 2025 executive order. In a September 2025 speech at Quantico, Hegseth told troops, “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses.” The Supreme Court let the ban take effect on May 6, 2025, and Hegseth’s May 8 memo gave active-duty troops until June 6 and reservists until July 7 to leave voluntarily before involuntary separation began. Pentagon data from December 2024 counted about 4,240 service members with a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

The boards were designed to reach one result. Priya Rashid, a military attorney who represents transgender service members, told NPR in February that the outcome is “generally predetermined” and put the cost of assembling each board at $22,000.

An October 2025 Pentagon memo lets commanders overturn a board’s decision to let a transgender service member stay. The memo, from Undersecretary Anthony Tata and obtained by AP, breaks with longstanding policy that boards act independently. It also requires transgender troops to appear in uniforms matching their birth sex, and a hearing proceeds without them if they refuse.

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Pentagon ready to use HEAT RAY weapon at the border to prevent migrants from crossing into US

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has gotten approval from the Pentagon to test out a military heat-ray weapon along the US-Mexico border, according to a memo that was obtained by CNN.

The weapon, formally called the Active Denial System, is nonlethal and fires an unseen beam of electromagnetic energy with a range of just over half a mile.

When the beam hits a person’s skin, it produces an intense burning sensation, similar to when a person opens an oven. The military says this “tingling effect” fades after 10 to 15 minutes, but the weapon also triggers “an instinctive and irresistible urge to run from the effect.”

DHS has not said how the weapon will be used yet. However, current and former Customs and Border Protection officials say the agency has talked internally for years about using it to break up crowds at the southern border, per the report.

Under the memo, DHS gets a “temporary loan” of the single ADS unit for seven months starting in September. The memo says the system “shall not be operated by DoW (Department of War) personnel.”

The memo also places DHS fully in charge of “system employment, use and development of tactics, techniques and procedures.” A defense official told reporters that when the seven months are up, DHS may ask to keep using the system for border work if it can show that it is useful.

In a statement to CNN, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said, “CBP is continually evaluating new technologies, especially those that enhance operational effectiveness and strengthen mission capabilities.”

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The Pentagon is quietly building an elite new tech sabotage agency

The Pentagon has spent months quietly building an elite new tech agency to help covertly disrupt and sabotage foreign technology programs considered threats to American military superiority.

Neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor any other senior Pentagon official has publicly mentioned the agency since it was established this April — a conspicuous omission for a department that has reveled in announcing other major changes aimed at modernizing the military or adopting hard-nosed new policies against foreign adversaries.

Information on the Technology Support Office, or TSO as it is called internally, is nearly impossible to find on Pentagon websites, and the agency is mentioned by name only in several previously unreported Defense Department historical records and memoranda.

While the specifics of its work are highly classified, POLITICO spoke with 12 current and former U.S. national security officials with varying degrees of knowledge about TSO to understand how the agency came to be, the broad contours of its mission and why its operations are shrouded in secrecy.

Some of these people helped establish TSO or worked closely with it; others attended briefings or spoke with current Pentagon officials about it; and some were familiar with Defense Department intelligence programs now merged into TSO. All were granted anonymity to share sensitive details about the agency that have not been previously reported.

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, a private equity billionaire and former head of the White House’s Intelligence Advisory Board during President Donald Trump’s first term, led the push inside the Pentagon to create the new agency.

Tom Rakusan, a senior adviser to Feinberg at the Pentagon, has also been closely involved in setting up TSO. Rakusan is a longtime veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service, and most recently worked at Feinberg’s private equity firm, where he focused on emerging technology.

Hegseth and Feinberg established TSO quickly and without attracting outside scrutiny because they largely built the agency by reorganizing two classified Pentagon intelligence programs that have conducted similar clandestine tech-sabotage efforts at a smaller scale since 2023.

But by creating an agency dedicated to expanding that work, the Defense Department is signaling its intent to ramp up a range of aggressive covert activities abroad — potentially including cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions and disinformation operations.

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Pentagon Letter Lays Out Plan For Four-Star Autonomous Warfare Command

On October 19, the War Department put out a Pentagon letter on how they plan to build a four-star Autonomous Warfare Command. The letter, on Project Agincourt letterhead and signed twice by officials marked “CEO,” began by referencing the past attempt by the Army to transform itself in 1928.

The letter is titled “Building the Autonomous Warfare Command” and comes from the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems (DRPM-UxS), which leads Project Agincourt. The letter revisits a historical episode from the interwar years of the War Department’s attempt to build a unified mechanized force of tanks, armored trucks and motorized infantry. In 1928, Secretary of War Dwight Davis directed the Army to experiment with such a force. However, that force was soon disbanded, and the effort at mechanization was ultimately broken up and added as an afterthought to the various services. It required the German blitzkrieg in 1940 to force the creation of the U.S. Armored Force.

“We face an equally urgent revolution,” the letter says, pointing to low-cost drones that have changed the character, speed and economics of war. Instead of going down the path of 1928, it says, Secretary Pete Hegseth “chose the maximal path.”

Project Agincourt has two missions. The first is to stand up the Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM) by October 1, 2027, as the largest institutional change since the interwar years. The second mission of Project Agincourt is to continue the mission of the DRPM-UxS while pioneering a new acquisition model, which pairs autonomy and robotics companies with operational forces at the “edge.” “The goal is not a particular drone. It is a system built to adapt at scale,” the letter states.

Power projection since the Cold War has been based upon a limited number of very high-end, very expensive systems, and that model has been disrupted. The new advantage for the U.S. will come from the edge, adapting faster than adversaries with two key assets: its lead in superintelligence and an unmatched NCO corps.

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Hegseth meets Netanyahu during secret visit to Israel; said to discuss ‘threats in region’

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a secret meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday.

A spokesman for Netanyahu confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that the meeting, first reported by Axios, took place. Doron Spielman said Netanyahu met with Hegseth at the Ovda Air Force base in southern Israel, where US fighter jets and refuelers are stationed. He said they discussed “the threats in the region,” and the US-Israel partnership in dealing both offensively and defensively with those threats.

Earlier, Hegseth confirmed that he had made an unannounced trip to the Middle East, but did not specify his location or travels, saying only that he had met with US troops while in the region.

It was not clear from the initial Axios report whether other Israeli officials or military personnel were present at the meeting, though later reports indicated Defense Minister Israel Katz attended but IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and Mossad head Roman Gofman did not.

News of Hegseth’s trip came a day after US President Donald Trump endorsed Netanyahu in next week’s election — Israel’s first since the Hamas terror group’s devastating attack on October 7, 2023, which shook the country and plunged it into war in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

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Hegseth travels to University of Tenn. for ‘Send Me Tour,’ touts ‘peace through strength’

As part of his nationwide “Send Me Tour,” United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he addressed Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadets and administered the oath of enlistment to new recruits ahead of the Tennessee-Alabama football game.

The “Send Me Tour” is a national military outreach and enlistment initiative launched by U.S. defense officials to engage with prospective enlistees, speak to military cadets and administer oaths of enlistment to new service members, according to the U.S. Department of War.

Addressing audience members at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on Saturday, Hegseth spoke to both new enlistees and cadets from ROTC before a football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The war secretary also administered the oath of enlistment to young men and women joining all military service branches and the Tennessee National Guard.

“For 251 years, Americans raised their right hand and said, ‘send me;’ send me to fight the redcoats, send me to fight the Nazis, send me to fight the communists, send me to fight the Islamists,” he said. “And now, you’ve said, ‘send me’ to defend [your] nation, to fight against whatever threatens our shores, our interests and our people.”

Hegseth said those stepping up to serve are true peacemakers who preserve “peace through strength” and ensure the safety of the American homeland.

“If there’s one entity that should win the Nobel Peace Prize every single year, it actually should be the United States military,” he said. “Peace through strength: the reason our people live free, the reason we get to play football games like this one today, are because we are stronger than any other nation in the world.”

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70+ House Democrats Demand Pentagon Answer for Iran Wedding Massacre

More than 70 House Democrats on Tuesday sought answers and accountability from the Pentagon regarding a likely US strike on a September wedding gathering in southern Iran that killed five civilians – all women and children – and wounded over 70 others.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) led 74 lawmakers in demanding an explanation for the September 1 bombing in Kuhestak and details of what the Trump administration is doing to protect Iranian civilians.

“We demand urgent answers regarding the United States’ role in this strike, why the strike proceeded given the clear risk of significant civilian harm, and what steps the [US Department of Defense] is taking to prevent further civilian casualties in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote.

The strike occurred at approximately 9:30 pm local time while preparations were underway for the wedding of the daughter of a local fisher.

According to witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press, around 150 women and children were gathered at the Mallahi family compound. The celebration was following a regional tradition in which women and men gather separately. The bride and groom had not yet arrived, and the main celebration had not begun. A bomb struck the room where dinner would have been served.

Four initial fatalities – two women and two children – were identified by Iranian authorities and human rights groups: 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri, 43-year-old Kolsoum Malahi Najandnia, 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi, and 4-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi. A fifth victim, 22-year-old woman Asiyeh Molainejad, died in a hospital on September 3.

Weapons experts concluded the blast was likely caused by a direct hit from a US munition. The Pentagon has not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike, which remains under investigation.

“This incident is regrettably among the latest in a string of civilian casualty incidents arising from the US-led war in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. “This includes a strike at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war that killed a reported 175 civilians, including 120 children.”

The United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that the Minab school strike constituted a war crime.

“While it has been reported that a preliminary investigation by the department found that the US military was responsible for the strike, over six months later the department has still not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the strike nor released the findings of its investigation,” the lawmakers’ letter notes.

“Similarly, reporting and independent analysis indicate that US forces were responsible for a strike at a youth sports hall in Lamerd, Iran, that killed 21 civilians, including 7 children, on February 28. While the department has denied responsibility, analysis by weapons experts found that the damage pattern is consistent with that of an American Precision Strike Missile,” the lawmakers continued, referring to Lockheed Martin’s next-generation surface-to-surface ballistic missile.

Hegseth, who advocates “maximum lethality” for US forces, has expressed disdain for what he called “stupid rules of engagement” designed to minimize civilian harm. He has overseen the dismantling of efforts meant to mitigate wartime harm to civilians – hundreds of thousands of whom have been killed in US-led wars during this century, according to experts.

“Maximum lethality,” combined with AI-powered systems allowing for exponentially faster and more numerous target selection, has raised concerns that have been underscored by actions including US-backed Israeli massacres in Gaza and Lebanon, and US airstrikes in Iran, where tens of thousands of people have been killed or wounded during more than seven months of President Donald Trump’s illegal war of choice, according to Iranian government figures.

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Outrage over plan to livestream US military firing squad execution

The Pentagon’s plan to livestream the firing squad execution of a convicted military base mass shooter has met widespread condemnation, with the UN saying it would amount to torture and US lawmakers from both parties slamming the move.

Nidal Hasan’s execution – which is scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood, Texas, where he gunned down 13 people in 2009 – is set to be the first by US military firing squad since 1945.

Representative Austin Scott, a member of US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, said he supported executing Hasan but that “livestreaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that.”

Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said broadcasting the execution would be “a barbaric spectacle” that would give Hasan “more attention and more control” and “a global platform to amplify his hateful, anti-American message”.

Reed added: “This is a gift to anti-American terrorist recruiters.”

Trump on Friday backed the execution – saying Hasan “deserves it” and branding him a “maniac” – but did not comment on the livestreaming.

A Pentagon official told AFP the previous day that the execution would be streamed live, after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said “we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public”.

Later, Hegseth wrote “correct” when retweeting a media report about the planned livestream.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the move, telling AFP yesterday that “the livestreaming of an execution is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture”.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said it was a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered”.

Hegseth said it would be the military’s first firing squad execution since World War II – a reference to Eddie Slovik, who was put to death for desertion in 1945.

Hegseth said: “People need to understand that … there’s serious consequence for these types of things.

“I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was win, which was understand when the enemy attacks you, you need to stand your ground.”

The last US military execution was in 1961, when John Bennett was hanged for rape and attempted murder.

The Death Penalty Information Centre says that 135 soldiers have been executed by the US military since 1916.

According to rights group Amnesty International, at least 17 public executions are known to have been carried out in 2025 – six in Afghanistan and 11 in Iran.

Amnesty’s Justin Mazzola said on Friday that the death penalty is “a violation of human rights”, and that streaming Hasan’s execution “would only compound the cruelty”.

Twelve of the 13 people Hasan killed and 30 of those he wounded were soldiers. He was shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack.

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