Tag: pentagon

Head of Pentagon’s UAP office to testify to Senate Armed Services subcommittee

The new director of the Defense Department’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is scheduled to meet with lawmakers in closed-door and open sessions Tuesday to discuss his organization’s activities investigating “unidentified anomalous phenomena” that have raised national security concerns.

The hearing with the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities comes on the heels of the release of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2024 consolidated annual report on UAP.

UAP, an acronym that refers to unidentified anomalous phenomena, is a modern term for UFOs and mysterious transmedium objects.

AARO leader Jon Kosloski told DefenseScoop and other reporters last week that his organization has received over 1,600 UAP reports to date, stating that officials have “taken meaningful steps to improve data collection and retention, bolster sensor development, effectively triage UAP reports and reduce the stigma of reporting a UAP event.”

A new AARO-related technology that could be discussed in Tuesday’s hearing is a prototype system called Gremlin that the Defense Department is deploying. The Georgia Tech Research Institute developed the Gremlin sensor architecture, according to the report that was publicly released last week. The technology has “several sensing modalities to detect, track, characterize and identify UAP in areas of interest,” officials wrote.

The document contained a diagram of an architecture that included a Gremlin “network stack” connected to long-range electro-optical/infrared sensors, 2D search radar, 3D radar and an RF spectrum monitor. It also included ADS-B, NAS, GPS, satellite communications, and cellular and copper/fiber links.

The Gremlin capability “demonstrated functionality and successfully collected data” during a test event earlier this year, per the report.

The department is now using the technology to conduct what officials are calling “pattern of life collection” at a “national security” site. Kosloski declined to identify the location during his recent meeting with reporters.

Lawmakers have raised concerns that some UAP could be advanced capabilities possessed by U.S. foes.

Kosloski told reporters that his office hasn’t confirmed that any UAP activities are attributable to foreign adversaries, or discovered any evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology.

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Pentagon Fails 7th Audit In Row, Aims For Clean Audit In 2028

For the seventh year in a row, the Department of Defense (DOD) has failed its annual financial statement audit, a massive undertaking meant to ensure accountability for its $3.8 trillion in assets and $4 trillion in liabilities.

Despite the setback, Pentagon officials highlighted incremental progress and reaffirmed their commitment to securing a clean audit opinion by 2028.

The latest results, released on Nov. 15, confirmed that the DOD, once again received a disclaimer of opinion, meaning auditors could not provide assurance over the completeness and accuracy of the Pentagon’s financial records.

This year’s audit, like the six before it, exposed persistent challenges in the DOD’s financial management systems.

Teams of auditors conducted hundreds of site visits, assessing how the DOD manages taxpayer dollars across its operations, which span more than 4,000 sites in more than 160 countries.

Of the 28 sub-audits conducted across Pentagon entities that undergo standalone financial statement audits, only nine received unmodified (clean) opinions. Another entity received a qualified opinion, while 15 entities were issued disclaimers. Three audit opinions remain pending.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that, while some progress was made in this year’s annual audit, challenges remain.

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Pentagon ‘Shocked’ By Houthi Arsenal, Sophistication Is ‘Getting Scary’

A top Pentagon official responsible for purchasing arms for America’s defense stockpile has expressed ‘shock’ at the increasingly sophisticated arsenal possessed by Yemen’s Houthis.

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante spoke at an event hosted by Axios on Wednesday, where he said that Houthis are displaying and deploying advanced weaponry, especially missiles that “can do things that are just amazing.”

He described that Houthis “are getting scary” in terms of their capability on display for more than a year in the Red Sea, where they’ve gone to war against Israeli and international shipping.

“I’m an engineer and a physicist, and I’ve been around missiles my whole career,” LaPlante said before the summit, called the “Future of Defense” in Washington, DC.

“What I’ve seen of what the Houthis have done in the last six months is something that — I’m just shocked.”

Among the surprisingly advanced capabilities include anti-ship ballistic missiles. Analysts have widely asserted that without doubt Iran is directly supplying these and other capabilities.

The Houthis have also routinely scored direct hits on commercial shipping vessels with both aerial and drone boats.

The Shia group has also claimed many times to have scored hits on US, UK, and other allied warships; however, the US has kept a tight lid on the extent of this, or actual damage, perhaps wishing to not give the Houthis a propaganda win.

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Startling claims made at UFO hearing in Congress, but lack direct evidence

US government employees have been injured by UFOs and the US government has conducted a secret UFO retrieval program, a former department of defense official told a congressional committee on Wednesday, though the hearing lacked any direct evidence to back up the startling claims.

The hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), which has become the more accepted term for UFO, also heard that the government has a “huge amount” of secret information on UAPs, including “photos, video, photos, other information”. But it also learned, following a query from Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert, that there is no evidence of aliens having a secret underwater “base” on this planet.

The hearing came more than a year after the Pentagon was accused of running a secret UFO retrieval program by whistleblower David Grusch, though no physical evidence has also ever emerged to back up these claims.

The lack of concrete proof has been a consistent thorn in the side of those who believe the government is harboring UAPs, with Wednesday’s hearing again focussing on testimony from people who said they were aware of secret government programs, rather than witnesses presenting actual hard evidence.

It followed a blockbuster congressional hearing last year in which Grusch, a former American intelligence official, claimed that the US government conducted a “multi-decade” program which collected and attempted to reverse-engineer, crashed UAPs, as members of Congress investigate allegations the government is hiding knowledge of alien craft and beings from lawmakers.

The two hearings reveal the remarkable extent to which discussions around UAPs – previously mostly the domain of conspiracy theorists and believers in aliens – have now penetrated the US military and the corridors of Congress.

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Department of Defense agency which investigates UAPs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the Pentagon has previously denied the existence of any secret government programs to retrieve alien spacecraft and no evidence of these programs has ever emerged.

A standout moment on Wednesday came when Nancy Mace, the chair of the hearing, questioned Luiz Elizondo, a former department of defense official who this year claimed in a memoir that the US is “in possession of advanced technology made off-world by non-human intelligence”.

“Has the government conducted secret UAP crash retrieval programs? Yes or no?” Mace asked. Elizondo, who was speaking under oath, said yes.

“Were they designed to identify and reverse engineer alien craft? Yes or no?” Mace said. Elizondo said yes.

Mace continued: “In your book, you mentioned government employees who’ve been injured by UAPs placed on leave and receiving government compensation for their injuries. Is that correct?” Elizondo said it was correct.

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Pentagon Leaker Who Published Sensitive Information Revealing Ukraine Was Losing War to Russia is Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison

US National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was officially charged in April 2023 with leaking secret Pentagon documents. Teixeira was charged with six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified documents relating to national defense.

Classified documents detailing the Ukraine war, Middle East, China, Africa and Israel ended up on a gaming platform. Senior intelligence officials at the time called the leak “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” in a reference to the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence.

What really upset the Biden regime and the military-industrial complex was that Teixeira leaked documents that exposed Biden’s lies about Ukraine.

According to the one Teixeira leak, US and UK special forces are on the ground in Ukraine.

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Trump’s war on “woke” ideology could trigger mass exit of Pentagon staff

If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his campaign promises in his victory speech, the Pentagon could see personnel fired, especially “woke” generals who have embraced progressive movements associated with racial and social issues.

In his last term, Trump faced numerous forms of resistance, especially from the Pentagon, largely due to his position on security issues such as NATO or his willingness to put troops on the streets to suppress protests in the US. Former generals and defence secretaries have been some of the former president’s fiercest critics, labelling him a fascist and saying he was unfit to be president, a Reuters investigation found.

Having gained experience in his first term, Trump is expected to prioritise loyalty in key elements of his administration, which could lead to the removal of military officers and career civil servants he deems disloyal.

In June, when questioned by Fox News, Trump said he would fire generals described as “woke.”

“I would fire them. You can’t have (a) woke military,” Trump said.

According to the Reuters investigation, sources believe that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr, a former fighter pilot and widely respected black military commander, is in Trump’s crosshairs after he spoke out on racial discrimination in the US following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.

During the election campaign, Vice President-elect JD Vance expressed his opinion during an interview by stating that political leaders have to “get rid of them and replace” the people who are not aligned with the political vision that the head of state is trying to implement.

This speech corroborates the fear of some of the American elite who understand that this anti-woke movement by Trump could become broad.

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The Pentagon Fails to Send Absentee Ballots to Active Military Service Members

Republican lawmakers demand answers from the Pentagon after military service members complained that they have not received enough absentee ballots to vote before Election Day.

GOP Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), and Mike Waltz (R-FL) sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin citing their “grave concern over deficiencies in the Defense Department’s protocols” for the U.S. military because they said the absentee ballot stockpile has been “depleted and had not been replenished.”

“Our nation’s brave men and women in uniform brought to our attention that there has been inadequate education at the administrative level on how to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, and fill in a federal write-in absentee ballot if their state-issued ballot does not arrive in time,” the letter reads. “Other service members also stated that when a request for a federal write-in absentee ballot was made, they were told the base’s stockpile of such ballots was depleted and had not been replenished.”

The lawmakers also wrote that the Pentagon offered “inadequate education” on how service members can vote while deployed. 

The Republicans demanded that the Pentagon take extraordinary measures to ensure that the nation’s “elite warriors” have an opportunity to cast their vote in the upcoming election. However, with only three days until Election Day, lawmakers fear the government has not yet taken action. 

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Shocking UFO allegations make the case for the Disclosure Act

Amid the political spectacle of the election, former President Donald Trump appeared on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast and spoke about UFOs. According to Trump, Air Force pilots told him how mysterious spherical objects outperformed one of the most advanced fighter jets America has.

Similar accounts date back to at least the 1940s. More recently, military encounters with spherical objects and other unknown craft that exhibit seemingly extraordinary capabilities generated a series of eyebrow-raising headlines.

But a host of other, ostensibly credible UFO-related allegations is even more remarkable.

Last month, Kirk McConnell, a recently retired 37-year veteran professional staff member on the congressional armed services and intelligence committees, confirmed publicly that whistleblowers provided firsthand testimony to Congress alleging the existence of ultra-secret programs that retrieve and seek to reverse engineer advanced craft of unknown or non-human origin.

McConnell is not alone. He joins Sen Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; former House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.); and ex-intelligence official David Grusch, who have all stated publicly that individuals with firsthand knowledge have confirmed the existence of such efforts to Congress or to the internal watchdog that oversees America’s spy agencies.

Such remarkable statements provide important context for what is arguably the most extraordinary legislation ever proposed in Congress.

Introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act defines “non-human intelligence,” “technologies of unknown origin” and “legacy program.”

As characterized in the bipartisan Disclosure Act, “legacy program” refers to any “endeavors to collect, exploit, or reverse engineer technologies of unknown origin or examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence.” The term “non-human intelligence” appears two dozen times throughout the 64-page legislation.

The Disclosure Act would also require the U.S. government to take possession of “any and all” recovered UFOs and “biological evidence of non-human intelligence” transferred to private defense contractors.

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Pentagon UFO chief reveals US military’s new ‘alien tech’ crash retrieval program

The Pentagon‘s former chief UFO investigator has revealed a sensitive new government program to recover ‘alleged alien tech’ in the event of a ‘shoot down.’

Dr Sean Kirkpatrick — a longtime CIA scientist who headed the US military’s UFO-chasing All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — admitted to the program’s existence when pressed during a new interview.

The retrieval program’s protocols were for ‘any UAP recovery’ involving ‘everything from balloons to drones to alleged alien tech,’ as Dr Kirkpatrick told podcast host John Michael Godier.

In recent years, Pentagon brass, NASA experts and academics have all reframed what were once called ‘flying saucers’ as ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’ (UAP).

The revelation is the first time that the US government has officially acknowledged a UAP or UFO retrieval program, despite decades of speculation and whistleblower testimony that America has already been in possession of alien craft for decades.

It also comes amid multiple federal investigations into ‘mothership’ UFOs over key US military sites, releasing hard to identify, much less catch, ‘drone swarm’ UFOs.

This week, the Pentagon’s North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) admitted that America’s military installations have been plagued, since 2022, by at least 600 so-called ‘drone’ incursions, many still unexplained.

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Pentagon chief reveals high-res photo of a UFO ‘mothership’: ‘A huge mini city floating in the sky’

An ex-Pentagon official, who gained fame for blowing the lid off a $22-million, secretive government UFO program, has revealed an image of an alleged UFO ‘mothership.’

Luis Elizondo, a career US Army counterintelligence specialist, previously ran the military’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

Monday night in Philadelphia at a private UFO event, Elizondo dropped what he described as a craft ‘looking like the mothership from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,”‘ referring to the 1977 Steven Spielberg film. 

‘Guess what we caught in Romania in 2022? By the way, the US Embassy,’ as Elizondo told attendees at the paid event, gesturing to the photo: ‘That.’

He went on to describe it as a ‘huge mini city floating in the sky.’ 

But the UFO, which resembles a gleaming disc-shaped craft, has already drawn withering critiques from skeptics, believers and even military UFO witnesses alike, who claim to have traced the photo to, not to the US Embassy, but a Facebook page.

One suggested to DailyMail.com that Elizondo has been lax in his vetting of such images in a bid to add sensational new material to his ‘paid speaking engagements.’

Veteran US Air Force Staff Sergeant, Jeremy McGowan, who witnessed a dramatic UFO encounter himself in the Middle East decades ago, told DailyMail.com that Elizondo’s dubious ‘mothership’ UFO fits a pattern with the man’s past claims. 

‘This unfortunate situation with Lue follows my experiences with him nearly exactly,’ McGowan said. ‘I witnessed him exaggerate or outright fabricate information that simply wasn’t true.’

Elizondo unveiled the 2022 Romanian UFO photo at an October 28, 2004 event held at The City Winery, a wine bar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for $50-$30 per ticket.

‘There’s a whole lot more here folks,’ Elizondo told the audience in a leaked clip. ‘I just want to give you kind of a small taste of what’s going on “behind the scenes.”‘

‘We’re having pilots, military pilots and civilian pilots in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East, report what unimaginably seems impossible,’ as Elizondo began to explain his ‘real photo’ of a UFO.

‘They described it literally ‘the mothership,” Elizondo said.

But despite credible federal reports of ‘mothership’ UFOs over domestic US military sites — investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), an FBI task force, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) and 16 local sheriff’s offices — internet sleuths quickly managed to poke holes in Elizondo’s 2022 Romanian UFO.

John Greenewald Jr, a longtime government transparency advocate who runs The Black Vault, quickly tracked the photo back to a September 13, 2023 post in a Facebook group titled ‘Mysterious Ancient Discoveries.’

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