Tag: pentagon

Bible-reading Pentagon commanders halted UFO research ‘over fears aliens were demons’

Pentagon commanders have clamped down on research into extraterrestrials because of their religious beliefs, it’s claimed.

Leading UFO researcher Ron James says senior figures in the US government fear aliens are in fact demons. Ron, who is Director of Media Relations for UFO research group MUFON, claims there is “a very large contingent of people” within the Pentagon who opposed the work of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program [AATIP] because they think the UAPs regularly reported by US military sources are piloted by creatures from Hell.

He says he was told by Luis Elizondo, who has gone on record as being the boss of AATIP, it “was not just a little voice in The Pentagon…but a huge group of people thought the phenomenon that was being witnessed was demons”.

This fundamentalist Christian lobby within the US defence establishment “actually affected Elizondo’s ability to get funding, “ Ron says. Belief in both UFOs and the literal truth of the Bible is not entirely incompatible, he adds.

For example, Ron spoke to staunchly Christian US congressman Tim Burchett. “I sat down and interviewed him. His feeling was that if you look in the Bible and you look at Ezekiel building the wheel there’s a lot of people that think that that was a spaceship”. He adds that His Holiness the Pope has officially acknowledged that there is life on other planets.

But the strong arm of religious fundamentalism within US political circles has actively hindered research into UFOs – and science generally, Ron says.

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ALONE IN THE WORLD?

The recordings captured from US Air Force planes last a mere 1.17 minutes — just long enough to spark mass international reaction. In the first video, against a backdrop of cloud contours, a bright white oval figure streaks across the sky.

“Oh, my gosh!” exclaims one of the pilots.

“They are going against the wind!” chimes in the second, “and the wind is 120 knots to the west!”

“Look at that thing, dude!” insists the first one.

Suddenly, the object starts to rotate. The pilot can’t contain his amazement.

“Look at that thing! It’s rotating!” Cut.

In the second video, the camera is pointed downward, with the sea as the backdrop. The radar pinpoints an object moving at such astonishing speed that it eludes tracking. The first two attempts are unsuccessful. On the third try, the radar locks onto it.

“Whoa! We got it!” exclaims the pilot.

The military personnel are all excitement: “Woo-hoo!” one cheers.

“Oh, my gosh, dude!” exclaims the first.

“Wow! Look at it fly!” Cut.

In the third video, a small object picked up by the radar remains static for a few moments before vanishing abruptly. Cut.

These images were never meant to go public. In fact, they gathered dust in the Pentagon’s archives for several years until Christopher Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, and later for Security and Information Operations, leaked them to the press. Since 2017, Mellon has been working to discover the truth about unidentified aerial phenomena, or what are commonly known as UFOs, or what the US government now calls UAPs — unidentified anomalous phenomenon.

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Department of Defense Signs Contract With Social Media Monitoring Company

Fresh revelations regarding a $2.5 million contractual agreement between the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) at Fort George G. Meade and social media scrutinizer Dataminr have emerged. These claims, unveiled by a US government notice, imply a new era of digital monitoring rests on the horizon, increasingly unsettling in its reinforcement of sweeping surveillance, and potentially having implications on free speech and privacy protection.

Fort Meade, also known as the steering wheel of the US Government’s paramount signals intelligence organization, the National Security Agency, has seemingly struck a discreet deal to expand its espionage services.

DISA, commodiously located at Fort Meade, is now purported to have voluminous exposure to public posts from assorted social media platforms, including X, formerly Twitter.

Dataminr is a company specializing in AI-driven real-time information discovery and is known for detecting, classifying, and determining the significance of public information in real time. It’s plausible that government entities, including the Department of Defense, may leverage services like Dataminr to monitor social media and other public data sources to maintain situational awareness and respond to emerging events or threats more rapidly.

When privacy buffs and free speech advocates look at governmental use of tools like Dataminr, it’s met with a hefty dose of suspicion, and rightfully so. The potential implications for personal freedom, civil rights, and the pillars of democracy are considerable. There’s this looming worry about the government, potentially with too loose a leash, exploiting these tools to spy on lawful activities and on people living their everyday lives with no criminal intentions.

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PENTAGON’S BUDGET IS SO BLOATED THAT IT NEEDS AN AI PROGRAM TO NAVIGATE IT

AS TECH LUMINARIES like Elon Musk issue solemn warnings about artificial intelligence’s threat of “civilizational destruction,” the U.S. military is using it for a decidedly more mundane purpose: understanding its sprawling $816.7 billion budget and figuring out its own policies.

Thanks to its bloat and political wrangling, the annual Department of Defense budget legislation includes hundreds of revisions and limitations telling the Pentagon what it can and cannot do. To make sense of all those provisions, the Pentagon created an AI program, codenamed GAMECHANGER. 

“In my comptroller role, I am, of course, the most excited about applying GAMECHANGER to gain better visibility and understanding across our various budget exhibits,” said Gregory Little, the deputy comptroller of the Pentagon, shortly after the program’s creation last year. 

“The fact that they have to go to such extraordinary measures to understand what their own policies are is an indictment of how they operate,” said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and expert on the defense budget. “It’s kind of similar to the problem with the budget as a whole: They don’t make tough decisions, they just layer on more policies, more weapons systems, more spending. Between the Pentagon and Congress, they’re not really getting rid of old stuff, they’re just adding more.”

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PENTAGON-FUNDED STUDY WARNS DEMENTIA AMONG U.S. OFFICIALS POSES NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT

AS THE NATIONAL security workforce ages, dementia impacting U.S. officials poses a threat to national security, according to a first-of-its-kind study by a Pentagon-funded think tank. The report, released this spring, came as several prominent U.S. officials trusted with some of the nation’s most highly classified intelligence experienced public lapses, stoking calls for resignations and debate about Washington’s aging leadership.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had a second freezing episode last month, enjoys the most privileged access to classified information of anyone in Congress as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leadership. Ninety-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose decline has seen her confused about how to vote and experiencing memory lapses — forgetting conversations and not recalling a monthslong absence — was for years a member of the Gang of Eight and remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which she has served since 2001.

The study, published by the RAND Corporation’s National Security Research Division in April, identifies individuals with both current and former access to classified material who develop dementia as threats to national security, citing the possibility that they may unwittingly disclose government secrets. 

“Individuals who hold or held a security clearance and handled classified material could become a security threat if they develop dementia and unwittingly share government secrets,” the study says.

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The Pentagon’s UFO office is sending cryptic ‘alien’ messages

Last week, the Pentagon’s new UFO office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), unveiled its long-awaited website. Tucked among previously-released graphics, transcripts and videos is an important new document outlining the office’s mission and objectives.

Within hours of the site’s launch, eagle-eyed sleuths noticed that an image of a spherical object, divided into quarters, appears on the corners of the “Mission Overview” document. Further analysis determined that the image is a stock photo titled “alien technology in a metallic ball.”

While such “alien” and “metallic ball” references might otherwise be chalked up to a crude prank, closer analysis suggests that there is more than meets the eye.

According to AARO director Seán Kirkpatrick, the most common observations claimed in the 800 reports received by his office as of late May are of “spheres,” 3 to 13 feet in diameter and “white, silver, [or] translucent” in color. Two videos and two images of objects fitting this description, all recorded by U.S. servicemembers, have emerged in recent years.

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PENTAGON MISLED CONGRESS ABOUT U.S. BASES IN AFRICA

SINCE A CADRE of U.S.-trained officers joined a junta that overthrew Niger’s democratically elected president in late July, more than 1,000 U.S. troops have been largely confined to their Nigerien outposts, including America’s largest drone base in the region, Air Base 201 in Agadez.

The base, which has cost the U.S. a total of $250 million since construction began in 2016, is the key U.S. surveillance hub in West Africa. But in testimony before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in March, the chief of U.S. Africa Command described Air Base 201 as “minimal” and “low cost.”

Gen. Michael Langley, the AFRICOM chief, told Congress about just two “enduring” U.S. forward operating sites in Africa: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and a longtime logistics hub on Ascension Island in the south Atlantic Ocean. “The Command also operates out of 12 other posture locations throughout Africa,” he said in his prepared testimony. “These locations have minimal permanent U.S. presence and have low-cost facilities and limited supplies for these dedicated Americans to perform critical missions and quickly respond to emergencies.”

Experts say that Langley misled Congress, downplaying the size and scope of the U.S. footprint in Africa. AFRICOM’s “posture” on the continent actually consists of no fewer than 18 outposts, in addition to Camp Lemonnier and Ascension Island, according to information from AFRICOM’s secret 2022 theater posture plan, which was seen by The Intercept. A U.S. official with knowledge of AFRICOM’s current footprint on the continent confirmed that the same 20 bases are still in operation. Another two locations in Somalia and Ghana were also, according to the 2022 document, “under evaluation.”

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