Tag: secrecy

Tinker Air Force Base deaths: 17 people dead in 2023, military refuses to reveal causes

An Air Force base in Oklahoma is tight-lipped after 17 people have died since the beginning of 2023, with an advocate for military families saying she’d made inquiries about a possible rash of suicides. 

Officials for the Air Force and the base have refused to reveal the nature of the deaths, saying only that there were ‘various causes.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to the base for an explanation or names of the personnel who have died – but officials did not respond in time for this report. 

A number of the deaths are also still ‘under investigation,’ a spokesperson for the base said. A Military.com investigation suggested that ‘they had been informed of deaths connected to base this year including potential suicides.’ 

It’s not clear how many of the deaths were service members or what their role was at the base, which has over 30,000 personnel on site. 

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National security panel reviewing secretive land buys near key Air Force base

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is probing a secretive company that has been buying up land around a key Air Force base in California, sources familiar with the matter and a California lawmaker told CNN.

The ongoing review by CFIUS, an interagency panel chaired by the Treasury Department that is tasked with examining the national security implications of foreign investments, has not been previously reported.

But it comes as several California congressmen have raised concerns about the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of land bought up in recent years in Solano County, California, by Flannery Associates, a limited liability company registered in Delaware whose owners are publicly unknown.

“They’re right at the fence line with Travis Air Force Base, on three sides of the fence,” Rep. John Garamendi, a California Democrat whose district includes the base, told CNN.

Flannery is not required by Delaware law to disclose its owners. Attorneys representing the company did not return CNN’s requests for comment, but previously told the Wall Street Journal that British and Irish investors make up 3% of the company’s invested capital, with the rest being from US investors. They also denied that Flannery’s purchases were motivated by the proximity to Travis Air Force Base.

A Treasury Department spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that “CFIUS is committed to taking all necessary actions within its authority to safeguard US national security. Consistent with law and practice, CFIUS does not publicly comment on transactions that it may or may not be reviewing.”

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‘We’re Going To Uncover the Cover Up’: House Probes Government Handling of UFOs

“The American public has a right to learn” about UFOs, lawmaker says. A House Oversight subcommittee hearing on Wednesday examined what the government knows about unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.

The hourslong hearing “oscillated between statements of concern about the potential national security threat posed by unknown objects flying close to U.S. military aircraft and more extreme allusions to government conspiracies to hide the existence of alien lifeforms,” reports The Washington Post. More:

“We’re not bringing little green men or flying saucers into the hearing — sorry to disappoint about half y’all,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said. “We’re just going to get to the facts. We’re going to uncover the cover up.”

In response to reported encounters by Navy pilots, the U.S. military and the intelligence community have sought to more closely analyze such incidents. The sightings, including some that are believed to be drones or unmanned craft — like the Chinese surveillance airship shot down in U.S. airspace earlier this year — have fueled concerns that American adversaries could have developed new technologies that pose a threat to U.S. security.

Subcommittee members yesterday called for more transparency from the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies about their findings regarding UFOs—or “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP), the new preferred term.

“The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, nonhuman intelligence and unexplainable phenomena,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.).

One of the witnesses yesterday was David Grusch, a former Pentagon employee who worked on the UAP task force and now claims the government is secretly storing downed alien vessels.

“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multidecade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access,” Grusch claimed again yesterday. He also agreed when asked whether he had “personal knowledge of people who’ve been harmed or injured in efforts to cover up or conceal these extraterrestrial technology.”

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SECRETIVE FEDERAL AGENCY’S DAYS OF KILLING PETS WITH POISON BOMBS MAY FINALLY BE ENDING

PATCHES OF SNOW dotted the ground when Canyon Mansfield stepped outside on March 16, 2017. The hill behind the 14-year-old’s home in Pocatello, Idaho, was not particularly large. At the summit, Mansfield would only be 300 yards from his house, and yet, he treasured the visits.

With its sweeping mountain view, the hill was Canyon’s refuge. His 3-year-old yellow lab, Kasey, was his constant companion there.

The two set off as usual that afternoon. Kasey was thrashing one of his toys when Canyon spotted a sprinkler-like object protruding from the ground. He ran a finger along the device. Suddenly, he heard a pop, and an orange cloud burst forth. Canyon lunged back as the front of his body was doused in chemicals. The burning began immediately.

As Canyon grasped for snow to irrigate his eyes, he heard Kasey grunting near the device. He called to him, but he didn’t come. He stopped what he was doing and ran to him. Dropping to his knees, Canyon watched as Kasey writhed in spasms. Frothing at the mouth, the dog’s eyes turned glossy. The boy didn’t want to leave, but he knew he needed help. He sprinted down the hill for his mother.

Canyon’s father, Mark Mansfield, a family doctor, was at work when the boy called for help. He raced home as fast as he could. Pulling into the property, Mansfield rushed to Kasey and positioned himself above the dog, prepared to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Canyon stopped him. It’s poison, Canyon said.

Kasey was dead, and Canyon’s head was pounding like never before. Toggling between his training as a physician and his horror as a parent, Mansfield struggled to sort out his son’s symptoms from the trauma he’d just experienced. He told Canyon to get into the shower immediately.

While his son cleaned up, Mansfield called the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office. A bomb and hazmat team were dispatched. Longtime Sheriff Lorin Nielsen was at a loss, trying to answer what felt like an absurd question: Who would plant a bomb in Pocatello?

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Whistleblower testifies that US government is ‘absolutely’ in possession of non-human craft

A former Pentagon intelligence official testified Wednesday that he was “absolutely” certain the government had possession of nonhuman craft.

David Grusch, a former Air Force officer, said during a House Oversight Committee hearing that his information was based on interviews with 40 witnesses and that he knew where the material was being held. Grusch added that nonhuman “biologics” were recovered along with the craft.

Grusch initially made the claims last month before adding the information about pilots in a NewsNation interview.

He was an intelligence officer for the Air Force and eventually joined the task force looking into unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, the military’s preferred term for UFOs.

He said he became a whistleblower in May 2022 after he received a number of concerning reports that the government was acting with secrecy and without congressional oversight with regard to UAP.

A Pentagon spokesperson strenuously denied Grusch’s initial claims, saying they have “not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”

Grusch said he feared for his life and had faced professional and personal consequences from the government for speaking out, noting there was an ongoing whistleblower retaliation investigation into his treatment.

He said he believed that the government first became aware of nonhuman technology in the 1930s and that there had been a “multi-decade campaign to disenfranchise public interest.”

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Cruz-Klobuchar Amendment Would Give Lawmakers Powers To Scrub Private Information From The Internet

In a move that will raise eyebrows amongst transparency proponents, US Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are gearing up to put forth an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that could provide lawmakers with unprecedented powers to censor a plethora of internet-based information. The proposed change, however, has sparked concerns around potential censorship of news reports and impingements upon freedom of speech.

The proposed legislation would extend the privilege to lawmakers, their family members, select congressional staff identified as high-risk, and individuals cohabitating with lawmakers, enabling them to demand the extensive elimination of certain personal data online, referred to as “covered information.” The amendment enumerates “covered information” to include home addresses, secondary residences, personal email accounts, cell phone numbers, and other personal and sensitive travel details.

Furthermore, the amendment equips lawmakers with the power to obliterate private data amassed by digital devices, including apps. This is proposed as a response to fears of lawmakers being located precisely based on this data. Despite the legitimate anxiety around personal data being traded by data brokers, the new amendment would equip lawmakers with a set of privacy rights which would be inaccessible to ordinary citizens, who might be similarly vulnerable to security risks.

The proposed amendment, though, has precipitated concerns about press freedom. Investigative journalism often requires accessing private information of lawmakers. The new amendment could seriously impede such investigations.

Past instances of influence peddling, often cloaked by home-related favors, might have gone unexposed under this amendment, Lee Fang opined.

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Veteran US Marine fears he’ll end up dead ‘like Jeffrey Epstein’ after being warned by ‘men in black’ not to speak about UFO he claims he saw during Sumatran earthquake humanitarian mission in 2009

A US Marine veteran who claimed his unit saw a secret military UFO in 2009 has said he is now living in fear for his life as he believes dark forces want him silenced. 

Former rifleman Michael Herrera, 33, has said he doesn’t want to end up like disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein – who he suggests was killed, despite his August 2019 death being ruled a suicide. 

Last month, Denver-born Herrera sensationally claimed that while he was serving in Indonesia in 2009, his six-man unit stumbled across a flying saucer being loaded with weapons. 

Herrera was then a 20-year-old rifleman sent on a Navy humanitarian mission during the 2009 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region.

He told the Mail that while guarding an airdrop of aid supplies outside the city of Padang in October that year, his six-man unit stumbled across a hovering octagonal craft in apparent use by clandestine US forces. 

‘I could see something moving and rotating. It was changing colors between a very light matte gray to a very dark matte black,’ he said. ‘It stuck out like a sore thumb.’

They were then threatened at gunpoint by unmarked US forces at the scene who told him not to disclose his sighting of the ‘flying saucer’ to anyone, according to Herrera, and his camera was seized by some mysterious ‘men in black’.

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PENTAGON JOINS ELON MUSK’S WAR AGAINST PLANE TRACKING

A TECHNOLOGY WISH LIST circulated by the U.S. military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command suggests the country’s most secretive war-fighting component shares an anxiety with the world’s richest man: Too many people can see where they’re flying their planes.

The Joint Special Operations Air Component, responsible for ferrying commandos and their gear around the world, is seeking help keeping these flights out of the public eye through a “‘Big Data’ Analysis & Feedback Tool,” according to a procurement document obtained by The Intercept. The document is one of a series of periodic releases of lists of technologies that special operations units would like to see created by the private sector.

The listing specifically calls out the risk of social media “tail watchers” and other online observers who might identify a mystery plane as a military flight. According to the document, the Joint Special Operations Air Component needs software to “leverage historical and real-time data, such as the travel histories and details of specific aircraft with correlation to open-source information, social media, and flight reporting.”

Armed with this data, the tool would help the special operations gauge how much scrutiny a given plane has received in the past and how likely it is to be connected to them by prying eyes online.

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Pentagon typo leaked millions of sensitive messages to African nation

A common typo within the U.S. military has misdirected millions of emails and messages containing sensitive information to the African country of Mali, the Pentagon confirmed Monday.

The issue comes from the U.S. military’s “.MIL” domain name used for emails, which is commonly mistyped as “.ML,” the domain for Mali. The leak has resulted in the exposure of unclassified but sensitive information, such as diplomatic documents, tax returns, passwords and the travel details of top officers, according to an initial report from the Financial Times.

The Pentagon acknowledged the issue in a statement to Fox News on Monday, saying emails sent outside the “.MIL” domain are typically blocked.

“The Department of Defense is aware of this issue and takes all unauthorized disclosures of Controlled National Security Information or Controlled Unclassified Information seriously. DoD has implemented policy, training, and technical controls to ensure that emails from the “.mil” domain are not delivered to incorrect domains. Such emails are blocked before they leave the .mil domain and the sender is notified that they must validate the email addresses of the intended recipients,” the Pentagon said.

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Teacher instructs 10-year-old to ‘make sure this email is deleted’ after private communications about student’s gender identity in Olympia, Washington

A teacher in the Olympia School District was privately communicating with a 10-year-old student about her gender identity, and even invited the girl to her house and suggested she set up a private email account and delete messages, “…otherwise when your mom looks, you will be outed instantly.”

Alesha Perkins, who has put a spotlight on the policies of the Washington school district obtained thousands of emails and documents as part of a public disclosure request and turned them over to the unDivided podcast.

According to host Brandi Kruse, the emails from the summer to the fall of 2022, is between Jennifer Knight, a teacher at Centennial Elementary School, and one of her 5th-grade students.

In an email to school staff on April 28, Knight said that the student, a biological girl, would now be using he/him/they/them pronouns.

“Crew Knight,” the teacher wrote referring to the class, “has a student who has recently changed their name and pronouns in school and this email is to inform you of that change because you work with this child in some capacity.” 

The student “…has opened up to me these past few months and has just requested this change. Please understand that this change is his right and is not to be questioned. Please also know that they are not going by this change at home, and we will not be discussing this with his family.”

The district’s policies allow for teachers and staff to conceal gender identity and other related issues from a student’s parents, similar to the state policy which reads, “…in general, school staff should not share a student’s transgender or gender-diverse status, legal name, or sex assigned at birth with others, who could include other students, school staff, and non-school staff.”

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