Tag: secrecy

US Military Launches Highly Classified Unmanned Space Plane

The US Space Force launched a secretive plane on Thursday which has been equipped with heavier boosters that could feasibly send it further into orbit than ever before.

The launch marks the 9th flight of the three-core SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster, and the 7th flight of the US Air Force’s (not so) secret unmanned spaceplane, the X-37B (USSF-52).

The launch was previously scheduled for Dec. 10, however it was scrapped due to issues with ground equipment just 30 minutes before liftoff – pushing the event back 18 days.

Officially, the X-37B will enter into various orbits around Earth and serve as a testing ground for NASA’s study of the effects of long-duration exposure to space on organic materials, the Epoch Times reports, adding that the mission will also include experiments having to do with “space domain awareness,” which the US Space Force defines as the ability to “rapidly detect, warn, characterize, attribute, and predict threats to national, allied, and commercial space systems.”

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Jan. 6 rioter who was sentenced in secret provided information to authorities, court papers say

A Pennsylvania man who was sentenced in secret for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot cooperated with authorities investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and an unrelated case, according to court documents unsealed this week.

The documents provide insight into the unusual secrecy in the case of Samuel Lazar, who had been released from federal custody in September after completing his sentence in his Capitol riot case. His case remained under seal even after his release, so there was no public record of a conviction or sentence.

The records unsealed this week show that Lazar, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, admitted to spraying a chemical irritant at police officers who were trying to defend the Capitol and to using a bullhorn to encourage other rioters to take officers’ weapons as he yelled, “Let’s get their guns!” He pleaded guilty to assaulting officers using a dangerous weapon and was sentenced to 30 months in prison during a sealed hearing last March.

More than 1,200 people have been charged with Jan. 6-related crimes, and hundreds of them have pleaded guilty. But it is rare for records of a guilty plea and sentence to be sealed, even in cases involving a defendant’s cooperation. Court hearings and records are supposed to be open and available to the public unless there’s a compelling need for secrecy.

The documents show that prosecutors asked the judge last year to sentence Lazar to a prison term below the federal guidelines range, citing Lazar’s “fulsome” cooperation with the government. That included providing “valuable information” to authorities investigating the Jan. 6 attack, prosecutors said in court papers.

An attorney for Lazar declined to comment on Thursday. She told the judge that her client’s behavior on Jan. 6 “was completely out of character for him as he is extremely respectful, law abiding citizen who has deep respect and appreciation for law enforcement.”

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Secrecy shrouds British military actions in Lebanon

On 8 October, veteran British reporter Robert Peston published a remarkable post on the social media platform X. Citing insider information from “government and intelligence sources,” Peston asserted that the Palestinian resistance operation Al-Aqsa Flood would inevitably evolve into a full-blown regional war, one that will be “as destabilizing to global security as Putin’s attack on Ukraine.” The journalist forewarned:

“We are in the early stages of a conflict with ramifications for much of the world.”

What makes this revelation even more astonishing is the speed at which British intelligence gained certainty about imminent upheaval in West Asia, just over 24 hours after the unprecedented strike by Palestinian freedom fighters on Israel. 

The urgency to prepare western audiences for the impending crisis hints at a deeper narrative — that London may have had a hand in igniting conflict across the region, a macabre plan that has been unfolding ever since.

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Congress hunts for illegal UFO programs as the media shrug

Over the last week, a flurry of coverage focused on the historic unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) transparency measures that President Biden will sign into law shortly.

But the reporting ignored or glossed over a stunning development, The most powerful member of the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), suggested publicly that elements of the U.S. government are illegally withholding UAP information from Congress. Schumer, citing “multiple credible sources,” made his extraordinary comments on the Senate floor last week.

Given the decades-long stigma associated with UAP, it seems that only a significant amount of credible evidence would convince normally cautious, risk-averse politicians, let alone a Senate majority leader, to level such a stunning accusation in public.

The underlying allegations, which the mainstream media have studiously and curiously avoided, are shocking.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) joined Schumer and a bipartisan group of four other senators to co-sponsor the UAP Disclosure Act. In a rare colloquy with Schumer on the Senate floor, Rounds doubled down with yet more remarkable commentary, noting that the UAP Disclosure Act originally included “a requirement…for the government to obtain any recovered UAP material or [“non-human“] biological remains that may have been provided to private entities in the past and thereby hidden from Congress and the American people.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Rounds’ extraordinary comments in a July interview. According to Rubio, “We have people that have very high clearances both today and in the past who did really important work for our government, or continue to do important work for the government, who have come forward with some claims about the U.S. having in the past recovered exotic materials, and then reverse-engineered those materials to make advances in our own defenses and technologies.”

In an interview last week, Rounds asked a seemingly rhetorical question: “Was there actually something found at some point in the past that helped us to develop some of our technologies? That remains to be seen, or at least remains to be disclosed.”

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Space Force Says Documents on “Fastwalkers” and “Slowwalkers” All “Exempt from Disclosure”

The United States Space Force has issued a full denial in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking information on “Fastwalkers” and “Slowwalkers“. This request, filed by The Black Vault in July 2023, asked for all procedures and manuals, either present or past, that reference these terms. The Space Force’s refusal to disclose this information under FOIA exemption (b)(1) Section 1.1(a) raises questions about the secrecy surrounding these phenomena, especially in light of the recent openness of other government branches regarding unidentified objects more commonly referred to as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).

Before delving into the details of the denial, it’s crucial to understand what “Fastwalkers” and “Slowwalkers” are. Although information on these two terms is hard to come by, it is believed that these designations originated with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and are used to describe objects detected by defense systems moving at significantly different speeds. “Fastwalkers” refer to objects entering or leaving the atmosphere at high velocities, often captured by satellite systems. On the other hand, “Slowwalkers” denote objects moving slowly or hovering, detected by similar surveillance means.

These terms are distinct from the more commonly known UAP, a term that has gained widespread attention following official reports and acknowledgments by the U.S. Navy and other government entities. The UAP designation typically encompasses unidentified flying objects exhibiting flight characteristics possibly beyond current aerospace capabilities or is not immediately identifiable within our atmosphere; while “Fastwalkers” and “Slowwalkers” describe unidentified objects outside of it.

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Don’t Get Too Excited Over The Latest Epstein ‘John Doe’ List

According to the Daily Mail, a New York federal judge has ordered the release of a cache of documents related to convicted dead pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.

Contained in the release of roughly 10,000 pages of documents scheduled for Jan. 1, 2024, is expected to be a list of 177 John Does who were Epstein’s friends, recruiters, and victims (an inaccurate number, as you will read below).

Curb your enthusiasm

In February of this year, Twitter Files journalist and attorney Techno Fog of The Reactionary (to whom you should consider subscribing), analyzed a proposed list of 167 John Does (not 177) assembled by lawyers for Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Sadly, around 100 of the Does have already been identified via media or court proceedings. Many of these Does weren’t involved in anything serious – or “salacious,” and were often doctors or acquaintances of the victims. In other instances, the Does may have been actual or potential victims of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

Techno Fog also points out, the recent court order is a scatter-shot of names.

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America’s historic UFO bill crash lands: Law that would’ve forced government to hand over records of mystery craft loses key parts as Congress passes it

US Representatives were left outraged on the Senate floor after Congress stripped two critical provisions from the highly anticipated UAP Disclosure Act. 

The legislation passed Thursday with the annual defense spending bill was designed to mandate that the government disclose records on ‘technologies of unknown origin and non-human intelligence.’ 

However, Congress pulled the plug on a review board to sift through each case and grant the federal government ‘imminent domain’ rights to seize any and all recovered ‘non-human technology’ currently held by private entities like defense contractors.

The changes will also mean that the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies can determine on their own what information about these mysterious sightings is revealed and what is kept secret from ordinary Americans and Congress. 

‘We got ripped off. We got completely hosed. They stripped out every part,’ said Representative Tim Burchett, one of the lawmakers behind the act.

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Inside the battle to water down the UFO bill that will disclose confidential ‘non-human intelligence’ data to the public set be signed by President Biden

Joe Biden is set to sign into law eye-popping legislation citing ‘technologies of unknown origin and non-human intelligence’ this month – with top lawmakers pushing for a giant leap in UFO disclosure.

But UFO activists say the legislation has already been ‘gutted’, and blame congress members funded by big defense companies for watering down the bill.

Behind closed doors in the halls of Congress, a tooth-and-nail fight has been raging over disclosure of what the government knows about UFOs.

On one side are whistleblowers and former top intelligence officials, who claim knowledge of a secret program that has allegedly retrieved crashed flying saucers – and who have convinced top lawmakers to back them, including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Senate intelligence committee ranking member Marco Rubio, and Senate armed services committee member Mike Rounds.

On the other is the $112 billion defense company Lockheed Martin, and two powerful House Republicans to whom it donates thousands of dollars: House intelligence committee chair Mike Turner, and House armed services committee chair Mike Rogers.

The fight began in July this year, when Schumer introduced a groundbreaking bill that would mandate a panel of experts with presidential-level authority to sift through government UFO records with the aim of disclosing them to the public.

It also gave the government the power to seize any ‘technologies of unknown origin’ or even ‘biological evidence of non-human intelligence’ held by private companies.

The apparent references to alien bodies and tech were shocking, in a piece of legislation put forward by senators as senior as Schumer and Rounds.

And proponents of the amendment point to its fierce opposition by senior House Republicans as a sign that they touched a nerve.

Sources close to the bill’s drafting said lawmakers decided to put forward the legislation after classified briefings by whistleblowers who allegedly worked on crashed UFOs recovered by the US government and handed to defense contractors, in secret programs not disclosed to Congress.

Schumer and Rounds said their bill was modeled on the 1992 law that led to the disclosure of records about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Sources told DailyMail.com the legislation was drafted with input from former officials who worked on the Pentagon’s programs investigating ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena’ (UAP).

These include Jay Stratton, who headed the Defense Department’s UAP Task Force from 2018 to 2021, his former chief scientist Travis Taylor, and program predecessor Luis Elizondo. 

The most involved with the drafting was David Grusch, a senior intelligence official who later became an Air Force liaison to the Task Force, and has claimed to Congress that the US has recovered multiple crashed UFOs.

The bill passed in a Senate vote, but key parts were stripped out by top lawmakers in the House before it was officially added as an amendment to the annual defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed its final vote on Thursday. 

Ohio representative and UFO skeptic Mike Turner told News Nation Schumer’s original 64-page bill was ‘poorly drafted’ and complained that ‘no one has even raised it’ with him.

In an interview on podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, Grusch called out Turner and Rogers for ‘blocking’ the bill.

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China launches secret space plane on 3rd-ever mission

China has launched its reusable space plane for the third time.

A Long March 2F rocket lofted China’s experimental spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Thursday (Dec. 14) to conduct space science experiments and “provide technical support for the peaceful use of space,” according to Xinhua news.

The launch comes just seven months after the spacecraft’s last mission, a much quicker follow-up compared to the first and second launches which happened 23 months apart, SpaceNews reports. 

Hours prior to the secretive spacecraft’s launch, SpaceX stood down from the 7th planned liftoff of the U.S. Space Force’s own X-37B reusable space plane, and even removed the Falcon Heavy rocket containing it from the Kennedy Space Center launch pad. The mission, known as USSF-52, was scrubbed on Wednesday (Dec. 13) to “perform additional system checkouts.” Exact reasons for this delay remain unknown, and a new date has yet to be set for launch. 

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Diminutive and mysterious, the Pentagon’s X-37B set to launch again

It’s an itty-bitty spaceplane, not quite 30 feet long and under 10 feet tall, with a pair of stubby wings and a rounded, bulldog-like nose. But despite its diminutive size — it looks like a miniature version of the space shuttle — the Pentagon’s most mysterious spacecraft, known as the X-37B, has built an outsize reputation.

Is it a secretive Pentagon weapon? Is it stealthy? Does it sneak up to satellites? What exactly does it do in space? And why is it up there for so long?

The Pentagon won’t say. And the veil of secrecy over the X-37B continues ahead of its launch Sunday at 8:14 p.m. Eastern on its seventh mission. But this time there are some clues that at least something is different.

The drone, which flies without anyone on board, is to be launched for the first time on SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy, which is more powerful than the rockets that have launched it in the past. That’s led to speculation that the mission will be in a much higher orbit, which appears to be the case according to recent documents. SpaceX won the $130 million contract for the launch in 2018.

Still, what it might do in that higher orbit remains unknown.

The mission has “a wide range of test and experimentation objectives,” is the Pentagon’s official statement. “These tests include operating the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies.”

The reference about “space domain awareness” could mean that it will be keeping an eye on other satellites, potentially watching for threats. Having a better sense of what is going on in the vastness of space — where adversaries’ spacecraft are and what they are doing — has become a key mission of the U.S. Space Force. “Our space systems are threatened by a variety of growing antisatellite capabilities, and the joint force is threatened by increasingly sophisticated adversary space-based systems intended to target the joint force,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, said in a statement to Congress earlier this year.

At least one part of the mission is known. The vehicle will “expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight” in an experiment for NASA. In the past, the Pentagon has also used the X-37B to test some of its cutting edge technologies, including a small solar panel designed to transform solar energy into microwaves, a technology that one day could allow energy harnessed in space to be beamed back to Earth.

The Boeing built X-37B has also been used to deploy small satellites, but what those did was also a mystery.

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