Tag: usaf

Mysterious Area 51 ‘unmanned aircraft’ crash probed by Air Force, FBI — as claims rumors swirl

A mysterious aircraft crash near Nevada’s secretive Area 51 has triggered weeks of speculation, a military probe — and allegations of a government cover-up.

The incident occurred Sept. 23 on public land just outside the boundaries of the classified base at Groom Lake, about 83 miles north-northwest of Las Vegas, according to the Air Force and KLAS-TV, which reported on the crash Thursday.

A spokesperson for Creech Air Force Base confirmed the mishap involved an aircraft assigned to the 432nd Wing, which operates unmanned aerial vehicles.

No fatalities or injuries were reported, and recovery operations wrapped up Sept. 27, the base said.

But what followed — a base lockdown, flight restrictions and apparent tampering at the crash site — has fueled widespread rumors about what really fell from the sky.

The Air Force said investigators discovered “signs of tampering” during a follow-up site survey on Oct. 3, including an inert training bomb and an aircraft panel of unknown origin that were placed there after the crash.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the FBI have launched a joint probe into the matter, according to the 432nd Wing’s public affairs office.

Creech officials have not released the model of the aircraft involved.

The FAA confirmed issuing a temporary flight restriction over a five-nautical-mile area east of Area 51 on the day of the crash “for national security reasons,” KLAS-TV reported on Sept. 25.

Keep reading

State Department Employee Steals Thousands of Pages of “Top Secret” Classified Documents, Meets with Chinese Officials

A State Department contractor stole thousands of pages of “TOP SECRET” classified documents and met with Beijing officials.

Ashley Tellis, an expert on India and South Asian affairs, removed the top secret documents from secure locations and met with Chinese officials.

The classified documents were located in Tellis’s Virginia home during a raid.

“On Sept. 25, he allegedly printed U.S. Air Force documents concerning military aircraft capabilities. Federal prosecutors allege that he met with Chinese government officials multiple times over the past several years,” Fox News reported.

Prosecutors said in September 2022 that Tellis brought a manila envelope with him when he met with Chinese officials in a Virginia restaurant.

Fox News reported:

A State Department employee is accused of removing classified documents from secure locations and meeting with Chinese officials dating back to 2023.

The Justice Department said Ashley Tellis was an unpaid senior adviser to the State Department and also a contractor with the Office of Net Assessment at the Department of Defense, recently renamed the Department of War. He is considered a subject-matter expert on India and South Asian affairs in his role at the Office of Net Assessment.

Tellis began working for the State Department in 2001, court documents state. He is accused of unlawful retention of national defense information, according to an affidavit.

He held a top-secret clearance and had access to sensitive information, federal prosecutors said in court documents. He was also employed as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Keep reading

Former Air Force Insider: Intelligence Personnel Were Shown Images of an Ancient ‘Tic Tac’ UFO

An advanced, exotic vehicle of unknown origin was unearthed during an archaeological dig, according to Dylan Borland, a former U.S. Air Force member and intelligence-community whistleblower.

Borland, who testified publicly last month on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) before the Congressional Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, expanded on his claims in an interview with investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp on their WEAPONIZED podcast.

Referencing UAP described as ‘propane tank’ or ‘Tic Tac’ shaped – similar to objects publicly reported by U.S. Navy personnel off the West Coast in 2004 and again in 2023 – Borland stated:

“They [members of a UAP legacy program] had photographic evidence of archaeological digs of some of these, and they had photographic evidence of ones that were complete.

“They did not disclose where they came from, which goes back to AARO [All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office] and the word games that are played with AARO on this subject.”

Keep reading

Veteran Space Operator Alleges Secret Control System Undermines Space Command and is Possibly Connected to UFOs

A veteran U.S. space operator has publicly alleged that a concealed ‘security control system’ within America’s national-security space enterprise is undermining commanders, obstructing routine tracking of objects in orbit, and, in some cases, diverting data away from the very commands responsible for defending the nation.

In a LinkedIn statement on 29 September 2025, Jim Shell alleged that a secret system has supplanted the ‘direction and authority’ of the U.S. Space Force and U.S. Space Command. Shell is a former ‘Chief Scientist’ by duty title at the Space Innovation and Development Center under Air Force Space Command. 

In his statement, Shell states he has high confidence that the system is:

  • Supplanting the authority of Space Force and Space Command
  • Causing unauthorised interference with the Space Domain Awareness (SDA) mission – the global effort to detect, track and characterise satellites, debris, and other orbital objects
  • Demonstrating the potential to interfere with U.S. Northern Command’s ability to protect the homeland
  • Suppressing intelligence about Russian and Chinese on-orbit activities
  • Enforcing unpublished security rules that have led to Guardians – service members with the Space Force – being removed, threatened with court martial, and branded ‘problematic,’ while their commanders were never told the basis for the charges.

He adds that he has medium confidence in two further claims: that funds have been misappropriated, and that the system connects to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) activity – this raises the possibility that anomalous orbital detections are removed from the standard catalogue before they reach operational commanders.

Shell links today’s problems to a 2018 classification policy; however, Liberation Times understands the system’s unpublished rules predate 2018.

The 2018 policy was co-signed by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) – which runs America’s spy satellites – and U.S. Strategic Command, which oversaw space operations before the creation of the U.S. Space Force and Space Command in 2019.

When the U.S. Space Command was re-established in 2019, following its inactivation in 2002, it adopted the policy, according to Shell.

Shell argues neither NRO nor U.S. Strategic Command had proper authority to impose such sweeping changes, yet the unpublished rules stemming from that policy continue to be enforced.

Alarmingly, according to Shell, attempts by senior officials to change the policy have repeatedly failed.

He points to an alleged confrontation on 27 May 2021, when the Vice Chief of Space Operations sought to push through changes but was blocked. Based on the date and role, this likely refers to General David Thompson, who held that post at the time.

Keep reading

Military aircraft ‘incident’ under investigation near Area 51 outside Las Vegas

The U.S. Air Force is investigating an incident involving a military aircraft near Area 51 north of Las Vegas, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.

The “incident” concerns an aircraft from Creech Air Force Base, which is located about 40 miles northeast of the Las Vegas valley. Staff at the base administer and pilot military drones.

No one was hurt and no property was damaged in the incident, according to a base spokesperson, who did not provide further information.

On Tuesday, Sept. 23, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a temporary flight restriction (TFR) for a five-nautical-mile area east of Area 51, the classified Air Force facility near Groom Lake. The TFR cites “national security” as the reason for the restriction near Highway 375.

The TFR warned pilots not to fly in the area unless the FAA authorizes them. The restrictions were scheduled to expire on Oct. 1.

Keep reading

Air Force AI Targeting Tests Show Promise, Despite Hallucinations

The Air Force is on its third of a series of sprint exercises intended to show how artificial intelligence can supercharge human decision-making. And while officials are raving about the results, they also demonstrate that the algorithms can still propose bad or nonsensical options that need to be babysat.

Maj. Gen. Robert Claude, Space Force representative to the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management Cross-Functional Team, said participating in the Decision Advantage Sprint for Human-Machine Teaming (DASH) series, led by his team, was an “eye-opening experience,” though it proved the limitations of AI processing as well.

The DASH-2 sprint, held at Shadow Operations Center-Nellis (SHOC-N), the USAF’s premier tactical command and control battle lab, outside of Las Vegas earlier this summer focused on a decision-intensive process: matching the right platform and weapon to a desired military target, Claude told The War Zone at the U.S. Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. 

According to a release, six industry teams and one SHOC-N innovation team participated in the exercise, attacking the challenge of designing AI-enabled microservices that could help operators select a weapon to destroy an identified target. The kinds of targets identified in the scenario were not described. Developers watched human-only battle-management crews and designed their microservices based on their observed needs and processes. Finally, human-only teams went head to head in the weapon-matching exercise against human-machine teams.

In terms of generating courses of action – or COAs – the machines easily had it over their human counterparts on speed and quantity. 

“I think it was roughly eight seconds [for the algorithm] to generate COAs, as opposed to 16 minutes for the operators,” Claude said, adding that the machine generated 10 different COAs to the human team’s three.

But AI-generated slop continues to be a problem.

“While it’s much more timely and more COAs generated, they weren’t necessarily completely viable COAs,” Claude said. “So what is going to be important going forward is, while we’re getting faster results and we’re getting more results, there’s still going to have to be a human in the loop for the foreseeable future to make sure that, yes, it’s a viable COA, or just a little bit more of this to make a COA viable, to make decisions.”

Claude clarified in response to another question the kinds of mismatches the AI was creating. 

“If you’re trying to identify a targeting package with a particular weapon against a particular target, but it didn’t factor in, it’s an [infrared] target, or it’s an IR-sensor weapon, but it’s cloudy and [bad] weather conditions,” Claude said. “So that’s just as an example, those fine-tuned types of things that they found these COAs weren’t where they needed to be. But as we build this out, theoretically into the future … those sorts of things will be factored in.”

Keep reading

For B-21, Quantity Is Its Most Critical Quality Top Bomber Officer Says

For all the new capabilities the B-21 Raider will bring as an individual aircraft, the U.S. Air Force’s top bomber officer says he is most excited about the sheer numbers of those aircraft that are set to enter service in the coming years. The Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities underscored how vital existing B-2 stealth bombers are to U.S. national security, but also the inherent limitations imposed by how few of them were ever built.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost touched on the B-21 and related topics during an online talk that the Air & Space Forces Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies hosted today. Armagost is the commander of the Eighth Air Force, to which the Air Force’s current B-2, B-1, and B-52 bombers are all assigned, as well as the officer in charge of the Joint-Global Strike Operations Center (J-GSOC) at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

At present, the Air Force plans to acquire at least 100 B-21s, but senior U.S. military officials have been increasingly advocating for a fleet of 145 of the bombers. A single pre-production Raider is now in flight testing, with a second expected to join it soon. At least four other B-21s are in various stages of production, and a number of non-flying airframes are being used to support ongoing test work. The Raider is expected to eventually replace the Air Force’s current fleet of 19 B-2 bombers, as well as its more than 40 remaining B-1s.

Keep reading

Air Force command pauses M18 pistol use after airman’s death at Wyoming base

The U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command has paused the use of a handgun following the death of a Security Forces airman at a base in Wyoming.

The use of the M18 pistol, a variant of another gun that has been the target of lawsuits over unintentional discharge allegations, was paused Monday “until further notice” following the “tragic incident” Sunday at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, the command said in a statement. Security Forces airmen at all command bases “will conduct 100% inspections of the M18 handguns to identify any immediate safety concerns,” it said.

The airman killed was Brayden Lovan, 21, of the 90th Security Forces Squadron, 90th Missile Wing at the base, where he began his first active-duty assignment in November 2023, base officials said Thursday.

Details of what happened are not being released pending an investigation, said Lt. Raegan Lockhart, public affairs officer for the 90th Missile Wing. How long the investigation might take isn’t known, Lockhart added.

Keep reading

Air Force Investigating Whether Sig Sauer Pistol Was A Factor In Airman’s Death

The U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command is sidelining the M18 Modular Handgun System after the death of an Air Force Security Airman at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, on July 20.

A press release from the 90th Missile Wing Public Affairs office on F.E. Warren provided no details of the incident. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations has the case, and no details will be released at this time to protect the integrity of the investigation, according to the press release.

The compact M18 and its full-size counterpart, the M17, are the military and law enforcement variants of the Sig Sauer P320. The Army selected Sig designs for the Modular Handgun System in 2017. All branches of the U.S. military subsequently adopted the pistols as their standard sidearms.

A statement from the Air Force Global Strike Command at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, said the M18 was pulled from service after the Wyoming incident. Air Force Security Forces for the Global Strike Command will carry the M4 rifle while all M18s in service will be inspected “to identify any immediate safety concerns.”

A Sig Sauer spokesman told The Epoch Times the company has reached out to the Air Force and is ready to assist the investigation.

“Our hearts are with the service members and families impacted by the recent reported event at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base. We have offered assistance to the U.S. Military as they investigate the incident and remain willing to help in furtherance of their ongoing investigation,” Phil Strader, vice president for consumer affairs, wrote to The Epoch Times.

Global Strike Command spokesman Charles “Moose” Hoffman said it was too early to release details on the Wyoming incident.

“Out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the safety and security of our personnel, the pause will remain in place pending the completion of comprehensive investigations by the Air Force,” Hoffman wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

The pistol has been dogged for years by claims that it is prone to unintentional discharge if handled or bumped, without the trigger being pulled.

At least 80 people have been injured since 2014,  and several lawsuits have been filed. In 2021, the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania dismissed a claim by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent that his P320 discharged while in its holster, wounding him.

The court ruled that the plaintiff failed to prove the pistol was flawed after the court rejected his expert witnesses.

The plaintiff has appealed that decision.

Keep reading

Military pilot on no-fly list after probe into faith conversations ends without charges, lawyer says

A Catholic Air Force pilot remains on the military branch’s no-fly list, despite an official probe having failed to substantiate allegations he talked about his faith in an inappropriate way with fellow airmen, his lawyer says.

The pilot, Capt. Forrest Doss, of the 6th Airlift Squadron, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, has served in the Air Force since 2018 and is now an instructor pilot and aircraft commander.

Despite no violations having apparently been found, Doss received an official letter admonishing him for comments that created a “hostile work environment” and that also directed him to get counseling to avoid future problems.

According to the Air Force’s June 17 Letter of Counseling, Doss, in late June 2024 and early January 2025, at various locations around the world, “made inappropriate and unprofessional comments towards members of the 6th Airlift Squadron during the critical phases of aircraft operation.”

LOC – Capt Doss_Redacted.pdf

“It is your responsibility to act in a professional manner and create a safe environment to successfully execute the mission,” the letter states. “This includes refraining from discussing potentially charged topics.

“Intentionally or not, your conduct created a hostile work environment for members of your crew. Moving forward, I expect you to deliberately consider your comments and refrain from discussion that could be uncomfortable for your teammates. Your conduct is unacceptable and further deviation may result in more severe action.”

The letter doesn’t state what Doss said that was found to be “inappropriate and unprofessional.”

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and the Air Force didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The LOC turns it into an equivalent of a [Uniform Code of Military Justice] violation for answering questions truthfully about what his church teaches,” R. Davis Younts, Doss’ lawyer, told Just the News last Monday.

Keep reading