EXTREME CLASSIFICATION OF ANOMALOUS TECHNOLOGY AND WHY CONGRESS NEEDS TO STEP UP
ONE OF THE more fascinating theoretical questions about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) is whether national security should influence issues of disclosures about the anomalous phenomena, and if so, to what extent? In recent years it has come to light that there is indeed a phenomena within the skies and oceans which is technologically advanced, however this issue has remained hidden under a blanket of classification. What is more, it seems that vital information that would reveal the technological abilities and even origin of the anomalous has been classified. Writing in The Hill, Christopher Mellon (2022) stated that the Department of Defense (DoD) set new guidelines to actively ensure that videos such as ‘GIMBAL’, ‘Go-Fast’ and ‘FLIR1’ are held back from being released from the public under strict new classification laws. With this tightening grip on data, it becomes even more important to understand the full details of cases that are out in the public domain. One such case is GIMBAL, a video filmed in 2015 by anonymous Navy Pilots and leaked to The New York Times in 2017. It wouldn’t be until April 2020 until the footage was officially released by the Department of Defense and receiced the official designation of ‘Unidentified’ – a classification term given by Public affairs Officer Susan Gough to researcher Roger Glassel to describe a case taken to conclusion by the UAPTF.
The object in GIMBAL is described by former Navy Pilot Ryan Graves in 2019 as rotating/knife blading and flying in coordination with a fleet of five ‘Cubes with Sphere’. This is a little known fact completely ignored by debunkers with a YouTube channel. This video is the hallmark of the UAP initiative and the video which awoke the world to a radical concept but has since been the victim of misinformation within the UAP research community. Rather than hash out the same arguments about ‘rotating cameras’ and ‘misidentified planes’ over and over, I contacted former Navy Pilot Ryan Graves on social media to request that the various pilots, who encountered the ‘GIMBAL’ object might consider coming forward anonymously. The idea was to have direct statements about what happened after the GIMBAL video ended and what became of the anomalous ‘disc followed by cubes’. This might put an end to the conspiracies, pseudo-debunkers and misinformation which drowns the case and prevents the mainstream from understanding what actually happened on January 5th, 2015 off the East Coast of America. As a side note, it has long been considered by UAP analysts that the information surrounding what eventually happens to GIMBAL is classified (final destination in particular) although we have never been able to verify this. Some have even theorised that the GIMBAL ‘disc and cubes’ perform instantaneous acceleration, but again, no one will confirm this on or off camera or even anonymously. The conversation about the final destination of the object is simply avoided.
I received this reply;
“It’s unfortunately no longer possible for them to speak anonymously. Their identities are known within the DOD. Therefore, they are incapable of being anonymous to a large and important cohort considering they’re active duty. That will eventually change.”
- Ryan Graves, Fmr. Navy Pilot.
Until the Navy Pilots retire from active duty we will not get their testimony, nor will we get the official AATIP/UAPTF case report of the USS Roosevelt GIMBAL video, nor will we see the rest of the video. And guaranteed, nobody will ever leak classified material. So we find ourselves stuck on GIMBAL, chained to the never-ending methodological flaws of YouTubers trying to prove their ideological perceptions through irrelevant arguments about systems they have never used. It is depressing. We refrain from concluding, whilst at the same time we request more data as all unbiased researchers do. However, it doesn’t look good on GIMBAL right now - the truth is on-hold, awaiting the gloomy rain to stop. Our hope is Congress will change legislation to allow UAP information to be released at the unclassified level in a responsible way. Despite the current lack of progression, we are being told by credible sources that there are hundreds of videos and photos being made available to Congress. Consider the UAPTF Preliminary Report (2021) who state 143/144 cases are unidentified – how many of these hold UAP videos? How many are classified? How many are unclassified?
Arguably, there is an effort within DoD to stop the leaking of unclassified UAP videos from the UAPTF to the public, such as the ‘Omaha Sphere’ and the ‘Russel Pyramid’ footage from 2021 (which also have limited data). Despite the Navy and UAPTF ensuring unclassified UAP videos are being made available, there has been a less than positive reaction by arguably the most important agency when it comes to airspace defense. And while the Navy have continued to encounter anomalous technology off the infamous East Coast warning area, some few miles from Virginia, the United States Airforce haven’t reported anything (Mellon, 2022).
“For years the Air Force and Navy have conducted airborne exercises in the same restricted areas off the East Coast of the U.S., known to aviators as “W-72a” and “W-72b.” Curiously, while Navy F/A-18s have reported dozens of UAP incidents in these areas since 2015, the USAF would have us believe that its F-22 pilots, notwithstanding their superior sensor systems, failed to detect even a single UAP in the same areas!”
- Christopher Mellon, The Debrief
You might argue that such sightings are classified, which is highly likely, however Congress has oversight authority on unidentified aerial phenomena and by law requires updates. Mellon (2022) argues in The Debrief that the Airforce are a custom to not taking seriously ‘UFOs’ since the closure of their own Project Bluebook investigation branch in 1969. It has had half a century of UAP immunity. That is the negligent theory, the other theory is something more sinister and calculated – that the Airforce knows exactly what it is doing.
“The UAPTF is currently working to acquire additional reporting, including from the U.S. Air Force (USAF)…” Nearly ten months after the order was given by the Deputy Secretary of Defense the UAP Task Force was still waiting for USAF data?”
- Christopher Mellon, The Debrief
Whether or not the Airforce is overtly obfuscating UAP data from Congress and by extension the American public is irrelevant, the uncompliant outcome is very much the same. The question of how do you hold accountable an agency which simply refuses to admit there is anything to report? Coincidence or not, the laundry list on the infamous Susan Gough leaked emails in which she overstepped her role as a Public Affairs Officer and into an Freedom of Information Act official is interesting. The list contained the footsteps of Airforce officials.
Here are fifteen questions that were proposed in The Debrief by Christopher Mellon:
1) Is it true that the USAF did not contribute any of the 144 UAP incidents identified last year in the DNI’s “Preliminary Assessment” of the UAP phenomenon? If so, why? What is causing the USAF delay in providing pertinent UAP information?
2) Which USAF officials have been responsible for supporting the UAP Task Force and its successor and what actions have they taken to do so?
3) Which USAF commands or component organizations (e.g. SSPARS, Space Fence, NORAD, the Global Infrasound Network, etc.) were contacted by the USAF in its preparation of a response to the UAP Task Force? Have any of the organizations contacted failed to respond? Are they all denying knowledge of UAP incidents from 2004 through 2021?
4) The Preliminary Assessment report states that “the USAF began a six-month pilot program in November 2020 to collect in the most likely areas to encounter UAP and is evaluating how to normalize future collection, reporting, and analysis across the entire Air Force.” Has this process concluded? If so, what was the conclusion? If not, what steps is the Air Force taking to ensure that this process remains accountable and transparent to Congress?
5) Some of the Air Force’s oversight committees have been advised that last year the Air Force warned its personnel not to approach the UAP Task Force without prior approval. There are also reports that individuals participating in a classified DoD chat room devoted to UAP issues were subsequently interrogated by USAF OSI officers who warned them against further participation. Are these reports accurate? If so, why has the USAF been interfering with these important information-sharing efforts?
6) Is there a problem with the F-22 sensor system? If not, how is it possible that Navy fighters with inferior sensors were routinely detecting UAP off the East Coast of the U.S. for years while USAF F-22s operating in the same training areas did not? If it was simply a matter of Air Force pilots’ fear of retribution, what does that tell us about Air Force culture, and what are you going to do going forward to encourage rather than punish openness and vigilance?
7) NORAD has publicly acknowledged scrambling jets in response to UAP over the United States. How many such incidents have occurred since 2004? Was this data provided to the UAP Task Force and if not why not?
8) Data obtained through FOIA requests submitted by Canadian citizens reveals numerous incidents in which NORAD was notified of UAP reports. Again, were these incidents shared with the UAP Task Force and if not why not?
9) There is extensive documentation from FOIA sources and retired USAF officers regarding UAP incidents at or near ICBM and SAC nuclear weapons facilities. Does the USAF possess any information indicating that unidentified aerial objects have interfered with U.S. nuclear command and control capabilities?
10) Does the Air Force have any information at any level of classification regarding unidentified objects entering and/or leaving the earth’s atmosphere? How many such reports are there, and in how many cases did these objects maneuver, or for any other reason appear to be under intelligent control (e.g., vertical ascent or descent)? Have any spatial, temporal, or phenomenological UAP patterns been identified?
11) There are reports that USAF personnel obtained the Aegis radar data from the USS Princeton shortly after a series of UAP contacts in November 2004. At last report, the missing USS Princeton radar data was in the possession of USAF personnel at Langley Air Force Base. What knowledge does the USAF have regarding the location or disposition of the USS Princeton radar data from its UAP encounters in 2004? Does the Air Force know the whereabouts of the missing USS Princeton deck logs from November 2004?
12) What is the truth of retired OSI officer Richard Doty’s claims regarding spying on U.S. citizens and feeding disinformation to UAP researchers? What of his claims regarding the recovery of extra-terrestrial technology?
13) The DNI identified 144 UAP incidents from 2004 until 2021 in the Preliminary Assessment provided to Congress; most if not all of these reports came from the Navy. During this same period, commercial pilots reported hundreds of incidents involving UAP and civilian UAP organizations received tens of thousands of UAP reports. Yet, all these cases are only a small fraction of the likely total since an estimated 90% or more of all civilian and military UAP sightings go unreported. In light of these numbers, and the vast extent of the Air Force’s air and space surveillance capabilities, the number of USAF incidents from 2004 to 2021 should be extensive. When can Congress expect a proper accounting?
14) Claims abound concerning the USAF’s possession of materials that might definitively answer the question of whether a non-human civilization has found Earth. That would likely be the most tightly held secret in our government. What is your response to such claims? Perhaps that information is deemed so sensitive you and others are enjoined from sharing it with the Congressional Oversight Committees, so here is a broader question: Are you confident that we have sufficient processes in place to ensure that, at a minimum, any sitting President, Secretary of Defense or DNI would be aware of such information or made promptly aware if such information came to light? What about Congress?
15) Why are we seeing the United States Navy provide the information to the Congress when the Airforce obfuscate, even after ten months of the Inspector General investigation. Why can we not have oversight into what pilots are encountering? And also, we can ask a very important question of national security and democracy with regard to UAP. We live in a Western democracy, and yet how can our governments actually govern and reflect the will of the people when information is being held back? Yes, national security is important. Yes, governments have a need to keep secrets. To ensure our economy and country is safe from foreign adversaries we must ensure secrecy is enabled, it is a fundamental process of how our agencies operate in the early 21st century. However, the question becomes; ‘does the UAP (UFO) issue of potential non-human intelligence and technology supersede national security?’.
This is a very complex question to answer with many defining variables. There might not be a clear ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer. We may not even have the full information to make answer the question. However, it would appear that some (UAP-Conservatives) within DoD have already answered that question without oversight or without the democratic will of the people. The fact that efforts have been taken to ‘classify’ UAP information seemingly answers that question. Elements within DoD simply do not want the UAP conversation to happen and they will do what the see necessary.
“Except for its existence, and the mission/purpose, virtually everything else about the UAPTF is classified, per the signed Security Classification Guide.”
- Christopher Mellon, The Debrief
If extreme classification of UAP videos by these people wasn’t bad enough, consider that Luis Elizondo was all but deleted by DoD. Some attempted to lie to the American public and reverse claims that Pentagon’s UAP program AATIP, wasn’t a UAP program and Elizondo has no assigned responsibilities. His emails were deleted and his security clearance threatened to stop him from talking to Congress and the mainstream. These are the actions of desperate, illegal actions of people who defy the democratic process. If they are so sure that national security on UAP is more important than allowing the people to know the true nature of the anomalous phenomena, then but it to the test, allow the world to have the conversation and see what they decide is in their own interest. Although, something tells me they already know the answer to that question and that’s why they are obfuscating the truth.
In summary, the only way forward is through Congress. They hold the keys to accountability and transparency of UAP. Whether they have the authority to change classification legislation with specific regard to unidentified aerial phenomena videos remains to be seen. Additionally, with so much clear obfuscation it remains difficult. What we do know is that without Congressional pressure we can’t expect the Department of Defense to make data available at an unclassified level to the American public. The issue needs confident voices who will be supported in their efforts, which I’m sure they will receive.
Should any journalist, current member of Parliament, or member of the House of Lords, wish to reach out and discuss how the UK could play their part, you can reach us securely here.
