IT WAS JUST before the release of the unclassified report last year when those less than unambiguous Navy videos of weird geometric shapes were leaked. An anonymous source had claimed to investigative filmmaker Jeremy Corbell that the UAP videos were from the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) and had even been used in Congressional briefings. Specifically, it was claimed the videos came from two cases that were part of a wider series of events first reported on by The Drive. Amazingly, unidentified devices or objects that are said to possess advanced technological abilities had swarmed Navy vessels off the West coast of California in the summer of 2019. Almost three years later, the origin and destination of these UAP are currently unknown at the unclassified level. It was the United States Navy destroyers USS Kidd, USS Rafael Peralta, USS Russell, USS Omaha, USS John Finn and the USS Paul Hamilton that would find themselves unable to identify or intercept multiple objects across various nights in July 2019. Initially, it seemed as though the unknowns were some form of drone technology, despite the objects not being sourced to origin and the “drones” operating with impunity around the world’s most sophisticated defense apparatus known to man. What is more, even Admiral Michael Gilday, the Chief of Naval Operations, stated his investigation had failed to identify drones that harried the Naval destroyers in July 2019. For many, it is unthinkable that there is not a terrestrial explanation for these swarm incursions. Some aviation writers not versed with the history of reported ‘UFO’ technology have failed to recognise the behavioural pattens and advanced abilities which go back to the 1940s. What was being reported wasn’t a new phenomena, the technology on display was beyond next generation.

So, when the videos of unconventionally shaped objects that might indicate genuine anomalous technology were leaked, it caused uncertainty. At the time there was an angry social media furore claiming disinformation. Scepticism occurred within hours, debunking efforts occurred within a day and researchers were ready to dismiss the entire saga by the end of the week. The Omaha Sphere video, for example, was labelled a ‘deflating balloon’ by some and a ‘blurry drone’ by others. Additionally, the obscure flying ‘Pyramids’ in the green-tinted night vision USS Russel video were labeled as ‘bokeh’ – a light/camera aberration that makes objects appear as various shapes when out of focus. In such claims, the object in the USS Russell video wasn’t a Pyramid but an out of focus plane flying above the Navy vessel. Very timely explanations, but ultimately claims that lacked holistic data, with no verified testimony of the objects has ever been released. The counter argument that these unconventional shapes that buzzed Navy vessels were indeed ‘Spheres and Pyramids’ came from anonymous sources vetted by veteran investigative journalist George Knapp, sources within the Department of Defense (DoD), with apparent ties to UAPTF.

The frustrated cries over vetting anonymous sources became a sticking point and a point of contention within the UAP and activism community. At the time I seem to remember advocating that we didn’t have the data to reach a definitive conclusion. Whether the unknown objects were balloons, blurry drones or anomalous geometric shapes of non-aerodynamic propulsion, we needed to hold back from conjecture due to limited data. In the end, scepticism ruled out to the point of debunkers debunking for the sake of debunking and the cases would eventually fade out from focus.

Over the coming days, opinions did solidify somewhat towards the veracity of the leaked data when a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the videos as authentic. Unexpectedly, this confirmation was done relatively quickly in comparison to other historical videos such as Go-Fast, GIMBAL and FLIR1. However, any defining details of origin or nature ensured confusion dominated and the very concept of strange geometric shapes was pushed to one side to be forgotten about, replaced by something more pleasing, hidden deep within one’s own personal psychology. Arguably, the very reactionary hallmark of how we humans deal with anomalous information with possible negative connotations.

The Unclassified Report

 The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) preliminary report from June 2021 was engaged by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in response to a provision in Senate Report 116-233. This accompanied the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) for Fiscal Year 2021 in which the DNI, in collaboration with the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) was required to submit an intelligence assessment of the threat posed by unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Arguably, this was the most important report to have been released on unidentified objects in over 50 years and yet one which left much speculation. It was a report that promised much, but ultimately delivered little.

The build up to report day had gained some momentum and the findings were eagerly anticipated. As with most things UAP, the hype often exceeds what is delivered and the report would fall into such a category. One of the more intriguing elements from the build up that Friday evening was an intriguing confirmation from Washington correspondence Kellie Meyer.

Keep in mind the White House would receive the full classified version, not the unclassified version the public would receive. Whoever was there on that Friday would take ownership of that report and has not yet spoken a word publicly. When the UAPTF/DNI nine page report was finally released to the public on June 25th, 2021, it received largely negative reviews from Ufology, but very positive views from the most in the UAP community.

Here are the key takeaways from the interim report:

1. Of the entire 144 case reports it tackles, the interim report only comes up with an explanation for only one.
   This means 143 case reports are unexplained.

2. In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics

UAPTF/DNI Preliminary Report, 2021

From the entire report, the main message was that something is in the skies that has advanced technology that we can’t identify, and we do need to look into it. That is as far as the preliminary interim UAP report was willing to go and was never about confirming ‘extra-terrestrials’ to the mainstream, despite that being a legitimate hypothesis due to the extreme technology involved with UAP. The New York Times had interestingly created a very unhealthy ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ scenario that implies the ‘alien’ consideration is all there is. All or nothing, black or white, real or not real. The question within the intelligence community is somewhat considered to be more complex than ‘little green men’ coming here from another planet. Regardless, the article in The New York Times all but shut down interest ahead of time after seeing the leaked unclassified report prior to release. “Government finds no evidence of extra-terrestrials”, was all it needed to circumvent mainstream interest.

At that point in the summer of 2021 the question was about authenticating the extreme technology and its significance upon the interests of national defence, not advocating a 70 year old stigmatised debate about ‘little green men’ which would ultimately end the conversation entirely. As for the unclassified report from 2021, we had known for months leading up to the release that it was always about allowing a foothold for Congress. Essentially, they would go on to establish something more permanent than a UAP Task Force, something more likely to move the ball down the field whilst at the same time stopping the issue getting out of hand. The UAPTF/DNI report was always about creating that opportunity for legislation, it was creating proof that there was something to the entire phenomena of advanced objects (whatever they are) and not simply misidentified planes and balloons as some debunkers on YouTube were claiming. The initial unclassified report also suggested that this was its own ‘other’ category separate from foreign drones and rogue aircraft identification programs, a far cry from the transparency this issue so badly needs. The UAPTF/DNI report also gave no specific details to the objects, there was no ‘Pyramids’, ‘Spheres’, ‘Discs’, ‘Tic-Tacs’, ‘Triangles’, ‘Cubes’, or any other geometric shapes that had been reported by military personnel since 2017. It should also be noted that reports from military personnel and trained observers have been reported for over seven decades, something which the UAPTF/DNI report went out of it’s way to ignore. 

More data was undoubtedly required, and it was this data which was missing at the unclassified level. Proceeding the report, Christopher Mellon would highlight issues over the Task Force, that it was understaffed and underfunded. Also, UAP data was being held back by the Airforce (USAF) - according to an article by Christopher Mellon writing in The Debrief. Mellon, who has direct association to the UAPTF and the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence (SSCI), and other oversight committees within Congress, notes that there are no cases presented by the USAF within the official 144 presented cases – which all came from the Navy. Seemingly, the main problem was that certain agencies were unable or unwilling to allow the UAPTF access to the data which would probably give a much better conclusion towards origin and nature of these unknown object. Radar data obfuscation in particular might be one such issue if such data was withheld by USAF.

Imagine for example that the satellite recording of UAP (as suggested by former DNI Ratcliffe) plays a significant part of understanding origin and final destination. How at the unclassified level would we even know if they show such vehicles entering Earth’s atmosphere from deep space at hypersonic speeds, what can we conclude from that? What if the radar tracking data shows they are coming from Russia or China? Consequently, what can we conclude if these anomalous transmedium vehicles are trans-versing vast distances in under a second, from upper atmosphere to sea level? What if these UAP are coming from the oceans?

Arguably, the radar data (alongside other multiple sensory data) is key to tracking origin and final destination of these objects. 

The proposed questions that would really engage the public weren’t answered in the report. Case reports from 2004-2021 had 143 reports of objects that couldn’t be identified whilst 1 was identified as a deflating balloon. In 18 incidents, described from 21 reports, the observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics. Simply put, we didn’t have the data we needed. 

The Redacted UAPTF Report

It wouldn’t be until the 17 page redacted classified report was released by the BlackVault through the FOIA process in 2022 that more information would be deciphered about what was seen by both Congress and the White House. Interestingly, on both the unclassified and classified reports the focus was on a request for more data.

‘The limited amount of high-quality reporting on UAP hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP’

Here below we can see the expansive differences and redactions between the two reports, taken from the same section as an example. The unclassified UAPTF/DNI report was shorter at 9 pages whereas the redacted classified report was 17 pages (with the final version some 73 pages to include appendix data). Information is redacted throughout the classified report to protect issues regarding ‘sources and methods’ and other issues regarding matters of national security.

Both unclassified and redacted classified reports confirm that UAP sightings tended to cluster around United States training and testing grounds and concede that this might be a case of increased ability to record anomalies by the military - recognising their own bias of data sampling. 

To repeat, both reports were unable to identify 143 cases from 144 reports.

Out of 144 cases 0 were identified as recreational (quadcopter) drones (credit Sean Raasch, Witness Citizen), and only 1/144 was identified as a balloon. Additionally, 0/144 cases were identified as birds.

The redacted classified report does go into much more detail with regards to giving case details when examining emerging patterns and UAP appearance - although much is classified and redacted (blacked-out). As the figures below show, the most common ‘shape’ described by military personnel in their reporting was classified in the redacted report. But why?

Additionally, case report details that include the location, year, day, time are also classified in the examples given. Also, details of the type of aircraft flown is classified, although the UAPTF/DNI report does give unclassified examples of the advanced technology of some UAP, again without giving away details. Most interesting, while both unclassified and redacted reports state that UAP are able to operate in a stationary position against high winds and ‘manoeuvre abruptly or at considerable speed without discernible means of propulsion’, the redacted report includes case details and examples.

The redacted classified report has more appendixes than presented in the unclassified report. The unclassified report has A and B, whilst the classified report A to D. Additionally the redacted UAPTF/DNI report states that a collection of UAP data was taken and analysed by: a. GEOINT; b. SIGINT; c. HUMINT; and d. MASINT.

Common and irregular Shapes

When the UAPMediaUK team reached out to former Department of Defense officials about the classification of ‘shapes’, there were various considerations as to why the report might classify the appearance of the UAP. One explanation could be that the information is kept from adversary nations, essentially, we wouldn’t want them to know, that we know, they exist – should any of these objects and devices belong to them. Additionally, if these UAP are something anomalous then arguably we might not want another nation from knowing this technology exists, then replicating that technology themselves. And then there is the anomalous theory (non-human origin), that should the classified shapes in fact be in the form of non-aerodynamic ‘Discs’ ‘Cubes’ ‘Tic-Tacs’ ‘Triangles’ and ‘Pyramids’ etc, then that is a very difficult conversation to have with the American public. Particularly, when the last 70 years is full of civilian and military UFO reports involving these exact non-aerodynamic shapes and the extreme manoeuvres they are able to perform.

So there are many reasons why the redacted Preliminary UAPTF/DNI report has remained under heavy classification in various areas, and why the unclassified report was extremely vague on details and content. But again, we simply do not know the answers to these questions.

Although we should be sceptical in light of limited data, thanks to the classification placed upon the report, we should also consider the various alleged UAP data emergence and leaks that have occurred from 2017 through to 2021. Since 2017, intelligence officials, military personnel and Navy Pilots have reported geometric anomalous shapes engaging sensitive airspace. Some have alleged ‘transmedium’ properties such as the Omaha Sphere (July 2019) while others are reported to have non-aerodynamic shapes such as the ‘Pyramids’ over the USS Russell (July 2019). These are two cases in which ‘swarms’ of irregularly shaped UAP buzzed Navy strike groups in the July of 2019, the videos and radar data of which were leaked to Jeremy Corbell in 2021, who was told they were part of the UAPTF briefings. The videos were confirmed by the Pentagon as being taken by the United States Navy.

On 6th April, 2021, Mystery Wire released photos of unidentified objects that are allegedly from a UAPTF report in which the three objects remained stationary in high winds at 30k feet. These three irregularly shaped objects were confirmed by the Pentagon as authentic. The ‘Acorn’, ‘Sphere’ and ‘Metalic Blimp’ shaped objects are still lacking information, although researcher Roger Glassel was able to confirm that the VFA-32 squadron was the flight team involved in this W-72 case.

The three objects were captured as a Navy Pilot weapon system operator (WSO) took photos on his/her iPhone. According to documentary film maker Jeremy Corbell, these photos were used as part of a classified congressional briefing by the office of navy intelligence. The incident occurred on March 4th, 2019, off the east coast of the Virginia, over the area W-72 – warning area. Reportedly, it was a single Navy fighter plane that captured the three separate objects in the space of 30 minutes. Reports are that these shapes remained stationary in high winds and verified by multiple sensors. Claims that these objects are balloons have gone unverified and require further transparency on behalf of the UAPTF.

Other data was forthcoming: leaked data from a UAPTF report was published by The Debrief in 2020, in it was the relevation that a ‘transmedium’ huge black triangle was caught on iPhone camera by a Weapons System Operator as it reportedly arose from under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in March 2019. Despite early promise of this case reaching its way to the mainstream, unfortunately such data has not come to be leaked or released.

Going back to 2014/2015, the now infamous USS Roosevelt case off the EAST Coast of America involved Navy Pilot claims of ‘Cubes within Spheres’ that followed, in formation, the strangely shaped rotating ‘Disc/spinning top’ object the world recognises from GIMBAL video that was released by The New York Times in 2017. Former Navy Pilot Ryan Graves and Lt. Danny Accoin would confirm to The New York Times in 2019 that the cubes would be out in their airspace all day, and that they would encounter them almost daily for over a year.

The most famous UAP case of an irregular shape, comes from the USS Nimitz in 2004. Caught on video gun-camera (known as FLIR1), by Navy airman Chad Underwood in November 2004, the 40ft long cylinder object is known as the ‘Tic-Tac’ UAP. This irregular shape is potentially mentioned in the redacted report (see below) however with
details not known currently within the mainstream.

The truth is that we need more data from the government before appropriately labelling these UAP and any such shape. Being able to identify specific case reports and data is essential as we move forward into the oncoming data releases as they occur this year. Currently, it would seem as though the leaks and emergence of UAP data from military personnel and Navy Pilots is lining up with what has been reported within the UAPTF/DNI report. The common and irregular shapes and their ability to perform the ‘5 observables’ - taken from the Advanced Aerospace threat Identification Program (AATIP) - are essential to our understanding of UAP and their true nature. Although direct data was limited in the 2021 unclassified report, we did witness multiple high ranking people who would verify both the seriousness and importance of this technology.

These included NASA boss Bill Nelson, Former President Obama and current Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines.

Haines, whose Office released the UAPTF/DNI report was asked in November 2021 by David Ignatius of the Washington Post: “How would we know if we were being observed for example?”. Her answers about the nature of the report and if we are being observed essentially were based around the concept of uncertain accumulated data. A point stressed in the report itself.

“I mean, I think there's a lot of different ways in which that might be revealed. But certainly, we're working to make sure that we understand what we do see and what phenomenon is identified.” – Avril Haines, US Director of National Intelligence

“And that's something that you know, frankly, probably also doesn't surprise you in the sense that that's how we typically approach our intelligence work, and the main issues that Congress and others have been concerned about are basically safety of flight concerns, encounter intelligence issues, but of course, there's always the question of, is there something else that we simply do not understand that might come extra-terrestrial, extra-terrestrially?”

– Avril Haines, US Director of National Intelligence

Again however, there has been no verification of any UAP shape by Haines or those within DoD. We must consider that if there genuinely are ‘Spheres’, ‘Pyramids’ and ‘Cubes’ flying in our skies and oceans then they most certainly would be classified. That extreme technology would be the golden goose.

As we move forward into 2022 and build pressure to Congressional Hearings in 2023, we know that a new report is due in October and that classified briefings are ongoing. At some point these key details about ability and appearance must be revealed at an unclassified level, if they aren’t, we might expect further leaks to occur. Alternatively, that might not be such a bad thing, so long as they are responsible and don’t leak classified material. Here at UAPMediaUK, we await either outcome in the coming months.