BEYOND BLUE BOOK: THE PENTAGON UFO REPORT IN CONTEXT
THE PENTAGON UFO REPORT IN CONTEXT
The release of the Pentagon’s report on UFOs has brought military attention to a subject once shunned by the US Government.
DAVID CLARKE examines this new-found interest in ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ – and asks what happens next...
The release of the Pentagon’s highly anticipated intelligence report on UFOs has brought military attention to a subject once shunned by Western governments. DAVID CLARKE examines the US government’s newly-found interest in ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ – and asks what happens next.
The US Director of National Intelligence released a ‘Preliminary assessment’ of the UAP mystery (see FT408:2) almost 74 years from the day that Kenneth Arnold’s sighting gave birth to the modern UFO mystery. Running to a mere six pages, excluding the cover and appendices, the brief unclassified summary is the same length as that produced by the British MoD’s Flying Saucer Working Party, with
CIA input, at the height of the Cold War. This was used to reassure Prime Minister Winston Churchill after the USAF launched jet fighters to intercept unknown objects on radar over Washington DC in the summer of 1952 (see FT372:35-7).
But while earlier official studies tried to dismiss or debunk the subject, this new assessment breaks new ground by making UAPs, defined as “aerial objects not immediately identifiable”, a potential threat to national security. Despite this paradigm shift, the report received a mixed reception from the UFO disclosure movement, some of whom expected the US to announce it possessed hard evidence of advanced alien technology (see Nigel Watson’s summary in FT408:30).
Inevitably, attention has now turned to the content of a classified appendix that has been seen only by those with security clearance. But intelligence agencies need to protect their secret sources, so it is likely that only heavily redacted versions of this longer document will be released.
REAL PHENOMENA
Public expectation has been building since December 2017 when the New York Times first revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon study (see FT363:28-29). The release of Navy cockpit video clips of UAPs added to the pressure being piled on the US government by UFO-friendly senators and the media for more revelations. In one of his last acts as President, Donald Trump signed off a request for a report on ‘Advanced Aerial Threats’ as part of the Covid relief bill last December.
The tasking, that forms an appendix for the report, demanded a detailed analysis of UAP data to be delivered to the congressional armed services committee by the end of June.
Given earlier confusion as to who in the complex US intelligence structure had overall responsibility for UAPs, the tasking called for a streamlined reporting structure reporting to a named official. The current director of the US Navy’s UAP Task Force, Brennan McKernan, leads the new project, which follows in the footsteps of earlier US government investigations. The best known of these was the USAF’s Project Blue Book, which closed in 1969 after it found no evidence that UFOs posed any threat to national security (see FT392:57). Since that time, military personnel who reported UAP experiences have been told that their employers had no interest in the subject, with no agency openly involved in the investigation and analysis of data.
Unsurprisingly, the report makes no explicit mention of extraterrestrials or other exotic theories. The identification of terrestrial threats to defence and potential hazards posed by intruders to air traffic remain the primary focus of all intelligence interest in UFOs. Leaks to the media in advance of the release were keen to play up the fact that the report did not rule out aliens as an explanation. But as it is impossible to prove a negative, the Task Force have learned that adopting preconceived ideas will not help them evaluate the small number of cases where UAPs “appeared to display unusual flight characteristics or signature management”.
What is refreshing to read is the statement in the Executive Summary that
UNSURPRISINGLY, THE REPORT MAKES NO MENTION OF EXTRATERRESTRIALS OR OTHER EXOTIC THEORIES
UAPs clearly represent real phenomena that must be taken seriously by the military and intelligence services. The report says they “probably represent physical objects given that a majority… were registered across multiple sensors, including radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon-seekers and visual observation.” A similar conclusion was reached by the UK MoD’s UAP study, completed by its defence intelligence branch DI55 in 2000. This said it was “indisputable” that UAPs existed, and listed similar puzzling characteristics, namely “the ability to hover, land, take-off, accelerate to exceptional velocities and vanish, they can reportedly alter their direction of flight suddenly and… exhibit aerodynamic characteristics well beyond those of any known aircraft or missile – either manned or unmanned” (see FT211:4-6).
As was the case with the MoD study, the unclassified version of the US report avoids detailed references to any specific UAP case. But the DNI assessment reveals the UAP Task Force, set up by the US Navy in March 2019, collected 144 reports from US Government sources, of which 80 involved “observation with multiple sensors”. Just one has been identified “with high confidence” as a large, deflating balloon. The period selected for the study begins in November 2004, when US Navy F-18 pilots operating from the carrier USS Nimitz reported multiple encounters with a ‘tic-tac’ UFO that appeared to rise from the ocean off the southern California coast (see
FT403:40-42).
Fortunately, the Task Force now recognise that “disparagement” of service personnel who report seeing UAPs is one of the main obstacles they face in their investigations. But it has taken a series of close encounters, including 11 where aircrew have reported near misses with UAPs, to force the US government to take notice (see FT406:38-42 for examples). Media interviews with aircrew such as David Fravor and Alex Dietrich, who were part of a training flight from the
Nimitz diverted to investigate unusual radar echoes, have done much to bring credibility to the issue. Both were subjected to ridicule from their peers at the time and their mission report “was not forwarded to anyone up the chain of command” according to a US Navy summary. Their willingness to talk publicly about the experiences has done much to change what the report calls “sociocultural stigmas” that have discouraged
military personnel from making reports of their sightings. The DNI admits that the taboo associated with UAP reporting in the military has seriously hampered the Task Force’s ability to obtain good quality data.
Another issue relates to the lack of a clear procedure that military observers can use to quickly flag up their sightings for investigation before the scent goes cold. The report reveals the majority of incidents in the database date from the last two years, when a formal reporting mechanism was launched by the Navy’s UAP Task Force in 2019. That system has since been adopted by the USAF, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and other military and intelligence agencies on the orders of Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. In a press statement following the release of the report, Hicks says she wants to ensure that the Task Force is notified “within two weeks of an occurrence”.
The DNI study admits that in a “handful” of cases UAPs appear to demonstrate what it calls “advanced technology”, but this is qualified by the possibility that some detections might have been caused by faulty sensors, observer misperceptions and deliberate ‘spoofing’ of military radars via electronic warfare techniques. The Task Force’s efforts have been further hampered by the fact that radars on US ships and planes “are not generally suited for identifying UAPs”, as was clear from the US Navy’s summary of the USS Nimitz flap ( FT204:40-42).
In 18 incidents, described in 21 separate reports, observers reported “unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics”. These include the ability to remain stationary and move against prevailing winds, manoeuvre abruptly or at speed without any obvious means of propulsion. In a smaller number of cases “military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings” that may indicate spoofing is indeed a factor.
Most of the future effort by the UAP Task Force’s resources will be devoted to a “rigorous analysis” of the best data by teams of technical experts who will have to decide if this contains any evidence of what they call “breakthrough technologies”. The report says there is no doubt that, whatever they are, UAPs pose a hazard to aircraft and may pose a threat to national security.
CATEGORISING UAP
But a key passage brings speculation firmly down to Earth in re-stating the conclusions of earlier government-sponsored studies in the US, UK and elsewhere. An overview suggests “the possibility there are multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations”, a conclusion that will be familiar to many seasoned UFO researchers across the world. Long experience has found that when individual UAP incidents are investigated, they tend to fall into one of five categories of potential explanations.
The first is what the UAPTF call ‘airborne clutter’ that cause hazards for both military and civilian aircrews. This category includes birds, stray balloons and even airborne debris like plastic bags and sky lanterns carried aloft by air currents that have been reported as UFOs by aircrew including police helicopter pilots. In the last two decades a new hazard, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or drones operated by a variety of private individuals and organisations have been added to the list. In 2018 a sighting of two drones within Gatwick Airport caused unprecedented disruption including the cancellation of 1,000 scheduled flights (see FT406:38-43)
The second category, Natural Atmospheric Phenomena, includes a range of rare phenomena familiar to forteans including ball lightning and ‘earthquake lights’. Ron Haddow, author of the MoD’s Condign report, believed that atmospheric plasmas created by meteorite impacts were the source of some unexplained sightings by pilots. Also included are the phantom echoes nick-named ‘angels’ by military sensor operators that have plagued military and civilian systems since the invention of radar ( FT403:43).
In the third category the Pentagon places US government or industry “development programs” that include its own classified hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft and
IN A “HANDFUL” OF CASES, UAPS APPEAR TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT THE REPORT CALLS “ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY”
unmanned platforms. Despite media reports to the contrary, the report does not rule out these systems as the source of some unresolved UFO mysteries (see pp52-53).
The fourth category covers “foreign adversary systems” and reveals US intelligence is concerned that some of the UAPs detected by its pilots and radars may be advanced technologies deployed by Russia, China – or even a “non-government entity” (shades of James Bond super-villains). But the assessment admits this would only be possible if those countries had achieved a technological breakthrough that had eluded the considerably greater resources of the US, generally considered to be the world’s only real superpower. However tempting this might appear, the DNI says the UAP Task Force lacks proof and continues to seek evidence, particularly as some UAPs have been detected near to sensitive military facilities and by US aircraft carrying some of its most advanced radar sensors.
The fifth and final category, which the assessment calls “catch-all”, is even more intriguing. The Task Force says most of the UAPs in the first four categories remain unidentified due to limited data or problems with processing or analysis; but in the small number of cases where a UAP “appeared to display unusual flight characteristics” and/ or other unusual attributes they require “additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyse and characterise”. These UAPs may remain unexplained, “pending scientific advances that allowed us to better understand them”.
REAL-TIME REPORTING
In summary, this is a ‘preliminary’ assessment that sets out a clear, sober argument for increased US government resources to be allocated for a more detailed investigation, drawing upon what appear to be intriguing data. And for the first time the intelligence agencies appear to invite input from interested scientists working outside the secretive militaryindustrial complex. This new openness has already encouraged Harvard University’s astrophysicist Avi Loeb to offer to “lead a scientific inquiry” into the UAP Task Force’s data and report the findings to the US Congress ( Scientific American, 8 June). Its most important purpose, he said, “would be to inject scientific rigour and credibility into the discussion”.
One of the most promising aspects of the new US project is the UAP Task Force’s move to investigate events in real-time as they occur rather than wasting time on historical cases that rely upon uncorroborated, anecdotal evidence. Loeb agrees that it would be “far better to deploy state of the art recording devices… at the sites where the reports came from and search for unusual signals”. One proposal is to use advanced algorithms to search data captured and stored by air defence radars to provide a baseline of ‘standard’ UAP activity. This resembles an idea mentioned in the MoD report from 1951 that concluded no progress could be made by trying to make sense of what it called “unco-ordinated and subjective evidence” provided by witnesses long after the reported events. “Positive results could only be obtained,” it said, “by organising throughout the country, or the world, continuous observation of the skies by a co-ordinated network of visual observers, equipped with photographic apparatus, and supplemented by a network of radar stations and sound locators.” At that time both the MoD and CIA regarded an expensive, resource-heavy study like this as “a singularly profitless enterprise”. It remains to be seen if the UAP Task Force can overcome past obstacles and draw upon advances in artificial intelligence and data analytics to detect a signal in the noise that has eluded earlier government investigations.
DR DAVID CLARKE is an Associate Professor at Sheffield Hallam University, a consultant for The National Archives UFO project and a regular contributor to Fortean Times. He is the author of How UFOs Conquered the World: The History of a Modern Myth (2015) and The UFO files: The Inside Story of Real-Life Sightings (2009).
The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force predict that most sightings, when resolved, will fall into five categories that include “classified programs” developed by the US government. The DNI report claims it is “unable to confirm” that experimental projects account for any of the 144 reports from military sources.
But a set of photographs that show a diamond-shaped UFO escorted by Allied aircraft, taken in Scotland just days after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, is one example according to a source who works for the Ministry of Defence.
The so-called ‘Calvine photographs’ are often listed by the media, alongside the Rendlesham Forest and Cosford incidents, as Britain’s best evidence for UFOs. Last year the Sun quoted ex-MoD UFO investigator Nick Pope as saying “they showed a structured craft of unknown origin, unlike any conventional aircraft.” But my source says he smiled when he saw artist impressions of the object published by the tabloid as “Britain’s most significant UFO sighting”.
“There was nothing extraterrestrial about what was seen in Scotland. No one else other than the Americans had anything like it at the time,” he said. “We were of course not allowed to say exactly what it was. But we knew what it was.”
The British government continues to deny that its US ally has ever been authorised to operate experimental aircraft in UK airspace; but documents I obtained using the Freedom of Information Act corroborate my source’s claim that a dossier of evidence was shared with US intelligence after the British expressed “concern about a possible stealthy platform flying in UK airspace”.
A letter from the British Defence Staff in Washington DC reveals how, early in 1993, officials flew to the USA to discuss a photograph “taken from the ground with very blurred images of what could be two aeroplanes” with opposite numbers in the CIA. My source says the Americans “went ballistic” when they saw the images.
The originals were taken on 4 August 1990 by two men who were stalking deer in a rural part of Perthshire often used by the RAF for low-flying practice. As they snapped away, posing alongside their kill, a diamondshaped object appeared in the sky. According to a MoD account of the incident, the UFO hovered for 10 minutes “before ascending vertically upwards at high speed”. Both men also saw what they believed was a Harrier jump jet make a number of low-level passes, as if the crew had also seen the ‘UFO’. The photographer sent his negatives to the Glasgow-based Daily Record newspaper, who passed them to the RAF. 2
Two days earlier, Saddam Hussein’s forces had crossed the Kuwaiti border, triggering Operation Desert Storm, the first Gulf War, in which US forces used F-117A Stealth fighters to attack targets deep inside Iraq.
My source claims an investigation by the MoD concluded the US ‘research vehicle’ was flying from RAF Machrihanish airfield on the Mull of Kintyre peninsula. 3 Scrutiny of the Calvine images by defence intelligence officers identified a Harrier and a “barely visible second aircraft, again probably a Harrier”. My source says this was a British Harrier and the second was a US escort aircraft.
The MoD claim that prints and line-drawings taken from the negatives have been destroyed. Poor quality photocopies of one, showing the object and the Harrier, were in UFO files released by the MoD to the UK National Archives in 2009. But in his 1996 book Open Skies Closed Minds Nick Pope claims that he kept a “poster-sized” print of another on his office wall when he took over UFO desk duties from his predecessor, Owen Hartop, in
1991. Pope has said the object visible in the prints was grey, against a background of a lighter grey sky and “clearly visible as a 3-D craft”.
My source confirms that better quality images exist and “they [the US intelligence services] have cleverly kept them away from the public” for three decades. “Thirty years is nothing,” he said. “It takes a very long time to go from a drawing on the back of a cigarette packet to operational capability.”
The MoD papers released in 2009 reveal that acetates of the images were sent to the RAF’s Joint Air Reconnaissance Centre (JARIC) who were warned that “sensitivity of the material suggests very special handling”. Experts there were tasked to produce calculations such as height above ground and distance from camera to determine the true “diameter, size and dimension [of the UFO] where possible”. 4
The files also included a “defensive briefing” prepared by Owen Hartop one month after the photographs were delivered to MoD. He claimed they had “no record of Harriers operating in the location” at the time and confirmed that experts had reached no “definite conclusions” regarding the large stealthy object.
In his briefing, Hartop says the negatives had already been returned to the Daily Record. But the newspaper never published the story and the photographs have disappeared without trace. This has prompted some UFO researchers to speculate that a D-Notice was used by the MoD to persuade the paper not to publish them. 5
In his book, Pope claims that expert analysis had revealed the photos “were not fakes, but neither the experts nor I accepted the Aurora theory.” He said his poster was later removed by his head of division who “convinced himself – despite US denials – that it was Aurora.” Aurora is the code-name used for a hypothesised hypersonic US reconnaissance aircraft that some commentators claim was developed as a replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird. Two of these long-range, high altitude Mach 3 aircraft operated from the USAF base at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk from 1982, with permission from Margaret Thatcher’s government. But the last aircraft departed in January 1990. Others believe Aurora was a cover name for a group of black projects, some of which may remain under development at Area 51 where earlier secret aircraft such as the U2 spy-plane were test-flown.
The MoD’s Condign report on UAPs, completed in 1996 and released under FOI in 2006, admits that “certain unfamiliar, friendly aircraft may be authorised for covert entry into UK controlled airspace” and could be reported as UFOs because of their unfamiliar shapes.