Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Ex Pentagon official Luis Elizondo interviewed on CNN.. Play the video:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/05/28...nr-vpx.cnn

I doubt that these ufos are secret high tech Navy craft/drones. They've spotted them on the East coast too and as far south as Puerto Rico. And they've been seeing them since the 1950's. They're only making the military look incompetent at the task of defending our air space. Why would the Navy do that to itself?

If a foreign power or terrorist organization ever releases bombs, poison gas projectiles, or electronics-frying magnetic pulses from one of them, that will put an end to the hush-hush aura and stigma treatment pretty pronto. The former would surely leave it at spying and cat-mouse intimidation games, though, for the time being.

'No evidence' UFOs are alien spacecraft, but they're not American, Pentagon says
https://www.livescience.com/ufos-not-ali...eport.html

INTRO: A new report from U.S. intelligence officials claims that there's no evidence that the unidentified flying objects (UFOs) sighted in recent years — even objects that seemed to perform aerodynamic feats beyond the capabilities of human aircraft — are extraterrestrial in origin.

But the objects aren't American-made technologies, either, officials said in the report. In that case, what are these UFOs? It's hard to say with certainty, as many of the likeliest explanations — weather balloons or other airborne experiments, for instance — are contradicted by the unusual speed or maneuverability of the objects, according to the report.

These and other assessments of unexplained sightings were included in a long-awaited Pentagon document on UFOs that has not yet been released, The New York Times reported June 3, citing "senior administration officials" who were briefed on the report's findings... (MORE)

(Jun 5, 2021 03:04 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]INTRO: A new report from U.S. intelligence officials claims that there's no evidence that the unidentified flying objects (UFOs) sighted in recent years — even objects that seemed to perform aerodynamic feats beyond the capabilities of human aircraft — are extraterrestrial in origin.

But the objects aren't American-made technologies, either, officials said in the report. In that case, what are these UFOs? It's hard to say with certainty, as many of the likeliest explanations — weather balloons or other airborne experiments, for instance — are contradicted by the unusual speed or maneuverability of the objects, according to the report.

These and other assessments of unexplained sightings were included in a long-awaited Pentagon document on UFOs that has not yet been released, The New York Times reported June 3, citing "senior administration officials" who were briefed on the report's findings... (MORE)

So all these conclusions being reported by Livescience.com (a good website) are coming from a new york times story based on anonymous sources ("senior administration officials")? That's journalism? It's more like a game of telephone without any credible provenance except "trust us!". Who were these "officials"? How did they come to be briefed? And in particular, what was their motivation for telling the times? There's a great deal that we aren't being told here.

For one thing, I don't trust the assertion that they aren't US technologies.

It might indeed be true that they aren't. The reported performance of the tic tacs does seem to have exceeded any existing aircraft technology.

But suppose that they were US technology of a new and supersecret sort, like stealth aircraft in the 1980's before they were publicly revealed. Would the government admit not only that the vehicles were theirs, but that the US possesses this new technology, such that potential adversaries can start preparing to counter it? Or would they continue to deny any involvement?

If we can expect the same response ("It wasn't us!") whether it was or it wasn't, then the denials don't really tell us anything.

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Concerning the swarms of contacts in the OP, the Rocket Cargo announcement reminded me of the USAF's Golden Horde experiments. These involve networking a whole group of smart weapons together so that they all know what any of them knows and so they can behave as one making autonomous decisions based on the conditions that they encounter (such as enemy countermeasures). 



And there's the (wonderfully named) Skyborg programs that have generated lots of stories in the aviation trade press. Skyborg imagines manned aircraft standing off at a safe distance and dispatching a fleet of small low-cost expendable autonomous aircraft into highly defended enemy airspace to take down enemy air defenses before the manned aircraft approach. These aircraft have enough autonomy so that while they need humans to give them their assignments, they share information among themselves and basically decide for themselves how they want to attack their targets depending on what kind of defences they encounter. They are unmanned so that there's no concern about dead or captured pilots and the aircraft are cheap enough that they can be considered attritable, so that losing some is already kind of factored in.



The navy might conceivably have been performing similar experiments. Observing how well their UAVs work together to accomplish tasks like evading a warships radar defenses. It seems reasonable and not too outlandish given what we know the military is working on.

All leftist "journalism" (including the NYT) is a game of telephone, and nothing should be taken as fact from anonymous sources, as we've seen many routinely debunked, especially over the last several years. These sources have no credibility outside of non-leftist corroboration.

The US admitting to developing such technology would seem to be an open invitation for espionage or saber-rattling of geopolitical adversaries. Or maybe it's just Democrats, who like the US military to appear weak, for no strategic reason at all.

https://apnews.com/article/technology-go...c6a2d22e5f

EXCERPT: . . . Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, said the one official’s claim that there was no indicated link to secret U.S. programs would be significant. But he called on the government to be fully transparent.

“I think that our tax dollars paid for information and data involving UFOs,” Elizondo said. “And I think it is the U.S. government’s obligation to provide those results to the American people.”

But skeptics caution that the videos and reported sightings have plausible Earth-bound explanations. Mick West, an author, investigator and longtime skeptic of UFO sightings, said he supported the military looking into any possible incursion of U.S. airspace, especially by an adversary.

[...]  A Pentagon spokeswoman, Sue Gough, declined Friday to comment on news stories about the intelligence report. She said the Pentagon's UAP task force is “actively working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the report, and DNI will provide the findings to Congress.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, when asked about the report, said of the question at first, “It’s always a little wacky on Fridays.” But she added, “I will say that we take reports of incursions into our airspace by any aircraft — identified or unidentified — very seriously and investigate each one.” (MORE - details)
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/us/po...tagon.html

EXCERPT: . . . One senior official briefed on the intelligence said without hesitation that U.S. officials knew it was not American technology. He said there was worry among intelligence and military officials that China or Russia could be experimenting with hypersonic technology.

He and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the classified findings in the report.

Russia has been investing heavily in hypersonics, believing the technology offers it the ability to evade American missile-defense technology. China has also developed hypersonic weaponry, and included it in military parades. If the phenomena were Chinese or Russian aircraft, officials said, that would suggest the two powers’ hypersonic research had far outpaced American military development... (MORE - details)
- - - - --

Since UAP videos were already circulating, perhaps there was an ad hoc decision made at some point to exploit the situation for indirect scare mongering. To garner even more investment in hypersonic technology. A motivated report's emphasis on no ET evidence and no US technology involvement causes focus to narrow on Russia and China. Seems unlikely that the latter would have been that far along until the most recent years, but timeline realism is hardly necessary for stimulating interest and money aimed at the actual goal. 

Hypersonic gap: US spending $15bn to match rivals (April, 2021)
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/sensor...ic-weapons

EXCERPT: Currently, five different programs have entered the product development stage, with the remaining 65 being in the technology development stage [...] Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general who heads the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation, warns against the frenzy for superweapons.

"Washington, D.C., is awash today in predictions that combinations of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics (especially swarms), hypersonic weapons, railguns, and directed-energy weapons will fundamentally change warfare. Less plentiful are the operational concepts that describe how these systems will be used. Great significance is ascribed to the amounts of money that China and Russia are investing in advanced technologies such as hypersonic missiles and AI, while opinion pieces warn daily that the U.S. must ‘win’ the hypersonic missile race..." (MORE - details)

(Jun 5, 2021 06:39 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]https://apnews.com/article/technology-go...c6a2d22e5f

EXCERPT: . . . Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, said the one official’s claim that there was no indicated link to secret U.S. programs would be significant. But he called on the government to be fully transparent.

“I think that our tax dollars paid for information and data involving UFOs,” Elizondo said. “And I think it is the U.S. government’s obligation to provide those results to the American people.”

But skeptics caution that the videos and reported sightings have plausible Earth-bound explanations. Mick West, an author, investigator and longtime skeptic of UFO sightings, said he supported the military looking into any possible incursion of U.S. airspace, especially by an adversary.

[...]  A Pentagon spokeswoman, Sue Gough, declined Friday to comment on news stories about the intelligence report. She said the Pentagon's UAP task force is “actively working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the report, and DNI will provide the findings to Congress.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, when asked about the report, said of the question at first, “It’s always a little wacky on Fridays.” But she added, “I will say that we take reports of incursions into our airspace by any aircraft — identified or unidentified — very seriously and investigate each one.” (MORE - details)
- - - - - -

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/us/po...tagon.html

EXCERPT: . . . One senior official briefed on the intelligence said without hesitation that U.S. officials knew it was not American technology. He said there was worry among intelligence and military officials that China or Russia could be experimenting with hypersonic technology.

He and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the classified findings in the report.

Russia has been investing heavily in hypersonics, believing the technology offers it the ability to evade American missile-defense technology. China has also developed hypersonic weaponry, and included it in military parades. If the phenomena were Chinese or Russian aircraft, officials said, that would suggest the two powers’ hypersonic research had far outpaced American military development... (MORE - details)
- - - - --

Since UAP videos were already circulating, perhaps there was an ad hoc decision made at some point to exploit the situation for indirect scare mongering. To garner even more investment in hypersonic technology. A motivated report's emphasis on no ET evidence and no US technology involvement causes focus to narrow on Russia and China. Seems unlikely that the latter would have been that far along until the most recent years, but timeline realism is hardly necessary for stimulating interest and money aimed at the actual goal. 

Hypersonic gap: US spending $15bn to match rivals (April, 2021)
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/sensor...ic-weapons

EXCERPT: Currently, five different programs have entered the product development stage, with the remaining 65 being in the technology development stage [...] Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general who heads the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation, warns against the frenzy for superweapons.

"Washington, D.C., is awash today in predictions that combinations of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics (especially swarms), hypersonic weapons, railguns, and directed-energy weapons will fundamentally change warfare. Less plentiful are the operational concepts that describe how these systems will be used. Great significance is ascribed to the amounts of money that China and Russia are investing in advanced technologies such as hypersonic missiles and AI, while opinion pieces warn daily that the U.S. must ‘win’ the hypersonic missile race..." (MORE - details)

With the Afghanistan war drawing down, the military industrial complex is going to need new reasons to keep raking in the cash. The excuse of vague foreign threats may be just enough to do it.