The New Yorker May 10, 2021 pp32-47 |A REPORTER AT LARGE| “THE U.F.O. PAPERS” “Why did we start taking unidentified aerial phenomena seriously?” By GIDEON LEWIS-KRAUS
UAP seen in U.S. Navy video leaked in 2019. Congress to get report by June 2021 from the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.
Read The New Yorker article for all detail
Key Quotes
“In the past three years, high-level officials have publicly conceded their bewilderment about U.A.P.” (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena)
“Why should we assume we already understand everything” Leslie Kean says. (Kean is “an independent investigative journalist and novice U.F.O. researcher”and Author of “UFOs:Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record” 2010 Random House)
Summary provided by 2244
The synopsis of the history of reported UAP encounters is that there are some “’things in the sky we can’t identify’” says a “former Pentagon official.” Having said that, the study and belief in UAP has been plagued by many unreliable reports intermixed with a sprinkling of highly credible reports.
Some of the common elements of UAP sightings include; extreme velocity, no visible means of propulsion and the appearance of being able to “perform stunning maneuvers at [unearthly] g-forces". “Five observables of UAP behavior-including gravity defying capabilities, low observability and transmedium travel” are reportedly better understood today.
Reportedly, President Obama and on other occasions Marco Rubio, Harry Reid (Former Senate Majority Leader), Ted Stevens (Former Senator from Alaska), John Brennan (Former C.I.A. Director) and Mark Esper (Former Secretary of Defense) have been briefed on UAP. “Last summer, David Norquist, (Then Deputy Secretary of Defense), announced the formal existence of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). “The 2021 Intelligence Authorization Act, signed last December”, …[calls for a report to Congress by June 2021].
As an example of a credible UAP report, according to John Ratcliffe (Former director of National Intelligence], “’When we talk about sightings…we are talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery, that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have technology for, or are traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.” UAPs have been reported around the world including in France, U.K, Denmark, Brazil, Russia, Sweden, Peru and Chile.
From a different perspective, “virtually all astrobiologists “suspect that we are not alone.” “Astronomers have determined that there may be hundreds of millions of potentially habitable exoplanets in just our galaxy.” And we “could well be millions or billions of years behind [the technical capability] of our distant neighbors.”
Naysayers are many. Key points made are “Ninety-five percent of supposed U.F.O.s really did have a garden-variety derivation: uncommon clouds, weather balloons, atmospheric temperature inversions…[and even] classified military technology.” In common “debunkers and believers” alike have “a tendency to discount or overlook inconvenient facts.” It is noted that “U.F.O. inquiries can proceed only through the process of elimination, a style of argument that is highly vulnerable to erroneous assumptions.” According to a “former Pentagon official” some debunkers don’t “have the whole story. There’s data [they] will never see [classified information].”
What to do?
Some suggest the U.S. follow France and other countries in creating a “single clearing house salient data.” “In April of 2019, the Navy revised its official guidelines for pilots, encouraging them to report UAPs without fear of scorn or censure.” There’s a sense that the “government…has relaxed its grip on the taboo.”
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