UFO Crash Retrievals — The Story, The Coverup, & the Road to Disclosure
On December 16th, 2017, The New York Times published a story that ignited the current UFO fever. The story reveals the existence of AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program), a secret Pentagon program that investigates UFO sightings. A second article, published the same day, recounts a US Navy pilot’s encounter with a UFO in 2004, while performing a military exercise off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. The pilot’s testimony is corroborated by military eyewitnesses, radar, and video evidence presented in the story. Subsequent articles discussed more verified military grade UFO videos. On July 23rd of this year, the NYT published an extraordinary column that stated:
he [Physicist, Eric Davis] gave a classified briefing to a Defense Department agency as recently as March about retrievals from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”
And followed up with:
“Mr. Davis said he also gave classified briefings on retrievals of unexplained objects to staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Oct. 21, 2019, and to staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee two days later.”
Co-author of the article, Ralph Blumenthal, a reputable journalist who has written for the NYT for forty-five years, reiterated in a recent online interview that the Pentagon was briefing high ranking officials on UFO crash retrievals.
Interviewer: Do you believe that there have been retrievals of extraterrestrial spacecraft? “What we believe is less important than what we’ve written. What we’ve written is that staff members of congress and high-level DOD intelligence officials have been briefed on crash retrievals. That in itself, I think, is pretty sensational. My personal believe I think is irrelevant. Clearly, we found that information compelling.”
Co-author, Leslie Kean, added:
“The briefings are extremely important; the fact that they’ve been going on at all. They would not be briefing high level officials about something that had no weight to it. And so you know, we feel the combination of the fact that the briefings have occurred, that we have the most sources who know the most about this, and that we have documentation in the form of briefing documents — really present a picture that these things have occurred.”
Why would the most influential news source in the world write about UFO wreckage and risk ridicule, if they could not prove the supporting facts of the story? The writers of the article were particularly wary about the crash retrieval elements of the story, since they buried the lead in the article and were careful in discussing it in interviews. It’s an interesting choice to push a crash retrieval story and yet not lead with it at the same time.
Blumenthal stated during the interview, that the story underwent numerous edits in an “infinitude” of levels of editing and what made it to publication included only what could be verified. This suggests that the editors of the NYT heavily modified the story, but at the same time approved the publishing of the sensational crash retrieval revelation.
If UFO crashes are being discussed at this time we can only wonder what else will be disclosed and written about in the future.
The Logistics of a Coverup
Although important publications are discussing the possibility of the U.S. government (USG) having UFO wreckage and politicians are being briefed about it, there are still logistical questions about the alleged coverup. Explaining the role of crash recovery units and how they operate will add texture and context to the story told by the NYT.
For decades, the Armed Forces of the USG have had the resources to carry out a clean crash retrieval operation. Designated squadrons working out of select Air Force Bases have historically undertaken the task of collecting top secret aircraft debris, domestically and abroad. During the last century, the debris collected was officially recognized as Soviet technology and American experimental aircraft. The malfunctioning of test aircraft has unfortunately left a long record of well-documented incidents. What has not been so transparent are the top-secret crash-recovery operations that retrieved those sensitive wreckages. Nevertheless, through whistleblowers and declassified documents we have an idea of how they operated. It was these same top-secret operations that allegedly engaged in UFO crash retrievals.
Air Force Regulation 200–2 (1954), notes that the 4602nd Air Intelligence Service Squadron (AISS) headquartered in Fort Belvoir, VA was a rapid deploy squadron of highly trained specialists tasked with crash-recovery operations of objects that entered our atmosphere. The release provides details on the highly mobile unit and stresses the importance of being ready at a moment’s notice. It identifies their goal as collecting and safeguarding material for scientific examination.
Retired personnel who claim to have taken part in recovery operations, detail that defense intelligence officials initiate briefings and assemble the initial coordination of the recovery. The operation happens in waves with a nuclear, chemical & biological team deploying along with a small team of high-ranking officials out of Fort Belvoir, VA. Two crash-recovery teams arrive within two hours of each other and the area may be secured with troops from the nearest military installation.[1] Multiple recovery units are said to exist and their main objective is hauling the wreckage to a safe area as soon as possible. Recovered materials are almost certainly kept at top-secret installations and it is believed that they are shared with private industry including aeronautical and weapons manufactures. By moving material and intelligence to private industry hands they avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and have a greater degree of concealment.
Witnesses to the event are silenced and extorted. While servicemen and participants of the coverup are debriefed, separated, paid hush money, and in some cases reassigned halfway around the world.
One declassified memo under the FOIA describes a crash retrieval operation, Project Moondust, in a recovery mission of unidentified space debris in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Some believe the debris collected was of ET origin, but more conventional explanations say it was manmade. What’s important in this case, however, is that the USG’s crash recovery operations extend to remote areas of the world. This demonstrates an incredible ability to mobilize in record time.
It’s remarkable that the USG has the logistical capabilities to perform crash retrieval operations, seemingly as efficient and detailed as those seen in popular media. We don’t have absolute proof that these known recovery operations were also responsible for collecting “off-world vehicles not made on this Earth”, but we now have a picture in our mind of how UFO wreckage would have been collected assuming the NYT’s findings are correct.
A Campaign for Disclosure
The NYT’s crash retrieval article is relevant to disclosure in more ways than one. The initial 2017 story was reportedly picked up by the Times because the release of the UFO videos (discussed in their articles) was imminent, and the NYT wanted to break the story rather than standby. Three years removed from that affair it seems that the Time’s journalists have developed a relationship with Elizondo, who arranged the release of the videos. Elizondo, who worked at the Pentagon investigating UFOs, is himself, an important figure in disclosure, but he’s also the link between the NYT and their most valuable sources.
The details of the disclosure process taking place before our eyes may never be known. And yet, we can piece together information from key players in the public eye and draw measured conclusions.
The NYT’s main source for their July 2020 article and the man who briefed congressional staff members on “off-world vehicles not made on this Earth” is Physicist Dr. Eric Davis. The Institute of Advanced Studies in Austin, Texas states that Davis’s research specializations include breakthrough propulsion physics for interstellar flight, beamed energy propulsion, advanced space nuclear power and propulsion, directed energy weapons, among other things. Davis has been an intelligence officer, a researcher, and a military contractor in the capacity of advisor since the mid-90s and he is as well-connected as anyone in intelligence and aeronautical circles. Most recently, he was a consultant for ATTIP and wrote scientific papers on the potential of off-world propulsion technologies.
In a 2018 interview with investigative journalist George Knapp, Davis, suggested that hundreds of UFO encounters with US Navy and US Airforce aircraft have prompted a faction of the armed forces to look for answers. It’s possible that UFO encounters became so common that military leaders began requesting access to black budget “need-to-know” restricted special access programs deep within the “military industrial complex”, and when they were denied, they sought to add pressure via other means, including leveraging the influence of the media and bringing the matter to the attention of Congress. This may explain the origin of the current UFO disclosure movement that has been gaining momentum in the mainstream media and Congress. It’s worth noting that the real motivation behind disclosure is probably the search for answers related to UFO encounters with military pilots and the pursuit of advanced technologies in secret programs, and not necessarily an attempt to inform the public and mend past deceptions by the USG.
Another possibility is that the old guard of UFO secrecy, with roots going back to the 1940’s, has retired and died and the new guard is less fervent about the coverup. One may assume that throughout the years, waves of old-guard members of the coverup retired while new ones joined their ranks, but the influence of the old guard’s secrecy remained long after their departure. The fact that private industry is part of the equation only extends the potential influence of those who may have overlooked the coverup. Perhaps as time elapsed farther from the peak of secrecy, whenever that may have been, the approach to the UFO coverup softened if ever so slightly. In fact, I speculate that the numbers of those who participate in the coverup has drastically shrunk. Any UFO wreckage is therefore, most likely tucked away and examined in a severely compartmentalized manner. These deeply classified programs are concealed from any meaningful oversight and controlled by a handful of people.
This probably isn’t the first time that powerful factions within the military have had competing interests. And though I wouldn’t be surprised if those in favor of secrecy eventually crush those who are for openness, this process may play out as a long and sustained legal battle, where, the pro secrecy group slowly drowns out disclosure.
But who exactly is campaigning for disclosure? We may never know the extent of the organizational apparatus pushing for disclosure at the Pentagon, but clearly there is a public face to the movement and that is Lue Elizondo and his organization To The Stars Academy (TTSA).
Elizondo, who resigned in protest from the Pentagon because the UFO threat was not taken with the gravity, he believed it should, is the focal point of the disclosure movement. TTSA is a star-studded group of scientists, engineers, and former high-level intelligence officers dedicating their efforts to the UFO mystery. Sceptics believe that former intelligence officers suddenly addressing disclosure in the public manner in which they have done so, must mean they are leading a disinformation campaign to some nefarious end. And though only time will tell with certainty, TTSA has been the reason for disclosure so far and with that in mind we can only hope that they keep their influence.
In addition, we should hope that members of the media who chose to embark on the journalistic quest of investigating UFOs will not be derailed. A successful disclosure process is dependent on momentum and press coverage to create change. The ball will only get rolling if certain key things happen, like more military grade videos getting released (preferably of better quality) or more insiders coming out to tell their story. The normalization of the UFO discussion is cemented every time such an event happens. The tide on UFO public opinion will only turn as more publications report on disclosure. Important publications (and some would say “skeptic” publications) such as Popular Mechanics and Scientific American have already positively acknowledged the current UFO investigation resurgence, when previously the topic was untouchable.
A pattern is emerging of influential people converging their attention on facts rather than speculations and this has elevated the conversation to a point where UFOs can begin to be openly discussed without dismissive mockery or professional repercussions. And yet, despite the extraordinary revelations by the NYT, the public’s reception has been lukewarm. The main takeaway is that a tacit acknowledgement of UFOs has occurred, but not a confirmation. If you take the information recently disclosed at face value, however, you will conclude that UFO crashes have happened in the past. And given this information, perhaps it is time to rethink thousands of documented sightings and events such as Roswell, the world’s most famous UFO crash.
[1] Noe Torres & Ruben Uriarte. (2008). The Other Roswell. Pg. 60–61.
