And there is not only witness testimony when it comes to UFOs. A number of previously classified documents that are dealing with the UFO matter are now freely accessible. A well-known example is the so-called Wilbert B. Smith memo from 21 November 1950.5 The radio engineer Wilbert Smith headed Project Magnet, a UFO investigation program of the Canadian government’s Department of Transport. In this »Top Secret« document from the Department of Transport, Smith notes the following:
»I made discreet enquiries through the Canadian Embassy staff in Washington who were able to obtain for me the following information:
The matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States Government, rating higher even than the H-bomb.
Flying saucers exist.
Their modus operandi is unknown but concentrated effort is being made by a small group headed by Doctor Vannevar Bush.
The entire matter is considered by the United States authorities to be of tremendous significance.
I was further informed that the United States authorities are investigating along quite a number of lines which might possibly be related to the saucers such as mental phenomena (…)«6
I have insider information that Smith was communicating with Admiral Herbert Knowles. Both discussed not only the UFO phenomenon but also the topic of direct communication with extraterrestrial beings and the content of received messages. In addition to Smith’s note, there are dozens of other documents which prove the great interest of the U.S. military and the CIA in UFO sightings. Many of these documents can now be consulted directly on the CIA’s website.7 One example is a memo to the Director of the CIA dated 2 October 1952.8 According to this document, »flying saucers« pose an element of danger that »concerns the vulnerability of the United States to air attack«. Action recommended: »That the Director of Central Intelligence advise the National Security Council of the implications of the ›flying saucer‹ problem and request that research be initiated.«
Another advice reads as follows:
»In order to minimize risk of panic, a national policy should be established as to what should be told the public regarding the phenomena.«
As mentioned before, the question on the existence of UFOs can now be considered as settled. On 16 December 2017, the New York Times, the Washington Post and POLITICO unanimously reported on a UFO research program of the Pentagon funded with 22 million dollars between 2007 and 2012.9 The program was called The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and was officially confirmed by the Pentagon. Not only radar and video (infrared) recordings of encounters between U.S. military pilots and flying objects, whose flight behavior seems to contradict the laws of aerodynamics, were examined. Materials originating from UFOs were also stored and analyzed in modified buildings. In a radio interview, physicist Dr. Harold Puthoff explains that the analyzed exotic material did not contain new elements but consisted of an unusual composition of layers of materials »that you wouldn’t expect to be able to be layered« and that had »certain unusual characteristics that you wouldn’t have predicted in advance«.10
In the following, three now globally known videos of the on-board cameras of U.S. Navy fighter jets showing unknown objects have been published:
The so-called »GIMBAL« video, captured by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet using the Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod, was the first of the three videos that has been through the official declassification review process of the United States government and has been approved for public release.
The second declassified video (»FLIR1«) is the only official footage captured by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at an incident in 2004 off the coast of San Diego regarding the USS Nimitz, a nuclear powered U.S. Navy supercarrier (also using ATFLIR). The Navy pilots described the UFO as a large bright white Tic Tac with a size of approximately 40 feet.
»GO FAST« is another authentic DoD video that captures the high-speed flight of an unidentified aircraft at low altitude by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet with an ATFLIR pod.
Luis Elizondo, former head of AATIP, stated in an interview on CNN that the observed flight characteristics of the objects cannot be explained either by U.S. military arsenal or by known foreign technology. Asked for his personal opinion on the matter, he offers a surprising explanation: »We may not be alone!«11 Likewise, according to Navy pilot David Fravor, the object he had encountered was not from this world.12
A large part of the money from the U.S. defense budget went to Bigelow Aerospace, a space research company of billionaire Robert Bigelow. It is well known in UFO research circles that Bigelow has been funding the work of leading UFO and abduction researchers for decades. In May 2017, in an interview with CBS, Bigelow even expressed his conviction that extraterrestrials are present on Earth since a long time.13
The December 2017 reports are the official starting point of an extensive disclosure campaign in which former blink-182 punk band singer Tom DeLonge plaid a leading role along with former senior Department of Defense (DoD) and intelligence officials.
DeLonge is the CEO of a company called To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA), which covers the three areas of science, aerospace and entertainment – see https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com.
The company’s goal is the advancement of our current understanding of scientific phenomena and its technological implications. Further members of the management team were, inter alia:
Luis Elizondo, former head of AATIP (in the meanwhile, Elizondo left TTSA);
Christopher Mellon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and Bush Administrations;
Steve Justice, former Program Director for Advanced Systems from Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs – also known as »Skunk Works«; and
Dr. Harold Puthoff, a physicist who advised the CIA on the research and application of remote viewing, at which we will have a closer look in Chapter 4.
The UFO media campaign continued in April 2019 with reports according to which the U.S. Navy is drafting new guidelines for pilots and other personnel to report encounters with »unidentified aircraft«.14 About two months later this was followed by reports on classified briefings on UFO sightings for not only Senators but also President Trump.15 During the following two years, numerous reports on the UFO/UAP topic were published by mainstream media. Then, in April 2021, the authenticity of further UAP videos was confirmed by the Pentagon.16 This was followed by the preliminary highlight of the ongoing disclosure campaign: the release of an unclassified UFO report by the Pentagon on 25 June 2021. Even before that date it had been leaked that the Pentagon report is ruling out the possibility of U.S. military black projects but not ruling out an extra-terrestrial explanation for the phenomenon.17
The rather vague 9-pages-assessment speaks of 144 reports that describe incidents that occurred between November 2004 and March 2021.18 The executive summary on page 3 states:
»Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation.«
According to the report, UAP sightings tended to cluster around U.S. training and testing grounds. In 18 incidents observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics. Thus, the Pentagon publicly acknowledges for the first time that UFOs/UAP are real, that they are physical objects and that this