"Former Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, on UFOs". Uploaded on The Black Vault Originals' Youtube channel, March 21 2021. Duration: 14:47 minutes.
SHOW NOTES-----------------------o Full FoxNews Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIe3j...o Marco Rubio on UFOs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhtRY...o Former CIA Director John Brennan on UFOs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEjNO...
Another former high ranking US governmental official recently made some interesting statements about the UFO/UAP issue on Fox News. In general, I'm not a fan of Fox News. At the same time, when it comes to serious coverage of the UFO/UAP subject, the channel has (unfortunately) been one of the best these last couple of three years or so.
Another former high ranking US governmental official recently made some interesting statements about the UFO/UAP issue on Fox News. In general, I'm not a fan of Fox News. At the same time, when it comes to serious coverage of the UFO/UAP subject, the channel has (unfortunately) been one of the best these last couple of three years or so.
In the video above, John Greenewald Jr. at The Black Vault shares his thoughts about the former Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe's, recent statements about the UFO/UAP issue in an interview by Fox News. I agree with most of Greenewald's observations and comments on the most pertinent things to be aware of in Ratcliffe's quite generous and, probably, honest statements about what the US military and Intelligence Community (IC) knows about UFOs/UAPs. Or perhaps more correctly, what they do not know about UFOs/UAPs? Further below, I'll say more about Greenewald's comments and share my thoughts on some of Ratcliffe's statements.
Before I share my personal opinions and thoughts about some of Ratcliffe's statements, here is some commentary on Ratcliffe's statements from more knowledgeable sources and people than me:
A noteworthy quote in the above article by The Debrief is the following:
“Some of the best evidence acquired has come from measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), rather than from videos or still images,” a source speaking under the condition of anonymity told The Debrief in November.
The quote ties into what Chris Mellon -- who served as deputy assistant secretary of defence for intelligence in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations -- wrote in an article from November 2019 about the different collection systems of information and databases that potentially can help us to better understand the origins, capabilities, etc., of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). You can read Mellon's article here.
The next knowledgeable source that has made a commentary on Ratcliffe's recent statements about the UFO/UAP issue is Keith Basterfield:
Basterfield's blog post contains a full-length transcript of the Fox News interview with Ratcliffe (about the UAP-part; Ratcliffe first comments on diplomatic relations with China) and Basterfield's comments on some specific statements made by Ratcliffe about the UAP/UFO issue. As with Greenewald's comments, I agree with Basterfield on what is most noteworthy of Ratcliffe's statements, though, I would add to those notable statements the one Ratcliffe makes about the US Air Force (Greenewald comments on that in the video above, and below I'll say some more about the USAF-part).
My comments on Ratcliffe's statements
In most cases, it is essential to point out the obvious, so let me begin by pointing out some obvious but significant things that Ratcliffe confirms with some of his statements. I'll also say something about what I think we can infer from those confirmations by Ratcliffe.
So the first obvious thing to note is that Ratcliffe in the interview confirms the validity of the UFO phenomenon. He is literally saying or confirming that the US military and IC do not know what some military cases of UFOs/UAP are or who is piloting them (that is, UFOs are intelligently controlled).
For all of the debunkers out there: Ratcliffe is obviously not referring to neither American nor foreign drones, missiles or any other type of (human) technology or natural phenomena which the US military and IC are aware of. We are talking about the US military, which most likely has the most advanced technological and information-gathering capabilities globally.
I cannot stress enough how important the latter is to keep in mind in the discussion of what the US Navy and US Air Force pilots are observing, what it is satellites and radar are picking up, and so on.
In other words, Ratcliffe is in the interview telling us what some UFOs/UAP are not (they are not drones, balloons, weather phenomena, etc.). Of course, he refers to specific military cases and sightings of UFOs/UAP, which have multiple sources of confirmation and undergone rigorous analysis (at least, I believe it is safe to presume that these UAP/UFO military cases have undergone extensive study). Neither Marco Rubio, Mark Warner, John Brennan, nor John Ratcliffe refers to some random lights in the sky or to some vague military reports of "I think I something weird..."
Thus, from what I have pointed out so far, I think we can infer that at least the US military and IC have, with a high degree of certainty, ruled out what these specific cases of UFOs/UAP are not.
Do they know what UFOs are? I don't think so. They most likely speculate on the origin of UFOs, but I honestly believe that they do not know. That is why we do not hear an official statement of what UFOs/UAP are. From the latter, I think we can infer why the disclosure process looks like it does: no one in an official governmental position will come out and tell the public that "UFOs/UAP are probably extraterrestrial, but we are not yet sure".
However, Ratcliffe's statement that "...I think it'll be healthy for as much of this information to get out there as possible so that the American people can see some of the things we have been dealing with", seems to contradict the official stance of the Department of Defense to keep all data on UFOs/UAP on a classified level (as Greenewald also points out in the video above).
Personally, I think the statement above by Ratcliffe that it would be healthy for the public to know as much as possible about the UAP issue is the most important one. Why?
It ties into another thing I noticed in the interview: Ratcliffe never uses "threat" concerning UFOs/UAP. That is also somewhat contradictory to statements made by, for example, Rubio and Warner. And I think the explanation goes beyond that Ratcliffe is no longer in the government, and Rubio and Warner still are. I think Ratcliffe's statement indicates the different factions inside the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community.
Or perhaps, and I am speculating, Ratcliffe's statement about making as much information public as possible indicates different opinions between the military and intelligence people involved in the UAP issue? Maybe a faction inside the intelligence community is pushing for more transparency. In contrast, a faction (most likely from the US Air Force) inside the Department of Defense think it is too early, inappropriate or whatever? Of course, the situation is probably more complex than that.
Anyhow, my point with Ratcliffe's statement about it being healthy to involve the public in the UFO/UAP conversation is that he does not seem to think that the citizens of the world cannot handle the truth, whatever it may be and look like. He does not seem to believe that the American public will be outraged with its government and military for saying that unknown objects are flying everywhere. Still, they cannot do anything about it.
So why does Ratcliffe make that kind of statement? What grounds or reasons does he have to think that the American public should see some of the data which the US military and IC have dealt with? I leave it up to the reader to ponder those questions (I'll give a tentative answer in my conclusion at the end of this post).
Greenewald's comments on Ratcliffe's statements
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I agree with most of what Greenewald is saying in the video above about Ratcliffe's statements. There is, however, one thing that Greenewald says that I disagree with. And that is when Greenewald (around the 9:00 minute mark) says that he thinks what Ratcliffe is saying in the interview will raise eyebrows in the higher echelons of the Pentagon and IC. According to Greenewald, Ratcliffe goes into specifics of the UAP issue (capabilities, flight characteristics, etc.), which likely are classified, or impending on classified information.
That is the only thing I disagree with Greenewald on. In my opinion, Ratcliffe is not revealing anything (new) about the capabilities and characteristics of UFOs/UAP that has not already been publicly said by, for instance, Marco Rubio. The same goes for Ratcliffe's statements about the US government not having an explanation for some of those UAP cases/sightings: Rubio has also stated that in public (which for Rubio is the main reason to investigate UAP).
On the other hand, if Greenewald is including Ratcliffe's statements about some of the technology used in detecting UFOs/UAP, I may agree that Ratcliffe is revealing information not before mentioned by someone of his stature. Anyhow, my disagreement with Greenewald is a minor one -- frankly, a quite irrelevant one in the bigger picture. Furthermore, I agree with Greenewald when he says that the interview with Ratcliffe is one of the most important ones done with government officials about the UAP issue (even if Ratcliffe, since January 2021, is a former government official).
One interesting thing that Greenewald points out around the 7:45 minute mark in his video is Ratcliffe's statement about the US Air Force (USAF). Why is that interesting and potentially significant? As Greenewald explains in the video above, the USAF has been very silent on the UAP issue since the New York Times article on December 16 2017, compared to the US Navy. Some inside and outside the ufo-community suspect that the USS Nimitz UFO encounters in 2004 was some secret military test by the USAF. In this interview, Ratcliffe says that both the US Navy and the USAF have picked up UFOs/UAP.
Obviously, that statement does not rule out the possibility of some secret military test, but together with the rest of what Ratcliffe says in the interview, I think the probability of the secret military test scenario is much lower than before. It is not down to zero, but at the moment, the odds is not in favour of the "Tic Tac" (as described by Cmdr. Favor and others) being a secret military test.
At this point, someone could argue that the "Tic Tac" being a secret military test is precisely why all of this information on UFOs/UAP is made public. Ratcliffe's statements are yet another way to cover up the beyond next-generation technology (totally human) in the possession of some US military branch. If someone seriously thinks that, I do not even know where to begin to dismantle that argument.
But ok, let's suppose it could be true. Then I would like to have an answer to the question of why the US government/military/intelligence community did not choose a simpler and more effective strategy of covering up this advanced technology? For instance, why not ignore and make no comments about the UAP issue (which is the current strategy preferred by the public relations office in the Pentagon)? It makes no sense to give attention to and in national television talk about something you desperately want to keep secret and hidden from the rest of the world.
Now, all of the above mentioned does not mean that the specific cases of UFOs/UAP, which Ratcliffe is referring to in the interview on Fox News, are extraterrestrial or interdimensional or time travellers. At the moment, I think that no one knows with certainty what those specific cases of UFOs/UAP actually are and represent, or who/what is behind them.
However, I think that a pattern has emerged since December 16 2017 (of course, we can go way further back in UFO history). I believe the pattern shows what we can say and know about some specific military UFO/UAP cases are, what they are not.
Conclusions
So my conclusion of Ratcliffe's reasons for saying what he says is that he, as the former Director of National Intelligence, knows that the US government needs help to handle the UFO/UAP issue. The US government needs help from its citizens to decide what the UFO phenomenon represents (threat? opportunity? both? something else?), and in the next step, what to do about it.
The crux of the matter is that not all of Ratcliffe's (former) colleagues agree that it is a good idea (at this stage?) to let the public know as much as possible about the UFO/UAP issue.
Also, keep in mind the following: we now have confirmation that the US government has more data on the UFO phenomenon than it has revealed so far. But, that does not entail that the US government has a deeper understanding of the UFO phenomenon than the public.
Maybe Ratcliffe's appearance on national television should be seen as representing a faction in the US government that thinks it is necessary to involve the public in a conversation about the fact that UFOs are real and how we should approach them? We can have that conversation without knowing precisely what UFOs/UAP are. In fact, what we do not know is exactly why there should be a global conversation on the UFO phenomenon.
Take care!
Janne
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