The purpose of this post is to look back at UFO history to explore whether "past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour" concerning the forthcoming UAP report by the UAP Task Force (UAPTF). Can the US government's past behaviour regarding the UFO issue (for example, "Project Blue Book") help us predict the content and the outcome of the report by the UAPTF?
Further down, I will explore that question with the help of two declassified National Security Agency documents (see the links at the very end of this post). But first, some background to the purpose of this post.
Background
Most people who have studied the literature on the UFO phenomenon, or subject, know that the current interest in and serious concern over the UFO issue by the US government (USG) is nothing new. Neither is the more serious attention on UFOs/UAP from the mainstream media. One of many examples is the Washington Post article from 19 January 1979.
Some in the ufo community see the record of how the USG has dealt with the UFO issue in the past (again, think "Project Blue Book" or the "Condon Report") as an almost certain predictor of how current events will end. Others in the ufo community are more optimistic and perhaps, in some cases, naive about how the recent UFO "revival" will evolve ("full Disclosure!").
Will the forthcoming report by the UAPTF turn out to be a "Project Blue Book, 2.0", or will its outcome be more desirable from a transparency perspective? In my opinion, that question remains open. At the same time, I believe we have reasons for cautious optimism, which I will expand on in a moment.
Obviously, a "more desirable" outcome depends on how you define "more desirable" and your expectations of the forthcoming report by the UAPTF. (An interim report is expected by the end of June 2021, and a more complete report in perhaps September/October 2021, but I would not be surprised if those dates are delayed.)
I do not think that the report in question will be another "Project Blue Book" or "Condon Report". Why not? Simply because I believe too much toothpaste is out of the tube. Especially concerning the amount of US senators who have been briefed about the seriousness of the UFO issue. I find it highly probable that the data on UFOs/UAP that these senators have been exposed to have made it crystal clear to them that; UFOs are real; that they are here; and that no one knows what they are.
On the other hand, I am not excepting some new or extraordinary revelations in the report by the UAPTF. But for me, a positive outcome would be if the report confirms, and preferably emphasise, that some UFOs/UAP detected and recorded by the US military are not any kind of US technology or any kind of technology from a foreign nation on Earth.
In my mind, that would be a good start. Because, if nothing else, that kind of unified and consistent confirmation from the USG that some specific cases of UFOs/UAP are unknown and unexplained would give scientists legitimate reasons to study the UFO phenomenon. In other words, that kind of confirmation from the highest authority would reduce the social stigma of UFOs considerable. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, that kind of confirmation would be more promising for the future than the conclusion and outcome of the "Condon Report" in 1968 (the result was that the US Air Force sponsored "Project Blue Book" closed in 1969/1970).
Of course, the next step would be to make credible data on UFOs/UAP publicly available for scientists and other interested in studying and analysing. But let us take one action at a time (for instance, I will not discuss which data should be made public or whether past lies by the USG about UFOs should be brought to public attention now or later).
So, I do not think the report by the UAPTF will be some kind of disclosure, but rather an official confirmation that some UFO/UAP cases are unknown, unexplained. A separate matter is what the outcome of the UAP report will be in the long run. Some desirable results would be greater interest in UFOs/UAP from the scientific community and that the UAP Task Force transforms into a robust and long term UAP Program.
The NSA documents
Ok, so what about the links at the end of this post? The first (top) link takes you to an interesting National Security Agency (NSA) document titled "UFO Hypothesis and Survival Questions". It is a draft of a monograph prepared by an employee of the NSA in 1968. I was made aware of the NSA draft when reading the document in the second link: "Affidavit of Eugene F. Yeates". That affidavit was executed by Eugene F. Yeates, Chief, Office of Policy, of the National Security Agency, in September 1980. Both of these declassified NSA documents have been out in the public domain for quite some time, so some readers are probably familiar with them.
My points with posting the documents below are to show 1) that the US intelligence community has had a long time interest in the UFO phenomenon, and 2) that the "Affidavit of Yeates" might give us a hint of what the report by the UAPTF may or may not contain on a public, unclassified level.
The second point is the most interesting, considering the different discussions and expectations on the forthcoming UAPTF-report. In the following, I will not go into the historical context of the two documents. (Even though, from not only a UFO perspective, the years of 1968 and 1980 were very dynamic and influential in shaping the geopolitical landscape).
The NSA draft, 1968
The first document - the NSA draft - is a curious and fascinating piece of UFO history. I have not found more context to the draft than mentioned in the "Affidavit of Yeates". The author's title and name (the employee of the NSA) is redacted. Neither have I found any information on why the draft was written, who would read the final version nor whether the draft was part of a more significant UFO/UAP project within the NSA, and so on.
But the content of the draft reveals that the author was relatively knowledgeable about the UFO phenomenon. The draft has footnotes to, for instance, Jacques Vallée, James McDonald, and Edward J. Ruppelt. The draft's language tells me that the author probably was fascinated by UFOs professionally and personally. Furthermore, I get the sense when reading, that the intent behind the draft was serious. The author writing about "survival questions" make me guess that he/she was probably not a scientist but more oriented towards psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
The purpose of the draft is to "consider briefly some of the human survival implications suggested by the various principal hypothesis concerning the nature of" UFOs, or the term the author would have probably used today, UAP.
I will make a few short comments on the draft´s content and its similarities to the current discourse on the nature of UFOs. But I highly recommend everyone to read the draft (7 pages) in its entirety: it is pretty interesting (or perhaps frustrating?) to compare the similarities with today´s discussions about the nature and implications of the UFO phenomenon. To my comments on the NSA draft from 1968.
- The author more or less rules out that all UFOs are hoaxes, hallucinations and natural phenomena. The author leaves us with two valid hypotheses about the nature of UFOs: 1) that some UFOs are "secret Earth projects" and 2) that some UFOs are "related to extraterrestrial intelligence." Sounds familiar, right?
- As one of the counter-arguments to the "all UFOs are hoaxes" hypothesis, the author writes: "If anything, the modern trend is toward increased reports, from all sources. In one three month-period in 1953 (June, July, and August), Air Force records show 35 sightings whose nature could not be determined" (p. 1). Replace "Air Force" with the "US Navy", and it sounds strangely similar to what is reported on and talked about today.
- As one of the counter-arguments to the "all UFOs are natural phenomena" hypothesis, the author writes: "Many UFO´s have been reported by trained military observers to behave like high speed, high performance, high altitude rockets or aircraft. The apparent solidity and craft-like shape of the objects have often been subject to radar confirmation" (p. 3). Sounds familiar, right?
Perhaps not a mission impossible, but I think we can infer with a high degree of certainty that the forthcoming UAP report will not be complete with all of the most relevant and credible data. Hopefully, the upcoming UAP report will be followed by additional public reports and assessments on the UFO issue (it will take years, not months, to review all the data).
If you are walking along a forest path and someone yells, "rattler" your reaction would be immediate and defensive. You would not take time to speculate before you act. You would have to treat the alarm as if it were a real and immediate threat to your survival... [It] would seem a little more of this survival attitude is called for in dealing with the UFO problem (p. 6).
Sounds familiar, right? That paragraph seems to reflect the author´s view that he/she did not think that, at the time ongoing, "Project Blue Book" was doing a good job (which we today, of course, know that it did not). The paragraph also makes me wonder if the USG and the US intelligence community always have had opposing factions on how to view and deal with the UFO problem? The answer, I believe, is most likely yes. The paragraph may refer to the beforehand determined conclusion in the "Condon Report" (1968) that "there is nothing to see" regarding UFOs.
Up until now, the faction with the "leisurely scientific approach" has had control over the UFO issue. But, in my opinion, that has changed: finally, the official stance has more of "this survival attitude" in "dealing with the UFO problem". However, I believe that the power dynamics and struggles within the Pentagon and potentially between the US military and the US intelligence community are ongoing. Thus, the path to greater transparency regarding the UFO issue is not yet set in stone. The way to greater transparency, or disclosure, still rest on fragile ground.
The author´s meaning with "survival attitude" is not necessarily that UFOs/UAP are an existential threat. Rather, what I think "survival attitude" is referring to is simply a more open, serious and scientific approach to the "UFO problem". Like Luis Elizondo, Chris Mellon, and others in recent years have used the "threat" word to get members' attention in the US Senate and Congress.
So, what can we infer (if anything) from the NSA draft? Perhaps the most apparent conclusion concerns how the USG has dealt with the UFO issue: "there is nothing new under the sun". How strong the influence of those old ways of dealing with the "UFO problem" has on current USG and intelligence community leadership is hard to assess. Old habits die hard? Or everything changes; nothing stays the same?
Anyhow, I think we have reasons for cautious optimism this time around. The main reason is that "too much toothpaste is out of the tube". And that is not good if you in this era of social media (the "information era") want to keep something hidden or maintain the status quo.
The "Affidavit of Yeates", 1980
Now, let us turn our attention to the second NSA document: the "Affidavit of Yeates" from 1980. My point with the document is that I believe it can give us some hints to what the forthcoming public UAP report by the UAPTF may or may not contain. We will explore whether "past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour?" regarding governmental handling of the UFO issue.
At the end of this post, you will find two links to the "Affidavit of Yeates". One link to the in-camera version of the "Affidavit of Yeates" (the second link) and one link to the public version of the "Affidavit of Yeates" (the link directly below the second). The main difference between the in-camera and the public version is that the former contains the historically most interesting information on NSA´s relation to the UFO issue. The latter contains the most helpful information in exploring whether "past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour".
In the following, I will refer to the in-camera version as "ICY" ("In-Camera Yeates") and the public version as "PY" ("Public Yeates").
In 1980, NSA was involved in Civil Action No. 80-1562, "Citizens Against Unidentified Flying Objects Secrecy v. National Security Agency". The PY (and the ICY as a TOP SECRET affidavit) was basically the NSA´s justification of the agency´s reasons for withholding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on the topic of UFOs from the UFO activist group "Citizens Against UFO Secrecy" (CAUS). You can read more about CAUS and this particular civil action case on Wikipedia. You can find CAUS`s no longer updated website here.
Let us assume that the PY (and the ICY) can function as a valid norm for how some US intelligence agencies still think about the UFO phenomenon and its relation to national security issues. Assuming it is the case, what information (if any) in the PY/ICY might be relevant generalising to the forthcoming UAPTF report? Can these documents from 1980 help us to predict the public/unclassified content of the final version of the UAPTF report?
I believe they might, but only regarding the NSA and perhaps the other US intelligence agencies. In the case of data on UFOs obtained and contained by, for instance, the US Navy, I believe the possibilities of declassifying data is somewhat more promising. I will return to that issue further down.
In the PY, Mr Yeates gives a lengthy explanation of why the NSA records on UFOs are classified in their entirety and, therefore, exempt from release under the FOIA (I am simplifying the details, but they are not crucial for our purpose). But what Mr Yeates lengthy explanation mostly does is to use different variations or formulations of the main point. I have chosen the following particular formulation to represent the main point in the PY:Instead - - as NSA`s foreign intelligence targets presumably know well - - NSA must focus its interception activities on those particular communication activities, channels, links or systems which yield the highest proportion of useful foreign intelligence information. What foreign governmental officials do not know, however, is which of the vast number of radio communications NSA attempts to intercept, which are intercepted, which yield to NSA processing methods and techniques. It is the protection of this critical information that is at the heart of the instant case. (Paragraph 12, p. 6.)
In short, Mr Yeates´main point is that the NSA records are exempt from release under the FOIA to "protect intelligence sources and methods" (paragraph 17, p. 8). In other words, for national security reasons.
It will be, I believe, a problem for the UAPTF to get the NSA to release its data on UFOs for the UAP report. Because, as I understand it, unlike data on UFOs/UAP recorded/collected by the US Navy or the US Air Force, the UFO/UAP data "intercepted" by the NSA is impossible to single out from the "processing methods and techniques". It is easier to declassify a photo or video of UFOs because you can edit out data (for instance, the meta-data) which, if disclosed, could result in "exceptionally grave damage to the nation" (Executive Order 10501, Section 1 (b)).
So, will any data on UFOs/UAP from the NSA be in the public or unclassified part of the UAP report? I doubt it. Unless some pressure from US President Biden is put on the NSA, I believe any relevant UFO data from the NSA will be classified in the UAP report.
The question of what is morally right or wrong in this case is separate from the legal one. The moral question is also a more complex one, so I will not reflect upon it in depth here. But I hope and wish that all stakeholders involved - whether they like it or not - will take the ethical dimension into serious consideration when deciding what data on UFOs to declassify and release or not.
That concludes the exploration of the question of whether "past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour?" The answer to that question is not as simple as I might have pictured above. For example, would it be a disaster if most or all of the critical UFO data ended up in the classified part of the UAP report? Surely, a disappointment, but not necessarily a disaster.
Why not? Because more people in positions of power and influence will be exposed to the classified UFO/UAP data. That is a good thing because we can be relatively confident that those people will be exposed to some of the same UAP data as senator Rubio and senator Warner have. And suppose they react to that UAP data in the same way as mentioned senators. In that case, I think it is justifiable to expect a more desirable outcome of the current and official UAP investigation than from the past ones. That is, more individuals in positions of power will put pressure on the relevant departments, agencies, and committees to disclose what they know or do not know about the UFO phenomenon and keep investigating.
That is one way of looking at the situation. In my final words, I will make a different assessment of the current situation.
Additional comments on the NSA documents
Before my final words, I want to highlight and comment on some additional features in the PY/ICY that are not necessarily connected with this post's primary purpose. My point of underscoring the features below, besides being of historical interest, is that they may, in a general sense, give an insight into the US intelligence agencies attitude to the UFO phenomenon. The first segment is this:
- In the ICY (marked "TOP SECRET UMBRA") on page 2 and 3, one can read that one of the documents not released to CAUS was "erroneously treated as part of the subject matter of plaintiff´s FOIA request". In the public affidavit of Yeats (PY), one can read that the document in question was "voluntarily prepared by the assignee to report an incident that occurred during his attendance at a UFO symposium" (paragraph 20; subparagraph c, p. 13). The document was a "non-COMINT" (COMmunication INTelligence) document, so why could the NSA not release it to CAUSE? According to Yeats, this particular non-COMINT document "cannot fairly be said to be a record of the kind sought by the plaintiff" (in the ICY; paragraph 4, p. 3). That is feeble justification.
Nevertheless, that the NSA has had agents on UFO symposiums (whether the aforementioned symposium or other "ufological" contexts) confirms what people in ufo community already know: through UFO history, different intelligence agencies have been interested in the civilian study ("ufology") of UFOs. I think we can, with some degree of certainty, claim that they still are. However, I believe the reasons for this attention from, for instance, the NSA can be varied and not necessarily tied to UFOs or extraterrestrials per se. We know that to be the case, and it is even explicit in the ICY (see paragraph 4; subparagraph b, pp. 3 - 5).
- Finally, I want to highlight a segment in the ICY that raises a complex moral dilemma. In this segment, Yeats is justifying the NSA´s reasons for withholding the NSA records at issue in the civil action against CAUS. Yeats writes the following in the ICY:
In conducting this review I have weighed the significant need for openness in government against the likelihood of damage to our national security at this time and have determined that each record should continue to be classified (paragraph 14, p. 14).
The paragraph is still the crux of the official "silence" on the UFO issue. There is a lot to comment on in that single paragraph, but I will restrict my comments to two points.
First, "I have weighed" and "I have determined" seems to me to be a severe problem or even a risk. Is it the case today that one or very few people have the authority over which data on UFOs/UAP should be made public or not?
Second, and this is the most complex part of the issue, how can the general public begin to assess the grounds for "the significant need for openness in government against the likelihood of damage to our national security" when the general public does not have the relevant information in the first place? Regarding the UFO issue, how can the general public reason and make informed decisions when kept in the dark in almost all pertinent facts and circumstances?
On the other hand, I do not think that the right of official channels to withhold specific data from the general public grounded on national security reasons is unreasonable or unethical. But that is speaking in general terms.
In the case of UFOs/UAP, I believe the use of the National Security Act is in many instances misplaced and, to a large extent, misused. I think it is possible to disclose data on UFOs/UAP without resulting in "serious" or "exceptionally grave damage to the nation".
You can tell people the truth about the UFO phenomenon without disclosing sensitive "sources and methods". That takes us to my final words in this matter.
Final words
Regarding the UFO issue, I think the time has passed for anyone to weigh "openness" against "damage". I cannot see any significant national security reason for not telling the truth to the general public about the UFO issue.
I believe the USG and other governments are mainly afraid of their citizens' reactions if they officially state that "we do not know what UFOs are and we cannot protect you from them". That fear is understandable. It is human. But fear is not a valid reason for withholding information on UFOs from the general public.
My point is: It is not up to a few people in positions of power to determine for the rest of the world whether the UFO issue is important or not, or whether people can handle the truth or not. (There is nothing wrong with having power, rather the issue lies in how someone uses their power).
Assuming that behind the UFO phenomenon (-na), there is something or someone not from this earth, no government or military has the right or capability to determine what we should think and do about it.
We need the whole world to decide what to think and do about the UFO phenomenon. A necessary condition to start a global conversation on the UFO phenomenon is informed citizens of the world.
The links to the NSA documents below:
- The NSA draft from 1968 (7 pages): https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/ufo_hypothesis.pdf
- In-camera version: The "Affidavit of Yeates", 1980 (21 pages): https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/in_camera_affadavit_yeates.pdf
- Public version of the "Affidavit of Yeates", 1980 (14 pages): https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/affadavit_yeates.pdf
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