According to researcher Mr Douglas Dean Johnson, a physicist will be the director of the recently formed UFO/UAP office, Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). If accurate, that may have positive implications for further our understanding of UFOs/UAP.
First note that Mr Johnson, in his article — which I highly recommend you to read — explicitly says that “The Pentagon has not confirmed” that Sean Kirkpatrick, Ph.D., is selected as the director of AOIMSG. Mr Johnson refers to other sources within the Executive Branch who off the record affirm that Dr Kirkpatrick both applied to be the director and that I have selected him to fill the position. I am familiar with Mr Johnson’s research and writing, so, in this case, I feel confident in referring to an article about the UFO/UAP issue with anonymous sources (which regarding to the UFO topic should raise red flags in 9 out of 10 cases).
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| Dr Sean Kirkpatrick. Credit. |
The main reason for referring to Mr Johnson’s article is to “spread the news”. So again, I recommend you to click on the link above and read his article. I will not give the bullet points here.
What I will do, however, is to make some short comments on the decision of the Department of Defense (DoD) to appoint a scientist (a physicist) to direct an elevated UAP office (compared to its predecessors AATIP and UAPTF) and tasked by the U.S. Government (USG) to study the national security threat of UFOs/UAP. People have to realise that the USG takes the UFO issue seriously. The goals, the organizational structure, and the resources of AOIMSG (its extent of authority is unclear) are a sign of that seriousness.
Lately, I have noticed another sign: USG officials, like the Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, calling the UFO issue a “very important matter” (starts at the 24 minutes mark, when journalist Howard Altman asks about AOIMSG and the upcoming congressional UFO-hearings).
So a third sign of USG treating the UFO issue as a very important matter is perhaps the appointment of Dr Kirkpatrick as the director of AOIMSG (with some caution, since the appointment is not of yet official)? If, in fact, Dr Kirkpatrick has been selected for the position, then I believe the answer is yes.
As I wrote in this article about the UAP report from June 2021, I believe the language in the UAP report clearly was a plea for help from the scientific community or an “advertisement” for scientifically trained people. The scientific method and the intelligence method are two different ways of studying and interpreting reality.
That is, the UAP report clearly indicated that the intelligence method is inadequate for further our understanding of the nature and intent of UFOs/UAP.
But if you read Mr Johnson’s article, the AOIMSG seems to have got a director who knows and practices both the discipline of science and intelligence (both are “crafts” and require creativity, but the latter is more of an art than the former).
What are the implications of Dr Kirkpatrick’s background in both science and intelligence? For one, it should increase the probability of him being a “bridge builder” between the science people and the intelligence people inside the DoD and the Intelligence Community (IC). I would guess a crucial role for Dr Kirkpatrick is to facilitate communication between different agencies/offices and functions, and, perhaps, create a common terminology and a theoretical framework about UFOs/UAP.
So a third sign of USG treating the UFO issue as a very important matter is perhaps the appointment of Dr Kirkpatrick as the director of AOIMSG (with some caution, since the appointment is not of yet official)? If, in fact, Dr Kirkpatrick has been selected for the position, then I believe the answer is yes.
As I wrote in this article about the UAP report from June 2021, I believe the language in the UAP report clearly was a plea for help from the scientific community or an “advertisement” for scientifically trained people. The scientific method and the intelligence method are two different ways of studying and interpreting reality.
That is, the UAP report clearly indicated that the intelligence method is inadequate for further our understanding of the nature and intent of UFOs/UAP.
But if you read Mr Johnson’s article, the AOIMSG seems to have got a director who knows and practices both the discipline of science and intelligence (both are “crafts” and require creativity, but the latter is more of an art than the former).
What are the implications of Dr Kirkpatrick’s background in both science and intelligence? For one, it should increase the probability of him being a “bridge builder” between the science people and the intelligence people inside the DoD and the Intelligence Community (IC). I would guess a crucial role for Dr Kirkpatrick is to facilitate communication between different agencies/offices and functions, and, perhaps, create a common terminology and a theoretical framework about UFOs/UAP.
Now, the military is known for its unambiguous communication (your life can depend on it), but I am not sure how effective the channels of communication (vertical and horizontal) are in the civilian components in the DoD. Thus, the abovementioned can make the study of UFOs more effective and progress faster.
But perhaps the most important implication of Dr Kirkpatrick as the director of AOIMSG is the signal it sends to the scientific and academic community. Hopefully, this can be another factor that diminishes the social stigma of UFOs, and legitimatises a serious interest in and study of UFOs/UAP among civilian scientist.
Finally, I think a scientist as the director of AOIMSG (again, with some caution since it is not yet official) is a positive sign of the USG taking the UFO issue as a “very important matter”. However, the problem with some pockets within the DoD and IC resisting greater official transparency remains. And we do not yet know Dr Kirkpatrick’s stance on transparency or AOIMSG’s authority in matters like sharing original data with civilian scientists.
There are scientists who would like to cooperate with the DoD and IC on the UFO issue. You can read about two of them and their “offer” to the DoD in their opinion piece in Scientific American , July 2020 (the link takes you to one of my previous articles on Medium.com, but you will find a link to the original opinion piece in the article).
But perhaps the most important implication of Dr Kirkpatrick as the director of AOIMSG is the signal it sends to the scientific and academic community. Hopefully, this can be another factor that diminishes the social stigma of UFOs, and legitimatises a serious interest in and study of UFOs/UAP among civilian scientist.
Finally, I think a scientist as the director of AOIMSG (again, with some caution since it is not yet official) is a positive sign of the USG taking the UFO issue as a “very important matter”. However, the problem with some pockets within the DoD and IC resisting greater official transparency remains. And we do not yet know Dr Kirkpatrick’s stance on transparency or AOIMSG’s authority in matters like sharing original data with civilian scientists.
There are scientists who would like to cooperate with the DoD and IC on the UFO issue. You can read about two of them and their “offer” to the DoD in their opinion piece in Scientific American , July 2020 (the link takes you to one of my previous articles on Medium.com, but you will find a link to the original opinion piece in the article).
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