The ODNI UAP report: lies or truths?

The unclassified ODNI UAP report.

[This is a core post in my project to contribute to a "sociology of UFO disclosure." The post is an example of how sociological methods - here, discourse analysis - can apply to the UFO issue. - J. T]

On Friday, June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) delivered the report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) or UFOs. The title of the unclassified report is "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena." A classified report or annex was issued as well, as confirmed by the ODNI to the Black Vault. 

In the following, I will comment on the parts in the unclassified report that I find most intriguing. Those parts are mainly covered under the headline Specific points in the UAP report. But more importantly, I will highlight parts of the report that, in my view, justify criticism. That criticism is mainly found under the headline The Executive Summary: lies or truths?

But before all that, I will in general terms explain why I think the ODNI UAP report (henceforth "the UAP report") is, despite its shortcomings, historical in a positive sense. 

If you are unfamiliar with the "origin" story of the UAP report, you can catch up on my post from June 27, 2020. Furthermore, I highly recommend you to read this detailed analysis of the UAP report by Tim McMillan for the Debrief. For instance, in McMillan's analysis, you can learn more about what method or process the UAP report is based on, namely the "Intelligence Cycle", and how it differs from the traditional scientific method. That is important to keep in mind when studying the language of the UAP report. 

Now to the main two reasons as to why the UAP report is historical.

 General comments on the UAP report

Why do I claim that the unclassified UAP report is historical? Because for the first time in history, as far as I am aware, the U.S. Government (USG) officially confirms: 

• That (some) UAP/UFOs are physical objects — UFOs are real.
• That the USG cannot explain what (some) UAP/UFOs are. 

Now, pause for a while and think about those statements by the USG (I say "the USG" because that is ultimately the authority behind the UAP report). Those statements are an official 180-degree turnaround from the Condon Report, The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (1969). The Condon Report concluded that "there was no evidence of anything other than commonplace phenomena in the reports and that UFOs did not warrant further investigation." (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Condon-Report). 

The obstacle to greater transparency

M. C. Escher: "Band of Union".

 [This post is one of the core posts in my project to contribute to a "sociology of UFO disclosure." In retrospective, I could have made the post more explicitly micro-sociological: think of, e.g., Erwin Goffman's stigma theory ("guilty secrets") or Robert Merton's concept of "dirty hands" in institutional sociology. With that said, some of the content has aged quite well, e.g., the amnesty proposal.- J. T]

In this post, I will outline what I believe is the greatest obstacle to greater official transparency on the UFO phenomenon. I will also suggest a plausible solution to circumvent the obstacle. 

The obstacle

What is the greatest obstacle to official transparency regarding the UFO issue? My claim is that the most significant barrier is fear in the minds of some high-ranking officials in the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community (IC). My suggestion for a solution is to moderate that fear—I will return to "how" further down.

In the following, let us use common sense and introductory human psychology. First, what is behind these high-ranking officials’ fear? If you are familiar with UFO history, you know that the documented evidence of denial and ridicule of the significance of UFOs/UAP by the U.S. government (USG) is abundant and clear. 

The reason for the high-ranking officials´ fear is that the official stance of denial and ridicule, held over many decades, will be made public.

Is past behaviour the best predictor of future behaviour?

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 looking at how the US government has handled UFOs before, like with "Project Blue Book," help us understand what the UAPTF report will say?

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.

Professor Kevin Knuth on why the USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" encounter was not a secret military test

"Kevin Knuth on UFOs, Nimitz / Tic Tac video, and a new kind of Theory of Everything" Published on the YouTube channel Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal on April 13, 2021. Duration: 2:30:57.

Kevin Knuth is a Professor of physics at the University of Albany, a former NASA scientist, and the Editor-In-Chief of the Entropy journal. He has a unique Theory of Everything called Influence Theory.

First, I recommend you to look at the links in the video description of this episode on Mr. Jaimungal's YouTube channel. You can find a few of those interesting and useful links to Professor Knuth's research on the UFO phenomenon and work in physics below: 

Papers:

• Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/21/10/939
• An Introduction to Influence Theory: Kinematics and Dynamics: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.09618

Presentation:

• Knuth's presentation delineating interstellar space travel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXswO... (In the conversation with Mr. Jaimungal, Professor Knuth summarizes his fascinating hypothesis on "nomadic" space travelling civilisations, starting around the 52 min mark).

Also, in the video description of this interview, or conversation, with guest Kevin Knuth, you can find timestamps of what and when topics are covered during the conversation. Roughly speaking, the first half of the 2 hours and 30 minutes is about Professor Knuth's interest in and research of the UFO phenomenon. The second half is about his scientific work and career as a physicist. Even for a non-scientist like myself, the second half is highly interesting and is, as I understand it, relevant to better understand the UFO phenomenon.

Why post this conversation between Mr Jaimungal and Professor Knuth? There are several reasons, but my main reason is that I think what Professor Knuth says about the USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" encounter in 2004 is important to keep in my mind, especially since the recent video release of a "pyramid-shaped" flying object (actually, several objects, if objects at all). In the latter case, we do not have any or very little data on what is going on (some argue that the video has significant data to reveal if you know what to look for, and they may be right). In the former case, Knuth and his colleagues at the Scientific Coalition of UAP Studies (SCU) have analysed and published a paper on (see above: the first link under "Papers"). 

Strange US Navy UAP incidents in July of 2019 raises pressing questions

 An excellent UAP investigation and article by Adam Kehoe and Marc Cecotti for The Drive/The War Zone. Their article is from March 23, 2021, and you can read it at this link: 

• https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39913/multiple-destroyers-were-swarmed-by-mysterious-drones-off-california-over-numerous-nights

In the article's first paragraph, the authors write what the article is about:

[I]n July of 2019, a truly bizarre series of events unfolded around California’s Channel Islands. Over a number of days, groups of unidentified aircraft, which the U.S. Navy simply refers to as ‘drones’ or 'UAVs,' pursued that service's vessels, prompting a high-level investigation.

Then what follows is Kehoe and Cecotti's own investigation into the details of the bizarre series of "UAV" incidents in July 2019. The details come largely from the authors' Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

My purpose with this post is mainly to share the excellent article in question, and also to make a few and short comments about the "UAV" incidents as described in the article.