AARO: Mission, process, and data statistics/patterns

I

Itsme

Senior Member
I've recently been going through the transcripts and slides of the two official public meetings where Dr. Kirkpatrick presented information about AARO and its data statistics/patterns, trying to group related quotes together.
I am sharing it in this thread so that others can use this information as well.
Most of it consists of quotes that speak for themselves.
Note that I do not hang out very often on this site, so responses may take some time.

AARO's mission and organisation

Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "time and again with sufficient scientific quality data it is fact that UAP often but not always resolve into readily explainable sources.
[...] Getting to the handful of cases that pass this level of scrutiny is the mission of AARO.
[…] Right now, the niche that we form is really going after the unknowns."


Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "The AARO team of more than three dozen experts is organized around four functional areas: operations, scientific research, integrated analysis, and strategic communications."


AARO's process (picture is mine, based on Kirkpatrick's oral explanation)

1691071250801.jpeg


Preliminary scrub:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "My team does a preliminary scrub of all of those cases as they come in to sort out do we have any information that says this is in one of those likely categories -- it is likely a balloon, it is likely a balloon -- a bird, it is likely some other object or we do not know."


Prioritize case:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "Then we prioritize those based off of where they are. Are they attached to a national security area? Does it show some anomalous phenomenology that is of interest? If it is just -- if it is just a spherical thing that is floating around with the -- with the wind and it has no payload on it that is going to be less important than something that has a payload on it, which will be less important than something that is maneuvering. So there is sort of a hierarchy of just binning the priorities because we cannot do all of them at once."


Review by IC team and by S&T team:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "I have an intelligence community team made up of intelligence analysts and I have an S&T team made up of scientists and engineers and the people that actually build a lot of these sensors or physicists because if you are a physicist you can do anything and -- but they are not associated with the intel community. They are not intel officers. They look at this through the lens of the sensor of what the data says.
We give that package to both teams.
The intelligence community is going to look at it through the lens of the intelligence record and what they assess and their intel tradecraft, which they have very specific rules and regulations on how they do that.
The scientific community, technical community, is going to look at it through the lens of what is the data telling me, what is the sensor doing, what would I expect a sensor response to be, and back that out.
Those two groups give us their answers."


Adjucate (if needed):
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "We then adjudicate. If they agree then I am more likely to close that case if they agree on what it is. If they disagree we will have an adjudication. We will bring them together. We will take a look at the differences. We will adjudicate why do you say one thing and you say another. We will then come to a case -- a recommendation. That will get written up by my team."


Peer review by senior technical advisory group:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "That then goes to a senior technical advisory group, which is outside of all of those people made up of senior technical folks and intel analysts and operators from retired, out of the community, and they essentially peer review what that case recommendation is. They write their recommendations."


Final review and sign off by Dr. Kirkpatrick:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "That comes back to me. I review it, we make a determination, and I will sign off one way or the other and then that will go out as the case determination."


Handover to appropriate other party if identified and relevant for safety, security, or law enforcement:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "When previously unknown objects are successfully identified it is AARO's role to quickly and efficiently hand off such readily explainable objects to the intelligence, law enforcement, or operational safety communities for further analysis and appropriate action."


Inform US Government's leadership if only explainable as extraterrestrial:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained that a UAP encountered can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform U.S. government's leadership of its findings."


AARO's data sources

Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "I would like to, first, say thank you [the Senate] all very much for referring the witnesses that you have thus far to us. I appreciate that. We have brought in nearly two dozen so far. It has been very helpful.
[…] consistent with legislative direction, AARO is also carefully reviewing and researching the U.S. government's UAP-related historical record.


Article:
Sen. Gillibrand: "Congress mandated that AARO set up a publicly discoverable and accessible process for safe disclosure. While we know that AARO has already conducted a significant number of interviews, many referred by Congress, we need to set up a public process that -- and we need to know where that effort stands.
[…] Have you submitted a public-facing website product for approval to your superiors and how long has it been under review?"
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "I have. We submitted the first version of that before Christmas."
Sen. Gillibrand: "And do you have an estimate from them when they will respond and when you will have feedback on that?"
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "No, I do not.
[…] we have a number of public engagement recommendations, according to our strategic plan. All of those have been submitted for approval. They have to be approved by USDINS. We are waiting for approval to go do that."


AARO's data, April 19 2023

Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: as of this week we are tracking over -- a total of 650 cases.
[…] of those over 650 we have prioritized about half of them to be of anomalous interesting value. And now we have to go through those and go, how much do I have actual data for. Because if all I have is an operator report that says I saw X, Y, or Z, my assessment is A, B, or C, that is not really sufficient. That is a good place to start but I have to have data. I have to have radar data. I have to have EO data. I have to have thermal data. I have to have overhead data, and we need to look at all that.
[…] if I remember correctly, we are around 20 to 30-ish are about halfway through that [AARO's] analytic process. A handful of them have made it all the way out to the other side, gone through peer review. We have got case closure reports done and signed.
[…] in our research AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics.
[…] I think it is prudent to say of the -- of the cases that are showing some sort of advanced technical signature of which we are talking single percentages of the entire population of cases we have. I am concerned about what that [foreign] nexus is and I have indicators that some are related to foreign capabilities. We have to investigate that with our IC partners and as we get evidence to support that that gets then handed off to the appropriate IC agency to investigate. Again, it becomes a SEP [Somebody Else's Problem] at that point."


AARO's data, May 31 2023

Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "At the time of my open hearing, we were at 650 cases-ish. We are now over 800. We roughly get, you can do the math, it depends anywhere from 50 to 100-ish new reports a month. Now the reason we had such a big jump recently is because I got FAA's data integrated in finally and so we ended up with 100 and some odd new cases.
[…] only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous. The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO and in our holdings demonstrate mundane characteristics of readily explainable sources. While a large number of cases in AARO's holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases.
[…] the numbers I would say that we see are possibly really anomalous are less than single digit percentages of those, that total database. Maybe two to five ish percent.
[…] essentially, anomalous is anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the sensor. It is doing something weird, […] it's things that are not readily understandable."


AARO's data patterns

Source for picture (picture below is snapshot for readibility): https://science.nasa.gov/science-red/s3fs-public/atoms/files/Sean%20Kirkpatrick%20-%201100am%20to%201130am.pdf

1691071598710.jpeg


Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "this is an overall review of all of the analytic trends of all the cases that we have to date.
[…] On the upper right we have UAP morphologies.
[…] In the bottom right you will see in the really the heats map of the areas where we get most of our reporting, this is very much a collection biased map. This is where our sensors are, our military and our IC and some of the FAA data.
In the middle [left in the snapshot above], it is what we call our typical UAP characteristics for the vast majority of the cases that we see. One way of looking at that is a… We'll call it a target package. This is the thing we are out hunting for in most cases.
[…] This is not all single sensor observations. Some of these are very much multi-sensor observations and this is parameterized to cover the range of things for any given parameter, range of what's possible and what has been observed. "


Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "This chart represents the trend analysis of all the cases in AARO's holdings to date.
[…] On the far right upper corner you will see a breakout of the morphologies of all of the UAP that are reported.
[…] "In the middle what we have done is reduce the most typically reported UAP characteristics to these fields, mostly round, mostly one to four meters, white, silver, translucent, metallic, 10,000 to 30,000 feet with apparent velocities from stationary to Mach two. No thermal exhausts are usually detected. We get intermittent radar returns, we get intermittent radio returns, and we get intermittent thermal signatures. That is what we are looking for in trying to understand what that is."


Note that the 'typically reported UAP characteristics' in the picture seem to be based on all UAP reports, not just orb reports.
Also note that the parameter ranges of these characteristics are based on 'what's possible and what has been observed'.
I wonder what filters have been applied for 'what's possible', since advanced non-human technology will be able to achieve things that we deem 'impossible'.

I also wonder what 'atypical orientation' stands for in the 'morphology' characteristic.
I don't think it relates to the orbs, since they do not have a visible orientation.

Given 800 cases and the percentages, this is a breakdown in (approximate) numbers per morphology category:

Lights (16%): 128 cases
Oval (3%): 24 cases
Cylinder (2%): 16 cases
Disk (2%): 16 cases
Triangle (2%): 16 cases
Rectangle (1%): 8 cases
Square (1%): 8 cases
Polygon (1%): 8 cases
Tic-tac (1%): 8 cases
Vector (0.?%): ? cases
Orb, round, sphere (47%): 376 cases
Ambiguous sensor contact (19%): 152 cases
Other (7%): 56 cases

Estimated is that 16-40 (2-5%) of these cases are 'possibly really anomalous'.

About the orbs:
Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "This is a spherical orb metallic in the Middle East 2022 by an MQ-9.
[…] That is a real object. Absolutely.
[…] We see these all over the world and we see these in making very interesting apparent maneuvers.
[…] While we are still looking at it, I don't have any more data other than that and so being able to come to some conclusion is going to take time until we can get better resolved data on similar objects that we can then do a larger analysis on."


AARO's quest for data signatures (and more data)

Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "That [UAP] range spans adversary breakthrough technology, on one hand, known objects and phenomena in the middle, all the way to the extreme theories of extraterrestrials. All of that has physics-based signatures associated with it
[…] Once I have those signatures identified in validated peer-reviewed documents then I have something to point to for all that data because all that data is going to match one of those signatures"


Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "One of the key tenets that we are trying to do in our science plan is understand what those [UAP] signatures are. So we get all the raw, for example, radar data prior to the scrubbing and filtering [by the radar system itself] to allow it to enter into our weapon systems and our detection systems. We are now taking all that data and cross correlating it to what pilots are saying they are seeing or other observations from other operators. What that allows us to do is then see if there are any signatures in that data that I can pull out. […] That is going to take some time. "


Article:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "One of the first things that we're doing is looking across all the existing sensor data against that typical UAP target that I gave you up at the very first slide. That goes beyond DOD and IC sensors. That's commercial, that's civil, and with partnership with NASA, with NASA sensors and NOAA sensors. Understanding if any of these earth sensing satellites, any of these airborne platforms, any of these ground radars, whether it's FAA or other, can actually see these things, given what we've got so far, is going to be an important first step to understanding which sensors are going to be relevant.
[…] From there, we are augmenting with dedicated sensors that we've purpose built designed to detect, track and characterize those particular objects. We will then be putting those out in very select areas for surveillance purposes."


In a recent (July 20) interview with ABC news, Dr. Kirkpatrick shared what keeps him up at night:

Article:
"Technical surprise. And that could be adversary technical surprise or extraterrestrial technical surprise."


He also states he still does not know what the 2004 Tic-tac was:

Article:
"It's really hard to guess on this and I don't like to guess.
[…] The more things that I see that resemble a tic-tac, then I can get more and more information about what that is."


So, here too, he is looking for patterns derived from multiple UAP cases.
 
Capture.JPG


That is worrisome, as written. Perhaps they mean "Identified as extraterrestrial," as in "Proven to be aliens," but since there is no arrow-and-box for Insufficient Data for Identification to kick a case out of the process, and the only two outcomes are Identified or Extraterrestrial, that seems vulnerable to "If we can't prove it is something else, it must be aliens." That's essential "Alien unless proven otherwise."

That would seem to leave the process very dependent on the person filling Dr. Kirkpatrick's position -- who might be in that job next?

Or perhaps it's just a hastily, poorly designed flow chart that leaves off some outcomes?
 
JMartJr said:
View attachment 60986

That is worrisome, as written. Perhaps they mean "Identified as extraterrestrial," as in "Proven to be aliens," but since there is no arrow-and-box for Insufficient Data for Identification to kick a case out of the process, and the only two outcomes are Identified or Extraterrestrial, that seems vulnerable to "If we can't prove it is something else, it must be aliens." That's essential "Alien unless proven otherwise."

That would seem to leave the process very dependent on the person filling Dr. Kirkpatrick's position -- who might be in that job next?

Or perhaps it's just a hastily, poorly designed flow chart that leaves off some outcomes?
Click to expand...
Per itsme's description the flowchart is from him and not an official source:
AARO's process (picture is mine, based on Kirkpatrick's oral explanation)
Click to expand...

The Kirkpatrick quote that section of the flowchart is based on seems reasonable:
Dr. Kirkpatrick: "In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained that a UAP encountered can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform U.S. government's leadership of its findings."
Click to expand...

Presumably there would be a third box at the bottom of the flowchart for unidentified but not only explainable as extraterrestrial.
 
JMartJr said:
View attachment 60986

That is worrisome, as written. Perhaps they mean "Identified as extraterrestrial," as in "Proven to be aliens," but since there is no arrow-and-box for Insufficient Data for Identification to kick a case out of the process, and the only two outcomes are Identified or Extraterrestrial, that seems vulnerable to "If we can't prove it is something else, it must be aliens." That's essential "Alien unless proven otherwise."

That would seem to leave the process very dependent on the person filling Dr. Kirkpatrick's position -- who might be in that job next?

Or perhaps it's just a hastily, poorly designed flow chart that leaves off some outcomes?
Click to expand...
I read the original quote to be less strongly defaulting to aliens.

Dr. Kirkpatrick: "In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained that a UAP encountered can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform U.S. government's leadership of its findings."
Click to expand...

The flow chart was drawn by OP, if I read it correctly, and not AARO.
 
Re-reading the original opening post, do the statements amount to orbs having been observed performing these maneuvers and at Mach 2, or are we just saying that there's maneuverable stuff out there, there's Mach 2 stuff out there, and there's orbs, and we're not sure from the documents seen here whether these three characteristics are concurrent in any UAP?
 
Awesome collation of information @Itsme thank you for taking the time and work to put it together!

One thing I am a bit confused about is this line of questioning from Gillibrand:
Itsme said:
Article:
Sen. Gillibrand: "Congress mandated that AARO set up a publicly discoverable and accessible process for safe disclosure. While we know that AARO has already conducted a significant number of interviews, many referred by Congress, we need to set up a public process that -- and we need to know where that effort stands.
[…] Have you submitted a public-facing website product for approval to your superiors and how long has it been under review?"
Click to expand...

The FY23 NDAA requirements for AARO regarding reporting are as follow:

Article:
SEC. 1673. UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA REPORTING PROCEDURES.

(a) Mechanism for Authorized Reporting.

(1) Establishment.--The Secretary of Defense, acting through the head of the Office and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall establish a secure mechanism for authorized reporting of--
(A) any event relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena; and
(B) any activity or program by a department or agency of the Federal Government or a contractor of such a department or agency relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement.

(2) Protection of systems, programs, and activity.--The Secretary shall ensure that the mechanism for authorized reporting established under paragraph (1) prevents the unauthorized public reporting or compromise of classified military and intelligence systems, programs, and related activity, including all categories and levels of special access and compartmented access programs.

(3) Administration.--The Secretary shall ensure that the mechanism for authorized reporting established under paragraph (1) is administered by designated and appropriately cleared employees of the Department of Defense or elements of the intelligence community or contractors of the Department or such elements assigned to the Office.

...

Gillibrand seems to be asking about setting up a public reporting mechanism, but I am not seeing such a requirement and (2) above seems to specifically preclude that. I must be misunderstanding something. It would be great if someone can document the legal requirement for a public reporting mechanism that Gillibrand refers to.
 
If y'all will indulge me for one minute, I want to apologize to @Itsme for a snarky comment that I did not intend to aim at one of our members. That was ill mannered, and I am sorry for it.

That said, I also shouldn't have been snarky like that to a non member while posting here. I'll try my best to avoid that going forward.

Now back to the thread!
 
MonkeeSage said:
Gillibrand seems to be asking about setting up a public reporting mechanism, but I am not seeing such a requirement and (2) above seems to specifically preclude that. I must be misunderstanding something. It would be great if someone can document the legal requirement for a public reporting mechanism that Gillibrand refers to.
Click to expand...
I believe "unauthorized public reporting" in your quote refers to reports made to the public, while Gillibrand wants the website to receive reports by the public. These reports need to be secure, and only be viewable by "designated and appropriately cleared employees" etc.
 
Mendel said:
I believe "unauthorized public reporting" in your quote refers to reports made to the public, while Gillibrand wants the website to receive reports by the public. These reports need to be secure, and only be viewable by "designated and appropriately cleared employees" etc.
Click to expand...
I was understanding it that way, but I don't see how that could meet the criteria in (2) because AARO couldn't ensure the person transmitting the report was in a secure location, didn't have Pegasus on their laptop (or whatever spyware APTs are using now), was not a foreign agent etc, and the reporter couldn't be sure they were actually communicating with appropriately cleared AARO representatives.

I guess it could just be a website that says go follow some other procedure that is not public, which ultimately leads to the secure procedure as required by (1). I guess this exchange would be consistent with that interpretation if it's just an automated portal that directs to some further procedure.

Article:
Senator Gillibrand: Okay. We will author a letter asking for that timely response to your superiors. When do you expect that you will establish a public-facing discoverable and access portal for people to use to contact your office as the law requires?

Mr. Kirkpatrick: So I would like to, first, say thank you all very much for referring the witnesses that you have thus far to us. I appreciate that. We have brought in nearly two dozen so far. It has been very helpful. I would ask that you continue to do that until we have an approved plan. We have a multi-phased approach for doing that that we have been socializing and have submitted for approval sometime. Once that happens then we should be able to push all that out and get this a little more automated.
 
JMartJr said:
If y'all will indulge me for one minute, I want to apologize to @Itsme for a snarky comment that I did not intend to aim at one of our members. That was ill mannered, and I am sorry for it.

That said, I also shouldn't have been snarky like that to a non member while posting here. I'll try my best to avoid that going forward.

Now back to the thread!
Click to expand...
That's ok, no problem. I constructed the flow chart based on what Kirkpatrick told and tried not to add any assumptions of my own. My guess is that the sign off by Kirkpatrick is the end state for cases that don't need to be relayed any further. Things like weather phenomena, distant commercial jets, or celestial bodies. After the sign off they simply remain in AARO's archive.
 
cptreynolds said:
Re-reading the original opening post, do the statements amount to orbs having been observed performing these maneuvers and at Mach 2, or are we just saying that there's maneuverable stuff out there, there's Mach 2 stuff out there, and there's orbs, and we're not sure from the documents seen here whether these three characteristics are concurrent in any UAP?
Click to expand...
I have the same question. Kirkpatrick is not very clear about it:

Article:
Walter: "I want to make sure I understand the slide. It says typically reported characteristics and there are a bunch of things here like for example, size, altitude, speed. If it's being observed from a single sensor, use the example of the airplanes that were coming in, and if you don't know how far away they are, how do you assess the size? How do you assess the speed? This is what people would report, but it isn't necessarily really the size of the object or the speed or any of the rest of that. Do I understand that correctly?"

Kirkpatrick: "Partially. This is not all single sensor observations. Some of these are very much multi-sensor observations and this is parameterized to cover the range of things for any given parameter, range of what's possible and what is been observed."


I would love to see one of these multi-sensor cases...
 
Elsewhere, I'm having a conversation about how to assess Sean Kirkpatrick - where he stands on a scale between "true believer" and "incorruptible scientist." One question then is which of his actions could possibly serve the interests of higher (or hidden?) authorities to which the AARO is subordinate (cui bono?). And which old connections and objectives are possibly continued with the AARO?
I have just searched in vain for an organizational chart of the DoD in which the AARO is depicted, so that one can see who actually commissions this agency in which context and to whom Kirkpatrick reports. Does anyone have a clue?
Of course, this topic would also be interesting here, if it fits in this thread. I'm not ready to work out an opening for a possible new thread yet....

At this point, his official professional career is perhaps also worth mentioning:
Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, biography
 
With respect to Kirkpatrick's phrase, "only be explained by extraterrestrial origin":

We don't have things known to be extraterrestrial (except things like meteorites, and I'm going to assume that's not what he's talking about.)
We don't know how extraterrestrials would behave.
We have no idea what their capabilities would be.
We have no idea what their technology would be.
We don't know what their craft would look like or act like.

In other words, there is no such thing as a standard against we can measure a sighted object to determine if it is extraterrestrial (once again, except the meteorite entries with which we are familiar). There are either earthly things we have identified, and things we have not identified. I realize not everyone is content with "We don't know what that is", but that doesn't justify calling it "extraterrestrial".
 
Nemon said:
I have just searched in vain for an organizational chart of the DoD in which the AARO is depicted, so that one can see who actually commissions this agency in which context and to whom Kirkpatrick reports. Does anyone have a clue?
Click to expand...
AARO was commissioned by act of Congress.
See 50 U.S. Code § 3373 - Establishment of All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, also discussed elsewhere on Metabunk.
 
Nemon said:
I have just searched in vain for an organizational chart of the DoD in which the AARO is depicted, so that one can see who actually commissions this agency in which context and to whom Kirkpatrick reports. Does anyone have a clue?
Click to expand...
Kirkpatrick reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.

Article:
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks recently moved to personally oversee the Pentagon's unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) investigation team formally known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, DefenseScoop has exclusively learned. And a new website will soon be launched where incidents can be reported.

Hicks now holds regular meetings with AARO's inaugural director, Sean Kirkpatrick — who she's also repositioned to report directly to her.
 
Ann K said:
With respect to Kirkpatrick's phrase, "only be explained by extraterrestrial origin":

We don't have things known to be extraterrestrial (except things like meteorites, and I'm going to assume that's not what he's talking about.)
We don't know how extraterrestrials would behave.
We have no idea what their capabilities would be.
We have no idea what their technology would be.
We don't know what their craft would look like or act like.

In other words, there is no such thing as a standard against we can measure a sighted object to determine if it is extraterrestrial (once again, except the meteorite entries with which we are familiar). There are either earthly things we have identified, and things we have not identified. I realize not everyone is content with "We don't know what that is", but that doesn't justify calling it "extraterrestrial".
Click to expand...

Re highlighted bit.

That must be acknowledged from your lens, which is the pubic lens without access to classified DOD information, that AARO has.

Remember that AARO et al doesn't owe you or I or Mick or the public anything. They answer to the DOD/White House and Congress.

If AARO tells DOD/White House and Congress that X event was extraterrestrial or NHI in origin, that would be based on data that the public is not at that time permitted to see.

A holistic view of all surrounding data points, seen and unseen, must be considered, even if the public can't adjudicate it at that time themselves.

Simply: if the President lights up the nationwide EAS tomorrow and says "turn on the internet, radio or TV for an immediate Oval Office address in ten minutes," and opens with, "My fellow people of Earth... we are not alone..." there's a damned compelling reason for that.

They don't need to 'vet' it by the skeptic/debunker community first.
 
AllTheQuestionsToday said:
If AARO tells DOD/White House and Congress that X event was extraterrestrial or NHI in origin, that would be based on data that the public is not at that time permitted to see.
Click to expand...
Ideally, yes. But it might also be based on preconceived notions taking an "investigation" where the data does not support the conclusions. Humans are like that sometimes.

AllTheQuestionsToday said:
A holistic view of all surrounding data points, seen and unseen, must be considered, even if the public can't adjudicate it at that time themselves.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, but the "this is proven by data I can't show you" trope in UFO/UAP stories is getting tiresome.

AllTheQuestionsToday said:
Simply: if the President lights up the nationwide EAS tomorrow and says "turn on the internet, radio or TV for an immediate Oval Office address in ten minutes," and opens with, "My fellow people of Earth... we are not alone..." there's a damned compelling reason for that.
Click to expand...
Sure... if that happens, they'll presumably share those compelling reasons. But after multiple iterations of "disclosure is imminent" in my lifetime, it still has not happened. Maybe this time will be the one, who knows? I'd be happy if that happened (unless the next line was "and they are hungry for some crispy fried human!")

AllTheQuestionsToday said:
They don't need to 'vet' it by the skeptic/debunker community first.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. But unless/until it is based on data that people can see, and evaluate, people should be skeptical. It has been known to happen that people in the government lie to others within the government for their own purposes. It sometimes happens that governments lie to the people. People in government are as prone as the rest of us to making mistakes, misinterpreting data, believing the story they WANT to be true is supported by data that does not actually support it, etc.
 
AllTheQuestionsToday said:
A holistic view of all surrounding data points, seen and unseen, must be considered
Click to expand...
"unseen data points" equal speculation.

Conspiracy theorists believe "the government" knows everything, the truth is often less glamorous.


AllTheQuestionsToday said:
Simply: if the President lights up the nationwide EAS tomorrow and says "turn on the internet, radio or TV for an immediate Oval Office address in ten minutes," and opens with, "My fellow people of Earth... we are not alone..." there's a damned compelling reason for that.
Click to expand...
The President also said the election was stolen. Compelling reasons never emerged.

Politicians are people, not prophets.
 
@Mendel
@Mick West
@all

Thank you for your advice. As a non-U.S. citizen, please forgive me for not knowing what the procedures are in the U.S. government.
It is not yet clear to me whether the initiative to establish the AARO came from Congress, sort of as a mandate to DoD, or whether it came from DoD and was approved and by Congress and formally commissioned. Perhaps (certain individuals on) both sides brought certain interests into this process.
Behind that is ultimately the question of intent and who has what goals in creating this agency. If there is more to it than is written in the official documents

I will come back to Sean Kirkpatrick on that. I first try to understand the framework and to classify it correctly.

In the end, it boils down to a question that is ultimately directed at the extent to which history repeats itself - in this regard, for the sake of brevity, let me now mention only the key points "Skinwalkers at the Pentagon/Bigelow/Reid/others" as well as "Hynek/Vallée/CUFOS etc." Is there a historical constant which then leads even further into the past, or do new generations of ufologists develop new initiatives to get their concern into the Pentagon?
Or is there a hidden agenda as a common thread that may be trying to gain sovereignty over the narrative and interpretation of UFO/UAP phenomena over generations but comes from inside?

I think you know what I mean ...
 
Nemon said:
It is not yet clear to me whether the initiative to establish the AARO came from Congress, sort of as a mandate to DoD, or whether it came from DoD and was approved and by Congress and formally commissioned. Perhaps (certain individuals on) both sides brought certain interests into this process.
Click to expand...
I see it as part of the "disclosure" movement, resulting from pressure by UFO believers.

And yes, history repeats itself.
 
Nemon said:
Is there a historical constant which then leads even further into the past, or do new generations of ufologists develop new initiatives to get their concern into the Pentagon?
Click to expand...
My own interpretation, based on being old enough to have watched a lot of it happen, is that the second one is correct. But I admit that is my judgement of the situation rather than based on my having direct knowledge.
 
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