Blink-182's Tom DeLonge's "To The Stars" UFO Disclosure Enterprise

[marrowmonkey]

I hadn't paid attention to that link earlier but now that I read it, it really changed my view of what TTSA has actually published so far. That story from March 2015 already contains even more details and names than what TTSA has now been promoting, and is apparently written by someone who knows Fravor personally. It also mentions that the video was already leaked to YouTube years ago.

Yes, I remember reading about the Nimitz thing a couple of years ago. The only thing that is new with regard to that is that TTSA claims to have confirmed the validity of the FLIR camera video with the DoD.

The real news I believe was the confirmation that the US government had spent some money investigating UFOs but the project was later canceled since they never produced any tangible evidence.

Elizondo haven't really said anything except that there are UFOs out there that are controlled by some intelligent entity, which sounds exciting perhaps, but if you think about it, it could just as well mean a kid with a drone (or a foreign spy plane at least).
EDIT2: He very strongly hints that he believe there are some sort of alien activity though, I would say he's being very dishonest if he later deny that, even though he tend to word things in a noncommittal way as far as I have heard.

EDIT1: Here is another source from march 2015: https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/

 

[bume]

I sent an email to George Knapp requesting background information on the Gimbal video and received the following reply today:

"I am told the full provenance of that video will be made public soon. It was shown to the NY Times."

Yet NY Times could only say that "Defense officials declined to release the location and date of the incident". Why couldn't they say something like they have seen that privately, as is often done?

I started to think about the relative quality of Nimitz vs Gimbal videos, which is pretty bad for the former, which some have seen as evidence for the latter being more recent. But surely the original quality could not be anything close to that bad in 2004?

YouTube quality however was pretty bad back then (YouTube started to support 480p in 2008, didn't find what the options were in years before that), and allegedly that video was already leaked to YouTube in 2007 or before. Based on that, I'm suspecting those videos haven't been actually provided from Pentagon but are rather from other sources (leaks).

However, TTSA seems to indicate otherwise:

Like GIMBAL, this footage comes with crucial chain-of-custody (CoC) documentation because it is a product of US military sensors, which confirms it is original, unaltered, and not computer generated or artificially fabricated. While there have been leaked versions on the internet, the CoC establishes the authenticity and credibility that this version is the original footage taken from one of the most advanced sensor tracking devices in use.

https://coi.tothestarsacademy.com/2004-nimitz-flir1-video

But then again, it doesn't actually claim it is from original source or original quality. I guess you could make a statement like that if someone like Elizondo has made a written statement that they have seen the same content in their archives or something? Surely "one of the most advanced sensor" would have encoded video in better quality than that in 2004, right?

 

[igoddard]

TTSA's curiously vanishing "investors" ...

Abducted by aliens?

Archive.is saves for Dec 16, Dec 22, Dec 22 and Dec 25.

 

[igoddard]

TTSA just added this statement below their investor data:

**Please excuse us while the FundAmerica technical team repairs an error in the "Investors" and "Amount Raised" tracker. Note that this has no impact on the Invest Now functionality and we are still actively accepting investments.​

 

[igoddard]

One of the co-authors of the NYT piece promoting the Gimbal footage just posted a link to a massive compilation, a tour de force, of the promotion of this "extraterrestrial evidence" that swept across major media:



Heading of page she links to, which contains dozens and dozens of media reports...

Archive.is backup as of today.

When I was a kid back in the 70s, I can recall UFOs being a popular topic, much more so than in decades since. But I'm not sure I've ever seen a UFO story take off like this. Then again, back then I didn't have the overview the internet, especially with pages like that, can provide. Still, I wonder if we've ever seen a UFO story plugged this heavily, or if so, how high this case ranks among historic UFO stories.

Did any of the major media include any skeptics in their coverage? Did any of them hire an analyst to examine the footage? I haven't run into an example. Time and again I watched a news program covering this case and was amazed at the lack of basic journalistic questions being asked of the guests promoting the claims, questions about the Gimbal footage we want answers to. Basic Five-Ws of journalism questions about the Gimbal footage like:

• Where did this incident happen?
  
• When did this incident happen?
  
• Who flew the jet and what does he say about the object now?
• What happened 10 seconds after the given snippet of footage?
• Where is any statement or report by the DoD about this footage?
• Where are the allegedly existent "chain-of-custody documents"?
• Why was only this snippet of footage cropped out?
• How exactly was this footage acquired from the DoD?

How can the leading institutions of journalism, run by armies of people with degrees in journalism, have failed to ask basic questions like those? Admittedly I took this story with a degree of seriousness at first... could this finally be a breakthrough on the UFO issue?! I now believe I put faith in those esteemed institutions that was unfounded. In hindsight, the entire episode looks like an infomercial for people cashing in big time on causing people to believe in or just wonder if we're being visited by extraterrestrials. I guess this is the state of journalism, 2017.

 

[Redshift7]

How can the leading institutions of journalism, run by armies of people with degrees in journalism, have failed to ask basic questions like those?

Maybe we should ask Judith Miller.

Seriously though -- this certainly wouldn't be the first time the NYT ran with a story that was based on dubious info from shady characters who stand to personally profit.

I guess this is the state of journalism, 2017.

I don't think real investigative journalism has been a thing in the US for quite some time. It's expensive and time consuming to perform thorough investigations on potential stories. It's much more cost effective to simply sit at your desk and write what you're told by people who claim to be an authority on the matter.

 

[sitarzan]

...Did any of the major media include any skeptics in their coverage?...

CNN interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson (a pretty major media personality) himself interviewed SETI's Seth Shostak on his show. WGBH (a major source of a huge amount of PBS' programming) interviewed Senior Editor of Sky and Telescope Magazine, Kelly Beatty (a skeptical astronomer)...

Though not in the major media category, this one aviation blog has professional Skeliever Nick Pope weighing in with some of the most bluntly skeptical observations I've heard from him in a long time.

However, the key point to me is that given that the Pentagon declassified the footage, it's unlikely they think it shows a new drone or missile, irrespective of whether it's American, Russian or Chinese. Similarly, if the Pentagon genuinely thought this was the smoking gun that proves UFOs are extraterrestrial, it's unlikely they'd authorize public release of the footage. The public release implies the authorities regard this material as unclassified. Sadly, this suggests a prosaic explanation

...How can the leading institutions of journalism, run by armies of people with degrees in journalism, have failed to ask basic questions like those?...

That question assumes that the people asking the questions you listed are as fascinated with the topic as you are. My guess is they're probably not.

 

[purpleivan]

We should take then seriously and be curious if they are well-placed, senior, authoritative officials (or ex-officials). We should dismiss them if they are fantasists. What evidence is there that they are fantasists? It is circular to say they're fantasists because they want to study UFOs, and we should ignore their project on UFOs because they're fantasists.

But why should the opinions of these individuals of "authority" be considered as more important that the vast majority of others, of similar or greater authority in these areas, that say that there is no real evidence?

 

[igoddard]

CNN interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson (a pretty major media personality) himself interviewed SETI's Seth Shostak on his show. WGBH (a major source of a huge amount of PBS' programming) interviewed Senior Editor of Sky and Telescope Magazine, Kelly Beatty (a skeptical astronomer)...

Good points and examples! Another big factor is many of the major media paid so little attention to what they were reporting they got confused between the Gimbal footage and the Nimitz case, misattributing the supplemental data for the Nimitz case to the Gimbal footage. Tucker Carlson even played the Gimbal footage alongside the Nimitz pilot as he described his alleged experiences. And that pilot never bothered to correct the error. That misattribution would obscure the fact that the Five Ws were not being addressed for the Gimbal footage. But that's still an unprofessional oversight to make (and to not correct) and that has left countless people confused, and conveniently confused in precisely a way that lends undue credence to the footage and cash into the bank accounts of its ET-interpretation advocates.

 

[marrowmonkey]

As pointed out before, the Nimitz story isn't new, the news part was that the government had been spending money on a UFO program. The Nimitz incident is probably just considered clickbait to them.

 

[JBenn]

Feel free to delete post if N/A but I found Elizondo's reply to a question rather interesting as I've been wondering how TTSA can promote disclosure of anything with at least one prominent board member having left a position for which his security clearance was granted meaning at some point it will expire. And by then, if Elizondo hasn't brought anything further to the table he's not going to be able to be involved in discussing anything classified amongst the TTSA board members (I'm taking an educated guess here that a few of them have active clearances) is he. DeLonge in his interview with Joe Rogan mentioned he is kept in the dark re "some stuff" because he isn't cleared for the info. Since Elizondo's also left the DoD he can't have a need-to-know anymore (it would be useful to know how many of the others also have active clearances and to what extent they have need-to-know, if any, too). The two components of working in his previous domain are clearance + need-to-know and aren't those components not mutually exclusive... So TTSA + board members trying to [do some magic here] to prompt the USG/DoD into disclosing classified info seems to be central to TTSA's business model, but Elizondo at least already seems to be hobbled by virtue of not doing TTSA part(or spare, whichever)-time while still working full-time on AATIP (which we know isn't the case). It might explain why NIMITZ was already in the public domain before and why no CoC documentation has been provided with the release.

@9:44, referring to TTSA's release of GIMBAL and NIMITZ clips:

"Are we going to see more of this or is this pretty much what we're going to find out?

Elizondo replies:

I hope that we do more as a nation to insist that we see more. We need to ensure we engage who we need to engage; our leaders, and say "hey, look this is worth investing"... The bigger story here is: "folks we've been looking at this stuff for a while and it's real", and as a nation we need to decide if this is a national security imperative.

As a nation. Related: http://www.mergereport.com/2017/12/30/delonge-congressional-briefings-on-ufos-will-be-starting-soon/

I reckon TTSA are just trying to cause a media stir, profit from that, at the same time hoping that by [insert series of TTSA actions here to do magic] will strong-arm the USG/DoD into releasing more of [insert "stuff" here]. I certainly don't think any of the board members are going to disclose something against the will of the USG/DoD, but unfortunately, if there was anything truly juicy being witheld is the only way, minus a Congressional hearing or another Blue Book, something would be disclosed otherwise the USG would have already done it by now. And looking at the TTSA board members it's unlike any of them would whistleblow because they've too much skin in the game of living in the US, i.e. established careers, they're not young any more, have pensions which whistleblowing would put at risk of loss. Look at Snowden, I highly doubt he'd have done what he did if he was 57 rather than 27, kids, and not a contractor earning what was it reported as, $250k annually, i.e. Snowden had/has a portable skill-set that he can take anywhere in the world, no ties, and financial liberty to do as he pleased, then spend 30 years making another life for himself...

Thoughts?


Source: https://youtu.be/YmI6b18cmdU?t=583

 

[JBenn]

That question assumes that the people asking the questions you listed are as fascinated with the topic as you are. My guess is they're probably not.

There's another point about that. People with degrees in journalism shouldn't be asking the pertinent questions which ought to be asked by a Physicist wearing a journalists hat.

Tucker Carlson even played the Gimbal footage alongside the Nimitz pilot as he described his alleged experiences. And that pilot never bothered to correct the error.

I noticed that too. It's there for about 30 seconds, but this is to assume Fravor can see what those in the control room are overlaying as he's speaking.

 

[deirdre]

his security clearance was granted meaning at some point it will expire. And by then, if Elizondo hasn't brought anything further to the table he's not going to be able to be involved in discussing anything classified is he

he's never allowed to discuss classified data with the public (ie. tts) that's what CLASSIFIED means. Think Snowden. (unless I'm misunderstanding your point).

Btw, what action(s) would qualify Elizondo as a whistle-blower

There are plenty of articles regarding DOD whistleblowers. just google DOD whistleblowers. the wiki page seems to be a rehash of this 'document' (page 21- )
[EX
The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General plays a critical role in balancing these interests by providing an authorized place for DoD whistleblowers to make classifi ed disclosures as well as an authority to investigate allegations of reprisal against whistle-blowing complainants in DoD intelligence agencies.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110518185703/http://www.ignet.gov/randp/sp10jpi.pdf
[/EX]

 

[JBenn]

he's never allowed to discuss classified data with the public (ie. tts) that's what CLASSIFIED means.

Amended the post for clarity.

 

[igoddard]

I noticed that too. It's there for about 30 seconds, but this is to assume Fravor can see what those in the control room are overlaying as he's speaking.

It's possible Fravor didn't see the Gimbal footage was being shown side-by-side with him in any of the several cases that happened. But this case seems the hardest to believe he and another pilot cannot see what Watters repeatedly says is being shown at that moment and repeatedly says it's what they saw...



In fact, it might be said that from 2:25 pilot Slaight claims the Gimbal footage is what they saw, as he appears to affirm Watters' claim that the Gimbal footage is what they saw. But it could still be that all times they were interviewed by multiple networks and shown alongside the Gimbal footage they never saw it.

 

[igoddard]

At least one major network got the footage distinction exactly correct, ABC News here:



Kudos to them! But, alas, here's a local ABC station that gets it perfectly wrong...




CNN conflated Fravor with the Gimbal footage many times, here are three cases...

@ Former Navy pilot describes UFO encounter

and @ Former Navy pilot: UFO 'something I had never seen in my life'

(this is also @ http://archive.is/VZjWl)

and @



They repeated examples 1 and 3 over and over through the day. Bending over backwards to get it wrong!

 

[JBenn]

BA was a contractor. DOD owns the material.

Related info: https://ufotrail.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/ufo-pentagon-story-reflects-fundamental.html

The section 'Taxpayer Funds' throws a spotlight onto how DoD may be exposed to FOIA as a result of AATIP being made public, and to what extent people could leverage FOIA requests to obtain info. I'd implore the US public to start asap. There's nothing lost by doing so, plus, the reporting has gone stale and could clearly now now use some more material. Metabunk could at least use more of it to assess against the investigations made so far in what TTSA have published.

The reported distribution of funds under the direction of the Department of Defense potentially opens the circumstances up to FOIA inquiries. The news stories alone offer a substantial number of FOIA opportunities, including requesting for public verification and review the documents and communications provided to the reporters. Obviously, circumstances surrounding the alleged physical evidence stored in modified buildings per Bigelow's oversight should be scrutinized at length, among other items referenced.

It was further reported via the Times, "Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes." I encourage submitting FOIA requests on such research, who specifically did it, the exact funding trail involved, the resulting dissemination of data, and similar details.

...For instance, who were the "program contractors" collecting material recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena? With what organization(s), exactly? What were the specific circumstances?

The story by Cooper et al. (1) was solid journalism in that it provided information acquired from several persons with direct involvement in the events. However, one facet of the reporting inadvertently reveals something odd; the scientist and engineer contacted for responses, although highly expert, did not appear to have direct knowledge of the work or to have been given access to any results/data. Accordingly, their responses were generic doubts about the UFO subject, not specific critiques of the actual work itself. This seems strange because Bigelow Aerospace solicited research proposals for the effort and hired people to conduct the work. Somehow the people best able to comment regarding the scientific quality of the investigations and the significance of the results obtained were mostly overlooked.For somewhere between 5-10 years, data and physical evidence gathered under the auspices of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program has been hidden from the public. Perhaps the unclassified portions of the scientific work performed by Bigelow Aerospace will now be forthcoming to enable evaluations by independent experts. This was a taxpayer-supported program and some extraordinary claims are being made about the findings in public. It will be unfortunate if investigators are forced to resort to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to discover what was done in this program. However, because it appears requests for research proposals/assistance were issued by Bigelow Aerospace, investigators may be able to pry loose some of the information if it becomes necessary.

...Because some of the principals involved in overseeing the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program have been speaking about it openly and exploiting their experiences in a commercial venture, it seems unlikely any entity could now withhold all scientific results by claiming the information is classified. Does Bigelow Aerospace hold physical evidence proving UFOs are real? Do the data prove claims the phenomena did not originate from any country?

 

[deirdre]

Related info: https://ufotrail.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/ufo-pentagon-story-reflects-fundamental.html

The section 'Taxpayer Funds' throws a spotlight onto how DoD may be exposed to FOIA

yea, I wouldn't get your legal advice from a UFO site, if I was you.

that said, the Black Vault has started some FOIA requests and I read the Sun in Australia has fired off some. So I'm pretty confident we'll be seeing what's available through FOIA soon enough.

 

[JBenn]

yea, I wouldn't get your legal advice from a UFO site, if I was you

Forget that. The questions being raised seem fair regardless of the camp the source falls in, and as far as I can tell, the source is a skeptic:

A primary point, as I see it, is that with all the half-truths, lack of accountability, and direct lies within the UFO community, it is impossible to discern the value of someone's claim if they don't produce the beef. Demand it or recognize the situation for what it often is: sizzle and no steak.

the Black Vault has started some FOIA requests and I read the Sun in Australia has fired off some

Can you link me the source?

 

[deirdre]

The questions being raised seem fair regardless of the camp the source falls in

The questions are fine. But if you want answers, one should look them up. or write the DOD foi office and ask.
The information is either exempt from disclosure or it's not. If the DOD refuses to release information then one must take them to court to appeal the decision. That's just how it works. It's a silly, piddly little program some Congressman eeked through. It isn't big news.
Although I wouldn't be surprised if a committee was set up to investigate Reid sending taxpayer money (and classified information) to his buddy to pay for their hobby, so more information might be revealed from that if it happens.

 

[Graham2001]

Meanwhile you have believers like Richard Dolan jumping on the DeLonge bandwagon, and claiming that this is way more important than a case of Robert Bigelow hitting up a friend in Congress for money to pursue a private project.

Anyone paying attention knows that this story was really opened up by the To the Stars Academy press conference two months ago by Tom DeLonge, formerly of the rock band Blink 182. Elizondo presented there, along with several other impressive scientists and officials from the world of science and the intelligence community. Although the participants said it wasn't "about" UFOs, everyone knows that is precisely what it was about. This press conference is where the 2004 sighting first received a wide audience. It was clear from this event that high-level people were taking UFOs seriously, even in our 21st century. It's fair to say that this press conference jump-started a process.

https://www.richarddolanpress.com/s...e-Pentagon-and-UFOs-Assessing-the-Revelations

 

[Graham2001]

I've just found a blog post by UFO Proponent Kevin Randle on this issue and his post contains a slight variation on what Dolan wrote (eg. They would not have spent the money if they did not know it was 'true'.)

There is one other thing that I should note here. Those at the highest levels were looking at this as a way of learning something about the propulsion used by the UFOs. That indicates that they know more about it than they are letting on because if that wasn't the case, then it was nearly a crime to spend 22 million dollars on a study they had to know what fail. The only way this makes any sense is if they believed that such a study would produce results and the only way they could believe that was if they suspected that some UFO sightings might be of advanced technical craft. The only way any of this makes sense is if they know something about UFOs that they haven't told us. And that is the real revelation.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/tom-delong-disclosure-and-analytical.html

 

[Hevach]

It's a crime to spend $22 million without knowing the project will yield results, eh? So just how many people are in jail for throwing billions after billions at boondoggles like the SLS and F-35?

The US government, for better or worse, does not have that kind of financial accountability. Especially over rounding error amounts like $22 million.

 

[igoddard]

A recent in-depth TTSA infomercial by a local CBS affiliate's "Investigative Team."



The anchor agrees that the tic-tac case involves extraterrestrial technology, and in appropriate informercial form sought advice from no source other than the UFO business their program was manifestly designed to promote.

That's the big problem here, a lack of skeptics being interviewed. A lack of any source of information other than a business making money off the claims being aired. That's what makes pretty much all the major-media coverage not definable outside an 'infomercial' context. They're not doing investigative journalism, they're seeking opinion from no source other than a business whose interest is making money off the claims these media are airing. This is not journalism we're seeing, which isn't necessarily wrong except that it's designed to look like journalism.

 

[igoddard]

That Las Vegas CBS affiliate is going all out for TTSA. The piece above was published on Feb 1, and this follow-up was published yesterday. Here's an excerpt therefrom (the page includes a video I can't embed):

Scientists now think a single technology explains the amazing things these aircraft can do. [...] One of the scientists who helped figure it out is a physicist named Dr. Hal Puthoff. He wrote the proposal that helped Bigelow land the contract to study UFOs.

How truthful and honest! Scientists definitely now believe they've cracked the ET technology that explains how the Gimbal UFO flew. Lol! The "I Team" piece is designed to lead its viewers to believe TTSA is on the cusp of cracking the secrets to extraterrestrial technology. Exactly what the prospective "investor" in TTSA needs to be led to believe. This couldn't possibly be more like an infomercial, like almost all the media promotion of this scam.

TTSA salesman Luis Elizondo and KLAS-TV I Team anchor.

 

[Mick West]

TTSA salesman Luis Elizondo and KLAS-TV I Team anchor.

That's George Knapp, host on Coast to Coast, and a long-time UFO, Disclosure and sometime conspiracy theory fan.

 

[igoddard]

That's George Knapp, host on Coast to Coast, and a long-time UFO, Disclosure and sometime conspiracy theory fan.

Ah! Knew I recognized that name in the byline to the articles on their site. Well, this is what we'd expect from him, but not from what would seem to be a real news network. The reportage of this story is nothing short of a travesty.

 

[igoddard]

In the first piece I cite, they report that critics say the footage shows glare. So the I Team actually did do some research, enough to find that out. But then they defer only to the TTSA salesman for the right perspective on what critics say. These pieces from KLAS are case studies of the kind of media coverage we've seen on this case.

 

[Clouds Givemethewillies]

"Dr. Hal put off is part of the team" The plan worked for me.

 

[Agent K]

That's George Knapp, host on Coast to Coast, and a long-time UFO, Disclosure and sometime conspiracy theory fan.

George Knapp popularized Area 51 with his reporting on impostor Bob Lazar, whom he believes. He also co-authored the book Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah, about Bigelow's NIDS investigation of paranormal activities at Skinwalker Ranch.
Recently, Knapp argued that that Pentagon's contract with Bigelow to study UFOs wasn't a moneymaking scheme, because Bigelow only lost money on it, and has spent a lot of his own money on paranormal research like NIDS in the past.

 

[John85]

This is not journalism we're seeing, which isn't necessarily wrong except that it's designed to look like journalism.

It is still a pretty straightforward presentation by Elizondo though. All he was invited to do, it seems, is explain his background, work, and findings. He doesn't pretend to have certainty over the finer points. Given that UFO coverage is almost universally biased toward treating it as a laughing matter, is it unbalanced to have an ex-Pentagon official speak uninterrupted for a few minutes?

 

[igoddard]

It is still a pretty straightforward presentation by Elizondo though. All he was invited to do, it seems, is explain his background, work, and findings. He doesn't pretend to have certainty over the finer points. Given that UFO coverage is almost universally biased toward treating it as a laughing matter, is it unbalanced to have an ex-Pentagon official speak uninterrupted for a few minutes?

Just because UFOs are usually treated as a laughing matter doesn't make it okay for "investigative reports" to uncritically publish claims that scientists are on the brink of cracking extraterrestrial technology. And that is especially so when the person they feature to backup that claim is with a business soliciting investments based on believing the claim.

Even if a product being sold is real, say vacuum cleaners, and a news network does an "investigative report" on that product that only interviews the sales staff of a business selling it, that is also not journalism.

 

[Agent K]

I haven't heard Elizondo, Reid, Bigelow, or anyone say what the AATIP project produced for all the money it spent. Did they at least write a final report? Will they release it?

 

[igoddard]

I haven't heard Elizondo, Reid, Bigelow, or anyone say what the AATIP project produced for all the money it spent. Did they at least write a final report? Will they release it?

I've seen it stated several times that TTSA is a science organization. But then what science do they do? Just posting 30-second clips of ATFLIR footage and saying "believe and invest" isn't science.

 

[Graham2001]

Robert Schaeffer, has been looking into the financial side of Tom DeLonges organization and has turned up an interesting story, when members of a conspiracy forum like Above Top Secret start having doubts, you know there is a problem:

Just when it seems there's nothing new to be said about the mega-subject of Tom DeLonge and his "To The Stars Academy," this turns up: The Case of the Missing Hot Dogs.

On p. 28 of the Offering Circular for To The Stars, we find:

"We have received one loan from Our Two Dogs, Inc. ("OTD") in two disbursements – one for $300,000 in April 2016 and another for $200,000 in March 2017 (see "Interest of Management and Others in Certain Transactions"). The note was amended on August 10, 2017 to provide for $300,000 to be provided in 2017, making the note agreement a total of $600,000. The note bears interest at 6% per annum and is due on December 31, 2018. In addition, the holder can require the note to be repaid prior to maturity in the amount equal to 10% of the net proceeds from any third party debt or equity financing. As of December 31, 2016, the principal balance of the April 2016 note was $300,000 with accrued interest of $13,512 due under then note."

Tom DeLonge

During the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, OTD contributed capital in the amounts of $183,184 and $329,994, respectively. The contributions were used within operations. Subsequent to December 31, 2016, OTD has provided a total of $257,000 to the company, $200,000 to fulfill the terms of the loan note and $57,000 for working capital.

Mirageman notes on Above Top Secret that in the Offering Circular (p. 16), it is stated that

"If the offering size were to be less than $5 million and above the $1 million minimum, TTS AAS would adjust its use of proceeds by reducing planned growth of employee headcount, reducing operational costs, and slowing down projects or not making investment in projects. The company is also required under the loan to Our Two Dogs, Inc. to repay 10% of the net proceeds from funds raised in this offering, up to $400,000 in this scenario."

With the offering having raised thus far approximately $2,500,000, and with the offering of shares to end on September 29, 2018, it appears likely that $5 million will not be reached, and 10% of the net proceeds will go To The Dogs.

http://badufos.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/to-stars-or-to-dogs-case-of-missing-hot.html

 

[Agent K]

I've seen it stated several times that TTSA is a science organization. But then what science do they do? Just posting 30-second clips of ATFLIR footage and saying "believe and invest" isn't science.

It's fishy that these video clips are coming from TTSA and not just posted on the DOD FOIA site.

I've heard some interviews with Elizondo, and they're pretty fishy too. First he says:

My decision to leave the US government was before I ever knew anything about To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences. My initial plan was to frankly fade off into the sunset, take a job working something that I could enjoy, one that was completely unrelated to the US government, and if you will – like I said – fade off into the sunset.

Then, in the same interview, he says:

I think from my motivation to come out, I gave everything to do this. I gave up a fantastic job, I was at the top of my career doing very well, financially had a great 401K plan, great benefits, pension, everything. It's easy to sit back and armchair quarterback and on a weekend go through blogs and say this or that or this or that, it's another thing to give up every single thing you have going to pursue this in order to have the conversation with the American people.

In another interview, he says:

The intent for the videos was to establish an unclassified community of interest or if you will a virtual environment that would allow everybody to look at this and help us determine what signatures we were seeing, and by the way, did anybody else out there see anything similar that can help us figure out what these things are, and to this day no one has the conversation, but no one has been able to figure out what these are...

But then he dismisses the skeptics who jump to conclusions from incomplete information:

...I haven't had anyone come up to me and tell me definitively what it is. And I think that's very frustrating because people will tell you it's IR glare or IR fuzz, and they have these weird ideas that it's some sort of 747 from far away, but the bottom line is they don't know. And I think we need to have a conversation collectively and we need to not just look at the video, we need to look at the radar returns, we need to talk to the pilots, because when we look at one piece of information it's very easy for us to make presumptions and assumptions of what we think it might be, but in the end you have to have all the information in front of you before you can make that conclusion, and I believe that there are people now that are jumping to conclusions without having all the facts and I think that's very dangerous.

Well, we'd love to have the radar returns, but we only have these short video clips to work with.

 

[igoddard]

A new report on the TTSA videos in The Washington Post yesterday states:

An official with the Defense Intelligence Agency maintains that the hype over the secret Pentagon UFO program is misleading.

"Some out there seem to be making this into more than it really is," said the official, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The program, he said, was not created to investigate unearthly technology but simply to prepare for aerospace advances by foreign adversaries — and was shuttered in 2012 because "there was limited value in what was produced."

Nice to see a journalist in the media consulting someone outside the TTSA circle. And what the source said doesn't surprise me at all.

 

[Mick West]

Nice to see a journalist in the media consulting someone outside the TTSA circle. And what the source said doesn't surprise me at all.

I don't think that's new. I seem to remember an anonymous official saying pretty much the same thing months ago.

 

[Mick West]

I don't think that's new. I seem to remember an anonymous official saying pretty much the same thing months ago.

NYT Dec 16, 2017:
http://archive.is/bFdkR

"It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding, and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change," a Pentagon spokesman, Thomas Crosson, said in an email

 

[igoddard]

NYT Dec 16, 2017:
http://archive.is/bFdkR

"It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding, and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change," a Pentagon spokesman, Thomas Crosson, said in an email

That's not the same thing. The prior quote easily implies ATIP was what Elizondo and others are making it out to be, whereas the new WaPo source is saying it's being made into more than it was. Important difference.

Sure, there have been a few sources outside the TTSA circle cited in some media reports, but it seems obvious that the overriding flaw across almost all major-media coverage has been a lack of reliance on sources, especially experts (eg, infrared-imagery experts), outside the TTSA circle. Scores of televised segments on the TTSA videos featured no source outside the TTSA circle. Televised media was probably worse on this score than written media.