Errors in Luis Elizondo's UFO Book "Imminent"

[JMartJr]

I've seen a Tic Tac object, and I thought of it and described it as a "capsule", like a self-luminous gelatin capsule. Only later did I hear the name "Tic Tac" or about the encounters, iirc. It must have happened in 2013. I don't think it coukd have been anything else. Moved as described by Fravor. I realize it sounds crazy.

I'd dispute the word "crazy." Even assuming it was a hallucination (an assumption I don't make, I lack sufficient information to draw conclusions!), but even assuming that, hallucinations ≠"crazy." And of course it would not be "crazy" to see something and misperceive it, not would it be to actually see a hypothetical alien tic tac!

 

[JMartJr]

Please quote the material being referred to, as per the no-click policy.

Stripping out the minority shapes (arbitrary cut off at <1/10 of the largest):

It should be noted that this list:

NUFORC Reports by Shape
SHAPE REPORT COUNT
Unspecified 6343
Changing 4112
Cigar 3828
Circle 14658
Disk 8844
Fireball 9940
Formation 4925
Light 27861
Orb 6300
Other 10231
Oval 6482
Sphere 7782
Triangle 13283
Unknown 10180

appears to be "all time" cumulative, I couldn't see a way to get it to make such a list restricted to recent years. I DID go into the reports, which are listed in chronological order, for the categories that interested me, to confirm that in 2024, discs are reported less frequently than either orbs or triangles. This would contradict Mr. Elizondo's assertions about the disk being the shape imposed by the properties of the warp bubble -- the triangle because it projects closer to the "edge" of the bubble in some places than in others, the orb/sphere because it would roll around all over the place when the field was off, he claims.

I suppose a defense of that would be that UFO reports are, after all, mostly reports of mundane objects misperceived, or hoaxes, or otherwise not "real" UFOs. But if Mr. Elizondo wants to go down the road of saying the most popular UFO shapes reproted currently, and the strong majority on the evidence that he cites, aren't "real" UFOs because their shape does not work with the warp bubble drive, I'd be surprised. If for no other reason than his popularity in UFO circles would likely decline substantially among those who report or beleive in UFOs in those shapes.

 

[deirdre]

I've seen a Tic Tac object, and I thought of it and described it as a "capsule", like a self-luminous gelatin capsule. Only later did I hear the name "Tic Tac" or about the encounters, iirc. It must have happened in 2013. I don't think it coukd have been anything else. Moved as described by Fravor. I realize it sounds crazy.

are you sure your memory isnt being tainted by all the reports you read? here, on MB, you originally [2021] described it as a "reverse bolide" but didnt mention a capsule or tic tac until recently. you said it looked like a star until it began to move.

it's normal for memories to evolve or meld with other memories over time.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

P133
I was told that this is what doctors call white-matter disease because the scars appear as white in medical images.


From this page on the Cleveland Clinic website, they define white matter disease as 'an umbrella term for changes and damage to your brain's white matter.'

Elizondo seems to be repeating a lot of things from this article...
https://www.vice.com/en/article/sta...alyzing-anomalous-materials-from-ufo-crashes/

Things get more and more distorted, though.

First, the stuff Nolan is saying is very ambiguous. He has a good knowledge base but he's distorting things on two levels.

-Oversimplifying. Which is something common to pop science articles like this.
-Distortion in support of his over valued ideas.

Elizondo is adding another layer of distortion due to his poor analytical skills and Dunning-Kruger Effect overconfidence.

Nolan

If you've ever looked at an MRI of somebody with multiple sclerosis, there's something called white matter disease. It's scarring. It's a big white blob, or multiple white blobs, scattered throughout the MRI. It's essentially dead tissue where the immune system has attacked the brain. That's probably the closest thing that you could come to if you wanted to look at a snapshot from one of these individuals. You can pretty quickly see that there's something wrong.

This is reasonable, but ambiguous. He's talking about periventricular lesions. But very imprecisely.

Spoiler: More detail, according to GPT

Location and Appearance:

Periventricular lesions are areas of damaged white matter located around the brain's ventricles. The term "periventricular" means "around the ventricles."
On MRI scans, these lesions often appear as bright (hyperintense) areas on T2-weighted and FLAIR (Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery) images. This brightness is due to the presence of inflammation, demyelination (loss of myelin, the protective sheath around nerve fibers), and gliosis (scarring).
Pathophysiology:

In MS, the immune system mistakenly attacks the myelin sheath, leading to demyelination and damage to the axons. This process creates lesions or plaques in the CNS white matter.
The periventricular region is particularly susceptible to MS lesions because it is a common area for the perivenular inflammation characteristic of MS. The blood-brain barrier is often compromised near the ventricles, making it easier for immune cells to enter and attack myelin.
Significance in Diagnosis:

The presence of periventricular lesions is one of the key diagnostic criteria for MS, as outlined by the McDonald Criteria. The number, size, and distribution of these lesions help differentiate MS from other neurological conditions.
The Dawson's fingers is a term often used to describe the characteristic shape of periventricular MS lesions, which appear as finger-like projections extending from the ventricles due to their alignment along small veins.
Correlation with Symptoms:

The clinical symptoms associated with periventricular lesions depend on their size and location. These lesions can disrupt normal neuronal signaling and contribute to a range of neurological symptoms, such as cognitive impairment, motor deficits, and sensory disturbances.
Cognitive impairment in MS is often linked to periventricular lesion load, particularly in regions involved in cognition and executive function.
Progression and Monitoring:

MRI imaging is essential for monitoring the progression of MS. The development of new periventricular lesions or the expansion of existing ones can indicate disease activity and may prompt changes in treatment strategies.
Lesion load and distribution are also used to assess the efficacy of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of MS relapses and slowing disease progression.

White matter disease is so-called because it affects white matter. White matter is so-called because in freshly dissected brains it looks yellowish white to the naked eye. Visible light. (Myelin is a fatty substance that surrounds the axons of neurons.)

Magnetic Resonance Imaging is obviously not visible light photography. It uses radio waves to detect differences in water density in tissues.

Spoiler: More detail

A magnetic field aligns the protons (hydrogen nuclei) in the water molecules of the body's tissues. A radiofrequency (RF) pulse is then applied, which temporarily disturbs the alignment of these protons. The RF pulse causes the protons to absorb energy and spin away from their aligned position. Once the RF pulse is turned off, the protons gradually return to their original aligned state, a process known as relaxation. As they relax, they release energy in the form of radio waves.

The value "white" on an MRI image indicates areas of high signal intensity, and its interpretation varies according to the type of MRI sequence used. T1, T2, FLAIR.

Spoiler: More detail, according to GPT

T1-Weighted MRI Images:

White (High Signal Intensity): Indicates tissues with a short T1 relaxation time. This usually represents fat or tissues with high protein content. For example, subcutaneous fat and white matter in the brain appear brighter.
Application: Useful for anatomical detail and detecting certain types of pathology, like hemorrhage or fat-containing lesions.
T2-Weighted MRI Images:

White (High Signal Intensity): Indicates tissues with a long T2 relaxation time. This typically includes fluids like cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and edema. In T2-weighted images, fluid appears bright, so pathological processes involving increased water content, such as tumors, inflammation, or ischemic areas, often appear white.
Application: Useful for detecting edema, inflammation, and other fluid-related abnormalities.
FLAIR (Fluid-Attenuated Inversion Recovery) MRI Images:

White (High Signal Intensity): Similar to T2-weighted images, but with the suppression of fluid signals like CSF. This helps in identifying lesions close to or within fluid-filled spaces, such as periventricular white matter lesions in multiple sclerosis.
Application: Helps to differentiate between normal and pathological conditions by suppressing normal fluid signals.

Why white blobs in the MRI images of brains suffering from white matter disease? The blobs show areas of damage because those areas have a higher water content... which increases the signal strength. The blobs could just as easily be black if the engineers had chosen the value black to indicate increased signal intensity.

Elizondo wrongly associates the white areas on the image with the name white matter disease.

Elizondo

P133
I was told that this is what doctors call white-matter disease because the scars appear as white in medical images.

He wasn't "told." It's evident he just read this Nolan article. Or some other thing written by Nolan. Being "told" (by doctors?) just sounds more impressive, than "I read in an article that..." Then he negligently misinterprets.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

@elvenwear (from your quote)

"Look, I know you saw something. It's okay. What you need to know right now is that we work for a Special Access Program, and it's very likely you came across one of our technologies. We do our best to hide these things, but sometimes people who are observant, such as yourself, see one. We would really appreciate it if you could tell us exactly what you saw, so if it is one of ours, we can hide it better in the future." This strategy worked most of the time.

I have encountered this kind of thing as an official corporate policy before. I'm always struck with the moral disconnect of this as a strategy. Paraphrased, "We need to get people to trust us, so we must lie to them".

So, two quick parts to this.
1) Elizondo says a lot in the book about Jay I'm near confident is fake. With that said, theoretically, you could find those types of questions asked around the military, but context is very off from how it'd present. Generally in cases like this why it'd be asked is to gather data to help assist in things like Signature Reduction, it's much less thought of as "we need people to trust us, so we lie" and more "our people can provide data to help limit signature collection from adversaries". This really only ports if they're working something Deception related so, the claim falls into a funky area there where it really only works if, they were practicing deception, which is a function of its own and totally an issue area with their now public claims.

2) There's an odder side to it I maybe fully agree with you on. There's massive irony in Jay and co apparently always going around in suits "recruiting " people with lies and/or really ambiguous statements about what they are actually doing. Men in Black claims where? It's literally these guys, Jay is him. All they lack is the bald heads and barcodes, otherwise these are literally the guys in those conspiracies, per these sorts of claims by Elizondo.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Frankly, I think the answer is "fashion", though there must be a number of contributing factors to what is fashionable-
-depictions of UFOs in popular culture, what reported (and photographed / filmed) "objects" get press coverage or used as clickbait, or get widely discussed by UFO enthusiasts.

I suspect this applies to genuine reports made in good faith as well as hoaxes or reports by people who have been hoaxed; if so, it might suggest the cultural milieu sometimes influences what is seen.
Flying discs and "cigars" were common on the covers of US pulp SF magazines, late 1920s- 40s, some years before claimed real-world sightings got widespread publicity.

More on the topic of evolving UFO descriptions on this thread, How have descriptions of UAPs changed over the years?,
which (IIRC) contains @Duke's observation that a journalist coined the term "flying saucer" from Kenneth Arnold's description of his non-circular craft moving like saucers skipping over water (or something like that). Duke raised the question whether subsequent sightings might have described different-shaped craft, not saucers, if the journalist's mistaken but catchy phrase hadn't been widely publicised, an intriguing question (and I wish I'd thought of it!)

This is true also. It is sad we lack a formal study to "say" this is the case, but this is highly likely a major factor in dictating exactly "what" can be seen in general.

There absolutely are studies about this in other regards. Some random examples but there is plenty written about indigenous peoples first introduction to other significantly differing skin-tone groupings and believing them to be aliens or gods. There's also quite a lot written about literal cultural-environmental-lingual impact on vision processing. There's a lot of areas in the world, for example large swaths of Africa, where there is no feasible way for a child to see or learn most of the colors we do here in the US or UK etc, amplified by languages perhaps differing to account for variations in their region (the Himba peoples saw a lot of study on this, they have a robust inventory to reference variants of Green but lack a lot for Blue, and are nearly unable to contrast most blue shades from green colors). While they can be "taught" it, before that happens, they have no actual way of discerning some of these colors distinctions, and it can appear the same to them optically.
https://gondwana-collection.com/blo...this is,completely different from one another.

Hard to select a specific part here to screenshot from. It's a fantastic and insanely interesting read though, if it's something of interest I'd definitely skim the whole thing.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Maybe to help hide US tech that's too secret to tell him about.

I like the idea that his bluff becomes a double bluff.

But it can't be ignored that anyone they spoke to would've been good evidence for tech existing that's far beyond what we are told. You've got people out there who saw physics being defied and were told by their superiors that it was existing US tech.

Their story would be 100% true. Until someone decides to throw them under the bus.

When everything is fair in the name of national security, who really knows?

During most of the time of his little "AATIP" continuance, he was the Director / National Programs Special Management Staff. NPSMS handles policy, administration, and oversight for the DoDs Special Access Programs. He was a SOIS at the time.

Basically he was an admin manager pushing paper, he wouldn't have actually been doing anything operational during this period. On the other hand he would've had wide access (not necessarily, entire access) to a wide set of programs that're restricted to access, which we do know he abused to pursue his "AATIP" efforts.

 

[jdog]

In the hope this is not considered off-topic, I did a deep dive into Elizondo's bubble diagram that I think will clear up any confusion or misunderstandings:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z06KEMkebS0

Someone had a burst of enthusiasm.

 

[Ben Harris]

Just an observation but it seems the colourway / style of the book jacket is targeting the politics / history audience. Or maybe that's just the current trend?
View attachment 71154View attachment 71155View attachment 71156

Interesting observation

 

[John J.]

...(the Himba peoples saw a lot of study on this, they have a robust inventory to reference variants of Green but lack a lot for Blue, and are nearly unable to contrast most blue shades from green colors). While they can be "taught" it, before that happens, they have no actual way of discerning some of these colors distinctions, and it can appear the same to them optically.

This is often referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis*, a type of linguistic relativity
(Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity)- the idea that language can directly influence our perception,
e.g. people who use a language that has the same word for yellow and orange can't perceptually distinguish between yellow and orange.

As with describing many qualia (the subjective taste of a strawberry, the scent of a rose) describing a specific shade of colour if the speaker and listener don't have a term for that shade, or shared prior experience of something of that shade, is difficult.
Using the example above, someone might see a yellow frog, tell their friend they've seen a frog using the term for (yellow and orange), the listener might imagine an orange frog.

A strong interpretation of Sapir-Whorf might be that these people only perceive (yellow and/or orange), one colour, not (yellow) and (orange).

To cut a very long story short, it's broadly accepted that while there is linguistic influence on cognition, humans generally have similar abilities to differentiate between different colours with which they're made familiar, and notice colours which they're not familiar with. For example, if you spray-painted the leaves and grasses around a Himba village bright blue, they'd notice.


*Arguably an incorrect title, but still much used and understood in psychology and linguistics

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Someone had a burst of enthusiasm.

Was this AI generated?

 

[Ann K]

e.g. people who use a language that has the same word for yellow and orange can't perceptually distinguish between yellow and orange.

I've heard a hypothesis (sorry, I forget the source) that Homer's description of "wine-dark seas" was evidence that they didn't have the words to distinguish between purple and blue. I felt it was more the parochialism of the speaker who claimed that "water is blue", and thought that he must never have experienced the darkness of deep water.

 

[John J.]

I've heard a hypothesis (sorry, I forget the source) that Homer's description of "wine-dark seas" was evidence that they didn't have the words to distinguish between purple and blue.

Similarly, I've heard somewhere (!) that the Ancient Greeks didn't have a specific term for "blue", but might have used a term similar to "shiny" for polished metallic objects and to describe the (blue) sky and sea. No idea if that's correct.

Gladstone was a Homeric scholar and in his writings, notably Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, expressed that, because there was virtually a lack of color terminology in Homeric Greek literature, Greeks could probably not see color the same way people see color today.

Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate, Wikipedia

This would be a strong interpretation of Sapir-Whorf, and is probably wrong (though I used to believe it).
A counter example is the Italian "blu" and "azzurro", the latter used very frequently in normal language
(much more than the etymologically linked "azure" is in English).

How to say Blue in Italian
For the normal blue color, the Italian word is blu (that wasn't hard, was it?).
However, the Italian language has a word specifically used for the color light blue … azzurro.

The Italian national football team is known as Gli Azzurri from the traditional colour of Italian national teams and athletes representing Italy.

Woodward Italian website, Colors in Italian https://www.woodwarditalian.com/lesson/colors-in-italian/

However, English speakers who might have no knowledge of "azure" can learn to distinguish between "blu" and "azzurro" when learning Italian.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

This is often referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis*, a type of linguistic relativity
(Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity)- the idea that language can directly influence our perception,
e.g. people who use a language that has the same word for yellow and orange can't perceptually distinguish between yellow and orange.

As with describing many qualia (the subjective taste of a strawberry, the scent of a rose) describing a specific shade of colour if the speaker and listener don't have a term for that shade, or shared prior experience of something of that shade, is difficult.
Using the example above, someone might see a yellow frog, tell their friend they've seen a frog using the term for (yellow and orange), the listener might imagine an orange frog.

A strong interpretation of Sapir-Whorf might be that these people only perceive (yellow and/or orange), one colour, not (yellow) and (orange).

To cut a very long story short, it's broadly accepted that while there is linguistic influence on cognition, humans generally have similar abilities to differentiate between different colours with which they're made familiar, and notice colours which they're not familiar with. For example, if you spray-painted the leaves and grasses around a Himba village bright blue, they'd notice.


*Arguably an incorrect title, but still much used and understood in psychology and linguistics

Should've structured that a bit better, the part about Himbas and the discern part were separate. You're totally correct here in this specific context, in that, they can optically and cognitively process the difference, but their lingual inventory does not account for it, so if you were to speak to those something would have to find or be taught to bridge that medium. I said "contrast" there within the ()'s to define that in a discourse sense over cognitive inability to process (eg compare vs contrast - not color contrast).
The difficulty in these cases is more with the teaching itself or finding a medium, as, how our unconscious work is inevitably developed by our experiences and environment as a child. Certain frames of thinking for example may not be able to be "taught" because it's so unnatural to their cognition that it won't be able to adjust to it, so you/me/us would also have to work within an adjusted process to find that medium.

Porting it to relevancy here. A certain shape could be given a name in another language that is co-representative of something we'd define with a different word, and connotation of the term may differ.
For this example let's say "Tic Tacs" and "Cigars" alongside the connotation of UAP/UFOs. Let's say X language calls Tic Tacs "A" and Cigars "B" singularly, but when referenced within the construct of UAP/UFOs, these shapes are cumulatively references as "C" in distinction from their literal uses.
If we were to show up *asking* about Tic Tac and Cigar UFOs using translated terms even, without proper connotation applied, there is a very good chance they wonder what you are talking about, until you start to get more descriptive. These people would be able to optically and cognitively process the difference between the two shapes. Although, in reverse, lets say, their society does not really speak about this very much, and no cultural meme has been created to give this connotation to "A" and "B", so no "C" form exists with that connotation. In this case, rather than finding an existing medium, while they can still recognize the shape distinctions, you would have to teach them the connotation that does not exist within their society.

 

[elvenwear]

P144

The SR-71 Blackbird can just about hit Mach 5 at high altitudes.

According to Lockhead's own website here, they state:-

Breaking records nearly every time it flew, the Blackbird achieved a sustained speed above Mach 3 on July 20, 1963, at an astounding altitude of 78,000 feet.

They don't quote the maximum speed on their website, and I imagine it may be classified, but there are no indications anywhere online it could fly above Mach 3.5, sustained or otherwise.

 

[elvenwear]

P145

For example, most aircraft leave visible contrails in the sky as they fly and the heat from their exhaust turns water vapor into a thin stream of cloud.

I'm going to give him points here for calling them contrails. It's the only restraint I've seen so far.

 

[Mendel]

None of this comes anywhere close to "beyond known physics".

That would depend on how much physics you know.

 

[elvenwear]

Similarly, I've heard somewhere (!) that the Ancient Greeks didn't have a specific term for "blue", but might have used a term similar to "shiny" for polished metallic objects and to describe the (blue) sky and sea. No idea if that's correct.

Could that have been the TV show QI? They have mentioned it on that show.

I have another quote from Elizondo which is problematic.

After some sightings, researchers had recovered a fine metallic fiber on the ground. They called it "angel hair." I have handled some of this material. It's a little like steel wool. The working theory is that the exteriors of these aircraft are ablative in nature; that is to say, they are capable of self sacrificing. When the skin of the craft interacts with the propulsion unit, the craft ablates, or peels off, some of its outer surface, resulting in these fibers.

When I hear the term 'ablative' in the context of aerospace, I think of an outer layer which is ablated by heat. I don't understand how the exterior fibers are sacrificed when the skin of the craft interacts with the propulsion unit, which is presumably interior to the exterior of the craft. That would imply the propulsion unit is bouncing around inside the shell. If this is the case, I can't see how shedding outer material would help.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

After some sightings, researchers had recovered a fine metallic fiber on the ground. They called it "angel hair." I have handled some of this material. It's a little like steel wool. The working theory is that the exteriors of these aircraft are ablative in nature; that is to say, they are capable of self sacrificing. When the skin of the craft interacts with the propulsion unit, the craft ablates, or peels off, some of its outer surface, resulting in these fibers.

He hasn't got his UFO-lore right. Angel hair is ethereal stuff that was associated with flying saucers. Goes back to the 50's. It's spiderweb. The flying saucer reports were caused by clumps of spiderweb from ballooning baby spiders. When the clumps fell to Earth they were called angel hair and were thought to fall away from the flying saucers. But the flying saucers were the clumps of spiderweb in the first place.

I remember seeing an episode of One Step Beyond as a kid. The narrator solemnly talked about angel hair. It made an impression on me as it was suitably spooky and wonderous.

He means angel grass... which is much smaller and metallic. It's modern chaff. Dropped by military aircraft.

Wikipedia

... aluminium-coated glass fibres. These fibre "dipoles" are designed to remain airborne for as long as possible, having a typical diameter of 1 mil, or 0.025 mm, and a typical length of 0.3 inches (7.6 mm) to over 2 inches (51 mm). Newer "superfine" chaff has a typical diameter of 0.7 mils (0.018 mm).

 

[elvenwear]

Another one, P163

The UAP they'd been seeing recently had the ability to fly for more than twelve hours at a time without needing to refuel, recharge, or be recalled.

I'm trying to think how he could know this. I he had a team flying around these things for 12 hours in shifts, he could say he knew. That would mean multiple encounters with multiple airplanes. He doesn't seem to be claiming this.

If he didn't have continuous contact for 12 hours, then we are talking about radar contact only. In this case, how would he know it's now being refuelled?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

God God, here it is... I must have seen this as a rerun because this was first broadcast when I was 4. I must have seen it around 1966.


I misremembered one thing. It was a character in the story that talked about it.

 

[Mendel]

I've heard a hypothesis (sorry, I forget the source) that Homer's description of "wine-dark seas" was evidence that they didn't have the words to distinguish between purple and blue. I felt it was more the parochialism of the speaker who claimed that "water is blue", and thought that he must never have experienced the darkness of deep water.

Passau, from left to right Inn, Donau (Danube), Ilz

(via https://tourism.passau.de/discover-passau/sights/dreifluesseeck-where-three-rivers-meet/ )

Greek colors:

Article:

Source: https://www.slowboring.com/p/greeks-blue

 

[Mendel]

Another one, P163

I'm trying to think how he could know this. I he had a team flying around these things for 12 hours in shifts, he could say he knew. That would mean multiple encounters with multiple airplanes. He doesn't seem to be claiming this.

If he didn't have continuous contact for 12 hours, then we are talking about radar contact only. In this case, how would he know it's now being refuelled?

Especially if it's true they're using H2O as fuel.

Migratory birds do travel that long without refueling.

 

[FatPhil]

P145
"... the heat from their exhaust turns water vapor into a thin stream of cloud. "
I'm going to give him points here for calling them contrails. It's the only restraint I've seen so far.

What would the water vapour do without the heat from their exhaust? And what water vapour is he talking about - it preexists in the atmosphere before the plane passes through?
I'd rather say the cold of the atmosphere turns the water vapour from their exhaust into a thin stream of cloud, heat from the craft be damned (or at least disippated quickly under expansion at the low pressures).

You're being generous, I'm calling that another example of naive misunderstanding of barely highschool physics.

 

[FatPhil]

I have another quote from Elizondo which is problematic.

When I hear the term 'ablative' in the context of aerospace, I think of an outer layer which is ablated by heat. I don't understand how the exterior fibers are sacrificed when the skin of the craft interacts with the propulsion unit, which is presumably interior to the exterior of the craft. That would imply the propulsion unit is bouncing around inside the shell. If this is the case, I can't see how shedding outer material would help.

Charitably, could it be the fringes of the exhaust nozzle that ablate, that nozzle is arguably part of the "exterior"? It's somewhat worrying, but not much more than any other part ablating.
However, I'm more worried why they only have a working theory - do they not test these things before letting them fly? (Insert gratuitous joke about Boeing here.)

 

[elvenwear]

Charitably, could it be the fringes of the exhaust nozzle that ablate, that nozzle is arguably part of the "exterior"? It's somewhat worrying, but not much more than any other part ablating.
However, I'm more worried why they only have a working theory - do they not test these things before letting them fly? (Insert gratuitous joke about Boeing here.)

Aliens briefly outsourced some of their aircraft manufacture to Boeing in the early mid 1940s in a secret base in New Mexico. The relationship was to be short lived.

I've realised my page numbers don't match Mick's. Not sure why. I've added 'of 312 pages' to help anyone who wants to match them
Page 167 of 312 pages

But where the 2004 Tic Tac was more than 40 feet long, this object—in the video that would later become famously known as GoFast—was no more than about 18 feet long, tops.

Mick's analysis on youTube estimates the object is 6-7 feet.

 

[elvenwear]

P179/312

The bubble distorts light and other electrooptical waves trying to penetrate its perimeter, enhancing distortion and creating a gravitational lensing effect.

If there were gravitational lensing, we would see Einstein rings around the craft.

 

[elvenwear]

P181/312

When the propulsion system of a UAP is operational, it would behave like a giant radioactive power plant. It would be blueshifting visible light into dangerous territory for living tissue. Witnesses would be bombarded with UV rays, soft X-rays, and possibly gamma rays.

This is inconsistent with his assertion that it is hard to get a lock on these things.

 

[FatPhil]

P181/312

"When the propulsion system of a UAP is operational, it would behave like a giant radioactive power plant. It would be blueshifting visible light into dangerous territory for living tissue. Witnesses would be bombarded with UV rays, soft X-rays, and possibly gamma rays."

This is inconsistent with his assertion that it is hard to get a lock on these things.

Can someone explain that to me like I'm five^H^H^H^H^H^H have a STEM degree from one of the world's top universities?

Generally, outside the not-falsifiable-science of his expansion/contraction-of-spacetime bubbles, blue-shifting isn't an *action*, it's a (difference in) perception or measurement caused by being in different reference frames, yet he's describing an intrinsic change to the photons (it wouldn't have been "visible light" beforehand, otherwise).

However, if we're talking about his Hubble-bubbles (see what I did there ;-) ) then blueshifting's still irrelevant to the outside observer. Notice how the grid outside his bubble is rectilinear fore and aft. Any photon with wavelenth one square on its way in would have a wavelength of one square on its way out, because every contraction of the grid into the bubble will be matched by an expansion of the grid on the way out. Again, analogies are limited, but it's like shining a laser beam into a fishtank - if it goes in at 45 degrees to the glass, it will come out at 45 degrees, even if it's travelling at a different angle whilst in the denser medium.

 

[Ann K]

However, English speakers who might have no knowledge of "azure" can learn to distinguish between "blu" and "azzurro" when learning Italian.

My knowledge of Italian is limited to one semester in college a-many years ago. We read Pinocchio in the original, but that's it. However I don't think we need to go that far for a color analogy. While an artist will choose between alizarin, vermilion, perylene maroon, or any of another dozen (or fifty) shades, most English-speaking laymen will just call it red.

 

[JMartJr]

Migratory birds do travel that long without refueling.

As do some airliners:

Source: https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/the-worlds-top-10-longest-non-stop-flights

 

[Mendel]

As do some airliners

and what I'd really like to know is how long an Air Force/Navy tanker can stay aloft and in range of the same radar station.

 

[Mendel]

On page 120 we have this excerpt where he claims to have perfected a way of getting reluctant service members to give out information about UAP events over the phone (Emphasis mine).

Jay excelled at getting his fellow Navy members to talk. Often when talking to a new source we would say, "Look, I know you saw something. It's okay. What you need to know right now is that we work for a Special Access Program, and it's very likely you came across one of our technologies. We do our best to hide these things, but sometimes people who are observant, such as yourself, see one. We would really appreciate it if you could tell us exactly what you saw, so if it is one of ours, we can hide it better in the future." This strategy worked most of the time. It gave witnesses a way out."

I still can't get over how bad this is.
They're leading the witness by suggesting what the witness may have seen (i.e. an airborne craft). That heavily impairs the value of the testimony.

Trained interogators they're not, despite their intelligence credentials. (This is one thing AARO got right.)

 

[MapperGuy]

Jay excelled at getting his fellow Navy members to talk. Often when talking to a new source we would say, "Look, I know you saw something. It's okay. What you need to know right now is that we work for a Special Access Program, and it's very likely you came across one of our technologies. We do our best to hide these things, but sometimes people who are observant, such as yourself, see one. We would really appreciate it if you could tell us exactly what you saw, so if it is one of ours, we can hide it better in the future." This strategy worked most of the time. It gave witnesses a way out."

I still can't get over how bad this is.
They're leading the witness by suggesting what the witness may have seen (i.e. an airborne craft). That heavily impairs the value of the testimony.

Trained interogators they're not, despite their intelligence credentials. (This is one thing AARO got right.)

They are trying to gain access to information they are not entitled, by law, to access.
This would seem to be dangerously close to espionage.

Certainly they should be forever barred from having any government security clearances, because they do not understand the fundamentals.
One of which is "Do NOT try to gain access to information you know you are not entitled".

 

[Mendel]

They are trying to gain access to information they are not entitled, by law, to access.

I don't know what you're referring to here! could you please elaborate?
(Unless it's been explained and I missed it, in which case I'll apologize and take a link.)

 

[Duke]

and what I'd really like to know is how long an Air Force/Navy tanker can stay aloft and in range of the same radar station.

Lots of variables in such a question, including type of tanker, mission, and fuel load. The most common USAF tanker is the KC-135. Everything else being equal, clearly they will have much greater endurance (total time in air) in a ferry mission (point A to point B) than they would offloading fuel to receiver a/c along that same route. Even the performance of the receiver a/c can affect the tanker's endurance. For example, consider a type that has a limited/lower ceiling, say A-10s or CV-22s, or a battle damaged aircraft. That requires the tanker to drop into the lower, more dense air, resulting in more drag, to refuel the receivers.

In a no shit nuclear confrontation, the tankers are considered expendable and secondary to the strike aircraft. They will pump every last pound of fuel they can to the bombers if necessary. The crew (usually of three) then has to either bail out (can be and has been done from the KC-135) or fly it down to a deadstick (no propulsion) landing.

 

[elvenwear]

Certainly they should be forever barred from having any government security clearances, because they do not understand the fundamentals.
One of which is "Do NOT try to gain access to information you know you are not entitled".

I'm sure Elizondo is currently as welcome in a SCIF as Steven Seagal.

 

[MapperGuy]

I don't know what you're referring to here! could you please elaborate?
(Unless it's been explained and I missed it, in which case I'll apologize and take a link.)

Their description of the interaction with others:

Jay excelled at getting his fellow Navy members to talk. Often when talking to a new source we would say, "Look, I know you saw something. It's okay. What you need to know right now is that we work for a Special Access Program, and it's very likely you came across one of our technologies. We do our best to hide these things, but sometimes people who are observant, such as yourself, see one. We would really appreciate it if you could tell us exactly what you saw, so if it is one of ours, we can hide it better in the future." This strategy worked most of the time. It gave witnesses a way out."

Point One First they admitted they worked on a SAP program that involves things that fly in the air. Which in itself might be a crime, revealing even the smallest bit of information might fill in a gap in a foreign intelligence services picture of a program.
Point the Second, by mentioning SAP instead of just "classified" program they implied that it would be okay for this other guy to pass along classified information to them because they have super secret clearances.
Point the Third, they should have gone through the other guys chain of command, to prove their bona fides to him before asking for information especially if it might be classified.

Did they record (even on paper) their intention to query this guy, and then submit/file a report of what happened?
Did they warn the guy not to pass along classified data (Point One suggests they wanted him to feel it would be okay for him to do so.)
The guy they talked too exposed himself to potential danger, they might later make statements about what he said, that could cause him to get into trouble for passing along classified data. Especially if they paraphrased what he said or embellished it. Never talk to these guys without witnesses present, or a recording device.

If they asked me I would have told them to go through channels. They obviously did NOT want to go through channels. The whole scenario they describe is a way to avoid going through channels.

They are not taking security seriously. They WANT TO KNOW something so they are entitled to know it.

 

[Mendel]

Thank you for these explanations!

If they asked me I would have told them to go through channels. They obviously did NOT want to go through channels. The whole scenario they describe is a way to avoid going through channels.

Could someone who's read the book please confirm: [edit: see post #167 below]
• Jay Stratton and Louis Elizondo run an unofficial UFO project out of Elizondo's office, that's AATIP. (Did Stratton outrank Elizondo?)
• They find and access Navy UAP reports. (Were these classified?)
• They contact the service members who filed the reports, bypassing the chain of command.
• They misrepresented the nature of their project to these people.
• That would've had the side benefit of avoiding unwelcome inquiries about AATIP.
• They solicited information from the contactees without regard to whether that information was classified.
• They led the witnesses by claiming that the witnesses saw a craft.
• I am assuming they did not get signed statements summarizing the phone interviews?

We know that Stratton went on to head UAPTF, and according to David Grusch, tasked Grusch to find secretly financed SAPs, which must have exceeded Grusch's clearances, and resulted in Grusch allegedly having his access curtailed.

I can't shake the impression that if Jay Stratton was an agent of a foreign power, he would've done the same things: they'd find out how well foreign deception efforts were working, and hunting for secret SAPs would help foreign espionage. (And the recent push for "disclosure" aims to make secret files public, too, and undermines public trust in the DoD.) There's no reason to assume Stratton is anything but a honorable American, but the thought "what if he wasn't" shows how much information he accessed that he shouldn't have been accessing.

AARO later got some of these powers by law, i.e. "UAP whistleblowers" are allowed to speak to AARO directly, outside the chain of command. These interviews are conducted by experienced interrogators, and are considered incomplete without a signed memorandum of record. AARO also has access to relevant SAPs, but apparently they have to go through proper channels for it. And they don't misrepresent what they do.

I'm not surprised that none of Elizondo's friends are working for AARO.

 

[Mendel]

In May 2022, one requirement of the new law went on full display. Congress held a historic public hearing on UAP. The hearing lasted ninety minutes. The very fact that it happened was monumental, and it made it clear to many civilians and elected leaders that they needed to press the UAP issue going forward, and that DoD was covering up the topic. Unlike the 180-day report, which covered 143 unresolved cases, the DoD witnesses revealed that they now had more than 400 logged in the last year. The hearing confirmed UAP are indeed real and not a glitch of technological systems or a weather anomaly. It confirmed UAP are not our technology and are a potential threat to air safety and our national security. And when asked about any research into other UAP programs, the head of the Pentagon's intelligence efforts, Ronald Moultrue, said, "Other than AATIP and Blue Book, no." This was a silent victory for me. At least now the Pentagon acknowledged the existence of my old program, AATIP, and its efforts focusing on UAP. All this under oath.

Elizondo, Luis. Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs: the Former Head of the Program Responsible for Investigating UAPs Reveals Profound Secrets (p. 236). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Here, he misspells Ron Moultrie's name. And the quote isn't actually a quote.

https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114761/documents/HHRG-117-IG05-Transcript-20220517.pdf

Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for allowing me to join this hearing. I really appreciate the witness's testimony. Mr. Moultrie, as the chairman mentioned, DOD had initiative to study UFOs in the 1960s called Project Blue Book. It has also been well reported in our briefing and in other places that we have more recent projects, specifically AATIP. Could you describe any other initiatives that the DOD or DOD contractors have managed after Project BlueBook ended and prior to AATIP beginning? Did anything also predate Project Blue Book?

Mr. Moultrie. So I can't speak to what may have predated Project Blue Book. I mean, of course, there is Roswell and all these other things that people have talked about over the years. I am familiar with Blue Book. I am familiar with AATIP. I haven't seen other documented studies done by the DOD in that regard.

Mr. Gallagher. So you are not aware of anything between Project Blue Book and AATIP.

Mr. Moultrie. Not aware of anything that is official that was done between between those two.

Mr. Gallagher. Okay.

Mr. Moultrie. Hasn't been brought to my attention.

What's the time frame here? Who was heading UAPTF at the time? Would Jay Stratton have briefed Moultrie in advance of the hearing, or was he out of office by then? If Stratton briefed Moultrie, I can well understand this as a victory for Elizondo: they got Moultrie to publicly state the misinformation that originated with Elizondo and Stratton themselves, so that Elizondo can now use it to bolster the legitimacy of his unofficial former project.