Explained: The Navy's New "UFO" Reporting Guidelines

[Mick West]

"There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years. For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the USAF take these reports very seriously and investigate each and every report.
As part of this effort, the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft. In response to requests for information from Congressional members and staff, Navy officials have provided a series of briefings by senior Naval Intelligence officials as well as aviators who reported hazards to aviation safety."

Joseph Gradisher, spokesperson for Deputy Chief of
Naval Operations for Information Warfare.

V/r,

LT Andriana Genualdi USN
News Desk Officer

The above statement was obtained by Bryan Bender of Politico, who wrote an article about it. Bender also quoted two members of Tom DeLonge's "To The Stars Academy" (TTSA) whose job it is to promote the idea that UFOs are alien spaceships. Neither really did that in the article (Elizondo referring only to "extremely advanced Russian aircraft"), but they have both suggested as much before. And of course, it only takes a whiff of "official" talk about UFOs for people to get excited.

So there's a rush of media stories about this. The problem is they all seem to be conflating two things:

A) The statement from the Navy
B) The spin from TTSA

And then presenting B (the spin) as if it's something official. It's not. All we have that is official is a very reasonable statement about

1) Planned (but undescribed) new guidelines for reporting unauthorized and/or unidentified airspace incursions.
2) Some briefings on the dangers of these incursions by the Navy to some congressmen and/or their staff.


Note the first thing there: "unauthorized airspace incursions." That basically means a plane flies into a region that it should not be in. The Navy Document OPNAVINST 3770.2L calls it a "spill-in"

101. Spill-in. An incursion of an IFR or VFR aircraft, including remotely operated aircraft, into SAA [Special Activity Airspaceincurs] allocated to military using agencies without coordination or prior approval.

Guidelines for handling incursions are not new. I'm not sure what is current, but here are some rules of Engagement from the 1990s:
https://www.afjag.af.mil/Portals/77/documents/AFD-081204-035.pdf . (page 61)

A. Rules of Engagement in the Tactical Area of Responsibility on 14 April 1994

Rules of Engagement guidance for the TAOR were as follows:

a. Any unidentified airborne object in or approaching airspace within a U.S. air defense area of responsibility will be identified by any means available, including visual recognition, flight plan correlation, electronic interrogation, and track analysis.

b. When feasible, airborne objects in or approaching the airspace within a U.S. area of responsibility that have not been satisfactorily identified by communications, electronics, or any other means will be intercepted for visual identification purposes.

Note in this new press release they say: "the Navy and the USAF take these reports very seriously and investigate each and every report." So clearly the reports they talk about are not considered "career enders" (as some have suggested). These are reports that are already being made, and are being taken seriously, and investigated. All that seems to be happening now is an improvement to the way in which such incursions can be reported.

So until the Navy actually makes some statement about these new regulations, I'd suggestion caution in interpreting them as anything other than what they say they are.

 

[Gerard]

The above statement

How did you get the actual text of the statement by Gradisher ? I haven't seen it quoted verbatim in any of the articles.

 

[Gerard]

The article from the Washington Post (also available for some reason here: https://www.philly.com/news/nation-...s-ufos-navy-document-encounters-20190424.html) says the following.

"Since 2014, these intrusions have been happening on a regular basis," Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, told the Washington Post on Wednesday. Recently, unidentified aircraft entered military-designated airspace as often as multiple times per month. "We want to get to the bottom of this. We need to determine who's doing it, where it's coming from, and what their intent is. We need to try to find ways to prevent it from happening again."

So this is basically saying that unidentified aircraft are entering military controlled airspace multiple times per month and the military doesn't know who's doing it or where it's coming from.

Given that the US military is supposed to be the most capable on earth, that it has spent trillions to have the most advanced weapons systems, it seems rather astonishing that such intrusions could be occurring with the military unable to identify the intruders.

 

[deirdre]

How did you get the actual text of the statement by Gradisher ? I haven't seen it quoted verbatim in any of the articles.

its quoted in the link Mick provided (yes, i dont like hyperlinks either)
The hyper link below the quote leads to
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/23/us-navy-guidelines-reporting-ufos-1375290

The Hill also has it quoted verbatim

"There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years," Joseph Gradisher, spokesperson for Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, told The Hill in a statement on Wednesday. "For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report."

"As part of this effort," it continued, "the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft."

Politico, which first reported on the new protocol, noted that the protocol is not an indication that the Navy believes its officers are seeing evidence of alien life but rather that there have been unusual sightings in the air that should be investigated.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/navy/440345-navy-updating-protocol-for-reporting-ufos

 

[Mick West]

How did you get the actual text of the statement by Gradisher ? I haven't seen it quoted verbatim in any of the articles.

It was posted in a UFO discussion group, presumably via email from Genualdi.

So this is basically saying that unidentified aircraft are entering military controlled airspace multiple times per month and the military doesn't know who's doing it or where it's coming from.

Given that the US military is supposed to be the most capable on earth, that it has spent trillions to have the most advanced weapons systems, it seems rather astonishing that such intrusions could be occurring with the military unable to identify the intruders.

Depends on the nature of the intrusion. Visual sightings of drones near airbases runways can be hard to track if they land quickly. Radar blips of foreign fighter jets testing airspace can also be difficult to pin down, as you've got to fly out there to look at them.

 

[Gerard]

The Hill also has it quoted verbatim

I'm not saying the articles don't contain the same words, but they also contain extra text. Maybe verbatim wasn't the right word to have used but it appeared to me that Mick had a different source for the quote, as he has now confirmed.

 

[Gerard]

Radar blips of foreign fighter jets testing airspace can also be difficult to pin down, as you've got to fly out there to look at them.

Which the navy should be able to do. Isn't that what combat air patrols are for ?

 

[Alexandria Nick]

it seems rather astonishing that such intrusions could be occurring with the military unable to identify the intruders.

Part of this is because the United States military has put all those fancy sensor arrays and weapons systems somewhere that is not inside the Continental United States or pointed them in a direction that is not....say....Wichita or Nashville. Generally, they don't look inward or very far from a base. That's one of the reasons there were NATO AWACS deployed to the US after 9/11.

 

[Mick West]

Which the navy should be able to do. Isn't that what combat air patrols are for ?

If the incursion is a fast jet 100km away that flies away, then how are they supposed to identify it? All they are going to see is the IR signature of its engines flaring in the ATFLIR display.

 

[Gerard]

If the incursion is a fast jet 100km away that flies away, then how are they supposed to identify it? All they are going to see is the IR signature of its engines flaring in the ATFLIR display.

Still dealing with that kind of incursion has been a core part of the navy's mission since the Cold War. Something must be different about this. They've never complained about not being able to identify and prevent foreign incursions into their airspace before.

 

[Mick West]

They've never complained about not being able to identify and prevent foreign incursions into their airspace before.

I'm not sure what is current, but here's Rules of Engagement from the 1990s:
https://www.afjag.af.mil/Portals/77/documents/AFD-081204-035.pdf . (page 61)

A. Rules of Engagement in the Tactical Area of Responsibility on 14 April 1994

Rules of Engagement guidance for the TAOR were as follows:

a. Any unidentified airborne object in or approaching airspace within a U.S. air defense area of responsibility will be identified by any means available, including visual recognition, flight plan correlation, electronic interrogation, and track analysis.

b. When feasible, airborne objects in or approaching the airspace within a U.S. area of responsibility that have not been satisfactorily identified by communications, electronics, or any other means will be intercepted for visual identification purposes.

and visual identification is not always feasible (like when it's dark, or low visibility, or the object is flying away)

 

[Robert Sheaffer]

Tom DeLonge is claiming credit for his TTSA in making this supposed new policy happen, and given all the lobbying by Chris Mellon and others, he may be right. But as Mick said above, this really does not mean what people are claiming it means.

https://www.facebook.com/officialto...059613916386/2346573585364967/?type=3&theater

 

[Gerard]

But as Mick said above, this really does not mean what people are claiming it means.

What Mick actually said was

So until the Navy actually makes some statement about these new regulations, I'd suggestion caution in interpreting them as anything other than what they say they are.

I agree with Mick's statement, but I don't agree with yours.

It seems to me that there are two possibilities here and we don't currently have enough information to claim with a high degree of certainty which is true.

The first possibility is that the new Navy policy is nothing more than a response to some conventional threat such as foreign aircraft or drones and that UAP proponents have somehow colored the narrative to the point where every single news article about this is calling it a "UFO" policy.

The second possibility is that the unidentified intrusions the Navy has described have to do with things that have been claimed to be observed accelerating at 1000's of g's with no visible means of propulsion, such as those described in the Nimitz incident and that the association made by the media with anomalous sightings is in fact justified.

 

[itsthematrix]

I came here wondering if there would be a thread on this because this story is starting to blow up on other forums I visit, it's more than the usual talk. The response people have is what you would think the response would be, I.e.hinging the word alien onto the abbreviation UFO.

The second possibility is that the unidentified intrusions the Navy has described have to do with things that have been claimed to be observed accelerating at 1000's of g's with no visible means of propulsion, such as those described in the Nimitz incident and that the association made by the media with anomalous sightings is in fact justified.

That's the part that interests me the most. To me sightings are just sightings. I would think a pilot for example would see many things in the sky that they cannot explain for whatever reason and I personally think they would not report it because it could be anything, but some of these stories are the things you listed, impossible speeds, sometimes entire groups of them, "tracking them for weeks" is from one article I read. What I don't get is that a lot of the articles on this story are implying that these occurrences are now occurring on a regular basis.

 

[deirdre]

It seems to me that there are two possibilities here and we don't currently have enough information to claim with a high degree of certainty which is true.

or a third possibility, which is what suspicious me first thought, that the military wants better documentation on personnel who may be having 'stress' issues.

 

[Mick West]

It seems to me that there are two possibilities here and we don't currently have enough information to claim with a high degree of certainty which is true.

The first possibility is that the new Navy policy is nothing more than a response to some conventional threat such as foreign aircraft or drones and that UAP proponents have somehow colored the narrative to the point where every single news article about this is calling it a "UFO" policy.

The second possibility is that the unidentified intrusions the Navy has described have to do with things that have been claimed to be observed accelerating at 1000's of g's with no visible means of propulsion, such as those described in the Nimitz incident and that the association made by the media with anomalous sightings is in fact justified.

There's never just two possibilities.

It's also possible that the military is just making some minor administrative change because of requests from UFO fans in congress.

It's also possible that it's a response to sighting where they don't actually know what is being sighted. Perhaps they want to improve the process for weeding out false-positives.

I think we should continue to go by what the Navy says, and treat the spin from TTSA with care. Since this has got a lot of media attention, I'd hope there will be more from the military at some point.

 

[Mick West]

The first possibility is that the new Navy policy is nothing more than a response to some conventional threat such as foreign aircraft or drones and that UAP proponents have somehow colored the narrative to the point where every single news article about this is calling it a "UFO" policy.

I think it's important to note that every single news article is basically a paraphrasing of Bryan Bender's article, which he titled: "U.S. Navy drafting new guidelines for reporting UFOs".

When in fact, as he himself notes in the first paragraph, the guidelines are for reporting "unidentified aircraft."

If this paraphrasing is not enough he says:

The previously unreported move is in response to a series of sightings of unknown, highly advanced aircraft intruding on Navy strike groups and other sensitive military formations and facilities, the service says.

but the statement says only:

a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space

So he's doing one of several things, one of:

• Paraphrasing some additional information from the Military
• Repeating TTSA spin
• Making an assumption

 

[Tim Printy]

I have to wonder if they are going to accept reports from some E-3 standing topside watch, who reports strange lights or a bright object moving across the sky, etc..... or will it be "officers only"? Who will investigate these reports? Will it be handled by the chain of command (which seems to be the current methodology) or will they form a staff of officers designated for handling such reports. The Navy has to be careful about what they want to identify as "unidentified aircraft". Right now, the media is making it appear that this means UFOs and this is the way junior navy personnel might interpret it.
Just as an aside, when I was an E-7 on board a submarine, I made my usual 3-4AM tour topside (I was the engineering chief but part of the rules at the time was to make sure all watchstanders on the ship were awake every two hours - the duty chief checked them at 1-2 AM) to check up on people. I ran into an excited E-5, who was the topside watch. He informed me that he had seen a missile launched from across the river towards the Naval base. After asking him a few questions, I figured he must have seen a bright fireball (having been an amateur astronomer since I was 12). There was no explosion on the base or anywhere near the base, the submarine next to ours did not appear to have gone on alert, and all was quiet. I eventually reported this to the OOD at 6AM and he agreed that there seemed to be no reason to get excited about it. The next day the media reported a bright fireball was seen over New England at the time the "missile attack" supposedly happened. I showed this to the E-5, who seemed to still think it was a missile attack.

 

[Gerard]

Tim,

Since you appear to have a Navy background, do you have any idea of what the procedure is for issuing a "message to the fleet". Would this correspond to some type of formal issuance, such as an OPNAV, that may be referenced on Navy websites ?

 

[Tim Printy]

It depends on the message. Usually, a message had a list of commands that it was sent to. I recall seeing messages that were basically "all hands" that went throughout the fleet. For instance, the Navy issued a navy wide "safety standdown" in the fall of 1989. That message was sent fleetwide with a general direction of no work/evolutions being conducted while safety training was executed for so many days (I believe it was 2-5 but I don't recall exactly). However, subordinate commands gave additional direction on what they specifically wanted to be accomplished during this period (i.e. focus your training on electrical safety, tagout procedures, etc). Eventually, this evolved into ships performing an annual safety stand down, which probably was directed by an OPNAVINST of some kind. The bottom line is that for an immediate response by commands, a message was sent directing the type of action required. After that, an OPNAV (or some other type of instruction) would be created/modified to include that action. I retired almost twenty years ago so it is hard for me to recall exact details but I believe this was the general sequence of events.

 

[deirdre]

that may be referenced on Navy websites ?

i was listening to the latest vid on the "black vault" you tube channel.. way at the end of the piece he said he asked the navy for the statement and they sent him an "updated statement" [36 min mark] (same message but the first line with the "draft" language was removed.) He then asked if he could see the message, and he says she responded [39:40 min mark]
"we are unable to share the message with you. Due to the operational and aircraft specific nature of these guidelines security considerations preclude their disclosure"

Source: https://youtu.be/2Jo-24jtUqI?t=2372




add edit: the rest of the video he just goes back 60 years to see if "unidentified aircraft" is just semantics for "UFO"..super boring and doesn't answer the question at all, if you want to save yourself 40 mins of your life. Basically "could be" or "could not be" is the answer.

 

[Gerard]

we are unable to share the message with you"

Yes, but Greenewald has also opined that this may not be the last word on the question. He says that public affairs/media representatives are often less likely to share information that can be obtained from other sources. I hope we don't have to wait a year for a FOIA request to go through but that may well be the case.

 

[Mick West]

I emailed Genualdi asking for some clarifications, but have not heard anything back.

 

[deirdre]

Yes, but Greenewald has also opined that this may not be the last word on the question. He says that public affairs/media representatives are often less likely to share information that can be obtained from other sources.

I dont recall him saying anything like that in the video.

 

[Gerard]

I dont recall him saying anything like that in the video.

in my experience, public affairs offices (or military equivalents) have different answers when FOIA is not invoked. I am not out of options yet...

From this reddit comment:
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/bit6rm/navy_ufo_reporting_guidelines_sent_to_the_fleet/em2xel3/

 

[Gerard]

In trying to find out exactly what the Navy has said or been quoted as saying about the new reporting guidelines I missed something significant in the original Politico article:

The previously unreported move is in response to a series of sightings of unknown, highly advanced aircraft intruding on Navy strike groups and other sensitive military formations and facilities, the service says.

Reference: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/23/us-navy-guidelines-reporting-ufos-1375290

I missed the "service says" at the end of this paragraph implying that this information did come from the DoD and not from the reporter's own inferences.

That the guidelines are a response to "highly advanced aircraft" would seem to imply that the discussed intrusions are not believed to be ordinary military aircraft or drones but have at least some unusual characteristics.

 

[deirdre]

I missed the "service says" at the end of this paragraph implying that this information did come from the DoD and not from the reporter's own inferences.

if it was a quote, it would be in quotes.

 

[Mick West]

I missed the "service says" at the end of this paragraph implying that this information did come from the DoD and not from the reporter's own inferences.

It comes from his own inference. Here's my exchange with him on Twitter.

Then via email:

Bryan Bender
Fri, Apr 26, 6:21 PM (6 days ago)

to me

It is clear from multiple Navy and other military officials that the unidentified aircraft that have been reported are not slow and lumbering and they have been operating dangerously close to our forces, facilities and protected airspace without permission. This advanced and thus intruding.

I think my description of what military officials are reporting is accurate.

Bryan

He followed up with some other information that was off the record, I replied with:

Mick West <mick@mickwest.com>
Fri, Apr 26, 11:56 PM (6 days ago)

to Bryan

And yet you provide no reference for your statement, nor do you say it's just your personal understanding, so the reader is left to assume that it's part of the new statement from Gradisher/Genualdi. This seems very misleading, and I think it needs clarification. Is this information (about "highly advanced aircraft" intruding on "Navy strike groups") new information from active Navy officials, or is it based on older information, or is it just from TTSA personnel?

He did not reply.

 

[deirdre]

He did not reply.

smh. and they wonder why people dont trust the press anymore.

 

[Gerard]

It comes from this own inference.

Then I agree that the article was very misleading.

 

[Gerard]

if it was a quote, it would be in quotes.

If you say "service says" you should be no more than paraphrasing. In my opinion,you shouldn't be introducing new factual elements that weren't in the original statement, as they did here.

 

[deirdre]

If you say "service says" you should be no more than paraphrasing.

sounds like he thinks he was just paraphrasing accurately. That's one of the reasons MB gives everyone a hard time about paraphrasing. It's pretty well documented that 2 people can see the same event, movie, speech etc and describe it later in vastly different ways.

 

[TheAtheistAdmiral]

It comes from his own inference. Here's my exchange with him on Twitter.

Since the author provides no direct evidence for his more specific claims we're questioning here, he wouldn't be inferring anything, but rather assuming or implying.

I only mention this because it makes discussing the evidence (or lack thereof) confusing, and distinguishing between inferences & implications are particularly important when discussing the validity of fringe or conspiracy theories.