House Oversight Hearing on UAPs - July 26, 2023

[MonkeeSage]

I wish Grusch were not cut off, but I think the below quote from the hearing is relevant to discussion regarding the conflict between Kirkpatrick and Grusch's statements:

Senator Foxx: Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of AARO previously testified before congress that there has been, and I quote, "no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity or of off-world technology brought to the attention of the office." To your knowledge, is that statement correct?

Grusch: It's not accurate. I believe doctor Kirkpatrick mentioned he had about 30 individuals that have come to AARO thus far. A few of those individuals have also come to AARO that I also interviewed and I know what they have provided doctor Kirkpatrick and their team. I was able to evaluate... [interrupted]

Senator Foxx: I need to go on. [continues on partisan rant]

Content from External Source

Source.

I think this is an important point. Grusch confirms some of his sources have already testified to AARO, which is consistent with what Shellenberger previously reported:

Article:

And now, multiple sources close to the matter have come forward to tell Public that Grusch’s core claims are accurate. The individuals are all either high-ranking intelligence officials, former intelligence officials, or individuals who we could verify were involved in U.S. government UAP efforts for three or more decades each. Two of them have testified, including as recently as last year, to both AARO and Congress.

Source: https://public.substack.com/p/us-has-12-or-more-alien-space-craft

Grusch here confirms that claim as accurate. That means Kirkpatrick's statement is a direct rebuttal to Grusch's claims, based on at least some of the same sources, and claiming to have necessary access to investigate the claims regarding crash retrieval programs and NHI. This is from Kirkpatrick's recent interview with ABC news. The video they released only includes excerpts, so some of the transcript below is supplemented from the accompanying article where further quotes from the interview were provided. I have used curly braces to indicate content from the article.

Devin Dwyer (DD): So that 2-5% which are anomalous incidents which you are still looking into, could potentially be extraterrestrial activity?
Sean Kirkpatrick (SK): So we are going to follow our data and our investigations wherever it goes. I have a full range of hypotheses. {On one end of the spectrum, it's advanced technology that's coming from an adversary. Right in the middle, I have all my known objects -- balloons and drones and birds and whatnot. And then on the far end of the spectrum, we have extraterrestrials.}

DD: So you can't rule it out?
SK: I can't rule it out, but I don't have any evidence that says that yet.

DD: You can say categorically you've seen no convincing, confirmable evidence of intact spacecraft kept by the US government?
SK: I have seen no convincing...no. I have seen nothing that leads me to that conclusion.

DD: Is it possible there is some secret program you are just not aware of?
SK: I don't think so. I have access to anything and everything I need.

DD: Why do you think these whistleblowers are coming forward?
SK: Well one, I think the recent law which extended whistleblower protections to them, and named AARO as the authorized disclosure authority, opens the door for them to come and tell us exactly what they think they saw or know about.

DD: You believe them?
SK: I believe that they believe what they are telling me. And I, my job, is not to-- it's not a question of belief. It's a question of what can I go research.

SK: {We've interviewed almost 30 individuals who have come in to provide their testimony. And out of all of those, none of it has yet led to any verifiable information that substantiates the claim that the U.S. government has those ships or has a reverse-engineering program either in the past or currently.}

SK: A lot of these allegations crop up again and again over history. {I'm not going to jump ahead to conclusions until we have more data.}

DD: Do you think extraterrestrial life is out there?
SK: I think it's statistically unrealistic to think it isn't, given the vastness of the universe.

DD: You going to find it on your watch?
SK: Wouldn't that be fun. That would be probably the best outcome of this job.

Content from External Source

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifpLXP0poug
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/extraterrestrial-technical-supremacy-top-concern-pentagon-ufo-investigator/story?id=101218299

 

[Ann K]

This is from Kirkpatrick's recent interview with ABC news.

The salient point, which I think has not been sufficiently stressed, is what Kirkpatrick says when asked about Grusch and others:

"SK: I believe that they believe what they are telling me."

I think that's most likely true, and although I doubt their facts I don't doubt their sincerity. True, Grusch's persecution story seems to be exaggerated more as time goes on, but that may well be the result of fears that dwell and develop in his mind over time.

I have no impression of whether or not the unnamed others down his chain of information have that same level of belief in what they said. A "bad actor" in that group is certainly not out of the question, but I get the impression of a bunch of hints, rumors, and innuendo combined into a whole which THEY BELIEVE to be greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[Mendel]

"SK: I believe that they believe what they are telling me."

This also true for all of those QAnon followers who peruse their breadcrumbs of "evidence" that convince them to get very scared of something that doesn't exist.

The problem is that once you investigate, the evidence doesn't suffice to rationally support these beliefs—even though it may have engendered them for these individuals.

Again, it's human nature.

That's why we want to see evidence impartially examined.

 

[Amathia]

I think this is an important point. Grusch confirms some of his sources have already testified to AARO, which is consistent with what Shellenberger previously reported:

Article:

And now, multiple sources close to the matter have come forward to tell Public that Grusch’s core claims are accurate. The individuals are all either high-ranking intelligence officials, former intelligence officials, or individuals who we could verify were involved in U.S. government UAP efforts for three or more decades each. Two of them have testified, including as recently as last year, to both AARO and Congress.

Source: https://public.substack.com/p/us-has-12-or-more-alien-space-craft

Grusch here confirms that claim as accurate. That means Kirkpatrick's statement is a direct rebuttal to Grusch's claims, based on at least some of the same sources, and claiming to have necessary access to investigate the claims regarding crash retrieval programs and NHI. This is from Kirkpatrick's recent interview with ABC news. The video they released only includes excerpts, so some of the transcript below is supplemented from the accompanying article where further quotes from the interview were provided. I have used curly braces to indicate content from the article.

Devin Dwyer (DD): So that 2-5% which are anomalous incidents which you are still looking into, could potentially be extraterrestrial activity?
Sean Kirkpatrick (SK): So we are going to follow our data and our investigations wherever it goes. I have a full range of hypotheses. {On one end of the spectrum, it's advanced technology that's coming from an adversary. Right in the middle, I have all my known objects -- balloons and drones and birds and whatnot. And then on the far end of the spectrum, we have extraterrestrials.}

DD: So you can't rule it out?
SK: I can't rule it out, but I don't have any evidence that says that yet.

DD: You can say categorically you've seen no convincing, confirmable evidence of intact spacecraft kept by the US government?
SK: I have seen no convincing...no. I have seen nothing that leads me to that conclusion.

DD: Is it possible there is some secret program you are just not aware of?
SK: I don't think so. I have access to anything and everything I need.

DD: Why do you think these whistleblowers are coming forward?
SK: Well one, I think the recent law which extended whistleblower protections to them, and named AARO as the authorized disclosure authority, opens the door for them to come and tell us exactly what they think they saw or know about.

DD: You believe them?
SK: I believe that they believe what they are telling me. And I, my job, is not to-- it's not a question of belief. It's a question of what can I go research.

SK: {We've interviewed almost 30 individuals who have come in to provide their testimony. And out of all of those, none of it has yet led to any verifiable information that substantiates the claim that the U.S. government has those ships or has a reverse-engineering program either in the past or currently.}

SK: A lot of these allegations crop up again and again over history. {I'm not going to jump ahead to conclusions until we have more data.}

DD: Do you think extraterrestrial life is out there?
SK: I think it's statistically unrealistic to think it isn't, given the vastness of the universe.

DD: You going to find it on your watch?
SK: Wouldn't that be fun. That would be probably the best outcome of this job.

Content from External Source

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifpLXP0poug
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/extraterrestrial-technical-supremacy-top-concern-pentagon-ufo-investigator/story?id=101218299

I'm curious, Kirkpatrick has three categories where UAP sightings can go into:

1) Advanced technology from an adversary.
2) Everyday, mundane objects.
3) Extraterrestrials.

Why isn't there a fourth bucket:

4) Advanced technology from our own black projects.

Surely at least *some* sightings have been of our own undisclosed stuff, why would he not even mention that possibility?

His response to "why do you think they're coming forward?" is an odd one. Obviously they're coming forward because it is now legally safe-ish to do so. That answers the "why now?" question, but the question the journalist is really asking is "Why are they making these claims?"

That question he doesn't touch. It's easy enough to accept that some people are coming forward on the basis of what they think they saw (Commander Fravor for instance). But "theyre coming forward to share what they think they know" doesn't wash as an explanation.

It's clear from his testimony that many of Gruschs's claims aren't just based on conspiracy theories he's read about, nor are they just rumors and gossip he's been exposed to. For instance, his claim about retrieved non-human bodies stems from his being briefed on the existence of such from people not only with alleged knowledge of the program, but people who he claims are still in said program.

Obviously that doesn't mean those claims are true, but it does mean this is no longer just a game of top secret telephone water cooler rumor spreading, if these claims are not true (which I take most people here to accept at face value) then that means he is deliberately being lied to by other members of the intelligence community. Not just a handful of them, but many of them. These people are not just claiming they "think" such programs exist somewhere in the government, they're outright telling him they know they exist because they're in said programs themselves.

I don't know of any way to understand what's going on behind the scenes that doesn't paint the intelligence community as anything other than a giant clusterfuck of speculation consistently being conflated as fact, or of constant lying by agents to one another about extraordinary things (aliens) and serious but un-extraordinary things (special access programs without appropriate oversight and obfuscation of funds).

There is no way to understand anything that's happening in a way that makes the intelligence community look like they've got their shit together in any way that should make citizens feel at ease.

 

[tjskep]

I'm curious, Kirkpatrick has three categories where UAP sightings can go into:

1) Advanced technology from an adversary.
2) Everyday, mundane objects.
3) Extraterrestrials.

Why isn't there a fourth bucket:

4) Advanced technology from our own black projects.

Surely at least *some* sightings have been of our own undisclosed stuff, why would he not even mention that possibility?

His response to "why do you think they're coming forward?" is an odd one. Obviously they're coming forward because it is now legally safe-ish to do so. That answers the "why now?" question, but the question the journalist is really asking is "Why are they making these claims?"

That question he doesn't touch. It's easy enough to accept that some people are coming forward on the basis of what they think they saw (Commander Fravor for instance). But "theyre coming forward to share what they think they know" doesn't wash as an explanation.

It's clear from his testimony that many of Gruschs's claims aren't just based on conspiracy theories he's read about, nor are they just rumors and gossip he's been exposed to. For instance, his claim about retrieved non-human bodies stems from his being briefed on the existence of such from people not only with alleged knowledge of the program, but people who he claims are still in said program.

Obviously that doesn't mean those claims are true, but it does mean this is no longer just a game of top secret telephone water cooler rumor spreading, if these claims are not true (which I take most people here to accept at face value) then that means he is deliberately being lied to by other members of the intelligence community. Not just a handful of them, but many of them. These people are not just claiming they "think" such programs exist somewhere in the government, they're outright telling him they know they exist because they're in said programs themselves.

I don't know of any way to understand what's going on behind the scenes that doesn't paint the intelligence community as anything other than a giant clusterfuck of speculation consistently being conflated as fact, or of constant lying by agents to one another about extraordinary things (aliens) and serious but un-extraordinary things (special access programs without appropriate oversight and obfuscation of funds).

There is no way to understand anything that's happening in a way that makes the intelligence community look like they've got their shit together in any way that should make citizens feel at ease.

yes and i for one am definitely not at ease
it’s honestly unsettling.

 

[Mendel]

Why isn't there a fourth bucket:

Because Kirkpatrick talks about a spectrum. Your 4th bucket is between foreign systems and mundane objects on that spectrum.

But "theyre coming forward to share what they think they know" doesn't wash as an explanation.

Why not? "(I think) I saw a UFO, AARO is looking for UFO reports, I'm going to share my sighting with them" makes sense to me. It's rather obvious, don't you think?

For instance, his claim about retrieved non-human bodies stems from his being briefed on the existence of such from people not only with alleged knowledge of the program, but people who he claims are still in said program.

Could you please quote Grusch on this?

 

[Amathia]

Because Kirkpatrick talks about a spectrum. Your 4th bucket is between foreign systems and mundane objects on that spectrum.

That's fair. Even though I saw the word spectrum in his response my mind read what he was saying as discrete categories instead. It does make sense that our own technology would fall in between the far left and middle parts of a spectrum.

Why not? "(I think) I saw a UFO, AARO is looking for UFO reports, I'm going to share my sighting with them" makes sense to me. It's rather obvious, don't you think?

Yeah this makes sense when we're just talking about people coming forward about UFO/UAP sightings. I was referring to another group of people (like Grusch) who are not coming forward with allegations about sightings but about completely different kinds of claims altogether whose source of information is interviews and alleged documentation he's been privy to about special access programs and the like. In this case the people telling him some of these things (like the bodies example) are not just alleging they think such a program exists but that they themselves are in the program. At that point we aren't just talking about people coming forward with things they think they know,
they're outright saying they are in the program themselves.

At that point it's no longer a matter of people coming to believe something that isn't true, they're outright lying if it isn't true.

Could you please quote Grusch on this?

Time stamp 37:56

"Non-human and that was according to the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program that I talked to that are currently still on the program."


Source: https://youtu.be/IEPeT-GsX5A

 

[PublicStranger]

Time stamp 37:56

"Non-human and that was according to the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program that I talked to that are currently still on the program."


Source: https://youtu.be/IEPeT-GsX5A

So the 'alien' vs 'non-human' distinction is purely based on the fact I'm guessing he thinks they are inter-dimensional? They are technically not alien because they live with us on the same planet but are from another ''dimension''?

And Grusch apparently studied physics?

 

[Amathia]

So the 'alien' vs 'non-human' distinction is purely based on the fact I'm guessing he thinks they are inter-dimensional? They are technically not alien because they live with us on the same planet but are from another ''dimension''?

And Grusch apparently studied physics?

I don't think that's quite right. He doesn't like "extra terrestrial" because he doesn't want to use a word that denotes origin. I'm guessing because so little is known about where they (allegedly) come from, he wants to keep an open mind about any hypothesis regarding their origin, the extra dimensional hypothesis being just one example. I don't think we can infer that's what he personally believes solely based on the fact that he's brought it up twice. And he's been pretty open about the fact that it's purely theoretical speculation.

Something I haven't seen talked about much is the fact that non human intelligence can also refer to AI. Not sure why the only narrative seems to be "ETs vs Extra dimensional beings" when AI seems just as live of an option as any if we're still allowing for such speculation.

 

[PublicStranger]

I don't think that's quite right. He doesn't like "extra terrestrial" because he doesn't want to use a word that denotes origin. I'm guessing because so little is known about where they (allegedly) come from, he wants to keep an open mind about any hypothesis regarding their origin, the extra dimensional hypothesis being just one example. I don't think we can infer that's what he personally believes solely based on the fact that he's brought it up twice. And he's been pretty open about the fact that it's purely theoretical speculation.

Something I haven't seen talked about much is the fact that non human intelligence can also refer to AI. Not sure why the only narrative seems to be "ETs vs Extra dimensional beings" when AI seems just as live of an option as any if we're still allowing for such speculation.

I think it's quite the opposite, by calling them non-human you are ruling out more theories of origin than you would by calling them alien. Time traveller theory, Ancient Civilization theory, Inter-Dimensional theory (can you live on earth with the conditions as we know them, be incredibly advanced and not be human?) all can be ruled out potentially by calling them non-human. Alien by definition is just being a non-native.

 

[NorCal Dave]

"Non-human and that was according to the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program that I talked to that are currently still on the program."

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, IF this is true, those people are in serious legal jeopardy, are they not? They are sharing highly classified information with someone not cleared to see it. He's out telling the world they did so and has hinted that behind closed doors he's named these people.

 

[Amathia]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, IF this is true, those people are in serious legal jeopardy, are they not? They are sharing highly classified information with someone not cleared to see it. He's out telling the world they did so and has hinted that behind closed doors he's named these people.

1) Would that still be true if the alleged program was illegally being run without the mandatory requirement to inform the gang of 8 of its existence and without congressional oversight? Assuming said program did exist, "off the books", hidden even from the select few members of the senate who should know of such a program if it existed, would disclosing this info to Grusch be illegal?

Lets take aliens off the equation for a moment. Let's suppose Grusch were a whistleblower for something far more mundane than aliens. Suppose he came out and the only allegations he were making were that illegal special access programs exist outside of the oversight of the senate, that these programs are being funded by essentially "cooking the books" in some way, and that their existence was deliberately being withheld from the appropriate congressional authorities.

If such programs existed, and they were in fact illegal and being run outside of congressional approval and oversight, and Grusch were coming forward to inform congress about them, would the folks who told Grusch about said programs be doing something illegal? Again, assuming these programs are illegitimate, surely the clearances required to discuss said programs themselves would be illegitimate too, no?

 

[Ann K]

"Non-human and that was according to the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program that I talked to that are currently still on the program."

Content from External Source

"People with direct knowledge of the program" still is not the same as "people with direct knowledge of alien remains". And it is still second-hand (or third, or fourth) information funneled through Grusch, and it is still referred to by him as an "assessment", not facts. Unless and until we are given more information, I don't think we are any further ahead in knowing the truth.

 

[NorCal Dave]

If such programs existed, and they were in fact illegal and being run outside of congressional approval and oversight, and Grusch were coming forward to inform congress about them, would the folks who told Grusch about said programs be doing something illegal? Again, assuming these programs are illegitimate, surely the clearances required to discuss said programs themselves would be illegitimate too, no?

Sure, but then why would Grusch keep it hidden? If it's an illegal program, that is illegally stealing funds and isn't covered by any pertinent secrecy laws, then just come out and say what it is and who's pilfering the money.

 

[Amathia]

Sure, but then why would Grusch keep it hidden? If it's an illegal program, that is illegally stealing funds and isn't covered by any pertinent secrecy laws, then just come out and say what it is and who's pilfering the money.

I don't know the answer to that any more than I have any idea why if any of this is true the Pentagon would allow him to discuss any of it. Nor do I have any idea whatsoever why he'd be allowed to acknowledge non human bodies have been recovered but not be allowed to discuss what kind of assessment was performed to reach the conclusion they're non-human. Nor any idea why he'd be allowed to discuss the govt having possession of bodies and craft but not be allowed to answer the question "do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials?" None of this makes any sense whatsoever no matter which lens I try to view it through.

If I put my ufologist hat on and try to make sense of this, best guess I can think of is yes, the US at some point recovered something that wasn't man-made. They're painfully aware they cannot keep a secret of that magnitude from leaking out. Instead of keeping it secret through all the usual ways you keep things from getting out, you instead hide that secret by publicly releasing it, along with an incalculable amount of bullshit throughout the decades. You hide the truth by not hiding it at all but surrounding it with so many falsehoods, dead ends, half truths, and semi plausible-but-not-quite claims that the kernels of truth of what's really going on are impossible to sort out from the bullshit. You don't try to hide a secret, you release it and surround it with so much noise that it's impossible to pick out the signal.

That's what I'd do. Whatever faults this view has, at least it can semi-coherently explain the sheer incoherence of the situation.

[I'm only half joking, but there's no framework I can think of that makes sense of any of this in a "neat" way so ‍, shrug]

Then again Richard Doty already showed us how using UFOs as a cover for our own black projects was a viable tactic already in use by the Air Force decades ago. No idea why we'd just assume that was a one-and-done type deal.

 

[Scaramanga]

In this case the people telling him some of these things (like the bodies example) are not just alleging they think such a program exists but that they themselves are in the program. At that point we aren't just talking about people coming forward with things they think they know,
they're outright saying they are in the program themselves.

At that point it's no longer a matter of people coming to believe something that isn't true, they're outright lying if it isn't true.

Well, no....in the absence of definitive material evidence even the 'first hand' witnesses are still just people who think they are handling non-human materials, etc. We do not know if they really are, or are simply being told they are, or have wrongly concluded they are. This is precisely why the general science community needs to examine any materials in peer reviewed research. The last thing I would trust is what some person working in a clandestine SAP program was 'told' about what they are working on.

 

[LilWabbit]

"Non-human and that was according to the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program that I talked to that are currently still on the program."

Content from External Source

"People with direct knowledge of the program" still is not the same as "people with direct knowledge of alien remains". And it is still second-hand (or third, or fourth) information funneled through Grusch, and it is still referred to by him as an "assessment", not facts. Unless and until we are given more information, I don't think we are any further ahead in knowing the truth.

Well put.

Say, Aunt Jenny is a cleaner at the Freemason's Lodge hired by the Freemasons. She tells her husband Uncle Goober that she thinks they have secret ritual sex with underaged girls there as a rite of passage. She's read somewhere that's what Freemasons do and she really suspects that. Based on what she's read they even drug the girls. She's even seen a bra once. Uncle Goober tells her please don't talk to anyone and calls the police.

Uncle Goober's transcribed police statement reads:

"Based on a classified oral testimony I've received, there is ritual sex with underaged girls at the lodge. This is according to the assessment of a person with direct knowledge of the lodge that gave me the testimony and who is currently still working in the lodge."

Gossip made to sound and look professional.

 

[Amathia]

Well, no....in the absence of definitive material evidence even the 'first hand' witnesses are still just people who think they are handling non-human materials, etc. We do not know if they really are, or are simply being told they are, or have wrongly concluded they are. This is precisely why the general science community needs to examine any materials in peer reviewed research. The last thing I would trust is what some person working in a clandestine SAP program was 'told' about what they are working on.

I can agree with this if we're talking about so called meta-materials and the like. But if we're talking about biological samples of some type, how much room for mistake is there? Presumably anyone qualified enough to have access to a program like this and be given a biological sample of some sort to look at can fairly quickly tell if what they have in front of them is of human origin or not, no?

 

[Scaramanga]

Nor any idea why he'd be allowed to discuss the govt having possession of bodies and craft but not be allowed to answer the question "do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials?" None of this makes any sense whatsoever no matter which lens I try to view it through.

It makes perfect sense if there are no aliens and UFOs are just a cover for whatever 'the program' is really up to. Grusch is thus then not stating anything classified, and the Pentagon can thus carry on doing whatever it is doing because it only has to reveal UFO stuff and 'the project' is something other than UFOs. That's my take on it. At the end of all these hearings we'll be no closer to real answers as we are being mis-directed.

 

[Amathia]

It makes perfect sense if there are no aliens and UFOs are just a cover for whatever 'the program' is really up to. Grusch is thus then not stating anything classified, and the Pentagon can thus carry on doing whatever it is doing because it only has to reveal UFO stuff and 'the project' is something other than UFOs. That's my take on it.

Would this include Grusch as being part of the disinformation campaign, or himself being a victim of one?

 

[LilWabbit]

How do you know

It makes perfect sense if there are no aliens and UFOs are just a cover for whatever 'the program' is really up to.

It also makes perfect sense that Grusch's source "in the program" is just another true believer without access to the classified core of the program, sharing Grusch his strong suspicions assessment.

 

[Scaramanga]

Would this include Grusch as being part of the disinformation campaign, or himself being a victim of one?

I tend to agree with John Greenewald that it is all very odd that DOPSR have allowed Grusch to state so much when far lesser stuff is classified. I come to the conclusion that the claims are not classified because they are not true. One then has to ask....why do Grusch and his claimed 30 people he has spoken to think they are true. Something about all this just does not make any sense at all.

 

[LilWabbit]

None of this is odd in the least if you take into account that:

(1) Grusch is being (voluntarily) used by a much bigger, organized and media-savvy college of believers with strong convictions, money and an agenda to push for disclosures on alien secrets that they're certain about as a matter of faith. Why do you think Corbell and some other usual suspects sat right behind him at the hearing. Spontaneous solidarity for a bullied whistleblower?

(2) Grusch's DoD gossip buddies UAP interview subjects, including the source "in the program", are just other true believers, with similar faith-based certainty about said secrets, whilst deprived of access to the classified core of SAPs, sharing Grusch their strong suspicions assessments.

All true believers inside the DoD (which there are possibly in the order of thousands) are extremely useful for the UFO lobby to use for (1) giving an air of credibility to their claims and (2) pushing for public disclosures through the media and the Capitol Hill. Grusch is a "useful non-idiot".

And having said all of the above, most everyone's of course being sincere in their beliefs.

 

[LilWabbit]

My turn to be a broken record:

The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world, with over 1,34 million active-duty service members, including soldiers, marines, sailors, airmen, and guardians. DoD also maintains over 778,000 National Guard and reservists, and over 747,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2,87 million employees.

42 % of Americans believe in UFOs and 39 % in ghosts. One in ten Americans report that they have seen a UFO.

If the DoD represents a rough a cross-section of the American society (with the major exception of gender parity) -- and let's keep it conservative and assume only 30 % of DoD personnel believe in UFOs and 20 % in ghosts -- we'd still be left with 861,000 UFO believers and 574,000 ghost-believers. (By the way, in comparison, 22 % of Brits believe in UFOs and 7 % believe having seen one.)

For the sake of argument, let's bring that number even further down to "just" 100,000 UFO believers within the DoD. If there were hard evidence for aliens, alien contacts, alien crafts and alien biologics, and if this 100,000 includes a minority of firebrand believers with a mission to alert the public on something of epic import to the world (a reasonable assumption), such evidence would have been leaked many times over and we wouldnt be having this flap. There would be no need for an organized UFO lobby group to dig up circumstantial and anecdotal evidence and make it seem compelling to push for disclosures.

This is not a new argument. But it does seem to be constantly and conveniently ignored.

 

[Cogg84]

My turn to be a broken record:

The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world, with over 1,34 million active-duty service members, including soldiers, marines, sailors, airmen, and guardians. DoD also maintains over 778,000 National Guard and reservists, and over 747,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2,87 million employees.

42 % of Americans believe in UFOs and 39 % in ghosts. One in ten Americans report that they have seen a UFO.

If the DoD represents a rough a cross-section of the American society (with the major exception of gender parity) -- and let's keep it conservative and assume only 30 % of DoD personnel believe in UFOs and 20 % in ghosts -- we'd still be left with 861,000 UFO believers and 574,000 ghost-believers. (By the way, in comparison, 22 % of Brits believe in UFOs and 7 % believe having seen one.)

For the sake of argument, let's bring that number even further down to "just" 100,000 UFO believers within the DoD. If there were hard evidence for aliens, alien contacts, alien crafts and alien biologics, and if this 100,000 includes a minority of firebrand believers with a mission to alert the public on something of epic import to the world (a reasonable assumption), such evidence would have been leaked many times over and we wouldnt be having this flap. There would be no need for an organized UFO lobby group to dig up circumstantial and anecdotal evidence and make it seem compelling to push for disclosures.

This is not a new argument. But it does seem to be constantly and conveniently ignored.

Beautifully said

 

[Agent K]

I tend to agree with John Greenewald that it is all very odd that DOPSR have allowed Grusch to state so much when far lesser stuff is classified. I come to the conclusion that the claims are not classified because they are not true. One then has to ask....why do Grusch and his claimed 30 people he has spoken to think they are true. Something about all this just does not make any sense at all.

Why did Christopher Steele, a former high-level official who ran the Russia desk at MI6, believe rumors about Carter Page and a golden shower? Why does George Knapp believe that Bob Lazar reverse-engineered flying saucers?

Grusch's sources may have relayed gossip themselves. Some of them may be impostors like Bob Lazar. Worst case, they're trying to report fraud, waste, and abuse, but are lying about the nature of their program to get attention without violating their nondisclosure agreement.

 

[adam_n_eve]

Personally, I don't think that's a useful question, because unless we can show they're lying, what they believe doesn't really impact the truth of their words.

Remember also that "I saw X" is a factual statement that can be true or false, but "I think X was a UFO" is a statement of opinion that is not a lie even if X is no UFO. "I saw a strange light that looked like a UFO" means the light may well have been there, but the opinion that it was a UFO was almost certainly wrong. We've all mistaken things at first glance, so there's no shame in that.

I think it's very important. Firstly it weeds out whether we place these people with Lazar or Greer as simple grifters.
Secondly it then points us towards whether they were intentionally led astray and deceived.
I think it's pretty hard to say that Fravor is lying as his story is backed up by numerous other people who in some cases seem to have been seriously adversely affected by it. But in his case I struggle to understand what he and 3 others saw and witnessed.

 

[Mendel]

In this case the people telling him some of these things (like the bodies example) are not just alleging they think such a program exists but that they themselves are in the program. At that point we aren't just talking about people coming forward with things they think they know,
they're outright saying they are in the program themselves.

At that point it's no longer a matter of people coming to believe something that isn't true, they're outright lying if it isn't true.

Early on, in the first debrief article, Chris Mellon raised the point that some of these people don't trust AARO, but doesn't give a reason why:

Article:

“A number of well-placed current and former officials have shared detailed information with me regarding this alleged program, including insights into the history, governing documents and the location where a craft was allegedly abandoned and recovered,” Mellon said. “However, it is a delicate matter getting this potentially explosive information into the right hands for validation. This is made harder by the fact that, rightly or wrongly, a number of potential sources do not trust the leadership of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office established by Congress.”

Source: https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/

You ask, why do these people talk to AARO? My question is rather why some people don't. You can't say, "hey, they're covering this up", and then not talk on the record yourself when you have the chance.

And I do realize that this is what the murder narrative that Grusch is spinning aims at.

Time stamp 37:56

"Non-human and that was according to the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program that I talked to that are currently still on the program."

Thank you!

 

[Mendel]

He doesn't like "extra terrestrial" because he doesn't want to use a word that denotes origin. I'm guessing because so little is known about where they (allegedly) come from, he wants to keep an open mind about any hypothesis regarding their origin, the extra dimensional hypothesis being just one example.

No need to guess. Quoting from https://www.metabunk.org/threads/da...-bodies-of-non-human-origin.12977/post-291313 :

Article:

Int.: What could be the origin of these objects, if they weren't human?

D.G.: My degree is in physics. The mechanical and experimental data shows that it's not human. It could be extraterrestrial, or it could be something else, coming from other dimensions as described by quantum mechanics. I haven't seen enough data to say it's one thing instead of another. The U.S. government must have more information.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/143ev70/comment/jn9ctpo/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Not sure why the only narrative seems to be "ETs vs Extra dimensional beings" when AI seems just as live of an option as any if we're still allowing for such speculation.

Remember that Grusch claims retrieval of "biologics".

 

[LilWabbit]

Early on, in the first debrief article, Chris Mellon raised the point that some of these people don't trust AARO, but doesn't give a reason why:

Article:

“A number of well-placed current and former officials have shared detailed information with me regarding this alleged program, including insights into the history, governing documents and the location where a craft was allegedly abandoned and recovered,” Mellon said. “However, it is a delicate matter getting this potentially explosive information into the right hands for validation. This is made harder by the fact that, rightly or wrongly, a number of potential sources do not trust the leadership of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office established by Congress.”

Source: https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/

You ask, why do these people talk to AARO? My question is rather why some people don't?

My response would be: Because Kirkpatrick is more interested in hard evidence and less inclined than Grusch to naively believe in stories regurgitated by in-house UFO believers. (Thank you @MonkeeSage for an excellent post.)

Mellon, another true believer and protector of his comrades, adds the spin of 'these sources possess information on a delicate and potentially explosive matter and don't trust AARO' to cover up the above fact.

 

[Mendel]

"Non-human and that was according to the assessment of people with direct knowledge of the program that I talked to that are currently still on the program."

Content from External Source

"People with direct knowledge of the program" still is not the same as "people with direct knowledge of alien remains". And it is still second-hand (or third, or fourth) information funneled through Grusch, and it is still referred to by him as an "assessment", not facts. Unless and until we are given more information, I don't think we are any further ahead in knowing the truth.

Was "the program" not the one that examined the "alien remains", and the people Grusch talked to were the ones that assessed these remains aren't human? Kinda like that reddit post we discussed at https://www.metabunk.org/threads/bi...n-bodies-ebos-exo-biospheric-organisms.13031/ that we think is a hoax?

An assessment can be first-hand. It's unfortunate that Grusch likes to talk ambiguously.

 

[Henkka]

I wonder which explanation would metabunkers prefer:

1) It's all true, aliens are real, and there's been a government conspiracy to hide their existence for decades.

2) It's not true, but there is currently a government conspiracy to convince the public that aliens are real for whatever reason.

I guess the third option would be that there is no conspiracy, everyone is just honestly mistaken and it's all a big game of broken telephone. But that feels hard for me to rationalise. Grusch made some incredibly specific claims, like that he could reveal behind closed doors how these secret UFO programs are funded. It's hard to understand how he could be confused or honestly mistaken about something like that.

 

[LilWabbit]

I guess the third option would be that there is no conspiracy, everyone is just honestly mistaken and it's all a big game of broken telephone. But that feels hard for me to rationalise. Grusch made some incredibly specific claims, like that he could reveal behind closed doors how these secret UFO programs are funded. It's hard to understand how he could be confused or honestly mistaken about something like that.

Because it's been gossiped about amongst DoD in-house believers, and fed to them by the broader UFO community and lobby. The real issue here is prior belief/learnt folklore impacting both observation (in the case of eyewitnesses) and explanation of information gaps (including SAPs) (in the case of other testimonies).

One who is more inclined to believe in alien visitations or government conspiracies is also more likely to highlight whatever piece of evidence that best feeds the narrative, irrespective of the scientific weight/reliability of such evidence. It would therefore logically follow that (1) eyewitness testimonies, (2) oral/written reports by individuals of stature, or (3) with some connection to secret programs, are given credence far beyond their value in reliable (scientific) knowledge-pursuit.

Every sensible person, including ufologists, accepts that eyewitness and interview testimonies are generally subjective and hence unreliable in and of themselves. But many an even sensible person makes exceptions when a hypothesis they are, for some reason, personally attached to largely hinges on anecdotes from interviews. They are suddenly far more fired up to highlight the improbability of trained pilots making error judgments or decorated intelligence officers believing in something that's not well-founded. At least not with UFOs.

The follow-up question, of course, is whether or not there are good grounds to question their accuracy, or whether such questioning is solely born of a close-minded need to debunk any and all reference to aliens.

Using eyewitness or other testimony in conjunction with more solid data points is scientifically well-founded if:

(1) These 'solid data points' (i.e. physical records) are deemed, by default, as more reliable and primary evidence while anecdotal evidence is regarded supportive evidence at best;

(2) These 'solid data points' demonstrate the remarkable anomalies mentioned by the testimonies, and;

(3) The testimonies demonstrate significant mutual consistency, significant internal consistency overtime, independence (not having been discussed or mutually shared) and freshness. (cf. this thread discussing eyewitness testimonies and the research of psychologist Chris French in more detail)

 

[Ann K]

I can agree with this if we're talking about so called meta-materials and the like. But if we're talking about biological samples of some type, how much room for mistake is there? Presumably anyone qualified enough to have access to a program like this and be given a biological sample of some sort to look at can fairly quickly tell if what they have in front of them is of human origin or not, no?

@Mendel , this pertains to your question as well.

I worked in a research lab. The bench chemists knew in great detail what material they were working with, what properties it had, and what diagnostic tests should be done. The same was not always true of our managers. Some had come up through the ranks and understood the work well, but some were hired straight into managerial jobs, and had only the knowledge they received from the technical people. (It got worse when we were bought out by ICI and they sent a couple of people over from the UK, as it was their business practice to shuffle managers from group to group, thus having people in charge that had a cursory knowledge of lots of things but no in-depth knowledge of any of them.)

I don't think it's far-fetched to think the same thing might be going on there, wherein the people qualified to analyze biological remains are not the same people that are qualified to manage the departments. Grusch was apparently one of the latter, and his information might well have come from others of the same.

 

[Mendel]

The bench chemists knew in great detail what material they were working with, what properties it had, and what diagnostic tests should be done. The same was not always true of our managers.

Your point is that there could be a manager who thinks that the program she's managing handles non-human remains when it doesn't?

 

[LilWabbit]

True, because it has had no evidence provided for it, but the backlash against string theory has existed for decades, due to the lack of evidence. Even though the math behind it is elegant.

The backlash is not led by these names. It is led by actual leaders in physics, not youtube contrarians. Weinstein opposes string theory because of his own nonsense theory of everything. Hossenfelder opposes it because she's a MONDer (Modified Newtonian Dynamics). Not sure about Penrose. Point being: you don't need to go to other fringe thinkers to find opposition to string theory. Just ask the majority of physicists.

A bit of a sidenote, but I find Nima Arkani-Hamed is far too rarely interviewed by these pop science podcasts. Of course there's also a good reason for it as he's a veritable non-pop scientist, and often difficult to understand. Penrose has greater pedagogical aptitude. Before Penrose is too old, I would thoroughly enjoy to watch a well-moderated youtube conversation between Nima and Roger on the foundations of physics. I often listen to Nima's lectures while working out.

Nima's key argument regarding successful theories of physics is that the old successful theories have never ceased to be successful. They're forever valid within their specific contexts (such as Newtonian mechanics at lower velocities within our solar system). The newer successful theories merely address broader contexts whilst also able to predict all the specific observations of the older successful theories. And yet there's no fully generalizable theory for the full context of the entire known universe.

The merging of quantum mechanics and general relativity has proven well-nigh impossible since the usual rules of quantization required to convert a classical theory into a quantum one don’t seem to work for gravity. Not only can quantum mechanics not predict the behaviour of higher order (classical) systems (stars, galaxies, spacetime, universe as a whole) like the GR does, but quantum mechanics also stumbles upon quantum phenomena at the energy scales of black holes and singularity (despite the best efforts of quantum gravity). Similarly, GR, cannot account for subatomic processes. And whenever gravity and relativity are accepted and postulated on the quantum scale (quantum field theory), and applied, say, through Feynman diagrams, calculations cannot be performed for the more complicated quantum processes even with the most advanced computers.

Nima is increasingly convinced through his toy models (such as the surfacehedra) that there are more fundamental structures in the universe (possibly describable by algebraic geometry or other mathematical lingos that haven't been all that widely applied to physics before) from which both spacetime and quantum mechanics emerge and which require the postulation of neither. (By the way, Nima is an atheist. Thought I needed to point out just in case. I'm not.)

 

[sephirex]

which is more plausible

1) 40 or so witnesses (including Fravor & Graves) interviewed by Grusch, some of whom have direct first hand testimony, some of whom are still working in said "program", are all mistaken in their beliefs in a sufficiently similar manner such that a coherent narrative emerges powerful to convince Grusch to make these claims to the world under oath. (Broken Telephone Hypothesis)

2) 40 or so witnesses (including Fravor & Graves) interviewed by Grusch are all part of, or have been used by, a government conspiracy to hide SAPs, which has involved a continuous disinformation / psy-op campaign against their own military & intelligence departments to avoid internal oversight. (Psyop Hypothesis)

3) 40 or so witnesses (including Fravor & Graves) interviewed by Grusch are telling the truth, and there has been a near century long government conspiracy to conceal the truth about UAPs & NHI which they are now coming clean about. (Aliens Hypothesis)

these all seem highly improbable, but here we are. 2 of these options are conspiracies and 1 means there's a deranged cult at the upper echelons of the most powerful military in the world.

i honestly don't know what to believe, but the default should be 1 until hard data is provided and verified. 2 sounds at least possible, and well i obviously want 3 be true but seems very unlikely.

 

[Henkka]

Because it's been gossiped about amongst DoD in-house believers, and fed to them by the broader UFO community and lobby. The real issue here is prior belief/learnt folklore impacting both observation (in the case of eyewitnesses) and explanation of information gaps (including SAPs) (in the case of other testimonies).

I guess that's possible... That would be really funny, though. Just a bunch of government people playing a game of broken telephone to the point someone like Grusch becomes convinced it's all real, when in reality there's no such program at all. It's a bit hard to believe, though. Didn't Grusch claim he had directly spoken with people who work in the program? Of course, the existence of aliens is also very hard to believe, so it's a bit of an impasse.

To be clear, I'm not like a UFO guy, I'm not heavily invested in this one way or another. Just trying to make sense of this situation where there's seemingly a credible whistleblower talking about "alien biologics" etc in front of US congress. It's a very bizarre situation. Watching the hearing was like a sci-fi movie, but in real life.

 

[Mendel]

I wonder which explanation would metabunkers prefer:

1) It's all true, aliens are real, and there's been a government conspiracy to hide their existence for decades.

2) It's not true, but there is currently a government conspiracy to convince the public that aliens are real for whatever reason.

I prefer for there to not be explanations without evidence, and I don't see enough evidence for "a government conspiracy". The ones that are trying very hard to make the public believe in UFOs on spurious evidence are not members of government, and thus fly under the radar of conspiracy theorists who prefer to be afraid of big faceless entities.

 

[LilWabbit]

I guess that's possible... That would be really funny, though. Just a bunch of government people playing a game of broken telephone to the point someone like Grusch becomes convinced it's all real, when in reality there's no such program at all. It's a bit hard to believe, though.

In the context of a broader and organized community of believers with its own gurus, celebrities, strategists, 'scientists', politicians and billionaire sponsors, such a gossip circle is not only possible but likely. The part within the DoD is just a small slice of the entire community. But it's a strategically important part to utilize for pursuing the main cause.

It's a chronic and repeated mischaracterization to describe the 'whistleblower' affair as just some isolated invididuals such as Grusch or Elizondo, acting on their own, based on their isolated and independent observations, becoming believers impartially based on solid evidence, and acting on their independent good conscience, without an intimate connection to a much broader college bent on getting more supporters especially from within the DoD, and keeping this folklore alive and kicking.

To be clear, I'm not like a UFO guy, I'm not heavily invested in this one way or another. Just trying to make sense of this situation where there's seemingly a credible whistleblower talking about "alien biologics" etc in front of US congress. It's a very bizarre situation. Watching the hearing was like a sci-fi movie, but in real life.

But is it really all that bizarre in a world where notorious celebrity businessmen and politically inexperienced actors can be elected presidents of the most powerful nation of the world?

People are impressionable, and others are really capable of abusing/using this fact.