New AARO Chief Dr. Jon T. Kosloski

[Steve Collyer]

What specific evidence are we not being skeptical of and what is it evidence for?

The initial AARO report for one. It's full of holes, as per my previous post. It looks like a sloppy, rushed job. I think we deserve better than that.
Hopefully, Kosloski will be a far better lead than Kirkpatrick.

 

[jarlrmai]

Is that not just evidence that AARO did a poor job coming up to speed with decades of complicated UFO lore though? What do you think it's evidence of other than maybe being rushed?

 

[Steve Collyer]

Is that not just evidence that AARO did a poor job coming up to speed with decades of complicated UFO lore though? What do you think it's evidence of other than maybe being rushed?

Personally, I think it is evidence of starting off on a premise, and collecting data that supports that particular stance, and ignoring or obfuscating anything that might contradict the initial premise.

The low-hanging fruit isn't worthy of analysis. The report could have focussed on the Nimitz Tic Tac incident alone, but Kirkpatrick does not really give any credence to eyewitness accounts. Even if multiple eyewitnesses are highly trained specialists in air combat and target identification, and there is radar and FLIR data which back the accounts up.

 

[jarlrmai]

There's no data other than anecdotes for tic-tac/Nimitz event though outside of the accounts. There is no FLIR data from Fravor etc and no radar data, and Underwoods FLIR video does not show anything unusual. It does not exist so AARO can do nothing more.

 

[Steve Collyer]

AARO have it as an unresolved UAP here, along with 3 other cases:
https://www.aaro.mil/UAP-Cases/Official-UAP-Imagery/

 

[jarlrmai]

Again unresolved does not mean technology unknown to humanity.

 

[Mendel]

You're off topic.

There are 45 broken links within the report. That means 45 references that can't be searched.

I've looked at them, most can easily be restored. This happens when you edit on a machine without Internet access.

40 further references which, when searched, result in pointing you in the direction of locked AARO UAP files. Not really geared to peer-review, eh?

There is an unclassified version of the report, available to those who would actually be able to access those AARO files. For example, Congress's "Gang of Eight".

The report also references incorrect dates and the wrong names for various organisations.

That depends. I critiqued those critiques in the proper thread.

I'd link to Robert Powell's YouTube and Chris Mellon's The Debrief critiques of the report's many errors and inaccuracies, but my posts keep getting removed when I include links which do work.

You need to quote the content you wish to discuss. Please review the Metabunk policies, available via the nav bar.

 

[Steve Collyer]

I was looking at the motives which you previously hinted at, for whistleblowers like Elizondo not to come forward or further disclose to AARO.

I disagree I was off-topic - it was a tangential point, because my rationale is that they thought AARO had damaged credibility under Kirkpatrick, based upon the inadequacies of the first AARO report, so were therefore unlikely to come forward.

I hope that the whistleblowers may be more forthcoming under Kosloski's leadership.

 

[JMartJr]

There's no data other than anecdotes for tic-tac/Nimitz event though outside of the accounts. There is no FLIR data from Fravor etc and no radar data, and Underwoods FLIR video does not show anything unusual. It does not exist so AARO can do nothing more.

AARO have it as an unresolved UAP here, along with 3 other cases:

These are not contradictory statements. There is no data, the case cannot be resolved -- this is not surprising.

 

[Mendel]

I disagree I was off-topic - it was a tangential point, because my rationale is that they thought AARO had damaged credibility under Kirkpatrick, based upon the inadequacies of the first AARO report, so were therefore unlikely to come forward.

My rationale is that AARO has shown that they can identify BS, and that's why certain "witnesses" avoid talking to AARO.

 

[MapperGuy]

My rationale is that AARO has shown that they can identify BS, and that's why certain "witnesses" avoid talking to AARO.

And many of these witnesses make their living by "knowing things nobody else knows" and if they talked to AARO then that aura of mystery would disappear. Because AARO would then also know those things.

For them to now "go on the record" and not cause an international cataclysm by "revealing things the world was not yet ready to know" would destroy their credibility.

They can currently say there are things they cannot reveal to the world because of secrecy oaths. But AARO is the one group they CAN say those things too because of the whistleblower laws and the security clearances held by AARO personnel. So, again, if they ever talk to AARO they loose that aura of knowing things nobody else knows.

And slighty off topic, what is the obsession with old UFO reports for which little new information will ever be found? The assumption that there are vast repositories of additional information hidden away by the government is just that, an assumption. AARO was tasked to look at past reports, but their real purpose is to look at current and future reports, where additional information is far more likely to be found. But people in the UFO community obsess with old reports, much harder to debunk, rather than looking for new credible reports. Problem being that, as Metabunk shows, new credible reports are pretty scarce.

 

[AlphaChrom]

I hate the fact that new credible reports are rare these days. Do you guys have an idea why is that?

 

[Mendel]

I hate the fact that new credible reports are rare these days. Do you guys have an idea why is that?

we hope it's because debunkers have gotten better

but really it's because the credulous public wants pictures or video to share, and it's much harder to make these look neither mundane nor hoaxed yet still mysterious

in the old days, all a witness needed was a good story that got honed in the retelling

 

[NorCal Dave]

I hate the fact that new credible reports are rare these days. Do you guys have an idea why is that?

What old reports are credible?

I've collected a number of old UFO books, we've covered several of the Ol' grandaddy cases on Metabunk and I just spent several hours the other day going over the supposed "UFO Timeline" that Michael Shellenberger gave to congress and then complained that ARRO didn't address the claims in it. It's 177 pages of crap.

In none of these sources have I seen a good credible account of an alien encounter, and let's be honest, that's what we're all really talking about. The idea of Russian/Chinese "breakthrough technology" is just a Straw Man argument.

I do think some of the older cases, like Roswell, Rendlesham, Malstrom and others have had years to percolate, fester, evolve and generally acquire a mythical status that often belies the actual evidence involved. As such, explaining them becomes a much more daunting case, thus they live on and are often thought of as "credible".

In modern times for example, there was a claim of a UFO filmed from the window of an airliner, but despite it being repeatedly shared over the years, modern social media showed it was created by a CGI artist. See this thread:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ufo-captured-by-airline-passenger-cgi-video-manipulation.13695/

It will still get shared around, but it's easy to see who created it and link to the original from the creator. Not so with 30, 40, 50 or 70 year old cases.

There're few old or new credible reports because there is nothing credible to report.

 

[meta_gr8ful]

You really gotta ask this about Elizondo's AATIP. Elizondo is on record as saying AAtIP had better evidence than the Navy videos, and in his book he recounts conducting several telephone interviews with UAP reporters. On the other hand, AATIP is characterized by the DoD as an unofficial unclassified and unpublished effort, so Elizondo should be able to FOIA the heck out of this, or at least tell John Greenewald (of The Black Vault) what to ask for. But he hasn't done that.

AATIP discovered these Navy videos, Elizondo should have found the data if it existed, and then there should be evidence of it.

AARO was legally set up such that Elizondo could disclose everything about AATIP to AARO and not suffer any repercussions. Yet he hasn't done that, either.

The Black Vault recently released a UAPTF presentation they obtained via FOIA. On the page that discusses the Nimitz Tic Tac incident, we get the following:

"Reporting terminated at 3rd Fleet, there was no process to share
the reporting.

Although the debriefs of aircrew and other personnel within the
Strike Group validated the event, there was very limited data to
support technical analysis."

The UAPTF was headed by Jay Stratton who was also Elizondo's boss at AATIP. So, it seems that Elizondo's current claims that there is all this secret data about the Tic Tac incident that prove it was a truly anomalous physics-defying craft is unsupported by the facts as laid out by Stratton's UAPTF presentation as there was "limited data to support technical analysis".

https://www.theblackvault.com/docum...ing-between-uap-task-force-and-nasa-released/

 

[Mendel]

That's useful info, thanks!

On a side note, I'm confused about this:

The UAPTF was headed by Jay Stratton who was also Elizondo's boss at AATIP.

I know Stratton and Elizondo worked together, but hasn't Elizondo claimed to be the head of AATIP after Lacatski? How was Stratton his boss?

 

[meta_gr8ful]

That's useful info, thanks!

On a side note, I'm confused about this:

I know Stratton and Elizondo worked together, but hasn't Elizondo claimed to be the head of AATIP after Lacatski? How was Stratton his boss?

I guess you haven't been paying attention to the drama around this recently. Elizondo no longer claims he was the Director if AATIP. Now he says he was a senior member. Apparently Jay Stratton has gotten pissed at Lue for taking the credit for the work Jay was actually doing. Stratton is now apparently going to publish his own book to set the record straight.

I don't normally follow the cult of personality nonsense since I'm not on Twitter, but apparently this is all well documented there. I have no idea how to point you to sources on it.

 

[FatPhil]

I don't normally follow the cult of personality nonsense since I'm not on Twitter, but apparently this is all well documented there. I have no idea how to point you to sources on it.

Quote the relevant parts verbatim, and post a link to it, like any other claim of supporting documentary evidence.

 

[FatPhil]

That's useful info, thanks!

On a side note, I'm confused about this:

I know Stratton and Elizondo worked together, but hasn't Elizondo claimed to be the head of AATIP after Lacatski? How was Stratton his boss?

Given the title, I presume the embedded podcast within the one I mentioned in the Elizondo's Orbs thread is this one:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvzFc9c13Vs

No idea what the timestamp would be within that podcast. Anyway, here's the quote again:

Jeremy: Stratton replied to me about Lue. He told me exactly what Lue did with AATIP. And he said it wasn't Lue's program.

Host: it's what Lue's job was

Jeremy: He told me that Lue never ran AATIP. Now, I will say that Stratton did speak as if AATIP was an actual program, but he never confirmed nor denied that it was. But he said that it was not Lue's program. He said it was his program. He told me that he selected Lue because of Lue's knowledge of people in other programs. And I'm paraphrasing this, I'm not saying it exact quote because I didn't take notes, but I'm paraphrasing this from memory. Stratton said that he chose Lue to bring access to AATIP of other programs, and I said "what do you mean?", and this is where I'm paraphrasing, not a direct quote, don't hold me to this, this was the gist of what Stratton was talking about. For example, if AATIP was looking at an incursion of Chinese drones over, let's say, the USS Roosevelt or something like that, and there is another department within the DoD that has that information, and AATIP did not have access to that information, and then they couldn't put two and two together, they couldn't do a full analysis on the case because they didn't have access to that information, Stratton would pick up the phone, he would call Lue, Lue would make an introduction to the person that ran that operation, and then Stratton would have access to the information that he needed. Lue did not research, according to Stratton, Lue did not research UFOs, or aliens, or anything, on behest of AATIP. Lue was a facilitator of introductions.

Host: We've heard him say that himself. We've heard him say he wasn't, he's not, into UFOs, never has been, never will be. He's a counterintelligence cointerinsurgency guy.

Jeremy: But that came from Stratton. Stratton told me that Lue did not run AATIP. Furthermore, Stratton also said, and this is a quote, this is not paraphrasing, he goes "I've gotten tired up of cleaning up Lue's shit".

Stratton's got a book coming out too, eh? That's just an invitation for silly drama. It's all just soap opera to me.

 

[Mendel]

Elizondo no longer claims he was the Director if AATIP. Now he says he was a senior member.

I'd like to get an Elizondo quote on this.

Because that's from his book cover:

 

[Mendel]

I mean, my opinion is that neither of them can be head of a program that didn't exist.

But if we're suspending disbelief and go with their narrative, Stratton needs to explain this:

My personal opinion is that Reid would sign what his friends asked him to sign, so the letter doesn't prove anything. But in Elizondo's world, it does; and it says "leadership role".

 

[FatPhil]

I'd like to get an Elizondo quote on this.

Because that's from his book cover:
View attachment 72407

Maybe one was Head of Smoke, and the other was Head of Mirrors within the program. Then by sudoku, Sally was Head of Typing, and Billy was Head of Bin-Emptying, and that's the puzzle solved.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

I mean, my opinion is that neither of them can be head of a program that didn't exist.

But if we're suspending disbelief and go with their narrative, Stratton needs to explain this:
View attachment 72408

My personal opinion is that Reid would sign what his friends asked him to sign, so the letter doesn't prove anything. But in Elizondo's world, it does; and it says "leadership role".

I think some things are being crossed here. Jay only ever lead the UAPTF, Elizondo has claimed to both lead the real AAWSAP right as it closed and also "AATIP" (his specific claim there has changed).

If we reference his book also-
What's in the book is Elizondo talking about how he got "hired" into AAWSAP originally through Stratton coming to his office. Stratton was a senior member of AAWSAP in this framing, but not "the leader" - simply the person who recruited Elizondo onto it (and had authority to do so). That nugget of the book was not talking about the pet "AATIP" and didn't say, at least as far as I saw, that Stratton was the leader.

I don't have the book on hand to direct quote or screenshot at the moment but it's in the middle-ish of Chapter 1.

Think meta may have been attempting to speak to this.

 

[jdog]

I'd like to get an Elizondo quote on this.

Because that's from his book cover:
View attachment 72407

"Former head" is vague enough to cover a broad or narrow range of territory. Does Elizondo claim a more specific title in the book?

The New York Times interview about his book identified him as "senior ranking officer running" AATIP, which also isn't "director."

(So many weasel words in this topic. "Orb" now seems to cover anything from "a distant metallic glint in the sky that I think is an alien craft" to "a small glow I saw in my house." Not to mention "non-human biologics," which could be anything from gray alien corpses to, say, seaweed. Not to mention "triangle" craft whenever people see three lights.)

 

[NorCal Dave]

We're really getting OT here and but..

From @FatPhil YouTube post above:

1:05:21
counterinsurgency guy but that came from stratt Stratton told me that Lou did not
1:05:26
run atip furthermore Stratton also said and this is a quote this is not a
1:05:34
paraphrasing he goes I've gotten tired of cleaning up lose [ __ ] but at the same time he went on to
1:05:43
say Lou does really necessary work that I need him to do and he wasn't talking
1:05:50
in past he was talking in present and that was this year this wasn't you know

WOW! The plot thickens. According to McGowan, Elizondo has gone from:

• The head of the US government's official UAP program. To...
• Possible security officer in the US government's not so official UAP/Skinwalker Ranch paranormal program. To...
• Head of the official followed program to the not so official UAP/SWR paranormal program. To..
• Head of his own side hustle unofficial UAP program and whistleblower. To...
• Head of nothing, as he was just a lacky for Stratton's own side-hustle unofficial UAP program. To...
• Head useful stooge for Stratton's current media activities.

To be fair, McGowan has his own blog I've referenced a bit before and in it he comes to the believe Elizondo is a straight up hustler and there is bad blood between them, so not exactly an impartial source relating a 2nd hand comment. But will be interesting to see if this take holds up.

This video could almost use a thread of its own. In it, McGowan, who despite ongoing mental health issues, is a pretty levelheaded, non-hyped
UAP advocate. He claims the Shumer UAP legislation is BAD for UFOlogy and it will in fact prevent any kind of meaningful disclosure, due to its wording. He makes the argument that all the UFO people pushing for its passage either don't understand that or don't care because it'll keep the mystery going. Something a "two-bit Australian journalist" and an "ex-Intel Messiah" are OK with. McGowan's not upholding the Metabunk politeness policy:

8:48
the legislation would have actually set back public understanding and information access to cheers and
8:55
accolades of countless non-thinking Champions all because some ex Intel
9:00
Messiah and a two-bit Australian journalist told them how to think and
9:06
this is something that we bring up quite a bit Mr Ross Kart and I agree with that
9:12
sentiment a two-bit Australian journalist um there's so many reasons why that's an an accurate statement

 

[Mendel]

"two-bit Australian journalist"

More on "Mr Ross Kart" at https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ross-coulthart.13159/ .

 

[MonkeeSage]

From Imminent, I get the impression that Elizondo and Stratton equally ran their "AATIP" after the actual AAWSAP lost funding.

pp. 111-116

Jay [Stratton] and I had done the best we could for Jim [Lacatski]. Now I needed to see what I could do for the remains of his programs. We knew that the original money Senator Reid and his cohorts had secured for the program had run out. The original funding was programmed for the years 2008–12. Reid thought he could come up with another fresh infusion of funding to tide our investigations over until 2013–14. [...]

I remember a conversation about funding that I had with my new boss, Neill Tipton, who was assigned to run the Intelligence Sharing and foreign Intelligence Relationship Office. [...]

I worked for Neill before, but this was the beginning of a longer, more interesting professional relationship with Neill. In the coming months and years, I would have occasion to share some unusual videos with him, to get his insights into potential UAP technologies.

Long story short, Jay ran point on pulling off miracle after miracle and succeeded in getting Senator Reid to give us new funding—$10 million! We rejoiced for all of ten minutes, until we learned that another DoD program had absconded the funds. Jay and I felt kicked in the teeth. This happened because the language on the funding bill was ambiguous enough forsomeone in a powerful position to justify kicking the money to another line item.

To make matters worse, the world's biggest catch-22 hung over our heads. We knew who had taken the money, and how he expected to use the funds. We just couldn't openly fight for our money. If we did, we would expose the program. If we didn't fight for the money, we would have no other funding source.

Neill Tipton urged me to speak to his boss, John Pede, who was no stranger to black budgets. When I bumped into Pede in the hallway and
explained the situation, he said, "Damn, Lue, wish I had known earlier. I know the money you're asking about; it's being used to pay for some
academic studies. Had I known earlier, I could have helped."

He was right. We had kept our "bigoted" list of AATIP's members and allies small. We were afraid to make some people aware of the effort. I
guess we might have been overly protective of the topic, so protective that we lost the money we needed to continue. [...]

It was all fascinating, but at the time, Jay and I agreed we had to focus on the nuts and bolts of UAP military encounters in order to effectively navigate future battles with Congress, the DoD, and other agencies.

Thus began a new era for AATIP. My new base of operations was office 3C503A—third floor, C-ring, fifth corridor, alpha suite—in the Pentagon.

p. 221

At work, Jay Stratton and I made a plan that would go against all odds. A plan to bring about disclosure. I would resign and go public with the mission of bringing as much attention and credibility to the issue as possible. Jay would stay with the government and use the momentum
gained by the public attention to move the ball forward within the government and brief any and all officials who would no doubt suddenly be
interested. They had to learn the truth, and Jay would be positioned to inform them on a classified level. And he'd be positioned to run whatever
version of AATIP came next. I'd also help educate Congress and facilitate introducing them to credible military and IC members who'd had UAP
encounters. We would continue to work together, from different sides of the fence, to bring about disclosure and look out for the best interest of the American people and, frankly, humanity at large.

 

[elvenwear]

I'd like to get an Elizondo quote on this.

Because that's from his book cover:
View attachment 72407

Oh my God! It's hiding in plain sight!

 

[NorCal Dave]

From Imminent, I get the impression that Elizondo and Stratton equally ran their "AATIP" after the actual AAWSAP lost funding.

Exactly. And with no funding. And with a bit of subterfuge, like Lacatski before with AASWAP:

He was right. We had kept our "bigoted" list of AATIP's members and allies small. We were afraid to make some people aware of the effort. I
guess we might have been overly protective of the topic, so protective that we lost the money we needed to continue. [...]

These were NOT official US government UFO/UAP programs. AAWSAP was a pet project of Lacatski's that Ried funded, and the money went to his campaign doner Bigelow. There was never any mention of UFOs or UAPs, or Skinwalker Ranch for that matter, in any of the Request For Proposal (RFP) documents that established AASWAP. It was all subterfuge to study UFOs and the paranormal without saying they wanted to study UFOs and the paranormal. Only Bigelow really knew what the program was supposed to be about.

Stratton was part of AASWAP as far as I know and Elizondo seems to have had something to do with it, but it's still vague to me. In any event, after AAWSAP folded, those 2 went off did their own UFO/UAP investigation gig with no funding and coopting the made-up name AATIP.

It seems in the ~4-5 years that AATIP was a thing (2013-2017?) they managed to procure the 3 unclassified (I think) Navy videos and supposedly with the help of Mellon, leaked them. That seems to be the limit of what AATIP did.

EDIT: Thanks to Mapperguy pointing out I used the word "with" when I meant "without". Fixed.

 

[jarlrmai]

FLIR1/Tictac had been already been leaked in 2007 earlier and was on the Above Top Secret forums.

I always wonder if this leak later prompted Elizondo et al to look for the internal source and maybe they found Gimbal and Go Fast in the same place.

 

[elvenwear]

AARO have it as an unresolved UAP here, along with 3 other cases:
https://www.aaro.mil/UAP-Cases/Official-UAP-Imagery/

In the above link AARO considers the gimbal video, gofast and flir to be unsolved.

We may not know which object was the focus of each video, but I thought it was settled that gofast wasn't actually going fast, that gimbal was rotating glare and the jump in flir was created by the camera zoom. The fact that we don't know which plane was in flir, or whether gofast was a bird or a balloon is moot.

It is disappointing that this is not reflected in the link above.