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TYB

Defence Space Agency conducts maiden tabletop exercise ‘Antariksha Abhyas’

November 14, 2024 07:19 am IST

The tri-service Defence Space Agency has conducted its maiden tabletop Exercise ‘Antariksha Abhyas 2024’ aimed at bolstering the strategic readiness of the Indian armed forces in the domain of space warfare. The three-day exercise concluded on Wednesday (November 13, 2024).

“Key components of the exercise included focused discussions on emerging space technologies, space situational awareness and India’s space programmes.

The discussions highlighted the importance of monitoring and protecting critical assets and maintaining situational awareness in the increasingly contested space environment,” a Defence Ministry statement said.

India is well positioned to navigate the challenges posed to space-based capabilities, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan said in his opening address at the exercise on Monday (November 11, 2024).

“Space, once considered the final frontier is now the critical enabler of India’s defence and security apparatus.

With its rich legacy of space exploration and growing military capabilities, India is well positioned to navigate the challenges posed to space-based capabilities”.

One of the aims of the exercise was also to identify vulnerabilities in conduct of operations in the event of denial or disruptions of space-based services.

Throughout the three-day event, participants engaged in scenario-based exercises, facilitated by subject experts from various Ministries and Departments of the government, besides military, scientific and academia, the Ministry said.

The experts provided valuable insights into the present and future landscape of military space capabilities and technologies, elucidating specific challenges faced in defence space operations and also the evolving nature of space safety, security, and international space laws.

Key outcomes included refined strategies for operational preparedness, a robust framework for future collaboration and a clear road map for advancing India’s Space doctrine and capabilities in line with national security objectives, the Ministry said adding, “Antariksha Abhyas 2024 successfully met its objectives of improving interoperability, fostering mutual understanding and enhancing cohesion between the tri-services and Defence Space Agency.”

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/defence-space-agency-conducts-maiden-tabletop-exercise-antariksha-abhyas/article68864582.ece

Former Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides wins seat in US Congress

November 13, 2024

Former Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides is headed to Capitol Hill.

Whitesides, who also has "NASA chief of staff" on his resume, won his U.S. House of Representatives race to represent California's 27th district, which covers a big chunk of land north of Los Angeles.

"It's the honor of a lifetime to be elected to serve our district in Congress and deliver for Santa Clarita, the Antelope Valley and the San Fernando Valley," Whitesides wrote in a statement on X Monday night (Nov. 11).

"In Congress, you can count on me to fight to create more good local jobs, lower everyday costs, build safe communities, protect Social Security and Medicare and protect reproductive freedom," he added.

Whitesides, a Democrat, beat Republican incumbent Mike Garcia in a close race, capturing about 51% of the vote. Garcia conceded on Monday (Nov. 11), according to LAist.com.

Whitesides will take a wealth of aerospace experience and interest to Washington, D.C.

From 2004 to 2008, for example, he was executive director of the National Space Society, a nonprofit that advocates for space science and exploration.

During that stretch, he also served as a senior adviser to Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's suborbital space tourism company.

Whitesides worked on President-elect Barack Obama's transition team in 2008 and became NASA's chief of staff the next year.

He held that post until May 2010, when he left with the Distinguished Service Medal, the agency's highest honor.

He returned to Virgin Galactic, becoming the company's first-ever CEO.

Whitesides departed the company in 2021 to gear up for a political run (and do other things, such as co-found Megafire Action, an organization devoted to combating the United States' worsening wildfire problem).

Last week's election brought other aerospace players into the political action as well — chief among them SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, who campaigned hard for President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump announced yesterday (Nov. 12) that Musk will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a new organization that aims to "dismantle government bureaucracy" and "slash excess regulations."

https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-ceo-george-whitesides-congress-win

Brilliant fireball explodes over North America as satellites capture flash from space

November 14, 2024

Another fireball lit up the skies this week, this time over the U.S. Midwest and parts of Canada —  but unlike the last one, this one came from outer space.

The meteor burned up on the morning of Nov. 13, around 6:31 a.m. Mountain Standard Time (8:31 a.m. EST or 1331 GMT).

The resulting fireball appeared to travel southeast and was visible from Alberta and Saskatchewan provinces in Canada and throughout Montana, Idaho and parts of Washington, Wyoming and North Dakota.

Numerous doorbell cameras, dash cameras and cell phones captured the fiery spectacle, showing a green streak brightening for a few seconds as it streamed across the early morning sky.

Another fireball was caught on camera earlier in the week on Saturday (Nov. 9), but this one came from a very different source: a falling Starlink satellite that was burning up upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

Based on the videos and eyewitness reports submitted to the American Meteor Society (AMS), this appears to have been a brilliant fireball.

"I've seen (and photographed) several fireballs before, but this was among the most spectacular I've seen," wrote Dave R. of Alberta, Canada.

"There was a greenish streak and then a very bright flash. The streak continued but shrunk in brightness.

Then there was a secondary smaller and dimmer flash along the same meteor trail. This all occurred within 2 seconds or so."

"All of a sudden I could see the road and my surroundings as if it was early/mid morning," wrote Kaitlynn D. in Corvallis, Montana.

"This was the brightest and longest meteor I have seen this close up," Emily G. of Clancy, Montana wrote in a report to AMS.

The fireball was even seen from space.

Two of the GOES weather satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's captured the moment the meteor burned up in Earth's atmosphere.

One, the GOES-18 spacecraft, saw the meteor with an instrument designed to detect lightning strikes.

Another NOAA satellite, GOES-16, saw the flash using its own lightning sensor.

The sensor is designed to detect bright flashes of light, meaning particularly bright meteors will sometimes appear in its data and imagery.

Meteors like this one become visible when small pieces of space dust (known meteoroids while in space) that come from asteroids or comets enter Earth's atmosphere at very high speeds.

As they journey through the atmosphere, these small specks of space dust collide with particles of air, which generates friction and produces heat.

That heat then vaporizes most meteors, creating the bright streaks of light we see zoom across the sky.

The next meteor showers we can expect will be the Leonid meteor shower, which will unfortunately peak on Nov. 16 under a bright moon which will make seeing them more difficult.

After that, we can look forward to December's Geminid meteor shower.

https://www.space.com/stargazing/meteors-showers/brilliant-fireball-explodes-over-north-america-as-satellites-watch-video

NASA and Roscosmos disagree on cause and severity of ISS air leak

November 13, 2024

NASA and Roscosmos continue to disagree on the cause and severity of an air leak in the Russian segment of the International Space Station, one that NASA worries could lead to a “catastrophic failure” of part of a Russian module.

That disagreement was brought to light during a brief meeting of NASA’s ISS Advisory Committee Nov. 13, which recounted a meeting of that committee with its Roscosmos counterpart in Moscow in September to discuss issues with the station.

The major concern has been a small but persistent leak in a vestibule of the Zvezda service module called PrK that separates a docking port from the rest of the module.

That leak has existed for several years, and station crews have dealt with the leak by sealing off PrK from the rest of the station when they do not need access to Progress cargo spacecraft docked to the port.

“Although the teams continue to investigate the causal factors for the crack initiation and growth, the U.S. and Russian technical teams don’t have a common understanding of what the likely root cause is or the severity of the consequences of these leaks,” said Bob Cabana, a former NASA astronaut and associate administrator who now chairs the committee.

He said Russian engineers believe the cracks are likely caused by “high cyclic fatigue” from micro-vibrations.

NASA, by contrast, believes several factors are at play, including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties of the module and environmental exposure.

In September, a report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said “both agencies have narrowed their focus to internal and external welds” as a cause of the leaks, which have not been seen elsewhere in the station.

At a Sept. 27 briefing, NASA officials downplayed the concerns about the leaks, which were first detected in 2019 but earlier this year had grown to their highest rates seen to date, a loss of 1.7 kilograms of air per day, the OIG report stated.

At that briefing, agency officials said recent repair work reduced the leak rate by a third.

The leaks, though, remain a cause for concern for the agencies as well as space station crews.

At a Nov. 8 briefing, Michael Barratt, a NASA astronaut who returned to Earth in October on the Crew-8 mission after nearly eight months on the station, said his Russian counterparts have been “very open” about the issue but that NASA takes precautions when the hatch to PrK is open.

“We’ve taken a very conservative approach to close a hatch between the U.S. side and the Russian side during those time periods,” he said.

“It’s not a comfortable thing but it is the best agreement between all the smart people on both sides, and it’s something that we as a crew live with.”

Cabana said at the committee meeting that there is also no agreement between NASA and Roscosmos on the severity of the issue.

“While the Russian team continues to search for and seal the leaks, it does not believe catastrophic disintegration of the PrK is realistic,” he said.

“NASA has expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the PrK and the possibility of a catastrophic failure.”

“The Russians believe that continued operations are safe but they can’t prove to our satisfaction that they are, and the U.S. believes that it’s not safe but we can’t prove to the Russians’ satisfaction that that’s the case,” he concluded.

Cabana said the NASA and Roscosmos committee made a joint recommendation to their agencies’ leaders that they would continue to seek a “common understanding of the structural integrity” of PrK and bring in outside experts from academia and industry to support those efforts.

He offered no timetable for those efforts, but said NASA has brought in an independent team to assess the leaks.

“This is an engineering problem, and good engineers should be able to reach a solution and agree on it.”

“The station is not young. It’s been up there for quite a while. You expect some wear and tear, and we’re seeing that,” Barratt said at the Crew-8 briefing.

The PrK leak was the primary topic of the meeting, which lasted only about 10 minutes even though the Federal Register notice for the meeting projected it would last an hour.

The meeting was the first public meeting by the committee since March 2020, when the committee was chaired by former astronaut Tom Stafford, who passed away this March.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-roscosmos-disagree-on-cause-and-severity-of-iss-air-leak/

China launches first Haiyang-4 oceanography satellite

November 14, 2024

China conducted its 55th orbital launch of 2024, sending the Haiyang-4 (01) oceanography satellite into a near polar orbit.

A Long March 4B rocket lifted off at 5:42 p.m. Eastern Nov. 13 (2242 UTC) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, north China.

Insulation tiles fell from the payload fairing as the rocket climbed into the night sky, with shock diamonds visible in the exhaust from the rocket’s hypergolic propellant mix.

China’s space authorities announced launch success within an hour of launch and revealed the payload to be the Haiyang-4 (01) oceanography satellite.

Haiyang-4 (01) was later cataloged in a 633 by 644-kilometer orbit by U.S. Space Force space domain awareness teams.

The Haiyang-4 (01) satellite is equipped with a comprehensive aperture radiometer, active and passive detectors and other payloads, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

The satellite will fill a gap in China’s high-precision global ocean-salinity detection capabilities. It will improve data collection on ocean dynamics and environmental factors, and boost the accuracy of China’s marine forecasting products, according to CNSA. It will also contribute to marine environmental forecasts, marine ecological forecasts, water cycle monitoring, short-term climate forecasts, global climate change research and other areas.

“Haiyang” translates to “ocean” in Chinese, reflecting the satellites’ primary mission of monitoring marine environments. Ocean monitoring satellites are valuable for providing data for weather models for forecasting and monitoring climate change. They also deliver information helpful for tracking pollution and marine navigation and safety.

The launch takes China to 55 orbital launch attempts in 2024. Among these are a failure of the iSpace Hyperbola-1 solid rocket in July, and a partial failure that saw a pair of lunar satellites enter the wrong orbit, but apparently later reached the moon. Major missions include the Shenzhou-18 and Shenzhou-19 crewed missions, and the unprecedented Chang’e-6 lunar far side sample return mission.

Upcoming missions include the Tianzhou-8 cargo resupply mission to the Tiangong space station. Launch is scheduled for around 10:10 a.m. Eastern (1510 UTC) Friday, Nov. 15. The first launch of the Long March 12 is expected in the coming weeks. Launch will take place from a new commercial spaceport near Wenchang, Hainan island.

https://spacenews.com/china-launches-first-haiyang-4-oceanography-satellite/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X85m1VW5C-c

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https://qalerts.app/?n=3777

https://thedebrief.org/2024-uap-annual-report-released-in-wake-of-congressional-hearing-addressing-claims-of-u-s-secret-programs/

https://media.defense.gov/2024/Nov/14/2003583603/-1/-1/0/FY24-CONSOLIDATED-ANNUAL-REPORT-ON-UAP-508.PDF

2024 UAP Annual Report Released in Wake of Congressional Hearing Addressing Claims of U.S. Secret Programs

November 14, 2024

Welcome to this week’s double-sized installment of The Intelligence Brief… today, the DoD released its 2024 annual report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), within 24 hours of the conclusion of a Congressional hearing on the topic.

In our analysis of this week’s UAP double-hit combo, we’ll be looking at 1) significant takeaways from the latest official report on the DoD’s UAP investigations, 2) trends reported by the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), and then shifting gears, we’ll examine 3) what former officials told lawmakers on Capitol hill yesterday involving UAP and 4) how claims involving secret U.S. programs and Pentagon disinformation campaigns became a major focal point of yesterday’s hearing.

On Thursday, the DoD released the Fiscal Year 2024 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, the Pentagon’s latest official annual installment detailing its progress in studying and evaluating unusual phenomena encountered by U.S. military personnel.

The new report covers incidents from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, and any previously undocumented reports from earlier periods.

According to the document, the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) received 757 UAP reports, 485 of which occurred during the most recent reporting period (272 reports were from a period between 2021 and 2022).

Among the key takeaways from the new report, AARO received two reports indicating flight safety concerns, and “three reports described pilots being trailed or shadowed by UAP.”

“To date, AARO has no indication or confirmation that these activities are attributable to foreign adversaries,” the report states, adding that “AARO continues to coordinate with the Intelligence Community (IC) to identify whether these activities may be the result of foreign adversarial activities.”

The new AARO report also says 49 of the cases it received were resolved, 243 were recommended for closure and are pending peer review, and 444 lacked enough data for reliable analysis.

Presently, no cases it resolved have been linked to suspected foreign adversarial technologies, nor do any appear to display evidence of advanced capabilities or other scientific or technological breakthroughs.

However, the report states that “AARO determined 21 cases merit further analysis by its IC and science and technology (S&T) partners,” which the office “is working closely with its IC and S&T partners to understand and attribute,” given that these cases appear to “merit further analysis based on reported anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors.”

The report also says observed UAP morphologies and other attributes remain consistent with traditional observations, with most reported UAP appearing as spherical objects.

The report does include several examples of less conventional reported morphologies including descriptions of a “green fire ball,” “a jelly fish with [multicolored] flashing lights,” and a “silver rocket approximately six feet long.”

AARO’s investigations also reveal that the office “increasingly receives cases that it is able to resolve to the Starlink satellite constellation,” as well as sensor artifacts on various systems that lead to misidentification of birds and similar prosaic objects.

The report notes 392 reports AARO received from the FAA, only one of which involved possible flight safety issues arising from a commercial aircrew reporting a near miss with a “cylindrical object” it encountered off the coast of New York, one of several cases AARO is still analyzing.

The report also details the recovery of a crashed unmanned aerial system (UAS) near the D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant, which was later provided to local law enforcement.

As far as any more exotic crash retrievals, the report states that “AARO Possesses No Data to Indicate the Capture or Exploitation of UAP,” although protocols are currently in development in the event such capture were ever to occur.

In the recent reporting period, AARO also says it received no reports involving adverse physiological or health effects.

AARO also reported that it has begun testing its new GREMLIN sensor system, which the office says “demonstrated functionality and successfully collected data during a test event in March of 2024.”

“The next step for GREMLIN is a 90-day pattern of life collection at a site of national security,” the report states.

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The release of the 2024 annual UAP report was preceded by a congressional hearing on Wednesday, the latest in a series that have recently addressed the UAP subject.

Several former officials, including Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet, former counterintelligence special agent Luis Elizondo, and former NASA UAP Independent Study Team member Mike Gold, along with independent journalist Michael Shellenberger, spoke before a bipartisan group of lawmakers, who expressed frustration over government secrecy surrounding the Pentagon’s investigations.

Although Wednesday’s session produced no “bombshell” revelations and seemed to receive less attention than past Congressional hearings on the topic, there were nonetheless several important takeaways that warrant attention.

A resounding theme in some of the testimonies provided on Wednesday involved ongoing allegations of secretive Department of Defense UAP initiatives.

These were primarily referenced by former DoD employee Luis Elizondo, who responded to several questions from lawmakers about his knowledge of such alleged programs.

“Has the government conducted secret UAP crash retrieval programs, yes or no?” Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) pointedly asked Elizondo during the hearing.

“Yes,” Elizondo said, also responding in the affirmative to an immediate follow-up from Mace asking if such programs were designed to identify and reverse-engineer alien craft.

Also contributing to the discussion involving alleged secret UAP programs was witness Michael Shellenberger, an independent journalist and founder of Public, who published a report several weeks ago detailing the existence of an alleged secret UAP program called “Immaculate Constellation.” According to Shellenberger’s sources (all of which currently remain on background), the U.S. Executive Branch has concealed the existence of UAP programs for decades without congressional oversight.

Another notable highlight from the recent hearing involved assertions by Gallaudet and Elizondo involving disinformation campaigns carried out by the DoD. Specifically, Elizondo highlighted instances involving information management campaigns that he claims have aimed not only to mislead the public, but also to harm his credibility. Gallaudet also discussed a meeting he attended with AARO officials earlier this year, which he likened to being an “influence operation,” where officials appeared to try and convince him of the possibility that a famous 2004 UAP incident involving an object popularly known as the Tic Tac might have been secret U.S. technology.

Also contributing to the discussion involving alleged secret UAP programs was witness Michael Shellenberger, an independent journalist and founder of Public, who published a report several weeks ago detailing the existence of an alleged secret UAP program called “Immaculate Constellation.” According to Shellenberger’s sources (all of which currently remain on background), the U.S. Executive Branch has concealed the existence of UAP programs for decades without congressional oversight.

Another notable highlight from the recent hearing involved assertions by Gallaudet and Elizondo involving disinformation campaigns carried out by the DoD. Specifically, Elizondo highlighted instances involving information management campaigns that he claims have aimed not only to mislead the public, but also to harm his credibility. Gallaudet also discussed a meeting he attended with AARO officials earlier this year, which he likened to being an “influence operation,” where officials appeared to try and convince him of the possibility that a famous 2004 UAP incident involving an object popularly known as the Tic Tac might have been secret U.S. technology.

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https://mace.house.gov/

https://mace.house.gov/media/in-the-news/icymi-house-panel-hears-hidden-uap-trove-secretive-arms-race

https://mace.house.gov/media/in-the-news/icymi-im-disturbed-nancy-mace-highlights-lack-transparency-pentagon-office-uaps

ICYMI: House panel hears of hidden UAP trove, ‘secretive arms race’

November 13, 2024

House lawmakers on Wednesday heard from witnesses who claim the United States government is sitting on a trove of information on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) stretching back decades.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), in his opening remarks, called on President-elect Trump to throw off the veil of secrecy on UAPs.

He said the push for transparency has been “bipartisan, bicameral, and as we get into a new administration, the president-elect has talked about opportunities to declassify information on UAPs, and I hope he lives up to that promise.”

Speaking during a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing, one previous Pentagon official claimed such a reveal would show a “multidecade, secretive arms race.”

“Let me be clear: UAP are real,” Luis Elizondo said in his opening testimony during the hearing.

“Advanced technologies not made by our government — or any other government — are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe.

Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries.

Elizondo, the former head of the Pentagon’s now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program charged with investigating UAPs, spoke alongside three other witnesses in a more than two-hour hearing that called into question the U.S. government’s classification process and entered several bombshell claims into the public sphere.

“I believe we are in the midst of a multidecade, secretive arms race, one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” Elizondo said.

He later added that “excessive secrecy” has led to “grave misdeeds against loyal civil servants, military personnel and the public, all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos.”

Another witness, journalist Michael Shellenberger, who publishes the “Public” newsletter on Substack, said Pentagon sources acknowledged to him the existence of an unacknowledged special access program known as “Immaculate Constellation.”

A 12-page report on Immaculate Constellation — delivered to Congress by Shellenberger and authored, he says, by a current or former official and UAP whistleblower — claims that the executive branch “has been managing UAPs without congressional knowledge or authorization for some time, possibly decades.”

The report also claims that Immaculate Constellation has gathered high-quality images of UAPs and recorded firsthand observations.

“The U.S. military and intelligence community are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information — still photos, video photos, other sensor information — and they have for a very long time,” Shellenberger said.

He added that he’s been told there are hundreds, maybe thousands of pieces of such visual evidence, “and it’s not those fuzzy photos and videos that we’ve been given, it’s very high resolution.”

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Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who led the hearing, at one point held up the report and declared Immaculate Constellation was an “unacknowledged special access program that your government says does not exist.”

The hearing, part of a larger effort by Congress to investigate UAPs and whether government sectors are withholding evidence from lawmakers, took place more than a year after a similar hearing held in July 2023.

During that gathering, retired Maj. David Grusch, formerly part of the Pentagon’s UAP task force, claimed that the U.S. government has long run a secret program to reverse-engineer nonhuman material from crash sites of UAP vessels.

And two former Navy pilots relayed firsthand sightings of unexplained objects routinely violating U.S. airspace.

The testimony reignited long-held doubts that the U.S. military and other high-level government agencies have been forthcoming with what it knows about possible extraterrestrial activity.

The hearing also set off a push in Congress for more transparency, but lawmakers say movement by the U.S. government has been too slow.

The Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in March issued a report that said it has found “no evidence” of alien spacecraft.

“To date, AARO has found no verifiable evidence for claims that the U.S. government and private companies have access to or have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology,” Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement at the time.

Mace said the office “is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to bring forward the truth about the government’s activities concerning UAPs.”

“So if there is no ‘there’ there, then why are we spending money on it, and by how much? Why the secrecy if it’s really no big deal and there’s nothing there, why hide it from the American people?

Because I’m not a mathematician, but I can tell you that doesn’t add up,” she said.

Elizondo on Wednesday repeated Grusch’s explosive claims, telling Mace that the government has conducted secret UAP crash-retrieval programs meant to identify and reverse-engineer alien craft.

He even said he had seen documentation on compensation for U.S. personnel injured during a retrieval.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, meanwhile, testified he first encountered UAPs a few years ago during a strike group exercise aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.

During the military drill, he received an email on the Navy’s secure network urgently asking if anyone could identify non-U.S. objects that caused multiple near-midair collisions, warning the exercise might have to be shut down.

But the next day, he claimed, the email had been wiped from his inbox and senior staff would not speak about the event.

Elizondo later said that UAPs have flown so close to American fighters in some incidents that they have split aircraft formations “right down the middle.”

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Latest Congressional Hearing On UFOs Produces Some Revelatory Quotes

November 14, 2024 10:12 am

The U.S. House Oversight Committee held another hearing on reports of “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP, or UFOs) on Wednesday.

Multiple former government officials and whistleblowers spoke and their testimonies, if true, were truly eye-opening.

Among the witnesses who spoke to Congress about UFOs were Dr. Tim Gallaudet, a retired Rear Admiral of the U.S. Navy; Luis Elizondo, a former high-ranking UFO investigator who claims to have once been the director of a covert Pentagon UFO investigative program; Michael Gold, former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy and Partnerships and member of NASA’s group of 16 experts tasked with learning more about UFOs; and Michael Shellenberger, founder of the website Public.

Below are some of the most interesting quotes from the over two-hour hearing on UFOs.

• “This hearing is intended to help Congress and the American people to learn the extent of the programs and activities our government has engaged in with respect to UAPs — and what knowledge it has yielded. That includes, of course, any knowledge of extraterrestrial life or technology of non-human origin,” Subcommittee Chairwoman Congresswoman Nancy Mace said.

• “If government-funded research on UAPs has NOT yielded any useful knowledge, we need to know that, too. Taxpayers deserve to know how much has been invested. They shouldn’t be kept in the dark to spare the Pentagon embarrassment,” Mace continued.

• “Last year’s UAP hearing before this oversight committee confirmed that UAP-related information is being withheld from senior officials and members of Congress,” said Gallaudet, adding, “Equally concerning, last year’s UAP hearing also revealed that elements of the government are engaged in a disinformation campaign to include personal attacks designed to discredit UAP whistleblowers.”

• “Let me be clear,” Elizondo said. “UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our Government – or any other government – are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries. I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race — one funded by mis-allocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies.”

• Elizondo went on to say, “Many of my former colleagues and I have provided classified testimony to both the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community Inspector General. Many of us have subsequently been targeted by this cabal with threats to our careers, our security clearances, and even our lives. This is not hyperbole, but a genuine fact.”

• “Our best tool for unlocking the mystery of UAP is science, but we cannot conduct a proper inquiry if the stigma is so overwhelming that just daring to be part of a NASA research team elicits such a vitriolic response,” said Gold. “Therefore, one of the most important actions that can be taken relative to exposing the truth of UAP is to combat the stigma, and this is where I think NASA can be imminently helpful.”

• “What the American people need to know is that the U.S., military and intelligence community are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information: still photos, video, photos, other sensor information, and they have for a very long time,” Shellenberger said. “And it’s not those fuzzy photos and videos that we’ve been given. There’s very clear, high resolution [files].”

• “The vehicles we’re talking about… are performing in excess of 1,000, 2,000, 3,000Gs,” said Elizondo. “We are talking about technologies that outperform anything in our [military] inventory.”

• “Earlier this year, I met with the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, and what I thought would be a 90-minute meeting just to meet with leadership turned out to be an hours-long influence operation on me,” said Gallaudet.

• “I don’t think it’s a stretch when you look at the diversity of life on this planet and the size of this universe to think that there’d be more diverse, higher order non-human intelligences throughout the universe, and that’s probably what’s visiting us,” Gallaudet later said.

• “Artificial intelligence. ML. Machines. We assume that all intelligence would be like us,” Gold said. “And every time we look out into the universe, we are humbled relative to what we don’t know, in terms of the forms of intelligence; of what it may take.”

https://brobible.com/sports/article/quotes-congressional-hearing-on-ufos/