TYB
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-space-satellite-csis-cosmos-2553-2065082
https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1915869672152461676
Did Russia Lose Top Secret Space Nuke Satellite? What We Know
Updated Apr 28, 2025 at 7:11 PM EDT
A satellite launched by Russia, which the U.S. has said is linked to a nuclear anti-satellite weapon program, is no longer functioning correctly, it has been reported.
The Cosmos 2553 satellite appears to have been spinning out of control over the past year, according to Reuters, citing Doppler radar data from space-tracking firm LeoLabs and optical data from Slingshot Aerospace.
The satellite has been at the center of U.S. allegations that Russia has been developing a nuclear weapon that can destroy satellite networks.
However, Moscow has denied that such a program exists. It was launched on February 5, 2022, by the Russian Aerospace Forces, a branch of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Newsweek that it could be just a research and development satellite, which probably completed its mission around a month after launch, and "tiny" changes in its orbit had been detected.
House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner, who warned in June 2024 about Russia's nuclear anti-satellite weapons program, is among U.S. officials who have raised the alarm about Cosmos 2553.
Reports that the satellite is spinning uncontrollably add to intrigue about Moscow's alleged space weapon efforts.
What To Know
On February 5, 2022, 20 days before Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Cosmos 2553 was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia's northern Arkhangelsk region and was delivered into orbit by a Soyuz-2.1a rocket.
Russia's armed forces announced that the purpose of the mission was to test how the satellite's instruments and systems handled radiation and heavy charged particles.
But U.S. officials linked it to a program aimed at developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), which could destroy satellite networks.
While Moscow views SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation as a legitimate military target because of their battlefield use by Ukraine, Russia has denied it is developing such a weapon. It says the satellite is for research purposes.
In April 2024, Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution aimed at strengthening the 1967 Outer Space Treaty barring nuclear weapons in space.
Errant Movements
The Cosmos 2553 has been in orbit some 1,100 miles above Earth, in a hotspot of cosmic radiation that communications satellites typically avoid, Reuters said.
The satellite is potentially carrying a "dummy warhead" and, in testing new technologies, Moscow may have placed it in a remote orbit to avoid monitoring, according to the annual Threat Assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
However, LeoLabs detected in November what it said looked like errant movements by the satellite.
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Slingshot, whose telescope network has been tracking the satellite since its launch, also detected movements in May 2024 that showed the object's brightness had become variable, indicating a potential tumble.
The CSIS said observations indicated that the satellite was no longer operational, although Slingshot said recent observations showed the object had stabilized.
U.S. Space Command is also aware of a change in Cosmos 2553's altitude, according to Reuters, although it did not comment further.
McDowell, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, posted on X, formerly Twitter, about how the orbit height of Kosmos-2553 had changed over time by less than one kilometer for the satellite.
He told Newsweek he did not have access to optical variation data, which could confirm or refute whether Moscow had lost control of the object, but said there had been "tiny" changes to its orbit.
He said it was likely a research and development satellite that had completed its mission within a month or so of launch.
Even if it were linked to a weapons program, having the satellite die would not be a big deal for Russia, he added.
What People Are Saying
CSIS Space Threat Assessment: "Based upon persistent radar monitoring by LeoLabs of Cosmos-2553, there is high confidence it has been tumbling since mid-November 2024 This observation strongly suggests the satellite is no longer operational."
The global telescope network Slingshot noted that "the object's brightness became variable, indicating a potential tumble."
Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist and editor of Jonathan's Space Report, told Newsweek: "It has made only tiny changes to its orbit.
I suspect this is just a research and development satellite, which probably completed its mission within a month or so of launch.
"Even if it is related to a weapons program, I don't think having the satellite die now would be a big deal for them."
What Happens Next
Russia, China and the U.S. continue to invest in military space capabilities as concerns grow about how technologies could have hostile military uses.
The CSIS report said that Chinese and Russian satellites in both low and geostationary Earth orbits are developing more advanced maneuvering capabilities, which can be used for space warfighting and may alarm the U.S. and its allies.
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Securing the Skies: Addressing Unauthorized Drone Activity Over U.S. Military Installations
April 29, 2025 2:00 pm
Military and Foreign Affairs
Witnesses and testimonies:
Rear Admiral Paul Spedero Jr.
Vice Director for Operations, J3, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)
Mr. Mark Roosevelt Ditlevson
Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)
Mr. Timothy L. Arel
Chief Operating Officer, Air Traffic Organization
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/securing-the-skies-addressing-unauthorized-drone-activity-over-u-s-military-installations/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXrQaTyj8k
IDF intercepts drone smuggling assault rifles from Egypt
April 29, 2025
The Israel Defense Forces intercepted a drone attempting to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Israeli territory late on Monday night.
IDF surveillance teams identified the UAV entering Israeli airspace.
Israeli forces promptly downed the drone and, upon examination, discovered it was transporting 10 M-16 assault rifles, as well as ammunition.
The seized arms were handed over to security personnel for further investigation.
This event is part of a broader pattern of recent smuggling attempts along the Israeli-Egyptian border using UAVs.
Over the past several months, the IDF has intercepted multiple drones carrying firearms and munitions across the border.
For instance, in January, a drone carrying 13 rifles was shot down by Paran Brigade troops.
Similar interceptions occurred in November and October of the previous year, illustrating an ongoing trend.
The Sinai Peninsula, long known for smuggling activity due to its rugged landscape and limited security presence, remains a challenging region.
Despite Egyptian efforts to disrupt smuggling routes and bolster border security, smugglers have increasingly turned to drones to bypass traditional barriers.
The IDF reaffirmed its vigilance in safeguarding Israel’s borders and its determination to prevent the influx of illegal weapons that could endanger civilian lives.
https://www.jns.org/idf-intercepts-drone-smuggling-assault-rifles-from-egypt/
https://twitter.com/idfonline/status/1917067328115614017
Pakistan army says it shot down Indian drone
Apr 29, 2025, 2:33 PM
According to security sources, the drone was being used for surveillance, but the army responded swiftly and destroyed it before it could complete its mission.
This action was taken after the Indian quadcopter crossed into Pakistani territory, attempting to spy on sensitive locations.
The army’s timely response successfully stopped the violation, sending a clear message that Pakistan will not tolerate such intrusions.
Officials confirmed the army is always prepared to counter any aggression.
Tensions between India and Pakistan remain high. Recently, India blamed Pakistan for a deadly shooting in Pahalgam, Indian-controlled Kashmir, without providing evidence.
India even suspended the Indus Waters Treaty unilaterally, further straining relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
However, Pakistan condemned the Pahalgam incident and offered full cooperation for a neutral investigation.
Both the government and military leadership warned that any misadventure from India would be met with a strong and unforgettable response.
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/231223/Pakistan-army-says-it-shot-down-Indian-drone
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/congressional-briefing-on-uap-science-acad2ca09e2f
https://uapdisclosurefund.org/events/understanding-uap-science
Congressional Briefing on UAP Science
April 29, 2025
On Thursday, May 1 at 11:30AM ET, I am scheduled to give a public presentation at a bipartisan U.S. congressional briefing on “Understanding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP): Science, National Security & Innovation,” hosted by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Task Force on the Declassification and Federal Secrets — led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.
The live-stream video will be available here. A podcaster suggested to congresswomen Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla) that they take a photo with me in the middle, to illustrate that UAP interest is bipartisan.
During my presentation, I will advocate for two facets of the scientific study of UAP. First, it is imperative to allocate funds to collect new high-quality scientific data on UAP with state-of-the-art instruments that were not available in the past.
Old UAP reports, such as those recently documented in the National Archives contain limited data that cannot be verified. Since the sky and oceans are not classified, it makes more sense to collect new and better data on millions of objects.
This is what the Galileo Project is currently doing under my leadership. We are assembling three observatories in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Nevada that will observe the full sky with infrared, optical, radio and audio sensors.
The data is analyzed with artificial intelligence software that search for outliers with unusual appearance or flight characteristics. Our peer-reviewed paper on the first million objects imply that less than 3% of them are anomalous.
Our ability to discover UAP outside the performance envelope of human-made technologies will be facilitated in the coming months, as we start operating multiple sensors separated by a few miles within each observatory.
Viewing objects from multiple directions would allow us to measure their distance, speed and acceleration through triangulation. As soon as we employ triangulation, we will be able to search for truly anomalous outliers.
In addition, the Galileo Project aims to conduct a second Pacific Ocean expedition in search for large pieces in the wreckage of the interstellar meteor, IM1, spotted by U.S. government satellites in 2014.
Large pieces will allow us to identify the material and structure of the original object and conclude whether it was natural or artificial in origin.
So far, we identified an unusual chemical composition for 10% of the millimeter-size fragments recovered from IM1’s site.
We are currently engaged in isotope analysis to check whether their relative abundances fall outside the range of Solar system materials.
Since volatile elements were lost from the molten spherules during the airburst, our next expedition (contingent on finding a funder) aims to recover larger pieces that survived the fireball.
In a paper with my brilliant postdoc Morgan MacLeod, I showed that the unusual chemical composition of the millimeter-size spherules that we recovered from IM1’s site could have been produced during the spaghettification of a rocky planet by dwarf star.
Large pieces would help us check if a natural origin of this type is favored over a technological origin. If we are lucky to recover the core of IM1, we will easily find whether IM1 was a rock or an interstellar gadget with buttons on it.
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On January 2, 2025, the Minor Planet Center announced a new asteroid labeled 2018 CN41, but less than 17 hours later an editorial notice deleted 2018 CN41 from the database since the object was not an asteroid.
Also, there was no evidence for a cometary tail around it. If 2018 CN41 is not an asteroid nor a comet, what is it? As it turns out, it is a car.
Specifically, it is the Tesla Roadster car, launched on February 6, 2018, as the dummy payload for the Falcon Heavy first flight. This car is now orbiting the Sun on the same eccentric orbit reported for 2018 CN41.
This example raises the question of whether any of the interstellar objects in the inner Solar system are interstellar cars?
Given the broad interest of the public in UAP and interstellar objects, we should allocate billions of dollars to the scientific study of these anomalous objects.
The scientific community has already allocated funds of this magnitude to the study of dark matter, without success.
If we were to ask taxpayers which question is more urgent, they will likely side with UAP. If all UAP end up being human made, this conclusion would still be important for national security.
A total investment of a few billion dollars is only a fraction of a percent of the annual defense budget.
The second point I will advocate in my presentation stems from what I noted in a NewsNation interview last night: “If the U.S. Government has any data or materials concerning what lies outside the Solar system, it would be my privilege to help them figure it out.”
Knowing what the U.S. government has at its possession can save time for the Galileo Project research team. Government officials do not have the time nor the expertise to analyze astrophysical data.
My day job as an astrophysicist and head of the Galileo Project is to find out whether there are other resident civilizations in our cosmic neighborhood. In a podcast interview today, I was asked: “What would you like to be remembered for?”
My answer was: For my future work. The best is yet to come.” Enrico Fermi’s question: “where is everybody?” should be answered by collecting evidence with a sense of curiosity and humility.
Encountering interstellar gadgets would revive in us the sense of awe that Moses felt when witnessing the miracle of the burning bush that was not consumed.
In contrast to Friedrich Nietzsche’s premature assertion: “God is dead,” encountering technological miracles manufactured by an advanced alien intelligence might suggest that “Superhumans are alive.”
Despite our wishful thinking, Earth might not be the technological center of the Universe. Welcome to the next Copernican revolution.
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UAPs still pose concern, whistleblower Ryan Graves says
Updated: Apr 29, 2025 / 10:36 AM CDT
Americans could be days away from a major step toward UFO transparency.
Ryan Graves, the first active duty military pilot to come forward regarding UAP sightings, joined “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” ahead of Tuesday’s Congressional UFO task force meeting.
The meeting will be followed by a roundtable with experts and a full committee hearing next month.
It follows the National Archives website update last week, which moved all its UFO-related documents to one place.
Graves said he does not believe information from Tuesday’s or next month’s meeting will be immediately conveyed to the American people; however, it will “better arm the task force and correctional members to go forward and bring that information forward eventually.”
Many pilots have felt intimidated about what they have witnessed, but Graves contended this is changing to some degree.
“There still is a lot of institutional stigma and the lack of proper reporting channels, but at safeaerospace.org, we have air crew professionals reporting to us every day about what they are seeing,” he said.
“And there is still much concern about where these are from, what the national security implications are, and what the safety implications of them are.”
Graves added that there will always be a human element to any UFO sighting. “We can’t forget that this is something that people have to deal with on a daily basis,” he said.
Ryan Graves called for greater protection for fellow UAP whistleblowers
In 2024, Graves spoke with NewsNation about a Congressional hearing in which several whistleblowers testified. “[They made] another major step forward in this conversation,” Graves said of the whistleblowers.
“It’s no longer just the last three witnesses that gave testimony last year [2023]. It’s a continuing story that I think is prime for future conversation…”
Graves said that, for a greater breadth of information, more security is needed.
“I think we need to look to the Department of Justice, Congress, and the executive branch to be able to provide those protections, so that these people that are willing to come forward have the ability to do so without fear of repercussions,” he told NewsNation.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/much-concern-ufos-ryan-graves/
'I'm an UFO expert – aliens exist and they are killing humans on purpose'
16:49, 29 Apr 2025
A UFO expert who inspired a character in a Hollywood classic, has claimed that aliens are watching us and are killing innocent humans on purpose.
Jacques Vallée, who contributed to a covert Pentagon-associated investigation into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), unveiled this shocking claim based on his extensive research behind closed doors.
But while there is a clamour for clarity, he says authorities need to tread carefully when it comes to full disclosure, otherwise he believes that too much information could plunge civilisation and religions into chaos.
As a central figure in UFO research and debate for six decades, Vallée inspired the French researcher character in Steven Spielberg's sci-fi Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
However, Vallée insists that what humanity has long dismissed as mere science fiction is indeed reality - and governments have been privy to this for years.
Vallée was one of the pioneers to propose that the unidentified crafts, sighted for centuries in our skies and seas, might not originate from other planets but rather from alternate realities.
In a spine-chilling revelation, he disclosed that he has come across files documenting instances of deaths deliberately inflicted by aliens.
The files he is referring to were pulled together in the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP).
AAWSAP's investigations have shone a light on the startling health repercussions for those encountering UFOs in the flesh.
Sleuths from AAWSAP jetted off to Brazil to dig into government archives about locals treated for injuries after getting caught in the crosshairs of unidentified flying objects.
While Vallée won’t discuss specific AAWSAP files, except for cases he provided to the database, he said those cases of UFO-related injuries were not accidental.
"I can tell you that in my files… some of which I contributed to the database of, there are at least half a dozen well-documented cases where the injuries that resulted in death were deliberate," Vallée said.
Encounters where UFOs have intentionally harmed humans are few and far between, say insiders privy to the whole AAWSAP files, but they say they happen nonetheless.
Dr Colm Kelleher, one of the AAWSAP managers, has said, bluntly, that UFOs are "bad for human health".
Vallée believes the real truth has been kept secret because if the public knew that not only are we not alone, but that extra-terrestrial or extra-dimensional forces have killed humans with impunity, the very fabric of society could unravel.
In his most recent book, Forbidden Science 6: Scattered Castles, Vallée shares behind-the-scenes chats with his AAWSAP cohorts, including Vegas tycoon Robert Bigelow.
Moreover, there are ongoing discussions among a tight-knit group of scientists, known as the Lonestars.
These boffins, some of whom are ex-CIA contractors, believe that the US government has retrieved crashed vehicles of unknown origin and that defence contractors have spent decades trying to crack the tech at top-secret desert locations and beyond.
They argue that rival nations are doing the same, putting national security on the line in this high-stakes technological race.
While Vallée is all for openness, he fears that an official announcement could cause pandemonium.
"If we want to disclose… something as simple as saying, 'Yes, we acknowledge the phenomenon and it seems to be from space,' we would have to… answer a hundred other questions, that this is not the end of the story," Vallée told KLAS.
"There are religious questions… there is a religious side to all this."
While Vallée is encouraged by the renewed interest in UFOs within Congress, mainstream media, and academia, he thinks someone needs to craft a well-planned strategy for how to unleash what would likely be the biggest news story in history.
"I think… that we should disclose with a structure," Vallée suggested, adding, "The structure hasn't been invented yet."
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/us-news/im-ufo-expert–aliens-35138781
RFK Files, UAP Records, and More
last reviewed on April 28, 2025.
The National Archives continues to deliver for the American people by making more government records available.
We released the first tranche of Records Related to the Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy through a web page dedicated to these records.
The release of the first 10,000 pages fulfills part of President Trump’s maximum transparency promise in Executive Order 14176. Visit Archives.gov/RFK to explore the records.
Acting Archivist of the United States Secretary Marco Rubio was at the National Archives at College Park on Wednesday, April 23.
The Archivist viewed iconic artifacts spanning 250 years of American history and visited the Digitization Lab to receive a briefing on the ongoing digitization efforts related to Executive Order 14176.
On Thursday, April 24, The National Archives released Records Related to Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) at the National Archives.
These records and their release fulfill the National Archives’ requirement in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act to establish the ‘‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection.”
Additionally, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library released 25 boxes of newly declassified National Security Council records, which are now open and available to the public.
These include records related to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, negotiations to end the Vietnam War, diplomacy with the People’s Republic of China, and more.
Follow the National Archives on Facebook and X.
https://www.archives.gov/research/rfk
https://www.archives.gov/news/articles/mass-digitization-center-college-park-opening
https://www.archives.gov/research/topics/uaps
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/index.php/news/march-31-2025-opening-previously-classified-documents
https://www.facebook.com/usnationalarchives/
https://x.com/USNatArchives