~~~Senator Gillibrand asks Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin if he will ensure the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) will be fully funded during today’s Department of Defense budget request hearing.#ufotwitter #ufo #uap h/t: @Akam1129 pic.twitter.com/DeHpamZQkD
— UAP James (@UAPJames) March 28, 2023
~~~ [the_ad id=”1724″] KG: In this hearing, I tend to probe a series of specific issues. In the recent incidents where multiple objects were shot down over North America, it seemed that Pentagon leadership did not turn to [the] AARO office to play a leading role in advising the combatant commander. We need to know whether this will continue, we need to know whether the leadership in DoD will bring AARO into the decision-making process in a visible way, and we need to know what role AARO will play in interagency coordination after the NSC Working Group disbands. In the fiscal year 2023 National Defense and Intelligence Authorization Act, Congress established a direct-reporting chain from the AARO director to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The role of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security is limited to providing administrative support. We need to know how this direction is being implemented. UAP are frequently observed flying [at] extremely high or very-low speeds and come in various sizes and shapes. During the recent shoot downs over North America, DoD disclosed that filters on radar systems were adjusted to allow for detection and tracking of diverse sets of objects for the first time. While opening the aperture can overload the real time, analytic process, we cannot keep turning a blind eye to surveillance data that is critical to detecting and tracking UAP. We need to know whether Dr. Kirkpatrick can achieve the necessary control over sensor filters, and the storage and access to raw, surveillance data to find UAP anomalies. Finally, one of the tasks Congress set for AARO is serving as an open door for witnesses of UAP events, or participants in government activities related to UAPs, to come forward securely and disclose what they know without fear of retribution for any possible violations of previously signed non-disclosure-agreements. Congress mandated that AARO set up a publicly-discoverable and accessible process for safe disclosure. While we know that AARO has already conducted a significant number of interviews, many referred by Congress, we need to set up a public process and we need to know where that effort stands. With that, I’d like to turn to Senator Ernst for her opening statement.The 16 Senators who signed the letter requesting more for funds for AARO.#ufotwitter #uaptwitter https://t.co/nc3truaalY pic.twitter.com/hyG2y2sUcQ
— ᴋʟᴀᵾs (@tinyklaus) February 16, 2023
~~~ Senator Joni Ernst – R-Iowa – (JE): Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you Dr. Kirkpatrick for your testimony today. I’ll keep these remarks very brief so that we have maximum time for your briefing. The recent downing of the Chinese surveillance balloon, and three other objects, underscores the need for domain awareness. Adversaries like China and Russia are working to hold U.S. interests, including our homeland, at risk. That’s why your testimony is so important. And I so look forward to a progress update on the establishment of your office. As members know, your office evolved from the Navy-led, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, to the All-domain Anomalous Resolution Office known as AARO. Dr. Kirkpatrick, your extensive background in science and technology, research and development, and space, makes you well suited to discuss these emerging challenges. My priority is that we understand the full range of threats posed by our adversaries in all domains. That is what the Joint Force needs to be prepared to fight and win in defense of our nation. This committee needs to know about Chinese or Russian advanced-technology programs to exploit our vulnerabilities, and it needs to know whether your office, along with the IC, has detected potential Chinese or Russian capabilities to surveil or attack us. Finally, we need to ensure efficient, interagency coordination. Multiple elements of the DoD and IC own a piece of this mission. To add value, AARO’s efforts cannot be redundant with others. Thank you again, we look forward to your testimony. KG: Dr. Kirkpatrick, you can give your testimony. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick (SK): Thank you, Chairwoman Gillibrand, Ranking Member Ernst, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee and Congress. It is a privilege to be here today to testify on the Department of Defense’s efforts to address Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. First, I want to thank Congress for its extensive and continued partnership as the Department works to better understand and respond to UAP in an effort to minimize technical and intelligence surprise. Unidentified objects in any domain pose potential risks to safety and security, particularly for military personnel and capabilities. Congress and DoD agree that UAP cannot remain unexamined or unaddressed. We are grateful for sustained, congressional engagement on this issue, which paved the way for DoD’s establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in July of last year. Though AARO is still a young office, the spotlight on UAP in recent months underscores the importance of its work and the need for UAP to be taken seriously as a matter of national security. All leadership that I’ve had the pleasure of working with, whether DoD, IC, DOE, civil, scientific or industrial, view Congress as a critical partner in this endeavor. AARO has accomplished much in the 9 months since it was established. The AARO team of more than three dozen experts is organized around four functional areas: operations, scientific research, integrated analysis, and strategic communications. In the nine months since AARO’s establishment, we have taken important steps to improve UAP data collection, standardize the Department’s UAP internal reporting requirements, and implement a framework for rigorous scientific and intelligence analysis, allowing us to resolve cases in a systematic and prioritized manner. Meanwhile, consistent with legislative direction, AARO is also carefully reviewing and researching the U.S. Government’s UAP-related historical record. AARO is leading a focused effort to better characterize, understand, and attribute UAP, with priority given to UAP reports by DoD and IC personnel in or near areas of national security importance. DoD fully appreciates the eagerness from many quarters, especially here in Congress and in the American public, to quickly resolve every UAP encountered across the globe, from the distant past through today. It is important to note, however, that AARO is the culmination of decades of DoD, Intelligence Community, and congressionally-directed efforts to successfully resolve UAP encountered, first and foremost, by U.S. military personnel, specifically Navy and Air Force pilots. The law establishing AARO is ambitious, and it will take time to realize the full mission. We cannot answer decades of questions about UAP all at once, but we must begin somewhere. While I assure you that AARO will follow scientific evidence wherever it leads, I ask for your patience as DoD first prioritizes the safety and security of our military personnel and installations, in all domains. After all, UAP encountered first by highly-capable DoD and IC platforms, featuring the nation’s most advanced sensors, are those UAP most likely to be successfully resolved by my office, assuming the data can be collected. If AARO succeeds in first improving the ability of military personnel to quickly and confidently resolve UAP they encounter, I believe that in time, we will have greatly advanced the capability of the entire United States Government, including its civilian agencies, to resolve UAP. However, it would be naive to believe that the resolution of all UAP can be solely accomplished by the DoD and IC alone. We will need to prioritize collection and leverage authorities for monitoring all domains within the continental United States. AARO’s ultimate success will require partnerships with the interagency, industry partners, academia and the scientific community, as well as the public. AARO is partnering with the Services, Intelligence Community, DOE and across the U.S. government to tap into the resources of the interagency. The UAP challenge is more an operational and scientific issue than it is an intelligence issue. As such, we are working with industry, academia, and the scientific community, which bring their own resources, ideas, and expertise to this challenging problem set. Robust collaboration and peer-review across a broad range of partners will promote greater objectivity and transparency in the study of UAP. I want to underscore today that only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as ‘anomalous.’ The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO demonstrate mundane characteristics of balloons, unmanned aerial systems, clutter, natural phenomena, or other readily explainable sources. While a large number of cases in our holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with these cases. Without sufficient data, we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution, and I will not close a case that we cannot defend the conclusions of. I recognize that this answer is unsatisfying to those who, in good faith, assume that what they see with their eyes, with their cameras, and with their radars is incontrovertible evidence of extraordinary characteristics and performance. Yet, time and again, with sufficient scientific-quality data, it is fact that UAP often, but not always, resolve into readily-explainable sources. Humans are subject to deception and illusions, sensors to unexpected responses and malfunctions, and in some cases, intentional interference. Getting to the handful of cases that pass this level of scrutiny is the mission of AARO. That is not to say that UAP, once resolved, are no longer of national security interest, however. On the contrary, learning that a UAP isn’t of exotic origin but is instead, just a quadcopter or a balloon, leads to the question of who is operating that quadcopter, and to what purpose. The answers to those questions will inform potential national security or law-enforcement responses. AARO is a member of the Department’s support to the administration’s “Tiger Team” effort to deal with stratospheric objects such as the PRC High-Altitude Balloon (HAB). When previously unknown objects are successfully identified, it is AARO’s role to quickly and efficiently hand off such readily-explainable objects to the Intelligence, law-enforcement or operational-safety communities for further analysis and appropriate action. In other words, AARO’s mission is to turn UAP into SEP: Somebody Else’s Problem. The U.S. Government, the DoD and the IC, in particular, has tremendous capabilities to deal with those encountered objects. In the wake of the PRC HAB event, the interagency is working to better integrate and share information to address identifiable stratospheric objects, but that is not AARO’s lane. Meanwhile, for the few cases in all domains, space, air and sea, that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO exists to help the DoD, IC, and interagency resolve those anomalous cases. In doing so, AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytic rigor. This includes physically testing and employing modeling and simulation to validate our analyses and underlying theories, then peer reviewing those results within the U.S. Government, industry partners, and appropriately-cleared academic institutions, before reaching any conclusions. I should also state clearly, for the record, that in our research, AARO has found no credible evidence, thus far, of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics. In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained, that a UAP encounter can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform U.S. Government’s leadership of its findings. For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously, and subsequently commented on by the U.S. Government, I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit your research to credible, peer-reviewed scientific journals. AARO is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media. We know that there is tremendous public interest in UAP and a desire for answers from AARO. By its very nature, the UAP challenge has, for decades, lent itself to mystery, sensationalism, and even conspiracy. For that reason, AARO remains committed to transparency, accountability, and to sharing as much with the American public as we can, consistent with our obligation to protect not only intelligence sources and methods, but U.S. and Allied capabilities. However, AARO’s work will take time if we are committed to doing it right. It means adhering to the scientific method and the highest standards of research integrity. It means being methodical and scrupulous. It means withholding judgment in favor of evidence. It means following the data where it leads, wherever it leads. It means establishing scientific, peer-reviewed, theoretical underpinnings of observed data. And AARO is committed to all of those standards. I’m proud of AARO’s progress over the last nine months. Much remains to be done, but the hard work is under way. Thank you for your continued support. And before we turn to questions, I’m gonna walk you through some of our analytical trends and a couple of cases that we’ve prepared. [the_ad_placement id=”content”] So one of the things that AARO does is high-integrity analysis, as I’ve said. This chart represents the trend analysis of all the cases in AARO’s holdings to date. I’ll break it down since it’s small and hard to see: UAP Reporting Trends – 1996-2023 Reported-UAP Altitudes 60,000 feet – 0.6% 55,000 feet – 0.0% 50,000 feet – 0.3% 45,000 feet – 0.3% 40,000 feet – 0.6% 35,000 feet – 2.5% 30,000 feet – 6.4% 25,000 feet – 23.5% 20,000 feet – 32.2% 15,000 feet – 16.5% 10,000 feet – 7.8% 5,000 feet – 9.2% ~~~ Typically-Reported UAP Characteristics Appearance Morphology – Round, Atypical Orientation Size – 1-4 meters Color – White, Silver, Translucent Performance Altitude – 10,000-30,000 feet Velocity – Stationary to Mach 2 Signatures Propulsion – No thermal exhaust detected Radar – Intermittent, X-Band (8-12 GHz) Radio – 1-3 GHz, 8-12 Ghz Thermal – Intermittent, Shortwave Infrared, Medium-Wave Infrared ~~~ Reported UAP Morphology Vector – 0% Tic Tac – 1% Polygon – 1% Square 1% Rectangle 1% Triangle – 2% Disk – 2% Cylinder – 2% Oval – 3% Lights – 5% Other – 6% Ambiguous Sensor Contact – 23% Orb. Round. Sphere – 52% ~~~ SK: What you’ll see on the left is a histogram of all of our reported sightings as a function of altitude. So, most of our sightings occur in the 15 to 25,000 foot range. And that is ultimately because that’s where a lot of our aircraft are. ~~~ SK: On the far right, upper corner, you’ll see a breakout of the morphologies of all of the UAP that are reported. Over half, about 52% of what’s been reported to us, are round or spheres. The rest of those breakout into all kinds of different other shapes. The gray box (Ambiguous Sensor Contact) is…essentially there is no data on what its shape is. Either it wasn’t reported or the sensor did not collect it. ~~~ SK: The bottom map is a heat map of all reporting areas across the globe that we have available to us. What you’ll notice is that there is a heavy, what we call, collection bias, both in altitude and in geographic location. That’s where all of our sensors exist. That’s where our training ranges are, that’s where our operational ranges are, that’s where all of our platforms are. ~~~ SK: In the middle, what we have done is reduce the most typically-reported UAP characteristics to these fields. Mostly round, mostly one to four meters. White, silver, translucent, metallic. 10,000 to 30,000 feet, with apparent velocities from stationary to Mach 2. No thermal exhausts are usually detected. We get intermittent radar returns, we get intermittent radio returns, and we get intermittent thermal signatures. That’s what we’re looking for, and trying to understand what that is. ~~~ SK: Next slide. So I’m going to walk you through two cases that we’ve declassified recently. This first one is an MQ-9 in the Middle East, observing that blow up, which is an apparent spherical object via EO (electro-optical) sensors. Those are not IR (Infrared). ~~~ SK: If you want to go ahead and click that and play it. 2022 – MQ-9: Sphere/Orb – No AudioWe have no evidence of E.T. 👽
— Mike Colangelo (@MikeColangelo) April 25, 2023
George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell share their thoughts about the big statement that Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick said during the UAP hearing last week.
24 Witnesses:
A) Doesn't consider their testimony to be evidence
B) Not credible evidence
C) AARO hasn't… pic.twitter.com/jwLsKnpwUK
~~~ KG: When do you expect that you will establish a public facing, discoverable and access portal for people to use to contact your office, as the law requires? SK: So, I would like to first say, thank you all very much for referring the witnesses that you have thus far to us. I appreciate that. We’ve brought in nearly two dozen, so far. It’s been very helpful. I’d ask that you continue to do that until we have an approved plan. We have a multi-phased approach for doing that, that we’ve been socializing and have submitted for approval, some time. And once that happens, then we should be able to push all that out and get this a little more automated. KG: Great. SK: What I would ask, though, is, as you all continue to refer to us and refer witnesses to us – I’d appreciate if you’d do that – please try to prioritize the ones that you want to do, because we do have a small research staff, dealing with that. KG: Thank you. And then, do you have any plans for public engagement that you want to share now, that you think it’s important that the public knows what the plan is? SK: So we have a number of public-engagement recommendations, according to our strategic plan. All of those have been submitted for approval, they have to be approved by USD(I&S). We are waiting for approval to go do that. KG: Okay, I will follow up on that. And then my last question is about the integration of departments, UAP operations, research, analysis and strategic communications. During the recent UAP incidents over North America, it didn’t appear that you were allowed to play that role. Do you agree that the public perception is generally that you and your office did not appear to play a major role in the Department’s response to the detection of objects over North America? What can you tell us that’s going on behind the scenes, from your perspective? And in the after-action-assessment process, is there awareness that there is a need to operate differently in the future and a commitment to doing so? SK: When the objects were first detected, I got called by Joint-Staff leadership to come in late one night to review events as they were unfolding and to give them an assessment, based on what we knew at that time. I did that. I worked with the director of the Joint Staff, the J2 and the J3 that night and over the couple of following days on, what are the types of things that we are tracking from a unidentified object perspective? What databases do we use? Those sorts of things for normal…for known objects, known tracking. Beyond that, their response, I would have to refer you back to the White House for the decision on how they did the response. We did not play a role in what you would respond, other than that initial, you know, advice on what we are seeing and how we are seeing it. [the_ad id=”1724″] KG: Senator Ernst? (KG’s mic was muted so I’m assuming that’s what she said. ~Joe). Senator Joni Ernst (JE): Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Kirkpatrick, I know that your office has gotten a lot of attention recently. And, of course, any new agency, there tends to be a push to increase size and funding. We want to make sure that you’re able to meet your goals, but what I also need to ensure is that we’re not duplicating or replicating existing functions and creating redundancy within DoD and the inter-agencies. So, what steps are you taking right now to make sure that your particular office and function is unique to any of the other agencies that might be involved in these types of cases? SK: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, I would like to lay down…here’s one of my, you know, sort of my mission and my goal and my vision here. So the vision is, at one point…at some point in the future, you should not need an AARO. If I’m successful in what I’m doing, we should be able to normalize everything that we’re doing into existing processes, functions, agencies and organizations, and make that part of their mission and their role. Right now, the niche that we form is really going after the unknowns. I think you articulated it early on, this is a hunt mission for what might somebody be doing in our backyard that we don’t know about. Alright, well, that, that, that is what we are doing, right? But at some point, we should be able to normalize that. That’s why it’s so important the work we’re doing with Joint Staff to normalize that into DoD policy and guidance. We are bringing in all of our interagency partners. So NASA is providing a liaison for us. I have FBI liaison, I have OSI liaison, I have service liaisons. Half of my staff come from the IC. Half of my staff come from other scientific and technical backgrounds. I have DOE. And so, what we’re trying to do is ensure, again, as I make UAP into SEP, they get handed off to the people that that is their mission to go do. So that we aren’t duplicating that. I’m not gonna go chase the Chinese high-altitude balloon, for example. That’s not my job. It’s not an unknown and it’s not anomalous, anymore. Now it goes over to them…right? JE: Very good. Thank you, Madam Chair. KG: Thank you. I want to just to follow up on the filters for surveillance. Outside observers have speculated that DoD sets filters on certain sensors to eliminate objects that are moving really fast or slow, because what we are looking for, militarily, are conventional aircraft and missiles.Full text of the letter is below, in my tweet.
— Joe Murgia (@TheUfoJoe) April 29, 2023
The battle continues. Remember, it's gonna be a long haul, and you need to have patience because certain folks will continue to fight and do whatever it takes to keep this secret from being revealed. Folks like Warner and Rubio need… https://t.co/p8ZaezYmiI
~~~ “If these radars are so heavily filtered that they did not detect the objects swarming the USS Omaha and USS Russell off the coast of California in 2019, then perhaps it is time to modify the filtering algorithms of these radars or perhaps feed the same radar data in real-time into a separate filtering process tailored to detect and assess these new potential new threats. Otherwise, we risk needlessly missing vital intelligence information.” ~Christopher Mellon in “The Debrief” ~~~ KG: UAP that doesn’t fit into these programs would thereby be weeded out and never noticed. The spectrum of speculation was proven to be true during the UAP incidents over North America, where DoD publicly acknowledged that we were able to start seeing these UAPs only when we opened up these filters. Obviously, our military operators cannot be overloaded with objects that are not conventional aircraft or missiles. Can you nonetheless make sure that the raw data is being captured and subsequently processed so that your office knows what’s really out there? And is that going to cost money, will you expect to pay for that money out of AARO’s budget? SK: One of the key tenants that we’re trying to do in our science plan is understand what those signatures are. So we get all the raw, for example, radar data, prior to the scrubbing and filtering to allow it to enter into our weapon systems and our detection systems. We are now taking all that data and cross correlating it to what pilots are saying they’re seeing or other observations from other operators. What that allows us to do is then see if there are any signatures in that data that I can pull out, generate – what we’ll call automatic-target-recognition algorithms – that allow us to then use that signature associated with [an] observed UAP, whatever that UAP may be. We will then make those recommendations, of what those changes should be, back to the department. So the deputy secretary had asked me last October to make those recommendations. What changes do we need to make to radars, to platforms, to detection systems, and algorithms, to pull on those algorithms [and] make those changes? That’s gonna take some time, that’s where the research and development comes in, right? It’s not instantaneous. Right now, a lot of the…I won’t say, a lot of the things that fall outside of the ranges of those filters have been identified by people in the loop, and you can’t have people in the loop all the time. It’s just not cost effective. So part of our budget is working through, what does that look like, and then making those recommendations back to the big-program offices for them to put into changes and acquisition. KG: My last question is about the academic community. Can you give us an update on sort of how you collaborate with the academic community and whether…how the independent study being done by NASA complements AARO’s work? SK: Sure. Two questions so I’m gonna try to make it quick. In 1979, Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence.” I would go one step further, and I would say, extraordinary claims, require not only extraordinary evidence, but extraordinary science. And so how do you do that? You do that with the scientific method, right? And so as AARO is developing and implementing its science plan, it has to do so grounded in a solid foundation of scientific theory, across the entire range of hypotheses that have been presented for what UAP are. That range spans, adversary-breakthrough technology on one hand, known objects and phenomena in the middle, all the way to the extreme theories of extraterrestrials. All of that has physics-based signatures associated with it. Whether it’s theoretical, from the academic community, known from things like hypersonic weapons, or adversary-breakthrough technologies, as we’ve talked about before. Or the known objects that we have to go measure. The idea is, across that entire range, you have to come up with peer-reviewed, scientific basis for all of it. The academic community plays a very big role on the one end of the spectrum, the intelligence community on the other end of the spectrum, and then measurement in the middle. Once I have those signatures identified in validated, peer-reviewed documents, then I have something to point to for all that data. Because all that data is gonna match one of those signatures, right? And then I can go, “Well, it’s that and not that,” or, “It’s that.” And that helps us go through all that. Where NASA comes in and the study that they’re doing, which I’m supporting, is really looking at the unclassified, data sources that might be used to augment our classified data sources, to understand if there’s a signature there we can pull on. So very similar to the radars, but civil capabilities. So, for example, we have a lot of climate-science satellites, for example, that look at Earth. Lots of them. How many of those is the data valuable in seeing these kinds of objects? The challenge in that is those platforms don’t necessarily have the resolution you need. So if you remember the slide I put up there with the trends, the size of the objects we’re looking for are typically reported to be one to four meters. Well, the resolution of many of the climate science, civil satellites, is much larger than that, which means you’d have a hard time picking out something that’s smaller than a pixel on the imagery, on the data. That’s not to say all of it’s not useful and there are ways of pulling through that data and going… That is what NASA is focused on right now. What are some other data sources that could be used? In addition, things like open source and crowdsourcing of data, we’re exploring public/private partnerships. Ma’am, as you know, we’ve talked about in the past, to look at: Is there a way to smartly crowdsource additional data that might be useful to augment some of my classified sources? And what does that look like? And how would we do it so that we’re not overwhelmed by, you know, everybody who wants to take a picture of everything? KG: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the committee before we close? SK: Thank you very much for allowing us to come and share a little bit of insight into what AARO’s up to and what we’re doing. I hope to be able to share a whole lot more in the future. We have a lot of work to do, so if you don’t hear from me outside, it’s because we’ve got a lot of work to do. KG: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Kirkpatrick, thank you for the hearing. SK: Thank you. [the_ad_placement id=”content”](2/2) Today, drones, balloons, and other UAV are growing threats and a review of the settings on these mighty systems is overdue.
— Christopher K. Mellon (@ChrisKMellon) February 8, 2023