Is AARO’s Historical Report a Coverup?
After over a year of work, AARO has released the first volume of their report on the US government’s historical UAP investigations, and surprise, they found there is no evidence of extraterrestrial activity or of a reverse-engineering program. However, it’s worth putting this report in context of the previous 80 years of the US government saying publicly that there’s nothing to the UFO phenomenon, while taking it very seriously behind closed doors. In addition to that, the report is full of errors, bad citations, and the ODNI won’t endorse it. So it’s fair to ask: Is this report part of a coverup?
Before the Report
- March 5: Chris Sharp from Liberation Times confirms that AARO would be holding a media briefing the next day, restricted to hand-picked reporters.
- Defense Scoop: “Despite repeatedly reiterating commitments to public transparency regarding AARO’s findings, the media engagement was invite only and Pentagon press officials limited attendance to only those invitees.”
- March 7: Ross Coulthart: “Multiple sources telling me the AARO UAP report, given to select journalists in an embargoed briefing, is coming out tomorrow and it will be an absolutely unequivocal rejection of an NHI presence or that the US has retrieval craft. This is intended to shut down UAP commentary for good.”
- March 8: AARO tweeted for the first time in two years with a link to the first volume of their report. The link went to a DOD link shortener, and for me at least, it just spins endlessly.
- March 15: They tweeted again, saying “Our historical work continues,” and invited witnesses to come forward. They included a link to aaro.mil, which is a 404.
- March 16: They replied to that tweet with a corrected link to www.aaro.mil
Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Volume I
- 63 pages: 40 pages of content, 23 pages for table of contents and references.
- “Conclusion: To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence of a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress. Investigative efforts determined that most sightings were the result of misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena. Although many UAP reports remain unsolved, AARO assesses that if additional, quality data were available, most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena.”
- “AARO found no evidence that any USG investigation, academic-sponsored research, or official review panel has confirmed that any sighting of a UAP represented extraterrestrial technology. All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification.”
- Translation: Most reports were wrong, and none of them were confirmed aliens, so we’re discounting all of them.
- “AARO assesses that some portion of sightings since the 1940s have represented misidentification of never-before-seen experimental and operational space, rocket, and air systems, including stealth technologies and the proliferation of drone platforms.”
- Translation: It wasn’t a UFO, it was a secret spy plane. Trust us.
- “AARO found no empirical evidence for claims that the USG and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology. AARO determined, based on all information provided to date, that claims involving specific people, known locations, technological tests, and documents allegedly involved in or related to the reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology, are inaccurate.”
- Translation: We looked really hard for an illegally hidden UFO program, you guys, but everyone we asked said it didn’t exist.
- They included a list of various claims they looked into. Here’s a few:
- “UAP Nondisclosure Agreements (NDA): AARO has found no evidence of any authentic UAP-related NDA or other evidence threatening death or violence for disclosing UAP information.”
- Translation: No one who was threatened made a recording of the threat, so no threats were made. Case closed.
- “A CIA Official Allegedly Managed UAP Experimentation: The named, former CIA official was not involved in the movement of extraterrestrial technology. The same former CIA officer signed a memo rejecting a claim made by interviewees that he managed the movement of and experimentation on off-world technology.”
- Translation: The guy signed a memo saying he didn’t do it! Case closed.
- “Named Companies Allegedly Experimenting on Alien Technology: AARO has found no evidence that U.S. companies ever possessed off-world technology. The executives, scientists, and chief technology officers of the companies named by interviewees met with the Director of AARO and denied on the record that they have ever recovered, possessed, or engaged in reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial technology.”
- Translation: We asked the CEO, and he said he’s never seen a UFO. Case closed.
- Worth noting that they mention but did not look into reports of UFOs over nuclear sites, but said they would cover this in volume 2. They also did not mention the 2004 Nimitz “tic-tac” event or the 2015 Roosevelt event, both of which were included in the 2017 NYT article that brought the issue back into public awareness.
- “UAP Nondisclosure Agreements (NDA): AARO has found no evidence of any authentic UAP-related NDA or other evidence threatening death or violence for disclosing UAP information.”
- “AARO assesses that UAP sightings and reports of these sightings to USG organizations and claims that some UAP constitute extraterrestrial craft and that the USG has secured and is experimenting on extraterrestrial technology have been influenced by a range of cultural, political, and technological factors.”
- Translation: Y’all been watching too much X-Files.
- “AARO interviewed approximately 30 people who claimed to have insight into alleged USG involvement in off-world technology exploitation or to possess knowledge of UAP that have allegedly disrupted U.S. nuclear facilities in the past.”
- Translation: It took us all year, but we talked to 30 of these crazy people.
- “AARO and DoD assume that individuals convey their accurate recollection of their perception of the events they observed or heard.”
- Translation: We’re not saying they’re lying, but…
- “Some literature suggests individual accounts can be unreliable as they are subject to a person’s interpretation of sensory data through the filter of their experiences, beliefs, or state of mind during the event. A person who reports a case might be credible, in that they believe the elements of their account to be accurate. However, their reliability, which is their ability to accurately interpret events—as well as to recall and convey those events due to a range of factors—is altogether different from their inherent sincerity.”
- Translation: We’re not saying they’re lying, but…
- “Similarly, confirmation bias is a recognized subconscious cognitive process whereby a person tends to seek and believe information that supports their hypothesis and to discount information that undermines their hypothesis.”
- Translation: We’re not saying they’re lying, but…
- The rest of the report is a summary of historical UFO research programs from 1945 through the current day. According to the report, none of these efforts found evidence of extraterrestrial activity.
- New York Times: “Despite official pronouncements for decades that UFOs were nothing more than misidentified aerial objects and as such were no cause for alarm, [declassified records indicate that] …the phenomenon has aroused much serious behind‐the‐scenes concern in official circles.”
Historical UFO Research Programs
- 1947: Army Air Force & FBI Investigations
- In June of 1947, Kenneth Arnold saw a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at 1,200 mph. This came after regular sightings of “foo fighters” by WWII pilots. The event got national press coverage and popularized the term “flying saucers.”
- In July, the Army Air Corps Intelligence became concerned that UFO sightings might be Russian propaganda. They requested the FBI’s help because “the first reported sightings might have been by individuals of Communist sympathies with the view to causing hysteria and fear of a secret Russian weapon.”
- They conducted a three week investigation into witnesses who reported sightings. They actually became concerned that they might be investigating secret US weapons, but “high-level reassurances were obtained that this was not so.”
- They concluded, “This ‘flying saucer’ situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomena. Something is really flying around.”
- In September, the Air Material Command at Wright Field also conducted an investigation and General Twining concluded, “The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious.”
- 1948: Project Sign
- General Twining recommended an official investigation be set up, which led to the newly established Air Force starting Project Sign in 1948.
- Officially, Sign was inconclusive, but they produced a top secret report called the “Estimate of the Situation” which concluded that UFOs were extraterrestrial.
- The Air Force Chief of Staff, General Vandenberg, rejected the report due to a lack of physical evidence.
- He then ordered all copies of the document to be burned.
- And all staff who backed the extraterrestrial hypothesis were reassigned.
- News of the destruction order leaked in the 50s and fueled belief in a government coverup.
- 1949: Project Grudge
- Project Grudge followed Project Sign in 1949.
- After six months, Grudge issued a public report which concluded that there was no evidence that UFOs were foreign advanced technology, and represented no threat.
- They blamed reports on misidentifications, mass hysteria, fraud, and mental illness. It recommended that investigation of saucers be reduced in scope.
- Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a scientist who was involved in both Project Sign and Grudge, claimed it was “less science and more of a public relations campaign.”
- 1951: Project Blue Book
- But Grudge was reactivated in 1951 and renamed Project Blue Book in 1952, because several high-ranking Air Force generals were dissatisfied with the quality of the investigations in Project Grudge.
- The new head of the project, Captain Ruppelt, made changes to streamline the reporting process, creating a standardized questionnaire, and placing a Blue Book officer on every Air Force base. Blue Book staff had broad investigative authority, authorized to interview any and all military witnesses, sidestepping the chain of command. They standardized the usage of the more neutral term UFO, favoring it over the more sensational “flying saucer.”
- 1952: Robertson Panel
- In July of 1952, following a series of high profile sightings, including a weeks-long string of sightings in DC over the White House, the CIA established a panel of scientists called the Robertson Panel to look into UFOs.
- The head of Project Blue Book and Dr Hynek presented all their best evidence, including video footage. After twelve hours, the panel concluded that all UFO sightings were explainable.
- Their final report stressed that intelligence channels were overwhelmed with UFO reports, leading to the risk of missing a conventional threat like the Russians. They recommended the Air Force begin debunking and downplaying UFOs to discourage public interest, and suggested monitoring domestic UFO enthusiast organizations.
- Following the Robertson panel, Project Blue Book’s investigative duties were severely reduced. The new head of the project was overtly uninterested in UFOs, and the Air Force ordered that officers should only discuss UFO incidents if they had a conventional explanation. Publicly, Blue Book was still the official Air Force investigation into UFOs. Privately, they had been converted to a debunking effort.
- 1960s: Blue Book Debunking
- By the 60s, there was growing criticism of Project Blue Book as their explanations for UFO reports became increasingly lazy.
- In 1965, they dismissed a sighting by Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers as mistaking Jupiter or Rigel for a UFO (despite those being in the opposite direction).
- In 1966, Blue Book dismissed Ohio police officers who chased a UFO that moved East, then came to a stop, then went South, saying they were just following a communications satellite.
- Pressured to explain a case involving Michigan police officers in 1966, Dr Hynek suggested swamp gas as a possible explanation, which caused outrage.
- In 1985, shortly before he died, Dr Hynek said “We had a job to do, whether right or wrong, to keep the public from getting excited.”
- In 1966, a congressional hearing by the armed services committee was held following a string of high-profile UFO sightings. The Air Force testimony included blaming sightings on balloons, or helicopters, or a “flying billboard advertising gasoline.” Locals reported Air Force officers confiscating newspapers and telling them not to report what they’d seen.
- Following the congressional hearing, public criticism of Blue Book, and accusations of a government coverup, the Air Force agreed to select a neutral panel of civilian scientists to review a selection of well-documented UFO sightings.
- By the 60s, there was growing criticism of Project Blue Book as their explanations for UFO reports became increasingly lazy.
- 1966: Condon Committee
- In the summer of 1966, they chose physicist Edward Condon from the University of Colorado as director. The Condon committee started an 18 month study, which was almost immediately plunged into controversy.
- A memo leaked from an assistant dean of the university’s graduate program reassuring administrators that the study would find “no reality to the observations.”
- Condon himself said he thought the subject was nonsense, “but I’m not supposed to reach that conclusion for another year.”
- In 1969, the Condon Report was published. In his introduction, Condon wrote “Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
- Filmmaker James Fox: “Replace Dr. Condon with Dr. Kirkpatrick and history really does repeat itself.”
- After the Condon report, the Air Force quickly shuttered Project Blue Book and ceased all public investigations into UFOs. The official statement for the next 50 years was that there was no scientific evidence for UFOs, and reports should be made to your local police department instead.
- And that’s why the 2017 NYT article about the AATIP program was so shocking. The UFO investigations never stopped, they just went dark.
Reactions
- Rep. Tim Burchett: “So the people doing the cover-up say they find no cover-up. Classic self-fulfilled prophecy.”
- Lt. Tim McMillan, co-founder of the Debrief: “Basically the report can be summed up: ‘Everyone AARO spoke with is telling the gospel truth, except for any “whistleblowers.” They’re all lying or confused. AARO is committed to transparency and answering any questions about its investigative process, provided you are one of a few handpicked journalists, in an off-camera private setting.’”
- Lue Elizondo, former head of AATIP: “Today the [AARO] issued a public report that is intentionally dishonest, inaccurate, and dangerously misleading. I hold the Pentagon leadership and former AARO leadership accountable for this obvious attempt to diminish and embarrass whistleblowers, to undermine the truth, and ignore the evidence. Their goal is clearly to minimize Congressional and public scrutiny, and to cover up the truth.”
- The Debrief: “Several factual errors appear throughout the new report that, for some, potentially undermine the level of rigor AARO appears to have applied in its investigations.”
- They get Sen Harry Reid’s home state wrong, they got the date of Kenneth Arnold’s famous 1947 sighting wrong, they falsely claimed that Arnold described the craft he saw as saucer-like, when that description was applied by the media, they got the name of an Air Force project wrong, they got both the date and the conclusion of an Air Force study wrong, etc. Not to mention that a ton of their references are just listed as “AARO case files,” so there’s no source for many claims.
- Dr. Garry Nolan: “They literally referenced a Wiki Fandom site [as a source]. You know what Wiki Fandom is used for? Like the Lord of The Rings universe trilogies and video game wiki sites. I mean, that's in a government report? Ridiculous. What that tells you is the lack of seriousness that they used to put the thing together, and the lack of cross-checking what they were using the source material for.”
- Chris Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence: “AARO’s inept historical report is pathetic. Anyone who has read even a few basic books about the history of UAP can see that. I believe it not only neglects critical events but also contains inaccuracies in other statements. For example, I am confident that many military personnel, such as the F-16 pilots in the famous Stephenville, TX, UAP case, have been compelled to sign NDAs concerning UAP. This report is prompting me and others to redouble our efforts to assist Congress and the public in learning the truth.”
- “What I also find concerning is the false conflation in some news coverage of the assertion ‘there is no recovered alien technology’ with the notion that ‘we don’t have evidence of craft doing things beyond our present understanding of science and technology.’ As we know, hundreds of credible military reports remain unexplained and are continuing to pour in. Even Dr. Kirkpatrick concedes there is no conventional explanation for the well-documented Nimitz case”
- Saagar Enjeti, co-host of Breaking Points: “The idea that an agency that has been unable to pass its own audit for 5 years can effectively now audit all of its historical programs going back to 1945 & claim any sort of legitimacy in the eyes of the public… totally ridiculous.”
- Dr. Garry Nolan, co-founder of SOL Foundation: “My sources inside of AARO tell me that there was a lot of pressure to rush this report out with preconceived conclusions. And that folks on the inside were unhappy with the narrative being pushed. And, the ODNI was also unpleased at this point, and opposed it coming out, because they weren't given the chance to vet this in the way that they thought it should have been…”
- Liberation Times: “Sources have indicated that the ODNI is hesitant to publicly support the report, fearing it might compromise an investigation conducted by the Intelligence Community's Inspector General. This investigation is examining assertions by David Grusch, a former top intelligence officer, who testified under oath about the existence of illegal UAP programs involved in retrieving and reverse-engineering non-human technologies.”
References
- AARO: Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Volume I
- The Hill: Pentagon’s flawed UFO report demands congressional action
- The Debrief: Pentagon UAP Report Says No Evidence U.S. Has Collected Exotic Technology, Kept Programs Hidden from Congress
- Liberation Times: Top Intelligence Office Unable To Publicly Support Pentagon's UFO Report, Despite Oversight Role
- Chris Sharp: “AARO media briefing restricted to hand-picked reporters.”
- Defense Scoop: “Despite commitments to public transparency, the event was invite only.”
- Ross Coulthart: “AARO report will reject NHI presence.”
- UFO Timeline
- New York Times: UFO Files: The Untold Story
- Wikipedia: UFO Investigations
- Project Sign and the Estimate of the Situation
- Gen. Twining: AMC Opinion Concerning “Flying Discs”
- James Fox: “Replace Condon with Kirkpatrick and history repeats itself.”
- Lue Elizondo: “Intentionally dishonest, inaccurate, and dangerously misleading.”
- Lt. McMillan: “The report can be summed up as ‘whistleblowers are lying.’”
- Rep. Burchett: “The people doing the cover-up found no cover-up.”
- Chris Mellon: “AARO’s inept historical report is pathetic.”
- Chris Mellon: “No recovered alien tech, but we do have evidence of unexplained craft.”
- Saagar Enjeti: “The idea that an agency that can’t pass an audit can audit historical programs…”
- Defense News: Pentagon fails sixth audit, with number of passing grades stagnant
- Garry Nolan: “There was a lot of pressure to rush this report out…”
- Garry Nolan: “They referenced a wiki fandom site for a source.”
Episode 40, posted on