It’s been a chaotic news cycle the past few years, so it’s understandable if you’ve missed some under-the-radar news that didn’t get the same attention. Unfortunately, heightened tensions with China, the war in Ukraine, and various cultural clashes across our country make it hard to hear anything else through the increasing noise in seemingly every industry imaginable.
However, if you’ve been listening really hard, you’ve sprinkled in some news that the United States government has openly admitted that unidentified objects are flying in our airspace, and that Congress has ordered them to report on it.
That’s right, kid, UFOs are real, albeit with an updated moniker – UAPs.
I was pleased to discuss the implications of this news, why we should care about it, and the rise of citizen scientists with Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defense official and Ancient Aliens contributor. So dust off those telescopes, queue up old X-Files seasons and get ready to feast your mind on the real-life ‘spooky Mulder’ of the United Kingdom.
The long-awaited ODNI report on UFOs has finally dropped. I think the key quote here is: “This atypical UAP has demonstrated some unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities and requires further analysis”.https://t.co/Oe19irNWV4 pic.twitter.com/dhObbXhO67
— Nick Pope (@nickpopemod) January 13, 2023
RELATED: New Pilot Sightings of UFOs Come as ‘Silver Bullet’ Reveals Rumors Swirl
It’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, and it’s not Superman
The past few years have seen an unprecedented release and acceptance by the Pentagon of videos taken by military aircraft of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). In 2022, Congress held the first open congressional hearings on UFOs since Project Blue Book in the 1950s.
“The fact that the United States government is now treating this as a national defense security issue simply cannot be denied,” Pope said.
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The significance of Congress’s interest in UAPs runs deep. The Pope suggests this because “this is one of the few bipartisan issues in our divisive times.” He is definitely not wrong when it comes to that.
Everyone from Republican Senator Marco Rubio to Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wants answers, and so should they. To put what’s happening in perspective: these crafts are flying in and out of our military airspace without permission or impunity.
are they chinese North Korea? Little green men from Mars? We don’t know, and that worries every American.
This is of widespread concern primarily because we lack the ability to recognize them, let alone sanction or punish them. Whether you believe in extraterrestrials or not affects us all.
So these things are zooming out of the sky and out of the sea and keep an eye out? Mr Pope said the first report issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was more accurate in his initial assessment.
There is widespread speculation that these items may be our own ‘kit’, the technology we are experimenting with is unknown to the American public and perhaps other elements of the government. Or they are new technologies from our adversaries that we have yet to understand technically.
Many argue that there is no way it could be Russian drones given their lackluster attempt to invade Ukraine.
“Never underestimate Russia,” the Pope coldly and accurately warned those who thought Russia’s potential should be dismissed.
Just for the sake of thought, let’s say these UAPs are more otherworldly. What does that mean, not just for the United States, but for humanity as a whole?
Are ‘UFOs and nukes’ a thing or a consequence of nuclear facilities being increasingly surveilled? Here’s a brief primer on the problem and an explanation of why – whatever the answer to that question, and whatever the true nature of UAP – it’s important that we find out. https://t.co/Is02NmW2nX
— Nick Pope (@nickpopemod) January 8, 2023
RELATED: Renewed Interest in UFOs, Alien Life Asks the Question: Why Are We Compelled to Look Heavenward?
‘I want to believe’
In the recent National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress included basic protections for reporting procedures and military members to come forward with reports of UAPs, which led to a surge in views. The Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) recently revealed in their updated report that 171 of the 366 UAP reported sightings were unexplained.
Mr Pope argues that if any of them end up being of terrestrial origin, it will fundamentally change how we understand everything in our society.
“This is the ultimate low-probability high-impact scenario,” he said.
Mr Pope says it will be “the day before and the day after”. It will change the way we look at our personal and international conflicts forever.
Whether they are here to hurt us or to observe us, their presence and revelation will shake the foundations of everything from religion to technology, from human meaning to our understanding of our place in existence. However, the government may already know about their existence.
The Pope highlighted a letter sent by the Defense Intelligence Agency to the offices of Senators John McCain and Harry Reid in 2018 regarding studies conducted by the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program (AATIP). The list of studies had some exciting and eyebrow-raising titles, including:
- Advanced Nuclear Propulsion for Manned Deep Space Missions
- Invisible closure
- Traversable wormholes, stargates and negative energy
- Warp drive, dark energy and manipulation of extra dimensions
The above isn’t all-inclusive but the list still has many jaw-dropping nuggets, including perhaps my favorite title, “An Introduction to the Statistical Drake Equation.” For those of you who aren’t nerds, the Drake Equation tries to figure out how many alien civilizations exist in the universe.
Our US government is studying these concepts with your taxpayer money. Why did this happen? What did they discover? Why don’t they talk about it publicly?
Irony: Archaeologists say @graham__hancock The “Ancient Apocalypse” series is unscientific, yet most archeology has moved *away* from science and adopted sober concepts like “no sexual skeletal remains, because we don’t know how those people identify”!
— Nick Pope (@nickpopemod) November 26, 2022
RELATED: Incredible new Web Telescope photos spark our shared fascination with the vast unknown
Tug of War
If you’re like me, you’re asking yourself how this wasn’t, and still isn’t, more important news. A part of the mainstream media and scientific community may be reluctant to accept that UFOs and extraterrestrial life are no longer fringe topics, but actual newsworthy topics that need to be touched upon.
The Pope explained to me that there is also something he clearly believes “Dogfight within the US government on this issue.”
“There is disagreement about two things – the true nature of the phenomenon and how to respond to it – the phenomenon itself and the public and the media,” he said.
I think this is Richard Dolan’s most important insight. Why can’t our government itself live up to the standards of common decency? If we were lied to about UAP. https://t.co/VY4U1cYa34
— Post Disclosure World (@PostDisclosure) January 26, 2023
It’s a real tug-of-war between government skeptics and believers. We’ve seen this in journalism, with mainstream outlets like the New York Times publishing articles trying to debunk the UFO theory before the second UAP report.
This conflict is also seen in the scientific community. The notion that “science is settled” is not unique to medicine; Many mainstream scientists completely scoff at the idea of UFOs or extraterrestrial visitors.
Although the Pope is not a scientist, he understands the basic principles of science, unfortunately, more than I can say for some of the mainstream scientists running around these days.
“Science is about coming up with a hypothesis,” Pope said, “then designing an experiment to test it, collect your data, analyze it, revise it and validate it.”
How the Pope emphasized “Scientists and academics are now getting on board” with the concept that we may not be alone in the universe.
From Avi Loeb and his Galileo project at Harvard University to Michio Kaku actively studying string theory as one of the creators of string field theory, the question of whether we are alone in the universe is becoming more mainstream every day.
Of course, Dr. who starred in the popular Secrets of the Skinwalker Ranch series. Travis Taylor is also an Ancient Aliens contributor aerospace engineer Dr. We can’t talk about this without mentioning Travis Taylor—who is also the chief scientist on the Pentagon’s UAP task force. .
Thanks to shows like Ancient Aliens, Skinwalker Ranch, and the US government’s recent admission that something really exists, interest in these topics has perhaps never been greater. Mr. Pope calls them ‘citizen scientists’, I love considering myself a ‘citizen journalist’.
“Anyone with a little curiosity and enthusiasm can make new discoveries,” Pope said.
“I wouldn’t believe these people if they said the sun would rise tomorrow. It’s classic Washington arrogance.”
I discussed the recent UAP report (cover up) with him @Jen Pellegrino. Americans deserve to know what our government knows about UAPs, so they can handle it. pic.twitter.com/dB0ygmvABv
— Rep. Tim Burchett (@RepTimBurchett) January 21, 2023
Could it be?
You may be asking yourself if my favorite spicy political commentator is a believer or a skeptic. I answer that I am a little of both, which is healthy.
In a world where we increasingly feel the need to define ourselves by one polarizing label or the other, we can all stand to define ourselves a little bit of both from time to time. There are some things in this world that are beyond explanation, for now – and it’s high time the scientific community followed through and agreed with our government.
It’s disappointing that someone as respectable and intelligent as Michio Kaku would go on live TV and completely screw this story up for a massive audience.
This “Earth’s core has stopped spinning” thing is the biggest SciComm fiasco in recent memory pic.twitter.com/A1EpGAoxGg
— Chris Combs (Repeat Design Enthusiast) (@DrChrisCombs) January 27, 2023
“I will never be arrogant to say that we have everything figured out,” the Pope concluded our conversation.
Yet, often, the collective ‘we’ is just arrogant. There is no way aliens will visit us now to help build the pyramids of Giza or see our military capabilities – we know all about history. Plus… the distance is too big.
Because we can’t do something, we think others can’t, what an arrogant species we are. However, thanks to better technology, radar, satellite technology and now artificial intelligence, the Pope pointed out how we are “looking for new stuff all the time”.
Who am I, or any of us, to say that aliens do not exist, are not actively visiting us now, and may have visited us in the past? We are not alone, there is more to our history, present and future than we think, could it possibly be?
“Why don’t we want to ask those questions? They’re interesting and they’re fun,” the Pope told me earlier.
I couldn’t agree more, and when it comes to the government, they are asking those questions whether you are a believer, a skeptic or like me…a little bit of both, you have to ask yourself…is that possible?
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