More on the Congressional UAP Hearings – A Different Perspective

I sat through the 87
minutes of the public hearing on UFOs, I mean UAPs, and have to say, I pretty
much predicted what would happen. The very second question or comment wondered
about Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security Ronald Moultier’s
interest in science fiction and claim that he had even attended science fiction
conventions. I might be a little sensitive about this because for decades, many
criticized me as a science fiction writer who was capable of creating
imaginative scenarios. I often wondered why my day job disqualified me from UFO
research when dozens of members of the Science Fiction Writers of America were
working scientists.

Moultier
and Carson, the committee chairman, mentioned their discussion about all this last
week, in which, I suppose, the science fiction connection was the topic. And watching
the hearing as it progressed, or rather thinking about it later, I wondered if
that was the only feature that was stage managed. Although the media reports
focused on UFOs, I mean UAPs, I noticed, that as I had feared, the emphasis was
on national security. There was repeated discussion about Russia and China
developing technologies that were beyond those we had. They mentioned that it
was necessary to collect intelligence on these encounters and because the
collection methods and sensor arrays used could provide our competitors with
information about our abilities, much of this will remain classified.

There was talk about
reducing the ridicule factor so that our military personnel, regardless of job,
would feel comfortable in reporting their observations and encounters. I wonder
how affective that might be given the long history of ridicule directed at
those who did report UFOs in some official way. It is very difficult to stamp out
behavior that is decades old.

And, while some say
that it is already working based on an “increase” in reports, that seems to be
inaccurate. The increase from 144 to 400 refers to historic reports and very
few new sightings. Everything in those hearings seemed to be misdirection and
obscuration.

Almost all the
discussion dealt with national security, though we were treated with two
videos. One was used to explain the fleeting nature of some of the encounters.
On the video, the image flashed by so fast that almost no one saw it. The
presenter, Scott Bray, described as the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence,
repeated the video, attempting to freeze the frame on the image for several
minutes. I have to wonder why he didn’t think to also bring in a still to show
that image.

Scott Bray trying to find the UAP image at the congressional hearing.

The other video was of
a triangular object that had been filmed through night vision goggles with a
digital camera. I talked about that here months ago, complete with a link to show
how it was done and what it meant.

Only one of the congressional
representatives seemed to have arrived with any knowledge of UFO history. He
asked about the sightings from Malstrom Air Force Base in April 1967. While a
UFO was reported over a launch control facility, a flight of ten ballistic
missiles went off-line, which meant, in the event of a war and a command to
launch, they would have remained in the silos. A true matter of national
security. Neither man said they knew of the sightings, but then one said he’d
heard rumors. You can learn more about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/12/coast-to-coast-belt-montana-ufo-sighting.html

And, I have a longer
analysis about this case in Government UFO Files. You can find a link to
the book on the left side of the blog.

This, of course, takes
us to the short discussion of subject matter experts. I had thought they were
referring to UFO researchers who’d been around for decades such as Jerry Clark,
Michael Swords, Barry Greenwood and Jan Alrich, to name but a few. No, they
were talking about physicists, meteorologists, aviation experts and the like. Apparently,
no thought was given to asking for a little assistance in dealing with all the
UFO information that has been collected over the years. I guess looking at some
of this information like the Levelland sightings, or Rendlesham Forest or the
Socorro Landing would lead in directions they might not want to follow.

To me, and many of my
colleagues, these hearing were a great disappointment and the idea of alien
visitation was rarely mentioned. As I say, the full analysis can be found in a
couple of earlier postings here.

That doesn’t mean that
good work isn’t being done even if it is considered as amateurist by these new experts.
From MUFON’s Case Management System comes a report from Hopkinsville, Kentucky,
on January 26 of this year. The witness said that he watched as a craft hover
over the woods. There were three lights, that he thought were field lights
until they moved. He said they performed low-level stealth maneuvers for three
minutes. A military helicopter arrived, following the lights. The witness took video.

The sighting was
investigated by Samuel Whittington, Kentucky’s MUFON Chief Field Investigator. In
his report, he wrote:

The craft hovered about a forested
area where… it then dipped below the trees as if to land. The craft remained briefly
below the trees before I rose again and flew off, only to be intercepted by a
military helicopter. Both aircraft soon left the area…. The way the object banks
to maneuver is not unprecedented…

Although it was thought
the UFO might have landed, Whittington was unable to visit that area. Weather,
both rain and ice, intervened, and the witness wasn’t positive about the
landing or where the craft might have touched down anyway.

Whittington’s conclusion
was that the witness saw an Unknown Aerial Vehicle. This was reported in the
May issue of The MUFON Journal.

For those interested, I’ll
keep an eye on this new UFO investigating organization, but given what we have
been told, and although they claim transparency, I suspect we won’t see much
that will be of interest to us.