It seems that Deputy
Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, in coordination with the Director,
National Intelligence, has renamed the nearly incomprehensibly named Airborne
Object Identification and Management Group to the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution
Office, which I suspect will be called Arrow by those in the know. The responsibilities
of this will be broader than those of the old office whose name I won’t try to
pronounce.
Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick
who was the chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and
Space Intelligence Center, is the director of AARO.
The mission of AARO will
be to synchronize efforts across the DoD and other federal agencies to detect,
identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military
installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other
areas of interest, and to mitigate any associated threats to safety of operations
and national security and this includes anomalous, unidentified space,
airborne, submerged and transmedium objects.
I will note here that
the emphasis seems to be on military and official sites and that this seems to
ignore sightings and reports from the civilian population. This seems to be an
effort to control the data under the umbrella of national security which will
mean that the reports are born classified. It doesn’t scream transparency to
me.
Reports that might be
ignored are like the one from June 19 this year, in Bruce, South Dakota. The
witness said he watched the object, that was about 75 degrees above the horizon
for four or five minutes. He said that the object was a bright light behind a
“V” shaped object. It was slightly smaller than the full moon. He said that a
cloud started to form above the “V.” The cloud was lighted by a glow from the
UFO.
Given the date and the
description, it seemed that this might be another sighting of the SpaceX
launch. However, he mentioned a triangular shaped UFO with an aura or cloud
around it. The time, however, seems to suggest the sighting was about two hours
after the launch on June 19. If the witness’ timing is off, then a SpaceX launch
might be the solution. Without a photograph, and with the witness talking about
a distinctive “V” shape, and the timing issue, this is a tough call.
I’ll note here that
Project Blue Book would have ignored the differences and listed this as the
SpaceX launch. Given the circumstances, and the mission of the new AARO office,
this sighting would not be of importance. Blue Book’s mission was to clear UFO
sightings, keeping them from the dreaded “unidentified” category. With the new
AARO office, similar sightings might not be investigated at all.
Without more
information or a photograph, this is more of an insufficient data for
scientific analysis sighting than an unidentified one.
A photograph was taken
in Utah on May 16 of this year. The witness said that he was taking panoramic views
in the area for scenery purposes. It wasn’t until he was reviewing the pictures
that the UFO was spotted. He supplied both the panoramic view and the enlarged
version of the UFO which shows its triangular shape.
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| The UFO is the small black dot on the right side of the photograph. |
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| A close up of the UFO. |
I currently have no
explanation for the object in the photograph, other than to say it doesn’t seem
to be an artifact created in the camera or a lens flare or some sort of natural
phenomenon. And, I suspect, given there was no visual sighting that the new
AARO office wouldn’t be interested in it. There is a real lack of scientific
information and no witness testimony to accompany the picture.