This past Friday, something extraordinary took place in the current public discourse surrounding the reality of the UFO phenomenon.
Although the temperature has been rising steadily in the past month due to former NRO official David Grusch's explosive revelations regarding crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs — along with the insinuation of dead pilots being recovered during these operations — the conversation reached a fever pitch when news broke of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's wide-ranging amendment to the 2024 defense appropriations bill titled the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023.
First reported by the New York Times in a somewhat begrudging fashion by the now-infamous stigma-promoting journalist Julian Barnes, the reality struck much harder when the actual bill itself was released to the public.
The document in its current form contains 64 pages of verbiage and requirements outlining the creation of a Presidentially-appointed, Senate-confirmed panel of nine individuals specifically tasked "to provide for the expeditious disclosure of unidentified anomalous phenomena records."
The amendment reads as if it were written by someone with deep knowledge of the UFO issue, providing a roadmap explaining the reasoning behind the creation of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Review Board and the mandates for each agency in their responsibilities to preserve and transmit all historical records regarding UFOs.
The specifics are very revealing, with one paragraph justifying the legislation as a response to abuses of overclassification — specifically, "an overbroad interpretation of 'transclassified foreign nuclear information."
The real kicker, however, is that this bill appears to demonstrate Congressional acknowledgment that UAP represent a technology originating from a non-human intelligence that has been interacting with our planet. Considering the language was written in consultation with the White House National Security Council — and therefore the UAP interagency task force stood up after the mysterious February UFO shootdowns — this is likely the most candid the federal government has been about the reality of the phenomenon.
The Congressional definitions of UAP and non-human intelligence as written in the legislation should satisfy even the most educated on the subject.
For example, the government defines "legacy programs" — UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering projects that have spanned decades over several presidential administrations — as follows:
The term ‘‘legacy program’’ means all Federal, State, and local government, commercial industry, academic, and private sector endeavors to collect, exploit, or reverse engineer technologies of unknown origin or examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence that pre-dates the date of the enactment of this Act.
If that's not enough to demonstrate a knowledgeable understanding of the topic, consider the Congressional definition of "non-human intelligence:'
The term ‘‘non-human intelligence’’ means any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin that may be presumed responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the Federal Government has become aware.
Finally, and most relevant to the purpose of this article, the definition of unidentified anomalous phenomena nearly breaches the realm of science fiction:
The term ‘‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’’ means any object operating or judged capable of operating in outer space, the atmosphere, ocean surfaces, or undersea lacking prosaic attribution due to performance characteristics and properties not previously known to be achievable based upon commonly accepted physical principles.
Unidentified anomalous phenomena are differentiated from both attributed and temporarily non-attributed objects by one or more of the following observables:
(i) Instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia.
(ii) Hypersonic velocity absent a thermal signature and sonic shockwave.
(iii) Transmedium (such as space-to-ground and air-to-undersea) travel.
(iv) Positive lift contrary to known aerodynamic principles.
(v) Multispectral signature control.
(vi) Physical or invasive biological effects to close observers and the environment.
The term ‘‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’’ includes what were previously described as—
(i) flying discs;
(ii) flying saucers;
(iii) unidentified aerial phenomena;
(iv) unidentified flying objects (UFOs); and
(v) unidentified submerged objects (USOs).
In summation, these definitions leave little wiggle room for interpretation by federal agencies in any attempts to mischaracterize or play semantics with their document retention and delivery.
Despite these descriptions by Congress of otherworldly craft operated by sentient beings of a higher intelligence than our own species, the debate over how effective this legislation will be in terms of fruitful transparency has taken center stage in the UFO community, and understandably so.
Senator Schumer's comparison to the release of the JFK assassination record process predictably elicited a kneejerk reaction of cynicism from the more jaded among those paying attention. This is a debate I will not entertain here, as there is essentially zero information on who will be involved and the position of Biden administration officials.
There is, however, an aspect of this legislation that is sure to be quite controversial and has already been dismissed by many as a pipe dream or socialist takeover of private industry.
It appears that Congress, in coordination with the executive branch, will attempt to recover the UFO technology — and potentially biological materials of intelligent non-human beings — that was squirreled away in the private sector decades ago.
In a single sentence tucked away towards the end of the bill lies perhaps the most extraordinary and contentious implications of this amendment.
Under the section titled "Disclosure of Recovered Technologies of Unknown Origin and Biological Evidence of Non-Human Intelligence," the United States Senate inserted bipartisan language expressing their intention to invoke eminent domain privileges over the private possession of UFO and biological materials:
The Federal Government shall exercise eminent domain over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities in the interests of the public good.
Whether or not that single sentence will be elaborated upon or altered in any way remains to be seen, but private corporations and defense contractors will undoubtedly do everything in their power to prevent what they likely view as a massive overreach by the federal government.
In fact, we may already be seeing signs of this.
An anonymous senior aerospace engineer employed in private industry, known mostly by his Twitter handle "Condorman," revealed the day before this legislation came out that there had been a serious shift in tone within his circles on the topic of UAP.
He tweeted the following on July 13th:
There’s a sudden hard industry crackdown on all things UAP. All engineering teams (my company and a second I know of) told no press contact, including anonymous/unnamed. All exotic materials or craft questions are to be referred to AARO. I hope Kirkpatrick is up to the task.
Clearly, the higher-ups in private defense became aware of this legislation shortly before it was announced and are taking it extremely seriously. The fact that they're directing media inquiries to the Department of Defense is quite telling and suggests that this caught them at least somewhat off guard.
How the Senate kept this language quiet until the day before it was released should also not be overlooked. The impact that had appears to have set executives scrambling, with the clause on eminent domain surely at the front of their minds. The impracticality of the government taking this action may be the most acceptable stance one could take, but my recent research tells me otherwise.
There is a history here, requiring nuance unsuitable for a 280-character tweet that will only attract low-effort bad-faith responses.
It is in the context of this current legislation that it becomes necessary to explore the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's beneficial Loan Guarantee Act of 1971.
Despite its undisputed dominance as the top defense contractor today due to the company's cutting-edge technology and wealth of talent, the Lockheed name is no stranger to controversy. The company was embroiled in scandal throughout the 1960s and 70s after its ties to the CIA and related plethora of foreign bribery allegations.
This turmoil fed into other issues within the company, particularly its entry into the private commercial aircraft industry. As domestic flight traffic increased, Lockheed attempted to develop a passenger plane called the L-1011. Unfortunately for Lockheed, issues with their engine developers in Rolls-Royce and the decision of airlines to go with competitors put the company in a hole they could not climb out of themselves.
I'd like to pause for a second and mention that there is a massive backstory here that needs to be explored. Anyone who has read my Black Gold series knows the story of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) involvement with plundering Japanese gold and subsequent laundering of those assets into the international banking system to create a global political slush fund after World War II.
This included setting up a fund to buy elections in Japan for far-right politicians in the counterintuitively-named Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for the purpose of preventing communism at any cost.
It turns out that Lockheed paid bribes to this same party through a company called Deak & Company, run by former OSS officer Nicholas Deak, in return for the LDP to buy their planes. Deak & Co. was one of the leading US non-bank foreign currency dealers, making transactions largely in gold and other precious metals.
This clearly connects Lockheed to characters in this underworld of covert finance and operations. It is unknown how long these bribes had been being paid and who knew about them, although a 1976 New York Times report stated that the CIA had been aware of Lockheed's improper foreign payments since the 1950s.
In addition, according to the New Republic, there are indications Deak & Co. laundered illegal contributions into Richard Nixon's 1972 campaign. Interestingly, it is Nixon who asked Congress to consider a bailout for Lockheed Aircraft that eventually led to the 1971 Emergency Loan Guarantee Act, of which Lockheed was the only requestor of funds.
The name Lockheed today is an emblem of the American military's might, but for decades they languished in accusation after accusation of impropriety and corruption. Congress then bailed them out, all the while still dealing with executives of the company doing everything they could to hide financial transactions from the Government Accountability Office.
According to a thesis on the Lockheed loan guarantee written by Navy Lieutenant Thomas Paul Stanton, there were several concerns with passing the legislation to bail out the struggling aircraft company.
What would prevent the government from giving Lockheed preferential treatment in contracts if the guarantee went through? Would it not be in the government's self-interest to see that Lockheed gets some "sweetheart" contracts while the guarantee is in effect? Wouldn't the government have to ease up on its contract administration policies should Lockheed government contracts get in trouble?
Preferential treatment here is a very valid concern. The government — including Congress, who voted for this bailout and would have political capital on the line — had every incentive for Lockheed to succeed.
Considering a corrupt actor like Nixon initiated the process of this loan guarantee, and what we now know about the lengths he would go to cover up crimes, would it be that surprising if he directed the CIA or another agency to provide Lockheed with additional benefits that would allow them to pay off the loan?
In fact, in his recent book Forbidden Science Volume 5, Jacques Vallee said certain UFO materials were moved into private industry under Nixon around this time period.
My friends believe the hardware reverse engineering project in question is not a simple special access program but belongs to “a special subset of the unacknowledged/carve-out/waived programs.” In other words, there is no way to know the codeword and the budgets hidden inside other SAP budgets stacked like Russian dolls.
The interview of Wilson mentions other names, like Paul Kaminski, Brigadier General Kostelnick, director of SAPOC, at OUSDAT in 1994-97, and Judith Daly, assistant deputy, OUSDAT. Bill Perry was involved, as was Jacques Gansler again, who told Wilson that “UFOs were real, and abductions were not.”
Confused, I went over some of the chronology again. Evidently, the program was inside the government at some point. Under Nixon, it got transferred to a private contractor in order to secure it. As in the remote viewing program at SRI, the parts that the managers wanted to be kept secret were handled as “proprietary,” not subject to FOIA.
Classified papers are subject to review and reclassification, while proprietary data can be kept secret forever.
Though they may be the poster child for military technological innovation today, Lockheed's messy history with the CIA and obfuscating its finances from Congress over decades could come back to haunt them with the recent UFO legislation.
If their previous dealings start to be uncovered in lawsuits through discovery, it could lead to nothing short of a public relations disaster.
Perhaps this is why there are rumblings of certain defense companies trying to divest themselves of these UFO crash materials before they are forced to address the issue.
Either way, this is going to get pretty interesting, and I believe those interested in the current UFO disclosure push should be confident in the leverage possessed by Congress — and their potential allies in the executive branch — in this bipartisan attempt to get to the truth on this decades-old mystery.
bravo - nice insights and well expessed
Excellent insight....