A consultant for the Pentagon U.F.O program is speaking out about retrievals from “off-world vehicles not made on this earth.”
Eric W. Davis, an astrophysicist who worked as a subcontractor and then a consultant for the Pentagon U.F.O. program since 2007 told the New York Times he gave a classified briefing to a Defense Department agency as recently as March about the alleged “off-world” vehicles. He also gave classified briefings on retrievals of unexplained objects to staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee last October.
Davis said that in some cases he had failed to determine the source of recovered materials, leading him to conclude, “We couldn’t make it ourselves.”
Though the Pentagon had said it disbanded a program to investigate unidentified flying objects, the Times reported that investigations into encounters between military pilots and unidentified aerial vehicles continue under a renamed program — the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force — inside the Office of Naval Intelligence. While the program is not classified, it deals with classified matters.
A Senate committee report last month said the program was to “standardize collection and reporting” on sightings of unexplained aerial vehicles. The program was ordered to report at least some of its findings to the public within 180 days after the passing of the intelligence authorization act.
The Pentagon program’s previous director, Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official who resigned in October 2017 after 10 years with the program, said he is convinced that objects of undetermined origin have crashed on earth with materials retrieved for study. Elizondo’s belief is shared by a group of former government officials as well as scientists and security officials, all of whom cannot present physical proof.
However, some previously unexplained incidents do have earthly explanations, and astrophysicists stress that even those lacking explanations are not necessarily caused by extraterrestrial oddities.
While Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader who has been involved in the effort, told the Times he hopes the program will seek evidence of other worldly vehicles, the program’s main objective is to uncover whether other nations are using breakout aviation technology that may threaten the U.S. In either case, Reid says, “it is extremely important that information about the discovery of physical materials or retrieved craft come out.”
Acting chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Marco Rubio (R., Fl.) said earlier this month that he is principally concerned about reports of unidentified aircraft over American military bases. He said it is in the government’s interest to find the responsible party, expressing concern that China or Russia could have made “some technological leap” that “allows them to conduct this sort of activity.”
While Rubio said some unidentified aerial vehicles over U.S. bases may have featured technologies not in use in America, he also said, “Maybe there is a completely, sort of, boring explanation for it. But we need to find out.”
