Source: New York Times

Remember those super-maneuverable drones I was talking about, the tic tac and the sphere-encasing-a-cube, the ones that so far defy explanation? I saw an article a few days ago that said:

The now-established data on unexplained aerial phenomena is undeniable. Since at least 2004, numerous U.S. Navy aircrews have seen hypersonic- and anti-gravity-capable unidentified aerial phenomena with their eyes and on their gun cameras. This phenomena evidences technical performance capabilities far in advance of any national military. In some cases, that data is matched by satellite tracking, sonar, and radar data sets. This issue is real and significant.

So, these craft do exist. A former Defense official, Christopher Mellon, also says they exist. Mellon was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (the third highest intelligence position at the Pentagon) and later for Security and Information Operations. He was also Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Says Mellon:

We know that UFOs exist. This is no longer an issue. The NAVY itself has publicly acknowledged the fact that they exist, and NAVY pilots ― active duty pilots ― have gone on the record in the New York Times acknowledging the fact that they exist. So the issue now is: why are they here, where are they coming from and what is the technology behind these devices that we are observing?

Before I go on, it’s important to state that UFO does not mean alien. It’s just something that hasn’t been explained. Here, again, is the government’s official stance on aliens:

In November 2011, the White House released an official response to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited Earth and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings.

According to the response, “The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race.” Also, according to the response, there is “no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”

The response noted “odds are pretty high” that there may be life on other planets but “the odds of us making contact with any of them — especially any intelligent ones — are extremely small, given the distances involved.”

The government wrote that in 2011. In 2012 they stopped funding research into these unexplained craft, even though sightings by pilots continued. Mellon wrote an essay for the Washington Post last year decrying that fact:

The Military Keeps Encountering UFOs. Why Doesn’t The Pentagon Care?, Washington Post, 9 March 2018

The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest.
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Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China? … Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.
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(A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to requests from The Washington Post for comment, but in December, the military confirmed the existence of a program* to investigate UFOs and said it had stopped funding the research in 2012.)
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On several occasions, I have met with senior Pentagon officials, and at least one followed up and obtained briefings confirming incidents such as the Nimitz case. But nobody wants to be “the alien guy” in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue. This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.

* [That program was called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which ran from 2002 to 2012. It was first made public in 2017.]

Here’s what Mellon says in answer to the question, “Could these crafts be ours?” from May of this year:

I served in a capacity in which it was my job to conduct oversight of our black programs, and never saw anything of this kind on the books. Moreover, I was once actually specifically asked to determine whether we had a capability along these lines, in response to a query from the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Bobby Byrd.

I ran that all the way up the flagpole with the Air Force and others, and believe me, everyone respected Senator Byrd. No one was going to lie to him and risk his wrath. And the answer was, “Absolutely not. We don’t have a super-secret black triangle that can go at hypersonic speeds and all that sort of thing.”

So, they probably aren’t ours. They might belong to another country or to a private enterprise. Or they could be some natural phenomenon. It’s odd that the government chooses not to investigate them.

By the way, Mellon says, “nobody wants to be “the alien guy” … nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue.” Tell me about it. I almost didn’t post this. But I’m curious. Who wouldn’t be? I don’t even believe in aliens, certainly not the ones depicted that are bipedal, oxygen-breathing, human-looking creatures, designed specifically, it seems, for Earth’s gravity. The leap is too great.

So, we’re back to the question … What are these things?