Disclosure and the AATIP Program | Nick Pope

Transcript

[Music] you you I'm Nick Pope I worked for the British government for 21 years at the Ministry of Defence and for much of the early 90s I ran the UK's UFO program my job was to research and investigate the phenomenon and to determine if there was anything of any defense significance or anything of more general scientific interest now the biggest story in recent years in the UFO field has undoubtedly been the revelations concerning the existence of the Pentagon's a tip program this was front-page news in The New York Times on December 16th 2017 and really in terms of the historian where it is it is still a story that continues to unfold there are fresh revelations it seems every few weeks and this is clearly the biggest thing to have hit the UFO community for some time now there is controversy even about the name of the program a tip has been variously suggested to be either advanced aerospace threat identification program or advanced aviation threat identification program there are even versions with an extra and in there and also suggestions that it either evolved from or is essentially the same thing as another program called or SAP advanced weapons system application program so when you can't even be certain or win this certainly controversy and disagreement about the exact nature and name of a program you know that you're dealing with some fairly shadowy material and relation to the nature of the program that continues to be debate about this was this as the Department of Defense and the Defense Intelligence Agency usually try to characterize it was it an advanced aerospace threat program in other words that there are some statements from the press office and some documents where they talk about this in terms of it being a program to assess far term aerospace threats now conventionally and I speak as someone who's done this whole thing within government conventionally when you talk about foreign advanced aerospace threats you're talking about Russia and China and maybe some other nations such as Iran and North Korea as well as non-state actors such as Isis but if you look at the paperwork that has been Declassified in relation to the Pentagon's a tip program and if you listen to the statements for the people involved in this Senate majority leader former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who was instrumental in setting it up Luis Elizondo the DIA career intelligence officer who ran this and some of the other people it's clear that part of this work at least part of it if not the whole of it was concerned not with Russia and China but but with anomalous phenomena the UFO mystery whatever you want to term it so here we have this program that made front-page news and New York Times was also in the Washington Post Politico CNN Fox CBS NBC a BC the BBC this was literally news headlines all around the world that for years this is the essential part of the story in one sense for years the US government denied having a UFO program or at least having one since 1969 when Project Blue Book was terminated but with the revelations concerning the existence of the a tip program it seemed that that was not entirely correct and that there was a program so this is an ongoing story there are a number of strands to this story and I think possibly the best-known strand because it's such a visual story are these three apparently declassified videos of u.s. Navy jets chasing UFOs these incidents have variously been dubbed gimbal go-fast and tic-tac they essentially are taken through the FL IR which is the forward-looking infrared camera carried by these f-18 Super Hornets and they show an anomalous object of some sort and traveling at apparently phenomenal speeds and what's interesting about this as as well as some of the flight data which is displayed in the course of this these videos being shown you also have voice on some of them from the pilots and you can hear these Navy pilots who of course fly jets capable of traveling at high mag speeds you can hear them getting excited about this saying things like wow look at that thing go and one of the pilots involved who's gone on the record david flavor has say i don't know what it was but i want to fly one now when navy pilots are getting excited about speeds and maneuvers of something you know that you're in pretty interesting territory so the videos have been an important strand of this story and there is some dispute and disagreement about exactly how and when and under whose authority these videos which absolutely seemed to be the real thing and and the Pentagon of course before the New York Times would run this story the Pentagon through the press office had to confirm that yes there was an a tip program so so there has been confirmation of all this but exactly when and who and how the release of these videos came about that's still being debated but there are other strands of the story too for example the suggestion that they had meta materials now these are supposedly they've been called mystery metals that's not a helpful term everything sits somewhere on the periodic table and is made of the same stuff however there are differences in isotopes and what this means in terms of analysis is that just as you can analyze for example a meteorite and you can be certain that it came from space as opposed to it's just someone's trying to sell you a rock that they picked out of their backyard because the isotopic ratios are different and that's because the elements out of which you know the elements and compounds have been exposed to cosmic rays cosmic radiation in other words that we are protected from on on the surface of planet Earth so so you can tell if something's been in space and apparently these meta materials that were looked at as part of the work of the 88 program have undergone isotopic ratio analysis and the conclusion is that they have been in space so that needless to say is extremely interesting part of the eight hit work in fact an awful lot if not all of the a tip contract seems to have been put out into the private sector what the DoD and the Defense Intelligence Agency seem to have done with this is put it out supposedly for competitive tender one report suggests there were two bidders another report suggests there was only one but whatever the truth of that the contract went to Bigelow Aerospace now Robert Bigelow has a long-standing interest in UFOs dating back to a childhood sighting but has made some very forthright statements about the reality of this and has said I don't just believe this to be true I know this to be true now if the person who did the a tip contract for the Pentagon maybe that's the answer to the question how does he know this to be true why is this not just a belief why is Robert Bigelow in interviews talking about this in terms of definitive you can take it to the bank knowledge that this is true so that's another aspect of this and of course putting a program like this into the into the private sector has two advantages firstly it makes congressional oversight more difficult but secondly it takes a large part of the information outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act now could argue that's already largely exempt because of defense and national security and intelligence exemption but having it in the private sector gives you an extra layer of protection because you can also in parallel with those other foi exemptions you can deploy the exemption that relates to privileged commercial privilege when something is done and is the propriety information of a private sector entity so that again is a way often and I've come across similar things and indeed done similar things in the UK where you run a program out of the private sector and it's sounds counterintuitive but it actually makes it harder not easier to to get that information out so we have this program and but that continues to be divergence of view about the true nature of the program just in January 2019 I acquired from the DA's office of corporate communications a letter that the DIA sent to Congress about the a tip program and they said you have asked about this this program here is a list of the products produced under the atyp contract they went on in their cover letter to Congress to talk about this in terms of it being a program designed to assess far term aviation threats to the US but then they listed as an attachment to that better 38 studies that they've done papers that had been written under the 88 program and it was nothing to do with Russia or China or Iran or North Korea it was to do with theoretical physics relating to exotic propulsion systems that would not go basically not not to build a faster aircraft but to build a spacecraft capable of viable interstellar travel and there was another paper in there about the Drake Equation the Drake Equation is a construct designed to make an assessment of how many communicable civilizations there are in our Milky Way galaxy if this was a program looking at Russian and Chinese aviation over the next 40 years which is the way that some skeptics have tried to portray this program clearly they wouldn't be looking at the Drake Equation why if you're studying Russian aircraft or Chinese missiles would you need to know how many intelligent civilizations there are in the galaxy clearly it's a nonsense so we have a fundamental disconnect between what the DIA said to Congress in their letter and what they actually revealed by virtue of the list at attachment where clearly they were looking at something entirely different the whole story of how this got out into the public domain is is very interesting in October of 2017 Louis says Ando who had run this program for the DIA here left the DIA and turned up in a private organization called the to the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences this was a think-tank to put together by the former blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge and he had formed this organization as part think-tank part research organization part lobby group to try to raise awareness of this subject and to try to kick-start a conversation with the American people about the reality of this phenomenon and maybe to try to get more done about it I think the way I characterize what Tom DeLonge him and what the to the Stars Academy seem to be doing is that they seem to be continuing some of the work that was done within government or at government's behest continuing a tip but outside of the DoD in the DIA and in a way that is more public so what happened was that they in October 2017 that to the Stars Academy did a a launch which was filmed and they basically revealed who they were what their strategic aims were and that generated some media coverage now between that time clearly they were having discussions with a number of media entities and some people were acting as go-betweens here and and one of the people involved in this story who knew about it was George Knapp who who was a journalist based out of Las Vegas who has links with Robert Bigelow and who has run series of favorable UFO stories over the years but another person who was brought into this this media handling strategy was the investigative journalist Lesley Kane and Lesley clearly found out about this was briefed on certain aspects of it then met some of the people involved teamed up with Ralph Blumenthal another journalist who worked for the New York Times and Helene Cooper another New York Times journalist and when so what happened was that and then they were also obviously in parallel talking to other media outlets but it was the Times who published first very closely followed by the Washington Post and Politico so clearly there was some coordination here but the times got the scoop and when the story was published it went out jointly under the buy lines of Ralph Blumenthal Leslie Kane and Helene Cooper so the three of them had gotten the story out but clearly they had been talking to people like Lewis Elizondo who went on the record Senator Harry Reid who went on the record but a number of other people associated with the program who did not go on the record and also as part of the fact-checking for the story the New York Times and presumably the other media outlets had to satisfy themselves that this was real and they did that by for example not just talking to Harry Reid and Lewis Elizondo but talking to the pilot David flavour who had been involved in one of those military jet chases and of course they saw some documentation relating to the a tip program they saw for example contractual solicitation documentation showing how this had been put out and [Music] what the contractual requirements were but the final confirmation of course had to come from the government itself all this was very impressive but ultimately a pentagon spokesperson through the press office confirmed to The Times and others that yes there was an a tip program and at some stages press officers have used phrases along the lines of confirming that in parallel with this work part of this work included looking at anomalous phenomena now they've been a couple of occasions where that's I won't say it's been walked back but it's been omitted from some of the statements that have come out of of public affairs at DoD and dia but there are other occasions where that statement has been made so I don't regard it as being disputed that they looked at anomalous phenomena and my goodness when you look at the attachment the letter dia sent to Congress it makes it abundantly clear we're not talking about Russian and Chinese aircraft we're talking about more exotic things that some people would say fringe science some would almost say literally science fiction but clearly scientists with papers published in in prestigious peer-reviewed journals have have been involved in this and have have published on this and have contributed to the atyp work on subject such as wormholes warp drive anti-gravity Stargate etc I think in conclusion I would say that this is not a a done deal this there is still discussion and debate about a tip there will continue to be revelations about this program we have very little paperwork still we I mentioned the contractual solicitation document we also have a January 24 2009 letter from Harry Reid to the deputy defense secretary we have and I've mentioned this the letter that the DIA sent to Congress but apart from that we still don't really have much paperwork out of the 38 papers they're called dirts defense intelligence research documents out of the 38 listed in the attachment to the letter that went to Congress only around half a dozen have been published so the still material to come out there and there's still of course an awful lot of internal DoD and dia and maybe other agency documents that I would expect to exist on the a tip program that have not yet been Declassified and released now clearly some of this must still be classified and it's not necessarily easy to get it out into the public domain people say where are the American people have a right to know but once you put the information out of course it goes not just the American people through the media but once it's out there goes to Russia China Iran North Korea anyone who wants to read it it's once it's out its out you can't get genie back into the bottle so it's not necessarily as simple as it sounds and I know from my own experience that sometimes declassification is is very tricky you have to decide which bits can be released to the public and which information needs to still be classified because I mean look none of us have been involved in these sorts of programs classify things for fun it's a darn nuisance it's it takes it takes time and it's it's an administrative burden we don't do these things because they're fine we do these things because it's the proper thing to do the definition for example of something like top secret is and this is not a direct quote but the sense of it is the top secret information is information the compromise of which would cause catastrophic damage to the national interest and catastrophic damage might be defined as strategic damage or it might be loss of life or it might be both so none of us do these these things for fun or because they're easy they're not easy then they're hard so it's it's a sensitive topic or all of this and and I hope that more information on this program will come out Oh over the next few months however long it takes but I can't guarantee that we'll be involved and I of course worked on a similar program for the British government but I was not involved in any way with the a tip program and although I've met and had discussions with some of the people involved I I have no official involvement in that program so I can't speak with any authority about what might be out there still to be released and whether it will be released or not I know from talking to Lois Elizondo that sometimes with this subject in the Pentagon at high level he and others hit roadblocks there was pushback from some senior military and and civilian people I don't know exactly who and where but one one reason for that pushback apparently was religious there are apparently some people in the Pentagon and I've come across a similar thing in the British government some people have convinced themselves that the UFO phenomenon is do not demonic there is a phrase in the Bible I think in in the book of Ephesians and it talks about Satan in terms of I think quote is the Prince of the power of the air and that quote seems to be the reason why a number of people within government have convinced themselves that this is demonic and therefore if it's demonic we shouldn't be studying with it shouldn't be engaging with it because it feeds it I think this is it's very difficult and sensitive area of course and I don't want to disparage people's beliefs but it's frustrating to me to find that UFO skepticism is not as some people might think within government necessarily rooted in a belief that this isn't a real phenomenon these people are seemingly quite you know happy to admit it is a real phenomenon but the skepticism comes from the fact that they believe it to be a demonic phenomenon that therefore we shouldn't study I would like to see people like Louis Elizondo would like to see people like Christopher Mellon would like to see other people who've been involved in these sorts of subjects at senior level within the system within government we'd like to see more proper serious scientific research and investigation of this phenomenon it's in our airspace it's real it's undeniable now this thing there's no longer a debate to be had about is this real or not I mean my goodness we've seen it's real we've seen the videos of the Navy Jets chasing these things we've heard the pilots talking about this we've had former Senate Majority Reeder Leader Harry Reid talking about how and why the program was set up and help more needs to be done on on this I mean yeah there is no longer a debate about is this real or not it's real that we need now to get to the next questions what is this and what are the threats what are the opportunities and when I talk about opportunities I'm talking primarily about technology acquisition if there's a an intelligence here if there's a technology can we acquire that technology the u.s. the UK can we stop the Russians or the Chinese or someone else getting it first and then we get to the next questions what's what's this all about what is we have some idea of the capability we're dealing with here and its capability that seems to run rings around us our Jets chase them but can't catch them our radar systems track them but never seen anything like it so we know or we know part of we have a broad idea of the capability what we really have no idea of is the intention what's the intent and you can't say whether there is or is not a threat if you don't know the intent so the story is is huge it has taken the whole subject of UFOs out of the fringe and into the mainstream is no longer a sort of are they or aren't they debates I mean oh yeah I know it's in one sense it's a UFO simply means something in our airspace that we can't identify but the question is there a phenomenon as opposed to is it all just misidentifications and hoaxes and psychological delusions that question I think and people who've been involved in programs like this for government I think now is beyond debate that clearly the answer to that question is yes there is something above and beyond misidentification hoaxes and delusion so that debate is gone it's it's it's yesterday's UFO story today and tomorrow's UFO story is what are we going to do about it what is it and what are we going to do about it so we are in interesting times I can't recall an occasion where this subject has at the highest level been taken so seriously ie now go on to mainstream TV news media for example and talk about this quite openly no longer is this the little subject that that people whistle that the x-files theme tune to and make funny jokes about it now now politicians intelligence officers pilots these are the sorts of people having a discussion about this phenomenon so we are in the process of taking this to the next level the to the Stars Academy are going to continue clearly what what they are doing I'm doing similar things in relation for example to the declassification and release of the British government's UFO FILES many of which I wrote I'm involved in that release processes as a spokesperson and really the public face of it and continuing to have a conversation I suppose to have zatia with with politicians with the media with the public about what to do about this and perhaps I'll finish on one important aspect of of this as I speak ongoing active congressional interest in the a tip program and in the phenomenon more generally the Senate Armed Services Committee has taken evidence they've interviewed some of the people involved with with all of this the House Armed Services Committee is involved too there is I think a debate about where within Congress this best sets but what happens next I don't know but clearly the Senate Armed Services Committee the House Armed Services Committee you're gonna take this forward whether this results in open public hearings or whether it remains an internal subject of inquiry I don't know but the fact that there's congressional interest in this is is I think an indicator of now the level at which this is being continued so when I say that this subject has been taken out of the fringe and into the mainstream I don't make that statement likely this is now a subject that is not just in the tabloids it's in the New York Times and The Washington Post this is a subject that is now not just being discussed at UFO conferences but it's now being talked about in congressional hearings and and committees so watch this space there is more to come on this this is an important and interesting story and a lot of it still lies in the future is this disclosure well it's not it's not conventional disclosure the UFO community to talk about disclosure to the UFO community is disclosure with a capital D my fellow Americans people of the world we are not alone I don't think you're going to get that I think disclosure is a more subtle process disclosure is this subject favorably discussed and confirmed in the New York Times The Washington Post and Politico disclosure is this subject acknowledged and discussed in Congress when people say when are we going to get disclosure my answer to the question is it's happening right now you