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Most UFOs are 'Chinese surveillance' drones and 'airborne clutter,' Pentagon officials reveal
Space.com ^ | 11/4/2022 | Brandon Specktor

Posted on 11/06/2022 10:01:09 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity

Intelligence agencies in the U.S. have spent the last few years analyzing footage of hundreds of recent UFO encounters, and they want the American people to know: It's still not aliens.

According to several U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) officials who spoke anonymously to The New York Times last week, many recent sightings of UFOs — or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), as the government prefers to call them — are likely just observations of foreign surveillance operations or airborne clutter, such as weather balloons.

Several UAP incidents have been officially identified as "relatively ordinary" Chinese surveillance drones, the anonymous officials said. China has previously stolen plans for advanced U.S. fighter planes, and is interested in how the U.S. trains its pilots, the DoD officials added.

Other UAP sightings recorded by military aircraft, which appear to show airborne objects moving in seemingly physics-defying ways, are likely the results of optical illusions. This includes the infamous video known as "GOFAST," which was recorded by a U.S. Navy aircraft and leaked to the media in 2018. (The video, along with two other leaked films of military encounters with UAPs, was eventually declassified by the government.)

While the object in the GOFAST video appears to be zooming over the water at incomprehensible speeds, this is just an optical illusion created by the angle of the recording relative to the water, the DoD officials told The Times. In reality, the object is moving at no more than 30 mph (48 km/h), the officials added.

A classified UAP report delivered to Congress this week by the DoD's intelligence agencies likely includes the findings reported by The Times. The new report adds new details to cases described in a document that officials publicly released in June 2021, describing 144 alleged UAP incidents reported by U.S. government personnel between 2004 and 2021.

The 2021 report acknowledged that, due to a lack of high-quality data, most alleged UAP encounters could not be conclusively explained. However, the report offered several blanket explanations for UAP in general, including "technologies deployed by China, Russia, another nation, or a non-governmental entity," as well as "airborne clutter" such as birds and weather balloons.

Nowhere in the report were aliens or extraterrestrials mentioned — however, that did not stop alien conspiracy theories from arising, due in part to the government's general lack of transparency about UAP incidents.

Sue Gough, a DoD spokesperson, told The Times that the government was committed to sharing whatever UAP information it could without putting national security at risk. Government officials also tend to refrain from discussing UAP incidents publicly because there is simply not enough data to conclusively explain them, Gough added.

"In many cases, observed phenomena are classified as 'unidentified' simply because sensors were not able to collect enough information to make a positive attribution," Gough told The Times. "We are working to mitigate these shortfalls for the future and to ensure we have sufficient data for our analysis."

As the DoD continues its investigation into UAP sightings, NASA has also launched an independent UAP study team, which will operate from October 2022 to mid-2023. According to NASA, the team will focus on collecting and analyzing as much UAP data as possible, in order to develop new methods for identifying the unidentifiable objects in America's skies.


TOPICS: Military/Veterans; Miscellaneous; UFO's; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: asssmoke; coverup; moreliesanddeciet; ohgoodgawdsheesh; opticalillusion; russiarussiarussia; uap; ufo
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Interesting about-face by the government, I think they realized that they got too patently ridiculous with their UFO claims, which started as a disinformation campaign because a PA officer (who is working at Starbucks now) accidentally released classified video. People that know something about optics were able to quickly figure out that the objects in the FLIR videos weren't going hypersonic or even jet fighter speeds. It also takes advantage of the fact that most people have never seen F-18s and other conventional aircraft in IR. The videos were showing nothing special but that didn't stop the government from making grandiose claims.

All the video really accomplished was showcasing the poor radio-discipline that Navy pilots were showing during deployment, I'm sure that's been corrected.

1 posted on 11/06/2022 10:01:09 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

“...Pentagon officials reveal...”

Well, now we know what it’s not


2 posted on 11/06/2022 10:03:00 AM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
It was just swamp gas *ZAP*

3 posted on 11/06/2022 10:04:02 AM PST by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

this can only mean one thing

the aliens are already living among us

and running the DoD


4 posted on 11/06/2022 10:04:22 AM PST by joshua c (to disrupt the system, we must disrupt our lives, cut the cable tv)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

Not buying it. Those pilots filmed a giant tic-tac submerged coming out of the ocean. Then it shot up to 80 thousand ft in seconds. The UFOs or UAPs are real. There’s no way the chinks have that kind of technology.


5 posted on 11/06/2022 10:06:58 AM PST by Macho MAGA Man
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To: BitWielder1

Chinese drones are the updated term for ‘swamp gas’...


6 posted on 11/06/2022 10:07:27 AM PST by GOPJ (Republicans won't 'split tickets' that's a MSM excuse for voter fraud on down ticket races)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

So Travis Walton was abducted by Chinese little green men flying a drone on 11-5-1975 in Arizona.


7 posted on 11/06/2022 10:08:09 AM PST by Redcitizen
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

and the riots were MOSTLY peaceful too...

what about that NOT mostly part???


8 posted on 11/06/2022 10:09:32 AM PST by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

9 posted on 11/06/2022 10:12:05 AM PST by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

Chinese weather balloons.


10 posted on 11/06/2022 10:12:32 AM PST by Leep (Hillary will NEVER be president! 😁)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

Weather balloons?

Really?


11 posted on 11/06/2022 10:15:13 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

So, if they’re enemy aircraft it must be ok to use them for target practice with shotguns, right?


12 posted on 11/06/2022 10:19:47 AM PST by Disambiguator
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To: Macho MAGA Man

They didn’t say EVERYTHING was a Chinese video. Where’s the video of the submerged tic-tac coming out of the ocean? I missed that one.

Here’s one thing I want to know: on these FLIR videos, how does an object accelerate to hypersonic+ speeds without generating heat? That’s not just an aircraft/spacecraft innovation, the object somehow doesn’t compress or heat air when it radically accelerates, meaning that it somehow suspends the laws of fluid dynamics and aerodynamics. I’d like to hear how they’re pulling that off. I know the thought of this stuff being real is something that really itches a person’s fantasy-life right where it itches, I really like the X-Files, too, but use your head.


13 posted on 11/06/2022 10:19:54 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: Macho MAGA Man

Whoops, I meant: “They didn’t say EVERYTHING was a Chinese drone or other object.”


14 posted on 11/06/2022 10:21:21 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

https://youtu.be/Sz-6jRrbtuI


15 posted on 11/06/2022 10:26:01 AM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

US Intelligence agencies... I trust them to lie to Americans and spy on Americans. DoD is now compromised too.


16 posted on 11/06/2022 10:26:38 AM PST by PghBaldy (12/14/12 - 930am -rampage begins... 12/15/12 - 1030am - Obama team scouts photo-op locations.)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

https://youtu.be/dPrYVmYkL5w


17 posted on 11/06/2022 10:30:23 AM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: PghBaldy

This is not an official government statement, these are guys going to the media on the sly because they’re sick of the BS. Take a look Thunderf00t’s videos on YouTube on the subject, I find him and and these govt.-officials-gone-rogue a hell of a lot more credible than the official press-releases.


18 posted on 11/06/2022 10:30:26 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: Openurmind

When you’re trying to make a point, citing garbage doesn’t help you at all. I wouldn’t trust this clown’s advice on a good restaurant in the area.


19 posted on 11/06/2022 10:34:58 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity

Watch the second one.


20 posted on 11/06/2022 10:37:34 AM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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