Here’s What I Learned as the U.S. Government’s UFO Hunter OP-ED by Sean Kirkpatrick

An OP-ED by Sean Kirkpatrick

Source: Here’s What I Learned as the U.S. Government’s UFO Hunter

Carl Sagan popularized the maxim that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” This advice should not be optional for policy makers. In today’s world of misinformation, conspiracy driven decision-making and sensationalist-dominated governance, our capacity for rational, evidence-based critical thinking is eroding, with deleterious consequences for our ability to effectively deal with multiplying challenges of ever increasing complexity.

As director of the Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), charged by Congress in 2022 to help bring science-based clarity and resolution to the long-standing mystery surrounding credible observations of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs, I experienced this erosion up close and personal. And it was one factor in my decision to step down from my position last December.

After painstakingly assembling a team of highly talented and motivated personnel and working with them to develop a rational, systematic and science-based strategy to investigate these phenomena, our efforts were ultimately overwhelmed by sensational but unsupported claims that ignored contradictory evidence yet captured the attention of policy makers and the public, driving legislative battles and dominating the public narrative.

Ohhhh …. so it was our fault….he left. (Some sarcasm of course).

He couldn’t handle the UFOtainers!

Gee…..I had high hopes for the Hynek 2.0 …..Hynek 1.0 lasted a lot longer.

Oh well….Next up!…...Hynek 3.0 please….

☕️🍩
👽

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

Too much soap opera run-around with the entire UFO phenomena.

When a Director of National Intelligence candidly states, Paraphrasing: "We don't know what they are. They don't respond to our efforts at communicating. The technology is far superior to what we have. Quite frankly, our Intel and Military is intimidated by the controllers of these craft."

That is not dramatic and flamboyant enough. Nobody can make any money from those dead ends, and Social Media threads can't flourish.

originally posted by: WeMustCare
a reply to: Ophiuchus1

Too much soap opera run-around with the entire UFO phenomena.

When a Director of National Intelligence candidly states, Paraphrasing: "We don't know what they are. They don't respond to our efforts at communicating. The technology is far superior to what we have. Quite frankly, our Intel and Military is intimidated by the controllers of these craft."

That is not dramatic and flamboyant enough. Nobody can make any money from those dead ends, and Social Media threads can't flourish.

This the exact reason there is so much back and forth about acknowledging and denying.

There is a large faction that thinks their sole grip on power is keeping people feeling like they have a firm handle on things. They fear that if weakness is exposed at the fundamental power-wielding level that people will scoff at them even more. This includes governmental powers as well as religious and just plain "rich and powerful" groups.

There is another faction that currently wields a huge secret power and extra-governmental authorities and simply doesn't want to share with randos that aren't part of the club. Imagine universities just having free access to play with things.

There's another faction that genuinely wants to know or knows and wants exposure, but is directly dealing with the other two at every turn.

It's not going to come to a head until it does in a literal sense. Then everyone will cope and move on. I think it might surprise people when they see the true picture of where man actually stands in the scope of things. Toys and tech aren't anything more than that.

a reply to: Halfswede

Here’s a geopolitical opinion point of view….

Destabilizing UFO technology and a ‘vulnerable world’

Excerpts…..

According to philosopher Nick Bostrom, a novel technological discovery may one day devastate human civilization. In Bostrom’s “vulnerable world” theory, only extraordinary interventions — such as unprecedented global cooperation or surveillance — can prevent a sufficiently dangerous new technology from ushering in civilizational collapse. With key members of Congress suspecting that the U.S. already possesses such uniquely destabilizing technology, Bostrom’s hypothesis may soon be put to the test.

Further

Let us assume, then, that a state successfully harnesses advanced UFO technology, enabling it to strike globally with impunity while rendering its adversaries’ military capabilities ineffective. That nation would have significant incentives to conduct a devastating “knock-out” attack before its rivals achieve similar breakthroughs. This, in Bostrom’s typology of “civilizational vulnerabilities,” is the “safe first strike” scenario.

The article goes on to say among other things

For example, should one state suspect another of surreptitiously studying or exploiting UFO technology outside of the multilateral scientific framework, an aggressive inspections framework, agreed by all participating nations and requiring a majority vote to enforce, could deter “cheating.”

Can we as a world, truly trust each other if ever a one world order?

I think not……

Under our outward civility….we are still primordial savages.

👽

My little analogy of your OP, is, just another way of making sure they tell us what to think.

I'm gonna go ahead and call the whole thing a smoke show. I'm not going to buy into anything they try and sell us here with these new uap investigation teams.

All smoke and mirrors designed to misdirect our thoughts and opinions.

First it was, "UFOs don't exist, and anyone who says they do is crazy" to a Pentagon ran investigation on everything we've been seeing in the sky for decades now.

Things really picking up in the skies shortly after ww2 (hmm).

Now we're being told, "we don't know what they are, but yeah, UFOs exist."
They even craftily changed the name from UFOs to UAPs.

Problem is, it's getting harder and harder to hide all these secrets.

So, new lies are invented to keep us pacified.

They're simply controlling the narrative. As they always have.

I reject their hype

Everyone on #UFOTwitter has dubbed him:

"UFO Hunter Biden"

Spam

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”

This is where I stand with all of this and so far there is no evidence, not of UFOs/UAPs, but of extraterrestrial beings and their craft, which they need to prove to me to have been retrieved and identified by the reigning scientists and skeptics as being without a doubt, real. I've been saying it all along 'I need to see evidence'!

If what they retrieved is advanced AI/human stem cell technology, which needs to be kept from the public because it might show that our governments can't protect us from who knows what? then that is a big problem with trust.

I'll continue to try to use rational thinking and not jump to conclusions even though I know what I experienced long ago was a real extraterrestrial craft with two grays.

our efforts were ultimately overwhelmed by sensational but unsupported claims that ignored contradictory evidence yet captured the attention of policy makers and the public, driving legislative battles and dominating the public narrative.

...and there is a lot of contradictory evidence, so I'll keep an open mind with a healthy dose of skepticism until the real thing is identified and without a doubt extraterrestrial life and their craft that are visiting us.

a reply to: quintessentone

I gotcha….

Welp….here’s the circa 1968 famed chapter 33 from the USAF Academy physics study’s….only 13 pages long.

INTRODUCTORY SPACE SCIENCE - VOLUME II DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS - USAF CHAPTER XXXIII - UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

This was the USAF mindset at the time….

It was important enough to include UFO information in their textbooks back then.

👽

originally posted by: Ophiuchus1
a reply to: quintessentone

I gotcha….

Welp….here’s the circa 1968 famed chapter 33 from the USAF Academy physics study’s….only 13 pages long.

INTRODUCTORY SPACE SCIENCE - VOLUME II DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS - USAF CHAPTER XXXIII - UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

This was the USAF mindset at the time….

It was important enough to include UFO information in their textbooks back then.

👽

It looks to me like the wrong 'peaceful' extraterrestrials and their human family members left and the angry destructive ones stayed - this is us? If this is us how would we treat alien life should they land at our doorstep? Get your gun?

"Separation did not bring peace to these people and finally their anger reached a point where the ruler of the original city took with him a small number of his warriors and they rose into the air in a huge shining metal vessel. While they were many leagues from the city of their enemies, they launched a great shining lance that rode on a beam of light. It burst apart in the city of their enemies with a great ball of flame that shot up to the
heavens, almost to the stars. All those who were in the city were horribly burned and even those who were not in the city - but nearby - were burned also. Those who looked upon the lance and the ball of fire were blinded forever afterward. Those who entered the city on foot became ill and died. Even the dust of the city was poisoned, as were the rivers that flowed through it. Men dared not go near it, and it gradually crumbled into
dust and was forgotten by men."

"When the leader saw what he had done to his own people he retired to his palace and refused to see anyone. Then he gathered about him those warriors who remained, and their wives and children, and they entered their vessels and rose one by one into the sky and sailed away. Nor did they return."

Hey the ending advice in that article is exactly what I just posted previously.

a reply to: quintessentone

The last paragraph….within the conclusion

A solution to the UFO problem may be obtained by the long and diligent effort of a large group of well financed and competent scientists, unfortunately there is no evidence suggesting that such an effort is going to be made. However, even if such an effort were made, there is no guarantee of success because of the isolated and sporadic nature of the sightings. Also, there may be nothing to find, and that would mean a long search with no proof at the end.

The best thing to do is to keep an open and skeptical mind, and not take an extreme position on any side of the question.

🍻

👽

originally posted by: Ophiuchus1
a reply to: quintessentone

The last paragraph….within the conclusion

A solution to the UFO problem may be obtained by the long and diligent effort of a large group of well financed and competent scientists, unfortunately there is no evidence suggesting that such an effort is going to be made. However, even if such an effort were made, there is no guarantee of success because of the isolated and sporadic nature of the sightings. Also, there may be nothing to find, and that would mean a long search with no proof at the end.

The best thing to do is to keep an open and skeptical mind, and not take an extreme position on any side of the question.

🍻

👽

Are not AARO and Harvard University's Galileo Project well financed and have competent scientists? Well what is a competent scientist when searching the skies for UAPs vs believing that extraterrestrials may exist?

The way in which they are now surveilling the skies can track UAP/UFO properly from space to ground. Aircraft radar can't distinguish a radar artifact from a real UAP/UFO. And not to forget that pilots that see with their own eyes alien craft will no longer be stigmatized or fired.

We're getting there (baby steps), hopefully.

a reply to: Halfswede

The simple truth is that if you have a secret, and someone knows you have a secret, they will try to get the secret out. If you have a secret and you ack the secret but say you don't know how it is, people will just leave you alone. The goal is to confuse and misdirect as much as possible to what end i don't know, maybe to buy time or something else entirely. The fact remains they ack that this was happening, but conveniently they say they don't know what it is which leaves a wide body of possible resolutions, too many to count, too many to pin point.

a reply to: omexa

REPORTED !

a reply to: quintessentone

Only you have mentioned Extraterrestrials this far though.

Which reminds me, I heard something I hadn't heard before the other day, the suggestion that Extra Terrestrial refers to life that originated on earth but has gone out into space while Alien refers to those races that have nothing to do with our planet, Terra.

Things that make you go hmm....

a reply to: djz3ro

Just a small tidbit……

'Aliens' in the Bible

Aliens was used in place of Foreigners, at least 57 times in the Bible.

👽

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

There are lots of accounts in the bible which sound like modern UFO Encounters or Abduction Experiences.

There's also lots of words that have double meaning in the bible that make more sense if the word used is replaced with the alternative meaning, so this doesn't surprise me. Thanks again Ophi

Can you please tell me where you got the story of those ancient people using a nuclear weapon? I would love to read it and dig into it some more.
Many thanks my friend
a reply to: quintessentone