2020 will forever be the year of COVID-19, but it has a different meaning for UFO enthusiasts. This marked the time when the Pentagonâs covert UFO operation became an above board government program.
And on Friday June 25, it will publish its first report covering 120 UFO sightings.
Does this means aliens exist? Disappointingly, the Pentagon will probably point to high-tech aircraft by Russia or China as an explanation. Still, it wonât completely rule out extraterrestrials.Â
To try and get to the bottom of this, we discussed the much-anticipated report with TNWâs Alex Griffioen, one of the Netherlandsâ main UFO experts and initiator of the UFO sightings website Ufomeldpunt.nl.
We asked Griffioen if we should still be excited about this report even if the US government wonât acknowledge itâs aliens.
He gave us an unequivocal âyesâ to this.
Telling us that itâs the first time since 1969 the Pentagon is publishing a report about UFO (or UAP) sightings. Back then, he explained, the US Air Force looked into about 12,000 UFO reports, and concluded the sightings could mostly be explained by everyday phenomena.Â
âThis report had a huge impact on how people thought about UFOs,â Griffioen said. âSince they had been officially âdebunked,â UFOs became the realm of crazy people, and sightings were no longer reported in fear of ridicule â or worse.âÂ
This all changed in 2017, when the New York Times published their sensational expose on the Pentagonâs Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).Â
This mysterious investigation had been running since 2007 and cost $22 million. âThe news was groundbreaking because it proved the Pentagon was seriously looking into this again, and that their 1969 conclusions apparently were no longer valid; if they ever were,â Griffioen commented.Â
Arguably even more impactful was the release of three videos made by different navy pilots.Â
These videos show strange-looking flying objects that can accelerate within seconds and seem to defy the laws of physics.
When those videos came out, it resulted in a snowball effect with even more pilots reporting sightings. Congress could no longer ignore the questions these phenomena posed and founded the UAP Task Force for further investigation.Â
Their first report is coming out on Friday and we asked Griffioen what to expect.
He told us that the Pentagon will acknowledge the presence of UFOs â nobody disputes the validity of the sightings and videos â but will probably try to explain them as earthly phenomena. For example, countries like Russia and China secretly testing ultra-advanced, hypersonic planes.Â
Griffioen isnât buying this.Â
âLetâs say itâs Russia, a country with a minuscule defense budget compared to the US. So Russia created gravity-defying vehicles in 2004 that can buzz around at hypersonic speeds for a full day and donât need fossil fuels? If Russiaâs technology would really be that much more advanced, wouldnât there be hover boards on the streets of Moscow by now?â
We then questioned Griffioen about how many more videos we can expect to see.
He told us we donât know much about the reportâs contents. But Luis Elizondo, the former director of AATIP and the driving force behind the declassification of the three existing videos, has seen more footage.Â
Elizondo resigned in 2017 and has since worked on the documentary series Unidentified: Inside Americaâs UFO Investigation by the History Channel.Â
âElizondo identified five âobservablesâ when he worked for AATIP; unique traits that can help filter UAP sightings,â Griffioen said. âFor example, thereâs instantaneous acceleration: moving from zero to Mach six or seven in seconds. If a human being was inside that craft, they would turn into mush because of the G-forces. Another one is âtransmedium travelâ: the ability to move in or out of the water without losing speed.â
According to Griffioen, these underwater UFOs are called USOs â or âunidentified submersible objects.â And theyâre a lot more common than you might think.
Here though, comes the big question: have we encountered aliens or not?
âI think we spotted non-human intelligence,â Griffioen said. âI wouldnât use the term âaliens.ââÂ
The term he does use is ânon-human intelligence â or NHI.â Griffioen told us that humans like to envision martians who climb onto spaceships and travel from their planet to ours.
He doesnât believe itâs that simple.
Instead, he thinks that âthese NHIs could also come from another dimension in space and time.â Effectively, heâs a proponent of the multiverse theory. This means the sightings exist on Earth, but in a âspectrum we canât registerâ as humans.
As you can tell, Griffioen is a true believer. But, if what he thinks is true, what would need to happen for the Pentagon to confirm the existence of non-human intelligence?
To this, Griffioen replied with: ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
On a more serious angle, he thinks weâd need to prove that these unidentified objects are breaking our understanding of the rules of gravity, aerodynamics, and acceleration. âMaybe thatâs enough?â
But the US government confirming the existence of non-human intelligence might be closer than it appears.
According to author Sam Harris, he has been approached by an individual with ties to the American government in order to help shape the public message that hon-human intelligence exists.
For Griffioen, this leaves two major options: either Sam Harris is lying, or something is being revealed to someone. We just donât know if the latter point will stay in government circles, or will be revealed to humanity at large.
Ultimately, we donât have enough evidence to say one way or the other if non-human intelligence exists and has interacted with Earth.
Griffioen believes this will change in our lifetimes though.
âWeâve never been closer [or] seen as much transparency as today,â he said. âIâm positive we will find out whatâs out there in the coming years.â
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