What’s The Air Force Really Trying To Hide?

Air Force Political Cartoon
Original Artwork by Aaron Smith / The Debrief

Last June, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released a public report entitled Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. The report confirmed that vehicles of unknown origin and capability are operating on a recurring basis, with seeming impunity, in restricted U.S. military airspace. It also appears that in some cases these vehicles are maneuvering in ways that surpass not only U.S. aerospace capabilities but our understanding of physics. As U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “I don’t know what it is, but any time you have legitimate pilots describing something that doesn’t seem to conform to the laws of physics that govern aviation and is in U.S. airspace, I think it’s something we need to get to the bottom of.”

The DNI’s report cited 144 incidents since 2004 in which the U.S. military detected these enigmatic aircraft. Although OSD and DNI public affairs refuse to clarify, it is my understanding that the U.S. Air Force contributed very few, if any, of the 144 reports. If one or two USAF UAP reports did slip through, they are at best the exception that proves the rule. Otherwise, it was virtually all U.S. Navy reporting. Notably, in 80 cases multiple sensor systems simultaneously corroborated the presence of UAP.

How is this possible in light of the USAF’s global responsibility for aerospace defense and its massive air and space surveillance capabilities? Are we to believe that the USAF did not detect any Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) from 2004 until 2021? This lapse in USAF reporting raises doubts about the credibility of the Air Force on the UAP issue and its responsiveness to civilian oversight…

Read More of former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon’s detailed and scathing rebuke of the Air Force’s involvement with unidentified aerial phenomena