"Smells like ... victory ..."

“I have fixed your doorbell from ringing, there is no charge” — Inspector Clouseau

OK. So, late Friday afternoon – the go-to slot whenever officialdom wants to dump a load of skank in hopes of minimal exposure – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases the “analysis” of the UFO/UAP problem as ordered by Congress in December. Its “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” is historic insofar as there have been no formal government analyses of the issue in more than half a century. And, given the insertion of “Preliminary” in the title, that should be enough to tide us taxpayers over until ODNI decides to drop the next installment of what’s destined to become a protracted serial doled out in constipated little marbles.

And just get a load of the concessions. Over the course of a whopping nine unclassified pages, the UAP Task Force tells us it reviewed 144 cases logged by government sources/hardware from 2004-2021. It even includes a subhead titled “UAP Threaten Flight Safety and, Possibly National Security,” followed by a solution-oriented subhead: “Explaining UAP Will Require Analytic, Collection and Resource Investment.” Hmm — never thought of that. It also informs readers the UAPTF is looking for “novel ways” to gather more info with standardized methodologies, and cites the need to overcome “sociocultural stigmas and sensor limitations.”

So it’s better than nothing, right? Well, that depends on how long you’ve been swallowing this crap.

We get the same old song and dance about five “potential” explanations for UAPs, which could’ve been plagiarized from 1969 when the Air Force got UFOs off its back by terminating Project Blue Book: “airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall ‘other’ bin.” Zero details, natch, about that “other” bin, the only one anybody gives a spit about.

In fact, despite the not-ours testimony volunteered by everyone from seasoned fighter pilots to, just last month, the actual former DNI John Ratcliffe (who cited “objects that engage in actions … that we don’t have the technology for”), his successors still want us to believe, quote, “Some UAP observations could be attributable to developments and classified programs by U.S. entities.”

Just … wow.

Oh, and what’s up with the Air Force? Remember those guys? ODNI informs us “the majority of UAP data is from U.S. Navy reporting,” along with this genuine revelation: “Although USAF data collection has been limited historically the USAF began a six-month pilot program in November 2020 to collect in the most likely areas to encounter UAP and is evaluating how to normalize future collection, reporting, and analysis across the Air Force.” Jeez. Better late than never, I guess, but maybe we should let the Navy manage our air defenses from now on and turn everything else over to Space Force.

Oh my achin’ back – in October 1969, a couple of months before the USAF washed its hands of UFOs, Brig. Gen. Carroll Bolender, Deputy Director of Development and Acquisitions under the USAF’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Research and Development, authored a memo that didn’t surface until it got expectorated by a FOIA in 1979. Hardcores can quote it by heart. In reassuring the brass that the USAF would keep an eye on the blind spots, Bolender wrote:

“… reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system (Atch 10). The Air Force experience therefore confirms the impression of the University of Colorado researchers that the defense function could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book.”

So ODNI goes all the way back to 2004 for cases to review in order to fulfill its legal obligation to Congress. It advocates “resource investment” in developing new detection modes, including “advanced algorithms to search historical data captured and stored by radars.” But hey, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just steal it from China? Apparently, the People’s Liberation Army has gotten a head start on that front.

Also: In order to eliminate redundancies, wouldn’t it be smarter to first take an inventory of what our defense contractors have been sitting on? Maybe follow up on former Sen. Harry Reid’s hunch that Lockheed Martin is working with recovered UFO material? Maybe get former Defense Intelligence Agency Director Thomas Wilson and physicist Eric Davis in the same room, under oath, in order settle, once and for all, the controversy over whether or not the former really was rebuffed in his efforts to check out UFO research allegedly being pursued by a private corporation?

Yep, it’s fine day indeed when Uncle Sam officially decides to hedge his bet on the Blue Book conclusions that UFOs a) aren’t scientifically interesting, b) don’t encompass technology better than ours, and c) don’t constitute a national security threat. But the ODNI report is all about starting from scratch, going forward, looking ahead, moving on. Ignoring the 20th century timeline altogether — the deceit, the ignorance and the waste that got us into this mess — is a convenient way to duck accountability. Maybe, in another few years, after everybody from that era is good and dead, we can spend $$$ on a study to revisit it.