By: PETER DOCKRILL

A series of newly surfaced images and videos of unidentified flying objects filmed by the US Navy have now been confirmed as authentic by the Pentagon.

While many in the public generally refer to such mysterious sightings as UFOs, the more modern term used in defense circles is ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ (UAPs) – and they’re something the intelligence community takes very seriously.

While UFOs are a stigmatized topic – associated with conspiracy theories and intertwined with pop culture – the fact remains that UAPs, sometimes also called Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs), are nonetheless very real, representing documented sightings of phenomena that neither the military nor scientific observers can easily identify.

The newly surfaced sightings, sourced by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and reporter George Knapp, include footage of a mysterious “pyramid-shaped” craft observed flying through the sky, along with images of three other strange objects, one of which appears to have been shared online last year.

While nobody knows for sure just what these enigmatic visions really are, the Pentagon has at least confirmed that the images are genuine: authentic photography and footage of UAPs captured by the US Navy.

“I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel,” Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough said in a statement distributed to numerous media outlets.

“The UAPTF [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force] has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations.”

But while the Pentagon corroborates the authenticity of the imagery, the US Department of Defense (DOD) hasn’t clarified anything further than that, remaining tight-lipped about what, if anything, their investigations of these strange objects might have upturned.

“As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP,” Gough said.

May 1st 2020 a classified briefing was generated about the UFO / UAP presence via the Office of Naval Intelligence. I was able to obtain information regarding these & other UAP related briefings – as well as – unclassified slides & some intriguing military captured UAP footage. pic.twitter.com/F6V9h64Qfs

— Jeremy Corbell (@JeremyCorbell) April 8, 2021

Thanks to Corbell and Knapp’s investigations, however, more can be revealed about the details of these sightings, including details presented in a series of classified intelligence briefings in May 2020 by the UAPTF to educate Defense personnel on UFO/UAP matters.

In the briefings, one reported sighting details observations of a “pyramid-shaped” (Corbell’s term) craft, filmed by crew of the USS Russell off the coast of San Diego in July 2019.

While video of the incident only clearly shows one such triangular-looking object, said to be hovering about 210 meters (700 ft) above the vessel, an account of the episode describes three purported unidentified vehicles flying in a swarm over the ship.

In another sighting, a spherical vehicle of some kind was observed by crew aboard the USS Omaha, flying into the ocean and disappearing in the water. The UAPTF documentation suggests the craft was thought to have sunk, but a subsequent search of the area by submarine revealed no wreckage.

A series of other sightings, all recorded on the same day in March 2019 by an F-18 weapon systems officer using his iPhone’s camera, reveal three UAPs seen near Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia

The objects, all of which look dissimilar, have come to be known as the ‘Sphere’, the ‘Acorn’, and the ‘Metallic Blimp’, and while some have speculated they could be weather balloons or foreign spy drones, as far as we know, they remain unidentified and are still considered to be UAPs.

Not that the Pentagon confirms that. When pressed by intelligence website The Black Vault as to whether these UAPs were still categorized as unidentified, Gough only offered: “I have nothing further for you beyond what I provided.”

While there are still many questions about these strange unidentified phenomena, the newly leaked information does at least provide more evidence that the DOD continues to investigate and treat UAPs as a serious subject.

Corbell, along with others in the intelligence community, hope that by sharing this information, it will further bolster rational and transparent investigations of these mysterious objects.

“Recent UAP interactions have been put in our path with purpose, and should be looked upon as advantageous opportunities for future research,” a senior intelligence officer familiar with the recent UAP briefings told Corbell.

“With every incursion, overflight and potential midair – it has never been more prudent to investigate this UAP phenomenon and deglamorize the UFO stigma through the ranks.”

ScienceAlert

Distressed Signal

SETI Research Director Warns of “Malevolent” Alien Civilizations

“We have no reason to believe that technological advancement and altruism or morality are somehow linked.”

Antony Stanley via Flickr / Futurism

Unfriendly Skies

While many scientists are trying their hardest to make first contact, or at least find evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization, others are asking a crucial question: Are we sure we would really want aliens to find us?

“We have no reason to believe that technological advancement and altruism or morality are somehow linked,” SETI researcher Andrew Siemion told Inverse. “There probably are malevolent civilizations elsewhere in the universe so that’s certainly something that we should consider as we continue to explore the universe.”

Siemion, who’s the director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and principal of the alien-hunting Breakthrough Listen project, is invoking a tension at the heart of any project searching for alien life. Successfully finding it would change the world — but there’s also no guarantee humanity would survive the encounter.

Hunker Down

Prominent physicist and SETI expert Michio Kaku shared a similar warning recently, though neither he nor Siemion seem to think the possible risks are reason enough to stop looking for aliens.

“Now, personally, I think that aliens out there would be friendly but we can’t gamble on it,” Kaku told The Guardian earlier this month. “So I think we will make contact but we should do it very carefully.”

Too Late

The debate over whether or not humanity should unveil itself to the universe and broadcast messages to any alien civilizations that might be out there misses the inconvenient fact that we haven’t exactly been sneaky so far. We’ve been blasting radio signals out into the cosmos for a century, so any extraterrestrials within a hundred light years and capable of intercepting a specific “hello universe” message are already more than aware of our existence.

“The point people miss is that it’s too late to hide,” astrobiologist and president of the Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) Institute Douglas Vakoch told Inverse. “If they are on their way then it’s to our advantage to engage them and show them that we make better conversational partners than lunch.”

The BYTE

The Mysterious Underground Train Crash at London’s Moorgate Station

Brent Swancer

Brent Swancer | Mysterious Universe

Brent Swancer is an author and crypto expert living in Japan. Biology, nature, and cryptozoology still remain Br…

It was the morning of February 28 1975, and it was business as usual along the Northern City Line of the London Underground public rapid transit system, also more commonly called The Tube. Passengers were buzzing along the platforms and rushing along on their daily business, engaged in their normal lives and with no notion that this was to be anything other than a usual day. At 8:46 AM, a train carrying 300 passengers from Dayton Park approached Moorgate station, the southern terminus of the line, and since it was rush hour scores of morning commuters were lined up along the platform waiting for the train to come in and stop to allow them to board, only it didn’t stop. As the train kept barreling towards the station, people began to sense that something was not quite right, and that there was no way it was going to be able to stop in time. This was a bit of a problem, because this was the terminus of the line, with nothing down the rest of the tunnel other than a concrete wall. The train continued right past the platform without even slowing down, and so would begin the greatest and most mysterious tragedy the London Underground has ever seen.

The train blasted right past the station, ignored the red warning lights, careened down the tunnel at a speed of 30 to 40mph, passed the then non-functioning hydraulic buffer, and smashed right into the wall at the end, sending the first carriage into the roof of the tunnel, collapsing the first three cars into each other like an accordion, and casting the entire station into darkness and chaos. Dust and smoke permeated the air as disoriented passengers in the station wandered about coughing in the gloom trying to figure out what had just happened. It did not take long for rescue services to arrive for what would go on to become a 6-day operation, which would eventually grow to involve 1,324 firefighters, 240 police officers, 80 ambulance workers, 16 doctors and numerous volunteers, all working down in a dim and dank tunnel 70 feet underground, with poor lighting, dropping oxygen levels, an oppressive cloud of soot and dust in the air, and high heat of up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Rescuers would later compare it to like being in a war zone, a hell scape of twisted metal and mangled bodies strewn about the soot covered rubble, survivors screaming out from the gloom in agony like the souls of the damned. When all was said and done, the Moorgate Tube Crash had left 43 dead and 74 injured, making it the worst peacetime accident in the history of the London Underground, which at the time typically smoothly serviced 3 million people a day with few accidents and was considered one of the safest forms of transportation around. So what happened? This is a question that is difficult to answer, and the investigation would uncover strange clues and anomalies.

The London Underground

As the rescue operation was going on, authorities were trying to piece together exactly what had happened. Witnesses including commuters and station staff would report that at no point had the doomed train attempted to brake, with some even claiming that it had actually seemed to have accelerated as it passed the platform. It was rather odd, since it would be found that there was nothing technically wrong with the train itself. The train driver was described as not moving or reacting in any way, not doing anything in fact other than staring straight ahead with a blank expression, as if in a zombie-like daze. Even as the train approached its inevitable destruction the man showed no reaction at all, not even bracing for impact. It was soon found that this driver, who had died in the crash, was a man named Leslie Newson, 56, who had been with the London Transport since 1969 and had been driving along the Northern City Line for 3 months, but a look into the man’s life would do little to shed light on what had happened, and would indeed only deepen the mystery.

Newson was found to have been a good employee, described by colleagues as reliable, responsible, and as a careful and conscientious train driver. He was not known to take risks, and was a perfectly law-abiding, well-adjusted individual and family man who loved his job and took it very seriously. According to those who had been working with him that day, Newson had been acting completely normally that morning and had completed several train runs already without incident. It would turn out that he had been carrying money with him for the purpose of buying a second hand car for his daughter after finishing his shift, something he had been looking forward to, and had spoken with colleagues excitedly talking about his plans after work that day. On his person in the train were found a rule book for drivers and two notebooks full of notes on what to do in the event of train failures or problems, both neatly bound in plastic protective covers. None of this seems to paint him as someone who was looking to commit suicide or harm himself, and certainly not taking a bunch of innocent people with him. It also did not point to this being a terrorist act of some kind, and so other options were looked at, but this would do little to provide answers.

The scene of the crash

An autopsy and analysis of his medical records would show that there was nothing physically wrong with Newson. No sign of a heart attack or stroke. He had absolutely no medical issues, no health problems that could have caused him to do what he did, he was on no medication that could have caused a lapse of judgement or make him lose consciousness, and he was also not a heavy drinker and did not use drugs. Indeed, he was found to be in perfect health. The only oddity found with his autopsy was a small amount of alcohol in his system, but it was debated whether this would have been enough to cause the accident or even whether it had come from simply the natural decomposition process. Family, friends, and colleagues insisted that they had not seen him drinking that morning, and he was not the type of person who would ever do that in the first place on the job. Rather strangely, the injuries sustained to his body and X-rays taken showed that he had at no point made any effort to brace himself or even so much as raise his hands in front of him, as would be the normal human instinct to do. Why should this be? No one knows.

There is the possibility that he had some unknown and undetected medical or mental condition, but if so, what could it be? Theories include that it had been some sort of fugue state, a neurological disorder such as transient global amnesia, which causes a temporary disruption of short term memory that can lead to confusion and loss of concentration, or that he was exhibiting some other disorder that had not been diagnosed, but he had been driving trains for years with nothing like this ever happening before. Stranger ideas include that he had been given some sort of chemical or poison to induce a deep trance-like state, but by who and for what purpose, and why would that not be detected in blood tests? Another is that he had simply been daydreaming, but he was not prone to doing this, and wouldn’t he have been snapped out of it by an impending crash of that magnitude, or at least the difference in noise level and lighting when passing from the tunnel into the station? There has even been the absurd theory that he had been hypnotized. By the end of the investigation, it could not be determined if the crash had been caused by a deliberate act carried out by Newson or some unknown condition, the cause of the catastrophe unclear.

The accident caused the London Underground to rethink its safety procedures, and at the moment it has a system informally known as the “Moorgate Protection,” which causes trains to automatically brake if the driver somehow becomes incapacitated or the train picks up too much speed, and there is an adjusted speed limits for trains. While the tragic incident has caused much change in the way things are done, it still has not been adequately explained. What caused this normal family man to just careen off into death’s jaws and take so many with him? Why didn’t he react or do anything at all? How can we explain any of this? There is absolutely no evidence of any physical or mental problem, no technical failures that have been detected, it is all very bizarre, and we may never know the answers to these questions, leaving it a strange historical oddity.

MU