CIA begins declassifying UFO documents as stipulated by $2.3 trillion COVID bill
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — On Dec. 27, then-President Donald Trump signed a $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that famously included $600 stimulus checks for every American taxpayer.
As part of that 5,593-page bill, a "committee comment" was attached to the annual Intelligence Authorization Act, which was rolled into the massive bill.
That "committee comment" included a rarely-discussed section that gives the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, the FBI and other spy agencies 180 days to provide documents regarding unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
The comment on "Advanced Aerial Threats" reads:
The Committee supports the efforts of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence to standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomenon, any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations. However, the Committee remains concerned that there is no unified, comprehensive process within the Federal Government for collecting and analyzing intelligence on unidentified aerial phenomena, despite the potential threat. The Committee understands that the relevant intelligence may be sensitive; nevertheless, the Committee finds that the information sharing and coordination across the Intelligence Community has been inconsistent, and this issue has lacked attention from senior leaders. Therefore, the Committee directs the DNI, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the heads of such other agencies as the Director and Secretary jointly consider relevant, to submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act, to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena (also known as ``anomalous aerial vehicles''), including observed airborne objects that have not been identified."
"The Committee further directs the report to include:
- A detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or held by the Office of Naval Intelligence, including data and intelligence reporting held by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force
- A detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data collected by: a. geospatial intelligence; b. signals intelligence; c. human intelligence; and d. measurement and signals intelligence
- A detailed analysis of data of the FBI, which was derived from investigations of intrusions of unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted United States airspace
- A detailed description of an interagency process for ensuring timely data collection and centralized analysis of all unidentified aerial phenomena reporting for the Federal Government, regardless of which service or agency acquired the information
- Identification of an official accountable for the process described in paragraph 4
- Identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries
- Identification of any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put United States strategic or conventional forces at risk
- Recommendations regarding increased collection of data, enhanced research and development, and additional funding and other resources."
Since the 180-day requirement was set into motion on Dec. 27, the CIA has released more than 2,700 pages of documents detailing UFO accounts from the 1940s to the early 1990s.
You can view the CIA's collection here, but be warned, all files are in PDF format and can be difficult to search.
The Black Vault, a website dedicated to published declassified U.S. government documents, made the documents available in their raw form, as well as a searchable PDF format. A description for some of the PDF files can be found here, once you scroll down.
In an interview with the publication "The Debrief," Chris Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, said:
The newly enacted Intelligence Authorization Act incorporates the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report language calling for an unclassified, all-source report on the UAP phenomenon. This was accomplished in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the bill. Consequently, it’s now fair to say that the request for an unclassified report on the UAP phenomenon enjoys the support of both parties in both Houses of Congress. Assuming the Executive Branch honors this important request, the nation will at long last have an objective basis for assessing the validity of the issue and its national security implications. This is an extraordinary and long overdue opportunity. I’m hopeful the new Administration will rigorously execute its oversight prerogatives because the concerns of the public and numerous U.S. military personnel have been ignored by a complacent national security bureaucracy for far too long.”
The file dump comes a little more than a year after the U.S. Navy confirmed the existence of UFOs in video released by "To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences," (TTSA) which was founded by Tom DeLonge, a co-founder of the band "Blink 182" in 2015 to "pursue research into UFOs and extraterrestrial life."
The three videos in question, ”FLIR1,” “Gimbal” and “GoFast,” were published by TTSA and The New York Times in 2017 and 2018.
The videos show when a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet crew spots the unidentified aircraft. While the Navy has acknowledged the UFOs in the video, there has been no discussion or confirmation of extraterrestrial life. A UFO can be any unknown flying object.
We've embedded those videos from YouTube below.
FLIR1:
Gimbal:
GoFast:
In the videos the Navy crew is seen having trouble locking onto the aircraft.
When they do eventually lock on, cockpit audio reveals excitement and curiosity by the crew.
Regarding the UFOs seen in the videos, TTSA says the aircraft "appears to be oval-shaped with no obvious wings or tails," according to NBC San Diego. The wings on a cruise missile would be seen from that distance, according to TTSA.
Joseph Gradisher, official spokesperson for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare told The Black Vault:
The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena."
At the time, the Navy also said the videos should not have been released to the public, thus confirming "the official stance of the Pentagon originally issued to The Black Vault in May of 2019, and contradicting TTSA’s widespread claims the U.S. government “declassified” the footage for public consumption," according to The Black Vault.
There is no way of knowing if the UFO documents released by the CIA are all of the documents the agency has on the subject.
We've included links below to pertinent information.
