MUST READ: A Season of Extremely High Strangeness Is Upon Us, Part II
DATELINE -- New Year’s Day, 2022 – The last Chronicles blog post of 2021 looked at the new book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insider’s Account of the Secret Government Program., a detailed account of how the government UFO/UAP program came together in 2008-2010, largely under the organizational umbrella of Las Vegas billionaire and commercial space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow’s team of investigators. It also got into the shocking weirdness experienced by researchers and later Pentagon officials who visited the Skinwalker Ranch, which Bigelow also owned. Read the post for more context.
The $22-million-dollar government contract to study “the phenomenon” (and to create a massive government database that is now seemingly serving as the go-to source on topic for government, military and intel agencies, a crucial point to remember) was secured with major help from the now-deceased Nevada Senator Harry Reid. Despite major news organizations like The New York Times and others ignoring his role in this matter in their obituaries for the senator (as if the UFO topic is still a taboo or of marginal importance), Reid will be remembered historically as perhaps the key player in any official disclosure. If we ever get to that point; I have doubts that we will ever will (see airman Robert Salas’s germane comments that follow and a couple perhaps cynical jabs from others).
Will Senator Reid be remembered historically as perhaps the key player in official disclosure? (image: Fox News).
As we enter a new year, we remain in a season of extremely high strangeness, the likes of which we have not really seen before as government and media openly come to terms with” the UFO reality.” While you were ramping up for the holiday season, on December 15, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) including the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Amendment, which the U.S. House passed in the NDAA earlier. It replaces the former Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force – the office that issued that awful 9-page report on June 25. The new office would be run by both the secretary of Defense and the director of National Intelligence. President Biden signed the Act into law December 27.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., originally sponsored the UAP amendment working along with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Congressman Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. The amendment established a formal office to conduct collection and analysis related to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). In the Senate, Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Rubio cosponsored the amendment. It would empower military and civilian personnel working for the Department of Defense and intelligence community to report incidents and information involving UAPs.
Lifelong UFO researchers, critics and bystanders, however, wonder if this isn’t another incarnation of previous government studies like The Condon Report in 1968, based on analysis of the Project Blue Book years, which looked like a plausible public attempt to gather, study and collect UFO information. It ultimately failed, based, in part, on the inherent personal and professional biases of the Physics professor whose name was on the study, Edward Condon. Still, as a longtime LA friend said of these baby steps, we can’t expect things to change overnight with a few interviews and news stories, we need all the help we can get in making sense of and going public on this topic.
But Wait, There’s More – A Rival Pentagon Program?!
According to U.S. News and other media reporting on these developments, the Pentagon is meanwhile simultaneously trying to create its own UFO outpost, rivaling the newly established office set up in the NDAA : “The Pentagon quietly announced the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving that it had formed the esoteric-sounding Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group. Working with the intelligence agencies, it serves as the follow-on to a government-wide effort earlier this year to document and analyze reports of encounters with unidentified objects – ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ or UAPs in Pentagon jargon – predominantly from military pilots.”
Is this another case of classic Washington bureaucracy overkill? An attempt to steal the thunder of the new office - -still unnamed. Or something else?
Whatever the game, such developments have raised the hackles of some commentators, detractors and authors like Jason Colavito in The New Republic who has a lot of fun taking pot shots at the aforementioned congressional types and the broader players and issues in UFOland in a mid-December piece whose headline screams: Congress Is About to Send the Pentagon on a Wild Flying-Saucer Chase: “…in endorsing the new UFO office, none of the other politicians involved seemed at all troubled that the greatest military in the history of the world—the one they will soon authorize more than $760 billion to fund—could not, in their view, distinguish clearly between foreign drones; an invasion from outer space; and random weather phenomena, sensor blips, or the occasional errant balloon. They are cheerfully sending the message to Russia, China, and others that America has lost control of its skies.”
Thankfully, Saner Heads Prevail – And They’re Former Military Guys Who Witnessed UFOs Shutting Down Nuclear Missile Launch Sites
Illustration for the Minot Daily News story on New Year’s Eve (provided by Pixabay)
What’s been absent in most of the major mainstream reporting and commentary about this latest phase of government interest in the UFO issue(s) that your Chronicler has read are statements from informed researchers -- most civilian -- and former military personnel who have witnessed UFOs shutting down nuclear missile launch sites. Major Kudos to the Minot Daily News and reporter Eloise Ogden for her first-rate reporting on a New Year’s Eve story that recaps such an incident at the Minot Air Force Base (AFB) in 1966, in northern North Dakota while framing the job that the new “UFO” office in DC must do to prove its worth.
In her story titled, “Military veterans urge truth told about unidentified aerial phenomena incidents,” Ogden revisits the same five-alarm intrusion that I also explore in Chapter 4 of The Space Pen Club (in which I extensively quote the redoubtable Minot AFB account by Minneapolis researcher Tom Tulien. Minot, btw, for those lacking in North Dakota geography, is about 100 miles from where I grew up and experienced with friends/witnesses two UFO sightings in Dickinson, No. Dak., also chronicled in the book.
Key excerpts from the story include the following (bolded phrase are mine to underscore the importance of the statements and or observations made by the military veterans):
“Fifty-five years ago in September 1966, Air Force members from Minot Air Force Base experienced an incident in the Minot missile field in which a flying object took “off alert” all 10 of the nuclear-tipped missiles, causing them to be unlaunchable. About a dozen military members topside at the missile launch control facility observed the mysterious flying object with bright flashing lights hovering near the perimeter fence on that September night.
Air Force officials reportedly instructed the military members at the launch control facility and those who knew about this incident never to speak about it and as far as they should be concerned, it never happened.
Retired Air Force Capt. David Schindele, a former Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile launch crew commander, was involved with the September 1966 incident in the Minot missile field. Schindele, of Mukilteo, Wash., wrote a book, “It Never Happened, Volume 1,” published a few years ago on his research and documentation about the Minot incident and others. Proceeds of his book are donated to the national Air Force Association. He is working on volume two of his book and expects it will take a few more years before he is finished because of extensive research required. (Incidentally, his parents are from North Dakota – McGregor and Tolna.)
A similar incident in which missiles were disabled in the missile field in the Malmstrom AFB, Montana, area occurred a year later in 1967. Others have also taken place in the country.
Schindele provided the following statement to The Minot Daily News following the passage of the amendment in the NDAA:
“The amendment makes much more sense than most everything else in that ‘Act.’ For many decades Congress has ignored threats to national security by certain actions of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP/UFO) toward the military and its atomic weapons and support facilities.
“It is long overdue for Congress to get involved with this. The first thing it must now include on its agenda is the liberation of all those in the military, and former military, who have been constrained from divulging Truth about UAP/UFO incidents impacting national security. As a former commander of a Minot AFB Minuteman ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) launch crew, I am witness to a UFO take down of 10, “on-alert,” nuclear-tipped missiles in their silos, and I’m aware of two other incidents that took down 20 more. There have been many additional incidents over the years, and many former military people are ready to come forward if constraints on them are released. When released from their commitment to secrecy and to the fact that UAP/UFOs do exist, the total scope of this national security problem will come to light, and it will serve to provide additional incentive to get to the heart of the problem involving our vulnerable ICBMs and the mysterious flying objects.
“It is my hope that people in Congress can work together in putting the operating components of the amendment in quick working order. It will be a huge task, however, since there are many people ‘buried’ deep in the bowels of government who are intent on managing and protecting their UAP/UFO secret. This has been evidenced by the ‘poor’ response from the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to a Senate intelligence committee last June 25th and their statement that their ‘concerns primarily center on aviators contending with an increasingly cluttered air domain,’ and by a recent proposal by the Deputy Defense Secretary regarding a program to ‘detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in Special Use Airspace.’ I wish Congress well.”
Robert Salas of California is another military veteran who experienced a UAP/UFO incident at a missile facility when assigned to Malmstrom AFB, Montana. The incident was similar to one that Schindele was associated with. Following the National Defense Authorization Act passing Congress, Salas said, in a statement provided to The Minot Daily News:
“The fact that this is a specific directive to DOD (Department of Defense) to establish an office for the specific purpose of collecting data from other agencies, evaluating that data, writing reports, collecting reports from all agency sources and writing evaluations on the UAP is an historic change to the manner in which this subject has been handled in the past. There are now requirements to report to Congress on a yearly basis and issue both classified and unclassified reports.
“The main implication of this action is that many in the House and the Senate are now showing great interest in the phenomenon and are eager to learn more. This portends the possibility of having open hearings where witnesses will come forward. If that occurs, the scope of public understanding, appreciation and interest in this phenomenon will increase exponentially.
“The major shortfalls in this legislation, as I see it, is that it does not call for a review of major past incidents such as Roswell or the ones revealed by myself and others. In addition, legislation does not speak to the need for public input to the new UAP office.”
In June, the Pentagon released to Congress a long-awaited report which examined 144 cases of UAP sightings between 2004-2021 mainly by Navy personnel and military aviators. Of the more than 144 cases, only one was explained and found to be a large, deflated balloon.
On Oct. 19, Schindele, Salas and two other military veterans Robert Jacobs of Missouri and Robert Jamison spoke at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Jacobs, speaking by Zoom at the press club, took movie pictures of an Atlas missile test in 1964 where the missile launched from Vandenberg AFB, California, was intercepted by a UFO that shot beams of light at the dummy warhead.
“Our primary emphasis, when we were in DC, was to generate interest by Congress to hold hearings, and then get to the Truth of the matter,” Schindele said in an email to The Minot Daily News. “Congress needs to seriously recognize that many in the military have been silenced about what has been going on for many decades, and it involves national security and the tampering of nuclear weapons by the flying objects. The Air Force has continued to tell Congress and the American people that ‘Flying objects do not exist or pose a threat to national security.’ Those who have been silenced must be released from their burden of supporting the lies of government and be allowed to tell the Truth without trepidation. I know quite a few of them, and some were required to sign a document stating they would forever remain silent.
“But, does Congress have the will to do this, or will they be more concerned with political issues and their personal agendas. For those in Congress willing to get serious and investigate the matter, they may find that they will be recognized in getting to the bottom of the greatest secret ever held from the American people and humankind. The mysterious objects will not be going away, they will be around for many decades to come, and sometime down the road Congress or someone in government will be obligated to take a stand for Truth.”
Finally, in “The Heavens” Overhead –SPACE JUNK
Finally, against the developments in Washington, some serious shyte also recently took place in the heavens overhead mid-November of the old, Covid-ragged year we just exited, as the International Space Station crew had to take cover to avoid a possible collision encounter with Space Junk!
From NBC News:
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station were forced to take shelter in a pair of space capsules Monday morning after a cloud of space debris threatened to pass near the orbiting outpost. Mission controllers are closely monitoring the debris and advised the astronauts to seek refuge in the event that a collision would force them to undock from the space station immediately and return to Earth.
“NASA did not specify what caused the debris field, but the State Department confirmed Monday that a Russian weapons test that intentionally destroyed a Soviet-era satellite created more than 1,500 fragments of space junk in orbit.”
Of course, those prescient beings in DEVO saw this coming years ago in 1978, and so we leave you with their ode to the dangers of space pollution – SPACE JUNK -- and wish you a truly Healthy New Year,” “without any fear” as John and Yoko once offered.
Next time, a shorter post. Promise.
Remember you can email and comment to spacepenclub@calumeteditions.com, OR post in The Space Pen Club Facebook group.
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