New UFO report: will the US finally address the elephant in the room?
A 1967 case, involving a UAP deactivating nuclear missiles, could feature in a soon-to-be historical report. But new words from the Pentagon are casting doubt over their willingness to be transparent.
Among the countless UFO sightings worldwide (according to Dr. Jacques Vallée, the DIA has a database of 200,000 cases), there is one category that inspires more urgency than the others: sightings of unidentified flying objects near nuclear facilities. The case of Malmstrom, a US Air Force base, is one of the most emblematic incidents.
The famous case, detailed here, can be summed up as follows: in March 1967, while working as a launch officer for nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in the base's basement, Captain Robert Salas was alerted by a guard on the surface to the presence of an unidentified flying object. Immediately, the missiles inexplicably fail.
While Captain Salas has been traveling the world to publicize this incident for nearly thirty years, the Pentagon has yet to provide any details about these half-century-old events. Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher did try to sound out Pentagon officials at a public Senate hearing in 2022... To no avail, even though one of them promised he would look into the matter. Two years of silence followed, at least in the public sphere - until today.
Responding to a question from Sentinel News on March 4, Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough said of Representative Gallagher's request regarding the Malmstrom case:
I can confirm that the department responded to Rep. Gallagher.
Ms. Gough would not comment on the content or date of the response to the Wisconsin representative. We have contacted Mike Gallagher's team to find out more, and will keep our readers informed of any new information obtained.
The spokeswoman's response is interesting for another reason: it answers one question… But omits the others. Below, our questions, put to the Pentagon this morning:
Sir, Madam,
For the purpose of an article I'm writing for Sentinel News about AARO's achievements, I would appreciate an answer and/or comment to the following question:
During 2022's Senate public Hearing on UAP, Rep. Mike Gallagher asked Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and security Ronald Moultrie about the 1967 Malmstrom Incident, to which the under secretary said he had no knowledge of, but would look into.
- Has Mr Moultrie or AARO reported back to Rep. Gallagher on this issue ?
- Has AARO looked into declassified documents pertaining to the Malmstrom case, referred to in this letter from the US Air Force, and if so, will the results of this inquiry appear in AARO's historical report?
Best Regards,
Guillaume Fournier Airaud, Sentinel News
Sue Gough's full answer:
Guillaume,
I can confirm that the department responded to Rep. Gallagher. We expect to release the initial volume of AARO’s Historical Record Report soon.
Regards,
Sue Gough
Defense Press Operations, OSD(PA)
The art of communication
The response was rapid and cordial, but strangely fragmentary. What about our question on the AARO (All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office) consulting declassified documents? The absence of an answer in the negative, in the affirmative, or even in the form of an express refusal to comment, raises questions.
Is this a way of not acknowledging the existence of these famous documents?
Communication is, of course, an art that the Ministry of Defense practises with great delicacy - and understandably so, given the sensitive nature of the issues facing the American defence community on a daily basis. If this exchange with the Pentagon shows one thing, it's that transparency - or, comprehensiveness, depending on your ability to nitpick - is not one of the must-haves in its communications toolset.
A closer look at the wording of the response reveals that even the question the Pentagon spokeswoman chose to answer isn't quite honored:
Has Mr Moultrie or AARO reported back to Rep. Gallagher on this issue ?
I can confirm that the department responded to Rep. Gallagher.
So we still don't know if Mr. Moultrie or AARO have responded. To read Ms. Gough, the response made to Congressman Gallagher may have come from another Pentagon entity - perhaps not the most knowledgeable on the subject. Thus, as formulated by the spokeswoman, information on the Malmstrom case held by Mr. Moultrie or AARO may well not have been included in this communication to Congressman Gallagher.
Ms. Gough's reminder of the forthcoming publication of the landmark report on the UAPs gives us an opportunity to question its quality. Will it satisfy the expectations of Congress, whose Chuck Schumer accused the government of having “gathered a great deal of information about UAPs over many decades but has refused to share it with the American people” ?
Congress Vs Pentagon: Battle for transparency
Indeed, for the past three years, the U.S. government, acting on Congressional orders, has published reports detailing its knowledge on the subject of UFOs/UAP. While the interest of certain elected representatives in the subject is no longer in doubt (no less than three laws have been passed over that period), the efforts made by the administration do not seem to satisfy political representatives.
Rep. Gallagher’s query to the Pentagon in 2022, mentioned earlier, is a good example.
The two Pentagon officials invited to attend the Senate Hearing were indeed very senior officials:
Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, then at the helm of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), a group tasked with standardizing the compilation of UAP sightings.;
Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
Both men had come to speak on the results of the UAPTF - but the lack of response from both speakers was not to the liking of Wisconsin Republican Representative Mike Gallagher:
Mr. Gallagher. It has also been reported that there have been UAP observed and interacting with and flying over sensitive military facilities (...). One such incident allegedly occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base in which ten of our nuclear ICBMs were rendered inoperable. (...) I am simply asking you whether you are aware of it and whether you have any comment on the accuracy of that report.
Mr. Bray. That data is not within the holdings of the UAP Task Force.
Mr. Gallagher. Okay. But are you aware of the report, that the data exists somewhere?
Mr. Bray. I have heard stories. I have not seen the official data on that.
Mr. Gallagher. So you have just seen informal stories, no official assessment that you have done or exists within DOD that you are aware of regarding the Malmstrom incident?
Mr. Bray. All I can speak to is, you know, what is within my cognizance of the UAP Task Force. We have not looked at that incident.
Mr. Gallagher. Well, I mean, it is a pretty high-profile incident. I don't claim to be an expert on this, but that is out there in the ether. You are the guys investigating it! I mean, who else is doing it?
Mr. Moultrie. If it is officially brought to our attention, we would look at it. (...)
Mr. Gallagher. So how would it have to be officially brought to your attention? I am bringing it to your attention. This is pretty official.
Mr. Moultrie. Sure. So we would like to take a look at it, but generally there is some authoritative figure that says: “there is an incident that occurs. We would like you to look at this.” (...)
Mr. Gallagher. Well, I don't claim to be an authoritative figure, but for what it is worth, I would like you to look into it.
Mr. Moultrie. Sure.
Mr. Gallagher. If for no other reason, you can dismiss it and say this is not worth wasting resources on.
Mr. Moultrie. Will do.
Seven months later, Ronald Moultrie introduced to the press the director of the AARO (successor body to the UAPTF) working under his aegis, by the name of Sean Kirkpatrick. Despite the "excellent" cooperation of the other departments, and the high quality of the new director described by Moultrie, suggesting that he had an effective investigative force at his disposal, he did not take the opportunity to shed any light on the Malmstrom incident in front of the media.
Two years of fragmented information
Admittedly, members of the administration sometimes tend to confine themselves to answering the questions put to them. It is therefore conceivable that Moultrie did not see fit to talk about the outcome of the investigation promised seven months earlier, in the absence of any specific question on Malmstrom's case from the journalists present.
More intriguing is Director Kirkpatrick's stance when he appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee, yet another five months later. In spite of that opportunity to finally speak on that incident, the director of AARO chose to stay mum on the matter, even though his staff had reportedly interviewed Malmstrom witness Captain Robert Salas, who was present during the famous 1967 incident - two months prior to the hearing.
Without seeking to rebound on his superior Ronald Moultrie's promise to investigate this emblematic case, the AARO director merely declared:
I should also state clearly for the record that in our research AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics.
The absence of the Malmstrom case, both in the words of the director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office and in the questions of the senators present at the hearing (including Senator Gillibrand, who has vouched for UAP transparency in the past), is surprising.
Or is it? As seen earlier, according to Sue Gough, Rep. Gallagher has indeed received a “response”... And yet, as far as we know, the Wisconsin representative hasn’t publicly mentioned anything about this specific case since the 2022 hearing. Of course, without further information on the nature of said “response”, it would be unfair to accuse Mr Gallagher of retaining interesting bits of information on the Malmstrom case. Especially if the “response” consists of a mere written acknowledgement of the Congressman’s request - which does not seem impossible at all from an organization so apt at the subtleties of communication.
But going off that thought, one can surmise that exchanges could’ve been had on the 1967 event, behind closed doors between Senator Gillibrand and the AARO director… Which would explain the lack of questions on the matter during the public session.
UFOs, Nukes, and angry witnesses
Nevertheless, one would think the notion of UAP deactivating nukes would mobilize more people, including the media, to press Pentagon officials during press briefings on this - scratch that - these cases. Indeed, two other incidents with comparable implications have, according to Robert Salas, been the subject of testimony to the AARO. The first took place at another base in 1966:
The second case is no less astonishing. In 1964, Dr. Robert Jacobs, then an Air Force photographer, claims to have filmed an object striking an unarmed ballistic missile with several beams of light, just before said missile fell back inert... Only to be ordered to keep the incident quiet by unidentified uniformed officers.
In addition to their involvement in events with far-reaching implications if true, Captain Salas and Dr. Jacobs have two more things in common: they both gave evidence to the AARO, and are equally disappointed in the process. Salas was outraged by Kirkpatrick's statement on the Senate floor, and Jacobs gave whistleblower David Grusch an unambiguous message on The Good Trouble Show:
Tell Dr Kirkpatrick that Dr Jacobs says ‘Fuck you.’ (...) How dare you call me a liar?
Veterans Salas and Jacobs aren't the only ones AARO's ex-director seems to be offending: David Grusch, also a veteran, former Air Force intelligence officer - among others - and above all the only whistleblower to have publicly and under oath affirmed the existence of UFO study programs that escaped Congressional oversight, questions Kirkpatrick's probity. He seems to have taken a dim view of the doctor's comments, accusing him of declining numerous invitations to come and testify for his agency - something Grusch categorically denied to reporter Brian Entin, not hesitating to call his remarks "lies". He also declared, on NewsNation:
I think we need to find a new director that the American people would have more confidence in (...), not somebody that calls oral testimony not credible, which is something Dr Kirkpatrick said during his testimony in front of Senator Gillibrand.
Between the accusations of one and the denials of the other, it's hard to see clearly. In addition to this communication war, Kirkpatrick - strangely enough - published an open letter on professional networking site Linkedin, the day after Grusch testified before Congress. The letter is a lengthy diatribe, in stark contrast to the doctor's cautious approach in front of the Senate.
The country’s n°1 UFO hunter under fire
Is this apparently epidermal reaction at the root of the enmity that seems to separate the two men? Hard to say. One thing does seem clear: Kirkpatrick's diatribe was no idle stunt - he didn't stop there. During a farewell media tour, he went so far as to describe David Grusch's sworn testimony as "sensational but unsupported claims", or as a "whirlwind of tall tales, fabrications" that had "captured the attention of policy makers" and provoked a "social media frenzy" - words that are unlikely to calm Dr. Jacobs.
To say that Sean Kirkpatrick has not won unanimous approval is an understatement; at the time of his taking office, Luis Elizondo, former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP, a secret program studying UAP between 2007 and 2012), then asked about the new director's quality, said somewhat embarrassedly:
Boy you had to ask me that… Huh, I believe, let’s give everybody a fair shake, how about that?
A source in the Senate, reports journalist Marik Von Rennenkampf, proposed, before Kirkpatrick's departure last December, an interpretation of the situation that went even further than Luis Elizondo's hesitations:
Kirkpatrick appears to be a disinformation agent. He is not being honest about what he heard from the whistleblowers that were referred.
“Inconclusive efforts”
In the ranks of Congress, impatience with the pace proposed by AARO can be felt. It took the organization nine months to put its information portal online. This platform had been required by law from the outset, but was finally published just nine months later, after an astonished reminder from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Worse still, it would appear that witnesses no longer trust AARO, giving up on testifying to the agency mandated to hear them. Not a good look for Kirkpatrick's tenure, which was also severely criticized by Florida Senator Marco Rubio:
There's a whistleblower complaint filed by one of them, and, ultimately, I mean, we haven't spent a tremendous amount of time on it lately, but I was hoping that’s what AARO would do!
The picture gets even darker for Kirkpatrick's record, since the Inspector General of the Department of Defense itself, as part of its audit of the Pentagon's measures for studying UAP, paints an unflattering picture of the actions taken:
Over the past decades, the DoD has initiated infrequent and inconclusive efforts to identify and understand the origin, capabilities, and intent of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).
We determined that the DoD has no overarching UAP policy and, as a result, it lacks assurance that national security and flight safety threats to the United States from UAP have been identified and mitigated.
Sean Kirkpatrick stepped down last December, after a year and a half with AARO. Despite this somewhat stingy exit, Dr. Kirkpatrick has not chosen discretion, as his recent media appearances attest. On the contrary, he seems determined to see his work through to the end, even taking the trouble to publicize his final contribution to AARO: the first volume of the very report mentioned earlier and commissioned by legislators last year. The publication is supposed to compile information on all incidents involving UAP since 1945, to be published in the coming weeks.
Of course, the 1967 Malmstrom incident feels like a good candidate to appear in that historical report. But, as seen earlier, comprehensiveness from the Pentagon isn’t a given. Which begs the question : what will be the most interesting cases of the period covered? Those contained in the report? Or those not mentioned?
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0