News Brief
Bhaswati Guha Majumder
Jun 10, 2021, 03:45 PM | Updated 03:45 PM IST
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Luis Elizondo, the former director of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), said in a recent interview that unidentified flying objects or UFOs have frequently rendered nuclear weapons unusable in the United States.
While referring to UFOs by their official Pentagon term, Unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), Elizondo told Washington Post: “We’ve had incidents where these UAPs have interfered and actually brought offline our nuclear capabilities”.
“I think to some they would probably say, well, that’s a sign that whatever this is, is something that is peaceful,” Elizondo said of the fact that nuclear technologies in the United States are being phased out.
“But in the same context, we also have data suggesting that in other countries these things have interfered with their nuclear technology and actually turned them on, put them online. So that is equally, for me, just as concerning,” he added.
According to his understanding, there is enough evidence at this point to show that there is an interest in America’s nuclear technology, as well as the capacity to tamper with it.
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), which was formed last summer by the Pentagon to examine odd aerial phenomena, has taken the role of the now-defunct AATIP.
The former AATIP director claimed that there are some common traits among UFO sightings.
“We see an interest in our nuclear capabilities, and then we have this really bizarre...I don’t know if you call it an interest, but there seems to be a connection with water, and these things have a tendency to be seen in and around water,” said Elizondo.
He also shared other observations on the technological capabilities implied by UFO sightings.
Elizondo told the American news outlet: “The first is hypersonic velocity. The ability to change directions instantly”.
“And when I say instantly, I mean human beings can withstand about 9 G forces or some of our best aircraft can withstand about 16 Gs. These things are doing 3-, 4-, 600 Gs in mid-flight,” he added.
He also noted UFOs’ hypersonic speeds.
Elizondo explained that “you know, there are [some known human] technologies that can go that fast, but then again, you don’t expect a hypersonic aircraft to do a 90-degree turn”.
“To put that into context, our SR-71 Blackbird when at 3,200 miles an hour wants to take a right-hand turn, it takes roughly half the state of Ohio to do it,” he added.
According to him, the third main technological capacity found among UFOs is cloaking technology.
The Possibilities
Elizondo’s remarks came after a sneak peek at a Pentagon assessment on UFOs, which is due to be disclosed by 25 June, purportedly revealed no concrete evidence of alien technology underpinning the bizarre aerial phenomena.
He said that up until recently, there were only three possibilities for what this could be, and the first is that it’s some kind of secret US technology that we’ve managed to keep secret even from ourselves for a long time.
The second possibility is that it is some form of foreign adversary technology that has managed to technologically leapfrog the country, even though the United States has a reasonably robust and extensive intelligence system.
“And of course, the third option is something quite entirely different. It’s a different paradigm completely,” he said.
The impending Pentagon investigation, according to Elizondo, will rule out the likelihood that UFO sightings are linked to US technology.
Additionally, he said that “if I’m not mistaken, as of today, we had an announcement by former Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe who said this isn’t Russian technology” either.
So, that leaves China in terms of Earth-based options for UFO origins, said Elizondo.
China appears to be taking such sightings as seriously as the United States, and the South China Morning Post recently stated that the Chinese military is now using artificial intelligence to investigate situations after being “overwhelmed” by UFO/UAP reports.
The argument that China’s programme is part of a deception campaign to hide the presence of its superior aircraft is unfounded.
Recently, Marik von Rennenkampff, a former analyst with the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the US Department of State, penned an editorial for The Hill, where he said: “Authoritarian states like China are particularly allergic to admitting a lack of control over national security matters, making revelations of Beijing’s UFO struggles even more intriguing”.
“Indeed, the weakness that such disclosures imply does not sit well with centralized leadership structures,” he added.
According to him, these characteristics indicate that Beijing’s unusual transparency on UFOs is unlikely to be the result of a disinformation operation.
Instead, he believes that it could be a subliminal, well-timed warning that China is baffled by some of the same events as the United States.
However, in terms of the question of whether these UFOs are super-advanced Chinese spy planes, there are some other factors to consider.
China has struggled to produce engines for its fifth-generation fighter aircraft, therefore developing flying saucers or other advanced aircraft is highly unlikely.
Elizondo said that since the 1950s, there have been reports of UFO sightings.
He explained that if anyone looks at it from a time perspective, it simply doesn’t make sense that China, in 1950, would have mastered this beyond next-generation technology, be able to fly anywhere it wants on the face of the planet and that it has managed to keep it as a secret for the last 70 years, despite the billions of dollars the United States have invested in the intelligence community infrastructure and architecture.
Elizondo pointed the fact that China has stolen several details from the United States, and it spends a lot of time doing the same.
“So, one has to ask the question that if really a country had this technology, would it be necessary to steal, you know, much more basic technology from another country,” he added.