Monologue by Dave Smethurst for UFO Thinker Podcast Christmas edition, December 2022
I believe another ghost of Christmas present took a rather miserly, mean-spirited, person around the nooks and corners of Dickensian London to show him the reality of the present he inhabited and challenge his beliefs
So, dear listener, I as the Ghost of Christmas UAP present, am going to take you on a journey around our present UAP situation so you can see it in all its breadth, and if you need to, change your views about it… so sit comfortably and we will begin
The story of our UAP present is as much of anything the story of the rise, and sometimes fall, of many different trends which have been building over the years.
These are competing for your attention, the attention of law makers, the media and in some cases maybe the attention of ‘the others’.
The rise of the forces of disclosure… and of non-disclosure
A very clever and calculated campaign began in 2017 with the aim of getting the secret keepers in the US government to be more transparent about the UAPS that have been encroaching on US airspace for decades and start to do something about it.
Faced with a closed door of secrecy from powerful Military, intelligence, and industrial players; the forces of disclosure, led by Lue Elizondo and Chris Mellon, fashioned the only Key that would open this door namely…. congressional legislation.
At the very start of this year, we saw the introduction of comprehensive new UAP legislation as part of the 2022 NDAA Gillibrand amendment. This Followed the UAP task force report in June 2021 which, somewhat reluctantly, confirmed the existence of things in our airspace, apparently under intelligent control, that the US military could not explain
Champagne Corks popped and glasses clinked in Ufology as, for the first time, a comprehensive piece of legislation was passed enabling a multiagency governmental effort to track, recover and understand UAPs under using a dedicated office.…. what could go wrong?
Well a couple of things actually;
First a part of the legislation that advocated external scrutiny of progress and mission focus was quietly removed, after lobbing by the pentagon, from the final draft of the bill.’No Biggie’ you say? Well lets see…..
Then it transpired that the new UAP office was to be still housed in the Office of the Under Secretary For Defence for Intelligence and Security under a new body Called AIOSMG which had been conveniently set up for the purpose.
People muttered that the OUSD(I&S) already had a bad track record Supporting the efforts of the UAP task force; was not set up to manage this kind of effort; and the AIOMSG was just being set up to Limit the extent of the enquiry.
Their fears were confirmed with endless foot dragging setting the office up; complaints from many about the lack of cooperation from the USAF; and no real progress on setting up the kind of investigative programme envisaged.
The removal of Gary Reid as part of an IG investigation on efforts to smear Elizondo and cover up the topic further, added the impression of a lack of action……
Perhaps that external scrutiny would have been a good idea?
But the top hat came for many, with the performance of Scot Bray (deputy director of Naval intelligence) and Ronald Moultrie (undersecretary of defence for intelligence and security) at the surprise UAP hearings in May of this year (2022).
Here they effectively tried to walk back the 2021 reports position on the nature of UAPS, implying that if only they had more information, then they were sure the explanation for UAPS would turn out to be prosaic.
In the process, as well as dodging more pointed questions about UAP performance, they displayed remarkable ignorance about key things like the incidents with nuclear weapons at Malstrom AFB and the Wilson Davies memo.
So, whilst the toothpaste replacement strategy they decided on may have sounded good in their office, it actually backfired at the hearings
This was because it had the effect of galvanising an already irritated set of politicians into much firmer action to force these recalcitrant officials to enact the will of congress. This has culminated in the additional UAP provisions in the 2023 NDAA.
The Gloves Come off
The big takeaway here is that this is the year when the gloves came off and it became clear to most UAP observers that there was a pretty visible conflict going on behind the scenes; between the forces of disclosure and the forces of non-disclosure.
After this clash of disclosure titans, the upshot is a strengthened piece of legislation that now allows for whistle blowers to come forward to congress to identify long suspected reverse engineering programmes. linked to crashed craft, and the production of a detailed account of the classified history of UAP investigation by the Government; as well as its attempts to cover it up!
Whilst the forces of non-disclosure are not defeated, it seems now they are forced to fight a guerrilla campaign with a disparaging article here, a delayed report there and a general lack of cooperation etc. etc. This very much feels like they are just prolonging the inevitable.
Not the usual suspects
So away from this central battle, what else can we see as we hover over the UAP scene?
The first is the somewhat late, but welcome, arrival of the venerated NASA onto the UAP playing field, replacing its long-held aversion to even taking about the potential existence of UAPs, with a somewhat modest, if symbolically important, first investigation into the phenomenon.
Whilst many did raise an eyebrow at the singularly small budget, for this equally small first step of looking at the best way to look for UAPS, it is non the less, to paraphrase Bill Nelson, (head of NASA) ‘something.’
The smart money here sees NASA in a kind of holding pattern where it looks interested, but actually does very little, until it sees which way the UAP wind is blowing.
But despite this, the involvement of the iconic NASA brand, with a serious study of UAP has undoubtedly served to lend an enormous amount of credibility to the UAP subject.
Alongside an agency like NASA, which has more formal ties with the government and military, we have also seen a number of other groups emerge to investigate the topic.
This has served not only to widen the focus of the enquiry, but also bring new voices into the field which resonate with wider communities of interest amongst academics, scientists, and civilian groups.
Most prominent amongst these has arguably been the Galileo project. Led by the erudite, and occasionally combative, Harvard astronomy professor Avi Loeb. He has both challenged the scientific establishment and set up an eclectic group of scientists, investigators, ex government officials and even sceptics, to oversee a project looking for archaeological evidence of ET in space and capturing images of UAP in real time.
Whilst Avi has occasionally blotted his copybook with the community with his shoot from the hip style, most notably in Ukraine, he has certainly created another centre for data gathering that is civilian, not military, in nature.
Added to this, we have seen the Scientific Coalition for UFO studies Thinktank (SCU) really emerging this year as a body that can credibly analyse UAP data and develop a scientific consensus around an evidence-based approach. Its increasing role is important in influencing key opinion formers and establishing a forum for those who wish to become involved.
In another part of the civilian space, the AIAA, the world’s largest aerospace technical society, has started a project, led by ex-fighter pilot Ryan Graves, to urgently study UAPs due to the danger they pose to air safety ,and the lack of current government action to address the issue.
This professional pressure group serves as a great foil to both the SCU and the Galileo project. Together the 3 of them have now come to represent a civilian led centre of gravity that moves the UAP topic away from classified Military and Government control.
The International situation
Looking internationally, we have a mixed picture; with by and large, the ‘5 Eyes’ countries of UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand currently not really acknowledging the existence of UAPs as a subject, and essentially following the US military’s lead on disclosure (the other and most senior member of the 5 eyes. Many other governments across the world are also generally quiet on UAPS.
We are however seeing some acknowledgement from other countries.
Brazil has held recent civilian UFO hearings which were closely followed by their own military. Interest was also heightened in that country and internationally by the recent James fox documentary about the alleged crash, and retrieval of alien bodies. at Varginha by the US military. (It’s also worth noting that Central and South American countries more generally, and their populations, take the UAP issue more seriously and seem to have experienced significantly high levels of activity over many decades.)
There also has been increased interest in UAP activity in France this year. This is from both ex-government officials and the French GEIPAN office, which openly studies UAPs for its government.
Elsewhere the Japanese Defence Minister issuing a protocol for dealing with UFOs this year is a significant change to their previous position and the Chinese government has recently announced a major UAP tracking programme using AI.
There are also some encouraging green shoots in the tiny principality of San Marino where influential UFO researcher and Diplomat Paolo Guizzardi has been steadily working on ‘project Titan’ whose goal is to establish an international UAP conference under the aegis of the UN, to allow member states to explore the global UAP situation. This proposal is currently under consideration at the San Marino Legislature.
The significance of this is that it could loosen the stranglehold the US Government has on the subject in terms of the international UAP discussion and encourage greater international transparency and action.
International tensions have made things more difficult though recently. So, it’s hard to say what will develop on the wider world stage in regard to UAP.
A walk on the wild side
One other major aspect of the present situation is how many more different perspectives have become firmly rooted in the discussion. This has been a growing trend in recent times, but this year has seen many of them really flower.
The first of these has been the fact that many people do not just automatically see the ETH (Extra Terrestrial Hypothesis) as their go to explanation of the phenomenon.
We now have people seriously considering other ideas Like beings coming from other dimensions, Ultra terrestrials who have always lived on earth, and of course the theory that we are seeing our future selves travelling back in Time.
For the first time this year we can say that the community is genuinely split on the origin of the phenomenon, or at least, it does not have a favourite.
However, you could argue the ETH did make a bit of a comeback near the end of this year as some big beasts of Ufology nailed their colours to that mast.
A more complex Origin?
This rise in speculation about the origin of the phenomenon has also been fuelled by increased speculation about its complexity and nature.
For example, we have retired CIA officer Jim Semivan declaring the phenomenon is a ‘trickster’, whose nature and motives are unclear, has been living with us on this planet forever and is capable of controlling us against our will. Increasing revelations this year about Skinwalker ranch have seemed to support this idea.
Somewhat strangely a bevy of ex-military, NASA and IC officers, have been consistently seen swooning at the feet of Chris Bledsoe and his prophetic vision of the lady. This is amidst a number of reported UAP sightings at his property.
There has also been much more of a cross over this year between the paranormal and ufology as people more and more contemplate the multifaceted nature of the Phenomenon, making links to a range of things that had previously not been studied together.
All this is underpinned by a greater focus on consciousness; not only as a medium through which we experience the others. but perhaps a determinant of reality itself. More practically it has also been seen as a key component of the others technology.
These consciousness connections have also been buoyed by new discoveries about the ability of some people to be more connected to the phenomenon because of the makeup of their brain structure. There has also been a revival of interest in summoning craft via a conscious connection and a growing focus on the importance of remote viewing as a means to survey the others.
The rise of the experiencers
Probably most importantly, in the midst of this febrile atmosphere, we are now seeing the community of experiencers step out of the shadows to insist on a place at the UAP community table, that both recognises their experiences as real, and the validity of their voice.
Perhaps now, with this broadening of understanding about the nature of the phenomenon, people are ready to listen to people’s experiences properly for the first time and get past how very strange many of them sound.
If the measure of the reality of something is the number of ordinary people who can testify they have experienced it, then the question is no longer ‘did people see something?’ But ‘what did they see?’
The culmination of this broadening perspective has perhaps been best expressed recently by the 2 intimate conference events In New York organised by Jay Christopher king and James Iandoli. These gave a shared platform to many important figures across the topic with the intention of starting to knit together a more complex consensus about what’s important.
That’s not to say there are not some uneasy alliances though, as those who have long striven to bring the challenging reality of UAP to the mainstream worry about the impact of these additional elements on political support for transparency in congress.
Twitter Jitters
A crude but accurate barometer of the present situation has been the much more volatile state of UFO twitter.
This perhaps reflects how near a real breakthrough is, with the rise of disinformation, personal attacks, people spectacularly self-imploding and people leaving to influence away from the limelight. Sceptics seem more unsure of themselves and people who want to see change are more impatient.
Of course, the current lack of the promised UAP report is symbolic to many of the bad faith people fear from the government, but strangely the new legislation being passed has also seemed to calm things down, as people start to think it will herald a real step change.
The time is now… for what’s next
So, we are currently in a time when a lot of long-term trends have come together, to both push for change. and broaden the basis on which Ufology, and the movement for transparency, is choosing to progress.
It feels a little like being on a rollercoaster carriage which is just about to reach the apex of its climb, before rushing headlong down the track at breakneck speed onto the next stage of the ride.
The ghost of Christmas present told the old miser the 2 greatest problems that mankind faced were want and ignorance.
I would suggest our present problems in Ufology are much more prosaic in that we want to know what will happen next, but we are ignorant of what is actually happening behind the scenes to determine it.
Dave Smethurst. December 2022
