MYSTERY WIRE — Millions of people all over the world have watched and re-watched three videos captured by Navy pilots during dramatic encounters with spectacular, but unknown, aircraft. Blck Aces commander David Fravor, one of the U.S. Navy pilots who chased the object dubbed the “Tic Tac” says flat out it’s not ours.
“The four of us will to this day tell you that we have no idea what we saw, as far as where it was from or what it was.” Fravor added, “but it had incredible performance characteristics that were well beyond brand new super hornets right out of the factory, which is what the jets were we were flying.”
Previous Story: DoD makes ‘Tic Tac’, ‘Flir’, and ‘Gimbal’ videos public
Almost every news organization in the world is now reporting on the UFO videos again. It’s because the Pentagon issued a statement Monday, April 27, 2020 regarding what it calls “historical Navy videos.” The statement acknowledges the recordings were made by the Navy and the objects remain “unidentified.” The Department of Defense (DoD) posted the three videos on its website, supposedly the first official release, though the cat has definitely been out of the bag for quite awhile. Back in January of 2018, former Pentagon intelligence officer Lue Elizondo told us very straightforwardly, “The phenomenon is quite real.”
WATCH: Luis Elizondo’s 2018 interview
Elizondo set off shock waves among his Pentagon colleagues when, to their surprise, he popped up on a stage in October, 2017 just days after resigning from his job at DOD. Two months later, the New York Times dropped a bombshell story, revealing that Elizondo had been in charge of a secret government program to study UFOs known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
Lue Elizondo’s statement on the re-release of the videos:
I am encouraged that the recent Pentagon statement confirms the validity of the three videos, and furthermore that they do not “impinge” on any efforts that may be ongoing to further investigate unidentified aerial phenomenon. This new statement by the Department further bolster my position that the phenomenon is indeed real and our national security apparatus takes these issues as a serious matter to this day. However, the fact that DoD continues to categorize the release as an “unauthorized disclosure” when there is ample documentation proving otherwise is disappointing. As stated by DoD before, if there were any missteps involving the release of these videos, it fell under DoDs responsibility and not mine or my colleagues within AATIP.
Lue Elizondo – Fmr. Pentagon officer, AATIP
The Pentagon admitted the program had investigated UFOs but said it had ended years earlier. One reason the story made global headlines is because two of the videos were also made public, obtained by both the Times and Elizondo’s new employer To the Stars Academy.
But how did the videos slip out of the Pentagon vaults? Critics and debunkers implied Elizondo had crossed the line.
“The videos were released by the Department of Defense,” Elizondo told is in a 2018 interview. “The Department of Defense made the decision to release them. They were to be released, at the unclassified level. and the Department of Defense through the Department of Defense “DOPSER” review process, approved the release for exactly the reason why the request was made. So it was completely (on the) up and up.”
Documents obtained months later by the KLAS 8NewsNow I-Team in Las Vegas show Elizondo had requested a declassification of the three videos so he might share them with a community of interest including industry partners. The office in charge of that process eventually gave the green light, clearing them for open publication according to the official document from the DoD, which was more than Elizondo had requested.
READ: Tic Tac UFO Executive Report
Lue Elizondo’s former employer wasn’t happy. The Pentagon has historically misled or withheld UFO information from the public. Five days after the Times story broke, an investigation was launched into the release of the videos. As reported weeks ago by Vice Motherboard.
The investigators were told that other offices in the Pentagon should have signed off on the release, but they closed the case and no action was taken against Elizondo. He told us two years ago he took extra steps to make sure it was done by the book.
“On top of that, the videos went through a further layer, which was not required, a foreign disclosure review. So the three videos that were out and the two that most people know have been through the official process per stated by DoD policy regulation. So no shortcuts were taken. The original classification authority said we’re good to go.”
The DoD has issued multiple conflicting statements about the AATIP program, the videos, and about Elizondo’s role. Two years after the Pentagon confirmed AATIP had been a UFO study, it backtracked and said the program had nothing to do with UFOs.
The Pentagon has said the program ended in 2012, but multiple sources say it continues to this day under a different name. Members of congress have received closed door briefings in the last two years, hearing directly from pilots like Dave Fravor and from Elizondo himself.
Disinformation from the Pentagon about UFOs has been the norm for decades. One researcher who’s filed thousands of Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests put it this way, “…they cannot be held accountable for lying. They can tell you anything they want and when you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they are lying, it does not matter to them.” (John Greenewald, Inside the Black Vault, 2019 page 13)
To those interested in the UFO mystery, any statement from the Pentagon is welcome news. The U.S. Navy’s recent announcement that it wants to make it easier for pilots to report encounters is a remarkable development.
DoD’s statement that this release is “official”, unlike the previous release, makes little difference to the millions of people who’ve been watching the videos for the past few years, but it has caused a new explosion of media coverage of the UFO issue. George Knapp wonders if the Pentagon might choose to release the videos again in a year or two, but simply use different wording to describe the release.
