Hang on to your hats, folks. The ride may be about to go off the rails entirely.

When the New York Times published its latest bombshell UFO article from reporters Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal last week, it created quite a stir. And I’m not just talking about people in the ufology community who always follow this sort of news. The story was showing up on cable news programs and in mainstream publications around the world. Despite the fact that the reporters expressed some annoyance over people leaking the fact that they’d been working on the article ahead of time, it seems to have been very well received. But at the end of my post, I noted that during a follow-on interview, Blumenthal dropped a hint that there might be more to come.

Well, as the saying goes, that didn’t take long at all. This morning a new UFO article appeared at the Gray Lady from the same pair of reporters. Going by the title and the introductory paragraphs, this one appeared at first to be more of a philosophical piece. The title was “Do We Believe in U.F.O.s? That’s the Wrong Question.” What they’re talking about is a topic that I’ve covered here repeatedly in the past. “Believing” in UFOs or Bigfoot or any other paranormal phenomenon really isn’t relative to whatever the underlying reality of these phenomena may or may not be. What matters is the data we are able to acquire so people can arrive at rational conclusions themselves. If you suddenly stop “believing” in the chair you’re sitting in you don’t simply fall to the floor.

But after covering that ground, the reporters expand on the information they obtained while researching last week’s article, and it contains some material that is, at least in my opinion, even more shocking than most of what’s come before. They describe talking to sources inside the Pentagon with access to information regarding the potential existence of “retrieved” materials from “crash retrievals of advanced aerospace vehicles.” And while access to physical proof was not offered (or possible), their sources were far more direct about what’s going on than others have been in the past.

But our latest article provided a more daunting set of challenges, since we dealt with the possible existence of retrieved materials from U.F.O.s. Going from data on a distant object in the sky to the possession of a retrieved one on the ground makes a leap that many find hard to accept and that clearly demands extraordinary evidence.

Numerous associates of the Pentagon program, with high security clearances and decades of involvement with official U.F.O. investigations, told us they were convinced such crashes have occurred, based on their access to classified information. But the retrieved materials themselves, and any data about them, are completely off-limits to anyone without clearances and a need to know.

We were provided a series of unclassified slides showing that the program took this seriously enough to include it in numerous briefings. One slide says one of the program’s tasks was to “arrange for access to data/reports/materials from crash retrievals of A.A.V.’s,” or advanced aerospace vehicles.

Wait a minute. “Advanced Aerospace Vehicles?” So now we have yet another acronym to deal with? (AAV) The reporters go into detail, saying that their Pentagon sources were quite clear in what they meant by this. They aren’t talking about “vehicles made in any country — not Russian or Chinese.” Instead, they are referring to “technology in the realm of the truly unexplained.” The sources go on to tell Kean and Blumenthal that their statements are based on “facts, not beliefs.”

We should all probably make sure we’re sitting down for this part. So these sources who were good enough to pass muster for the Times editorial board are saying factually that there are materials from vehicles that were not made in Russia, China or the United States and were capable of spaceflight? (Based on the “aerospace” descriptor as opposed to “aerial” or “aviation.”) Okay… so if our main adversaries didn’t build them and we didn’t build them… who or what did?

The reporters were also provided with slides used in government briefings, presumably for some congressional committees. Check out the one in the linked article. Here’s what it says, and you should read the contents of this slide very closely: (See update below)

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program – AATIP (cont.)

Twofold Nature of the Threat:

1. Current Threat: AAV phenomena of foreign derivation (including off-world), being globally deployed/tested, including in CONUS
2. Future Threat: Potential terrestrial adversaries achieving significant breakthroughs in the development of game-changing technologies based on evaluations of AAV phenomena from sensor data or crash/retrieved materials.

If you weren’t hearing a record-scratch sound effect in your head reading the “Current Threat” section of the slide, you weren’t paying attention when the description of the AAV phenomena was specifically referenced as “including off-world.” What else could that possibly mean other than what virtually every one of us is thinking right now?

Second item: When the slide addresses some “Future Threat” they are clearly talking about Russia and China, among others. But those adversaries are specifically described as “terrestrial adversaries.” Why in the world would you bother specifying that the Russians and the Chinese are “terrestrial” in nature unless you’re allowing the option of adversaries that aren’t terrestrial? And if something isn’t terrestrial in nature, there’s only one other word that describes everything else in the universe not falling into that category… Extraterrestrial.

Did someone at the Pentagon just reveal, without 100% definitively saying it, that the government knows it’s been dealing with an extraterrestrial intelligence? And if so, when precisely were they planning on getting around to telling the rest of us? Is that what Marco Rubio and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence are trying to accomplish with S.4049 and calling for the release of a publicly available report on UAPs?

Like I said at the top, hang on to your hats, buckle up tight and make sure your seat-back trays are stowed in the upright position, folks. Things may be about to get very weird in an unimaginably wonderful way.

UPDATE: (Jazz) Some experienced ufology sleuths on Twittter have pointed out that the slide presented by Kean and Blumenthal is not from an official DoD presentation, or at least not originally. It comes from a public presentation given by Hal Puthoff in 2018. Other have noted that he has briefed Congress on multiple occasions and the slide may have been reused, but that’s not definitive yet. See Twitter thread below.

@nytimes and @lesliekean, sorry but it’s not a slide from an official unclassified US Gov’t presentation about a secret UFO program. It’s from a Hal Puthoff’s 2018 public conference available on Youtube (link below). Please check your sources. What a shame… pic.twitter.com/EH1jClubFm

— Marc Cecotti (@MC05A) July 28, 2020

UPDATE 1: (Jazz) Mystery solved. From Leslie Kean’s FB page

Leslie Kean
Re the briefing slide presented in the piece: This is an AATIP slide used over many years in many briefings for Congressional staff, aerospace executives, and DOD officials. As has been pointed out, Hal Puthoff included it in his July 2018 lecture for the SSE and referenced what it was. Dr. Puthoff was a Senior Advisor to the Pentagon UFO program throughout its existence. He was also a subcontractor. He provided briefings on behalf of AATIP, and this slide was included in those briefings. The only time he has shown this slide to the public was in his 2018 talk. It was never classified but was considered sensitive..