“Paving Roads on the Moon” & Consciousness is the Key
So, to meet its requirement to deliver a report to Congress by COB on October, 31st, the AARO (All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office), via the Office of the Director of National Intelligence apparently submitted a CLASSIFED report a week ago today. The public still awaits the non-classified version’s release, which is expected today, or next week? Or, never? Less than two weeks ago, the New York Times published reporter Julian Barnes’ story as a lead-up to the report’s release. Not surprisingly, the article exhibits a highly skeptical angle and condescending tone while focusing on some of the low-hanging debunking fruit. A lot of the focus is put on the 2019 incidents involving “triangular” craft that swarmed U.S. Navy warships and how they are drones of a terrestrial, man-made nature. The GoFast and Gimbal videos are cited as being (somewhat) explainable. And of course, airborne debris, balloons and drones are highlighted as being the likely culprits of many UAP sightings. I fully expect one of the debunked examples provided in the report will be the Batman Mylar Balloon, particularly because the initial photo of it was used/leaked by the Pentagon as an example of a UAP and that this will play well with the narrative that progress is being made to explain UAPs. That said, many skeptics have already beaten the government to the punch by a couple of years - https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/popular-misinformation/
The New York Times’ piece plays well into the hands of the skepticsphere and U.S. MIC (Military Industrial Complex) who would prefer that the public go back to a position of ridiculing the topic and having attention be averted from it. This new article is actually a turnabout from the New York Times, who in recent years has given light to this topic with excellent reporting done by Leslie Kean, Ralph Blumenthal and others. What this new Times story fails to mention, as some other media outlets are suggesting, is that the report apparently also states that over HALF of the cases reviewed still remain unexplained. For over the past week, this Times story has been lambasted across social media as a DOD fluff piece and rightfully so. By up-playing the foreign threat narrative and debunk angle, Barnes and the Times do the public a disservice and disrespect the numerous armed forces witnesses and their testimonies. Not to mention, it negates the compelling evidence obtained from the instrument data collected as well. Yes, it’s important to clarify all-domain anomalies that can be explained, but the whole purpose of this AARO office is to deeply investigate the all-domain anomalies that CANNOT be easily explained. It’s literally written into the law that established this office by Congress’ decree.
The Times article fails to even broach that topic. As mentioned in a previous Op-Essaytorial, I suggest that nothing about Slow Trickle Disclosure is going to be clean and easy. This is actually a serious topic. And serious, albeit sometimes quirky, people are doing their best to treat it as such. Or, are they?
In early June, I attended a weekend long UAP conference in Huntsville presented by the SCU (Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies). The SCU is a volunteer-based, think tank organization comprised of scientists, professionals and researchers whose mission is to “conduct, promote and encourage the rigorous scientific examination of Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (and now All-Domain Phenomena) commonly known as Unidentified Flying Objects. We utilize scientific principles, methodologies and practices in the study of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena observed and reported around the globe. We provide scientific case analysis to support witness cases, other scientific organizations, and government entities who are looking for the certitude of facts for this phenomenon”
The conference began on Friday with a keynote speaker Ryan Graves. Lt. Graves was a F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot with the Navy for over a decade. During 2014-2015, while stationed aboard the U.S. carrier Theodore Roosevelt off the eastern seaboard and the Naval Air Station in Oceana VA , Lt. Graves and other pilots from those flight groups experienced multiple instances, almost daily, of engagement with UAPs exhibiting undefinable flight characteristics. The pilots reported to their superiors that the unexplainable objects were sometimes like “spinning tops” often moving against the wind at high speeds. The objects had no visible means of propulsion, were able to maneuver at high speeds at high altitudes for hours on end. The performance of these aerial objects was and remains out of the operational capabilities of known drone/UAV technology. The GoFast and Gimbal videos mentioned above were obtained from these encounters. The new Times article suggests that upcoming report “debunks” the GoFast as it suggests the object in the video is actually only going 30 mph and that the video is an optical illusion making the object only appear that it’s going fast. However, the Times article makes no mention of WHAT THE OBJECT ACTUALLY IS. A small spherical object cruising across the ocean, moving in a smooth, controlled manner with no apparent means of propulsion is still compelling and begs for more explanation. Will the forthcoming report contain more info about this? In reference to the Gimbal video, the Times article says that “Military officials now believe that is the optics of the classified image sensor, designed to help target weapons, make the (spinning) object appear like it is moving in a strange way.” But the Times article makes no mention of the fact that the sensors identified an actual object and the pilots observed them as well. Also, still…even if the effect presented is sensor-derived, what the heck is the object?
Lt. Ryan Graves giving his presentation on June 3rd at the 2022 SCU Conference in Huntsville, AL
Before Lt. Graves began his presentation, I arrived to the event space in Huntsville a little late and after the meet-and-greet Happy Hour. The room was full with approximately 100 people or so. In the very back, I was able to find an empty seat at a small horizontal table meant for 3-4 people. I asked the slim, tall, bearded gentleman in a sport coat and boots if I could sit next to him and his friend. He said sure. So, I took my seat right before Lt. Graves began. Lt. Graves spoke for a less than an hour. He reiterated much of what was publicly known about his experience. Graves demeanor was dry and straight-forward. Boring would be a little harsh, but he certainly had a personality more stoic and direct, as I would expect a veteran fighter pilot to hold. Maverick from Top Gun is Hollywood folks. He did a quick Q&A and that was the beginning of the event. I left and went to a bar where a Huntsville friend works. I’d pick it up bright and early the next day.
The conference got started early on Saturday, June 4th. Upon arriving, I saw that the same seat at the same table in the back of the room was open. I went and got my light breakfast from the catering line and sat down at my space. The Sport Coat and Boots gentleman who was next to me from the night before, and his high-energy friend had also returned and taken their same seats. The first speaker of the morning, Dr. Hakan Kayal, chair of UAP studies at Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, was teleconferenced in from Germany. There were some technical difficulties, but his presentation about what his university is doing in the field gave a good overview of how the topic is being covered and discussed in Europe. During the presentation I looked down at Sport Coat and Boots’ cellphone home screen and there was a big photo of a Paul Reed Smith electric guitar. As a player myself, I was intrigued. After Kayal wrapped up, I introduced myself to Sport Coat and Boots. He said his name was Jay. I told Jay how I noticed the photo off the PRS on his phone and I asked him if he played. He said yes and then proceeded to show me that he’s a collector as well and how he’d been to the PRS shop. I told him that I play in a band and that we were actually playing that night in Huntsville and it was super convenient as it aligned with the SCU conference. I asked him how or why he was at the conference and he said “it’s part of my job” to be here and pulled up the following on his phone:
Well. He pulled up something that was a cross between the two images above that contained the information shown. I admittedly was kind of stunned. I think I said something to the effect of “oh. I see. That makes sense” trying to play it cool. I followed up by asking what initially got him into this specific topic within the purview of his Naval analyst responsibilities and he answered “my guys were seeing and experiencing things, and none of their superiors were taking them seriously.” After that, the other guy at our table, on the other side of Jay had several people approach him to introduce themselves and shake his hand as if he was important. This other man was shorter and fit, clean-shaven with strawberry blonde, short-cropped hair with a slightly ruddy complexion. He spoke with a rapid-fire southern accent and air of authority. He looked familiar to me. Jay stood up and I reached over and an extended my hand to introduce myself. He said he was Travis and looked at me was a little bit of a curious expression. I saw on his nametag that his last name was Taylor. He was THIS Travis Taylor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_S._Taylor, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4115030/
While I’ve had an interest in the UFO topic since my youth, I’ve been touch-and-go with my modern intake of media on the topic. When Ancient Aliens first aired over a decade ago, I was already pretty up-to-date with many of the theories they proffered and references they provided. Frankly, I was often pretty annoyed by their hyperbolic approach where everything “must be aliens.” But alas, that is entertainment. Travis Taylor is probably best known for his appearances on that show and more recently, his high profile on the History Channel series The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. His entry point to mass entertainment media, Rocket City Rednecks, is possibly the most interesting though as it was hinged on a manifested desire to find a larger audience for his writing. While he’s made numerous appearances in Pop Culture media over the past decade, Dr. Taylor is a highly credentialed scientist holding two MS degrees in Physics and Astronomy and two PHDs in Optical Science/Engineering and Aerospace Systems Engineering and has worked for both NASA and the DOD on-and-off for years. It should also be noted that Dr. Taylor is a Science Fiction author as well. That morning, some other notable personalities from UFOlogy arrived on site at the conference. Jeremy Corbell and his mentor George Knapp flew in from out West. Corbell is an author, artist and filmmaker who’s one of the more recognizable modern media faces regarding the UFO subject . George Knapp is a 70 year-old Investigative Journalist with KLAS-TV out of Las Vegas who has been investigating UFOs and other Paranormal phenomena for decades. He’s the man who initially broke the Bob Lazar story. In the 90’s, I used to listen to Art Bell’s Coast-To-Coast late night syndicated show where Knapp was frequently a guest. He joined the show in 2007 and since Bell’s passing in 2018, Knapp has taken to hosting the program a couple of days a month. If you have any interest in this topic, these are almost certainly names you know. They are personalities, if not celebrities in this subculture. I believe all of them have a serious interest in the topic, but also, I certainly believe they also enjoy the attention their profiles bring them.
After another speaker, it was lunch time. I got to talk to Jay and Travis a little more. They told me they both work for a defense contractor in Huntsville called Radiance Technologies. Radiance is a privately-owned, 1000-employee strong company that “develops innovative solutions for defense, intelligence, and civilian customers’ advanced challenges.” in the areas of Intelligence, Cyber, Directed Energy, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Microelectronics, Hypersonics and Space. I asked Dr. Taylor what he works on specifically at Radiance. He said that a lot of his work is in “reverse-engineering technology and foreign materials…from adversaries, enemies. ” but that he also works on other projects as well. He said that currently his team is working on technology for “paving roads on the moon” I assumed he was alluding to fact that we will be returning to the moon soon and will likely be establishing an outpost there. I asked if it was something like a mobile road-laying machine that would turn the regolith into a concrete type substance. If I recall, he nodded somewhat and said something about high-powered lasers. Regolith to “glass” roads perhaps? I don’t know. I also asked him that after all his time there, if he thinks there is a real phenomenon occurring at Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. He was emphatic, that yes, there’s something strange happening there. But, about that “reverse engineering” thing again…
In mid-October, KLAS in Las Vegas ran an article by George Knapp titled “Is this company working with alien technology in Nevada?” The focus of the piece is on Radiance Technologies. Knapp gets Radiance President Tim Tinsley for some comments, but the article wraps with mentions of Jay Stratton and Dr. Taylor is quoted. Here’s how the article wraps:
When Radiance announced the hiring of two veterans (Stratton and Taylor) of UFO research, the news releases didn’t hide the connection, pointedly mentioning their UFO credentials. But is the company worried about the perception they might be reverse engineering UFOs? “
No, we provide customer solutions,” Tinsley explains. “Whatever our customers want us to work on and support, then that’s what we’ll do.” Taylor, for his part, isn’t saying what he and Stratton are working on but makes it clear what they’re hoping to tackle. “Jay and I are working on growing the capabilities, doing reverse engineering of foreign materials,” Taylor explains. “If we were to get something to reverse engineer, we would absolutely want to do that.”
The full article can be referenced here - https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/is-this-company-working-with-alien-technology-in-nevada/ .
Lunch break ended, and the next presentation was a panel discussion involving the national security implications of scientifically studying UAP. One of the interesting participants on the panel was Dr. Garry Nolan. Dr. Nolan is a Professor of Pathology at Stanford. His research has often focused on cancer and immunology. His PHD is in genetics and he’s done post-doctorate work at MIT. A decade ago, Dr. Nolan’s expertise publicly intersected with UFOology when he was asked to analyze the Atacama skeleton, which was a tiny mummified corpse suspected to be an alien body. His results reveled that the remains were actually that of a stillborn human with severe bone defects and genetic deformities. In the years since, Dr. Nolan has assisted government officials and private aerospace contractors in helping to discern the nature of physical harm experienced by individuals (mostly defense/government personnel from the aerospace industry) who have or claimed to have had interactions with anomalous craft. The results of the research led to some interesting conclusions that in the 100 or so patients investigated, the symptoms and pathological markers were mostly identical to that of what is now known as Havana Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome ). Dr. Nolan was a compelling fit for this panel’s topic of discussion.
Me, Dr. Garry Nolan and Jeremy Corbell at SCU Conference And look, Jeremy came to the Natchez Tracers show in Huntsville on Saturday Night!
Saturday featured several other speakers. I was impressed with the tone and academic approach to this event’s presentation. Serious would be an overstatement, but studious is certainly apt. And while the conference’s scheduled speakers were good and informative, the conversations and interactions during the meal breaks and happy hours were perhaps just as engaging and intriguing. I got to talk to Micah Hanks and Chrissy Newton for a bit. Micah co-founded the great news source The Debrief and Chrissy Newton assists them with media relations/podcasting while also producing her own stellar podcast Rebelliously Curious and contributing to Ryan Sprague’s long-running UFO Podcast Somewhere in the Skies. I got to share a beer with University of Albany physics professor and UAPx Vice President Kevin Knuth and talk about how quantum mechanics, UAP and consciousness are connected. I met and hung with Randall Nickerson who produced the preeminent documentary on the Zimbabwe Ariel School mass-sighting/close encounter from 1994 called Ariel Phenomenon (which I HIGHLY recommend you watch). I shared a short, but fascinating conversation with Richard Geldreich. Rich is the owner of Binomial LLC and is a renown coder who’s done video game development and previously worked for SpaceX (on the Starlink program), Valve, Ensemble Studios and more. I met a man from South America who almost came to tears when recounting his close encounters of the third kind experiences as a young child. I met a younger man named Josh from the Washington D.C. who was experiencing an existential crises of sorts involving his Christian religious upbringing and his interest/obsession with UAP. The conference wrapped that Saturday and I was off to play a Natchez Tracers show at our favorite Huntsville haunt Voodoo Lounge. It was way cool of Jeremy Corbell to come out, enjoy some brews and jam to the Tracers!
The highlights of the final day brought the science and the mystical together. The main panel of the day brought together Dr. Knuth and his UAPx associate Dr. Matthew Szydagis to discuss the initial findings from the Catalina Expedition. The Catalina Expedition was financed and organized by Director Caroline Cory with the intention of doing hard science in the UFO hotspot and general area of the 2004 Nimitz “Tic Tac” Encounters and capturing the results and experiences for a documentary film. Dr. Taylor was also part of that expedition. Knuth and Szydagis were a bit cagey about the results and data because this was before the the documentary A Tear in the Sky about the expedition had been released, but they did confirm that shortly upon arriving at Catalina and setting up their equipment, they experienced unexplained aerial phenomena and showed data and measurements that corroborated it. The documentary is out now. Dr. Knuth, Dr. Szydagis and Dr. Taylor are all in there along with appearances by William Shatner, Michio Kaku and more. It goes in-depth as to what they found while there and it’s pretty extraordinary. This is a good one. Check it out.
Sequewaying from the more modern side of of UAP study to a more historic UFO legacy perspective, the conference wrapped with Col. John B. Alexander. Col. Alexander is one of the more fascinating figures found in UFOlogy and paranormal study. Col. Alexander is MIC lifer. His resume is deep and since the late 1950’s he’s worked in numerous departments in multiple positions in our military and defense infrastructure. Col. Alexander is a central figure in the U.S. defense and intelligence programs and interest related to things paranormal and what would be considered “new age” research: including such topics as remote viewing, near-death experiences, extraterrestrial encounters, telekinesis and consciousness. Alexander’s experiences are prominent in Jon Ronson’s 2004 book Men Who Stare At Goats, which was later made into the film of the same name starring George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Ewan McGregor. Col. Alexander received some public scrutiny in his later military career for his involvement and vocal communication regarding these topics, but privately, through his work for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, he was often called on by the highest departments of the U.S. government and military for briefings. Col. Alexander’s presentation was fascinating and gave glimpses into the more fantastical and conspiratorial aspects of UFOology. He covered some of the programs on which he worked. Many of the items he discussed were tinged with an almost spiritual perspective. A lot of the programs he was in involved with dabbled in the fringes and outside of what is considered hard science. Alexander has been open about his fascination with Thanatology - the study of death and the psychological and social experiences brought about by it as a result. At 85 years old, I can’t help but wonder if Col. Alexander’s perspective is a product of his time where science was still being pursued by people of faith, who maybe combined the stories of their youth involving the Spiritualism movement of the late 19th century with cultural underpinnings of both Christian and Eastern religious traditions that experienced their own revivals in the 1960s-1970s. Is the Colonel’s yearning to know about intelligent alien life and where we go after death rooted from the same impulse?
Most people either know me as a salesman, entrepreneur or performing songwriter. A lot of the time, I am those things. However, I enjoy spending most my time thinking. Thinking about fantastic things. Big things. Questions unanswered and behaviors unexplained. In any circle I run, I’m usually most fascinated by and fixated on the characters I encounter along the way. The psychology of us is what intrigues me. What makes us believe what we do? What makes us want to believe? Or maybe most important, what makes us NEED to believe? While we share so many innate and willfully chosen similarities, the truth is, everyone is wholly unique and we are experiencing our own personal existence in a completely novel way. The fact we are aware of our own existence and can ponder its meaning is very likely unique to us as a species on our planet. Thinking about whether humans are alone in our universe as intelligent beings and what comes after physical death are of course the greatest mysteries we can ponder. It’s no wonder then that both these mysteries would inextricably entwined. As we inch closer to one day possibly reconciling Einstein’s theory of General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, we are also experiencing a convergence between the paranormal, supernatural, spiritual and UFOology fields. Maybe one day, we’ll be closer to answers that reveal that none of those things are non-scientific or unnatural, but perhaps instead, are part of our shared existence and were always a part of the natural universe that we didn’t fully yet understand.
Towards the back end of his presentation, Col. Alexander talked about traveling with his wife and visiting many different indigenous cultures. He showed numerous slides of he and his wife with shamans and elders from all over the world. He made a couple of quick references to spiritual, entheogenic medicine ceremonies and I heard him mention ayahuasca and DMT. After his talk, Col. Alexander entertained some questions. There were notecards on each table and pens to submit questions. After they were all submitted and most were answered by Col. Alexander, I was able to find a napkin and scribble my quick question(s) down. It read something to the effect of:
“Do you believe that what we experience involving UAPs and Human Consciousness is linked. And did you personally ever do DMT while on one of your trips?”
Col. Alexander repeated what was on the napkin outloud from the podium for the audience to hear. With a grin, he said that he had not personally done Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) or any other hallucinogenic psychotropics, but that his wife would often take part in the rituals with shamans. He also answered my other question. He said that UAP and Human Consciousness are absolutely connected. He went further and said…
”Actually. Consciousness is the Key.”