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The Micah Hanks Program
The AARO Files: The 2025 Annual UAP Report, Official Responses, and Conspiracies | MHP 07.29.26.
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Reports of unidentified flying objects, Unidentified aerial phenomena. Are they secret weapons being tested by our own or foreign governments? The American people are becoming most interested and in many instances, very alarmed by the UFO story. So why do you suppose that all of this has been kept from the world, exploring our past, our future, and the mysteries of our universe? Where do they come from? Why can't you explain it? Everybody in Ufology is screaming for disclosure. The future is now. This is Micah Hanks from the high mountains of Appalachia in a bunker below ground. Welcome one and all. It is the Micah Hanks program, glad as always to be getting into gear and going in pursuit of the anomalous in our existence, as we do every week. Listen on demand via podcasting apps everywhere and courtesy of our friends at the ON X Radio network. Welcome one and all. I hope you're all doing wonderful. As for me, I am still in recovery mode somewhat after a whirlwind trip to Toronto over the weekend, where of course, I was hosting the 2026 annual Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies event. You might be able to detect ever so slightly, a bit of raspiness in my voice. Yes, after talking all weekend, I was actually there at the event for part of the day Saturday. I was losing my voice. I think I was able to mask it carefully enough by speaking quietly and within a specified range into my microphone. So most attendees may not have immediately picked up on the fact that there was potentially a major problem in the works because you don't want your MC losing their voice. Not exactly a good look, or I guess in this case, a good sound in front of an international audience. In fact, at one point Ross Coltart, who was there in attendance, came up and of course, being a broadcast journalist himself, noticed the issue and actually said to me, mate, it sounds like you're losing your voice. Well, indeed I almost did, but managed to somehow pull through and then got an extremely late Sunday night and right back up edit in the early morning on Monday, handling a routine editorial shift at the debrief. So, in short, your friendly neighborhood podcaster, slash editor in chief slash researcher slash traveler/mc and frequent public speaker is a bit exhausted, but nonetheless, duty calls. So, diving into some news here, astronomers have made a major discovery, and this is one that builds on many decades, actually centuries of observations. Because astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert region of northern Chile say they've discovered the strongest evidence yet that the famous star Betelgeuse does in fact have a companion. Robert Lee, writing for Space.com reports that in fact, that means that after a century of investigation, scientists are now closer than ever to conclusively identifying Betelgeuse as a binary system. And therefore, of course, meaning it would be composed of two stars. So it's not just Betelgeuse anymore. It would be Beetlejuice A and Beetlejuice B. Now, for as long as it's been known as a singular star, Betelgeuse has been a red colored star, or seems to be. It's visible to the naked eye in the constellation of Orion, one of the most obvious constellations in the night sky, but it's actually located about 650 light years from Earth. Now, speculations about whether or not Betelgeuse might not be alone actually go back to a century ago, when astronomers first began to notice this unusual dimming and brightening that Betelgeuse undergoes, which actually goes back even further in time because ancient astronomers as far back as a thousand years ago had been aware of these variances in the star's brightness. So one theory for a long time has been that maybe this thing actually is two stars. Well, now, after all this time, we do indeed have confirmation. According to team leader Miguel Montarg with the Paris Observatory, who says this is, quote, the conclusion of a century long quest, we have shown that Beetlejuice is not single. It is accompanied by a faint stellar companion. I jumped from my chair when I saw the processed images, and I'm actually looking at a couple of those right now. And indeed, with the wonders of modern astronomy, you can now see for yourself this long suspected mysterious companion accompanying Beetlejuice and hence another cosmic mystery, finally draws to an end. Now, of course, I've had a lot of cosmic mysteries on my mind recently because I spent the entire weekend talking with scientists and former government officials about the UAP mystery. And this is certainly something that has been on the mind of Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, who, who recently, during an appearance on the Planet Tyrus podcast, discussed some of his own latest adventures in trying to get to the bottom of the UAP mystery. Specifically, Representative Burchett says that he recently participated in a high level meeting at the Pentagon focused on unidentified anomalous phenomena. And specifically this dealt with transparency, arguing that entrenched government officials continue to obstruct efforts to release additional information to the public. While he was talking with the host, Tyrus, Burchett basically explained that he had spent more than two hours in a confidential Pentagon meeting. And although he declined to identify who was in attendance, he claimed that the, quote, unquote Deep State continues to block disclosure efforts despite growing public and congressional interest and greater transparency. He also criticized what he described as excessive secrecy within the federal government, recounting an incident in which he said a Pentagon official suggested that even the president only receives information on a need to know basis. Now, you know, this is the kind of thing that we've been hearing for many, many years that presidents are elected officials. They only hold office for four years at a time, at most eight years in total, if they're lucky enough to be reelected. And so they essentially hold a temp position in government. And so if we're thinking in terms of the deepest, darkest secrets that our government holds, why would you provide that information to a temp employee? You see what I mean? We don't want to hand this out to just anybody. And even if by virtue of being the elected President of the United States, they are tasked with directing the military and leading our government for the period they're in office, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they need to know all of the deep, dark secrets, right? So that is the kind of logic that presumably is held by the Deep State we, the bureaucracy in Washington, the very entrenched elements of unelected leadership that actually control the military secrets and the technologies, the special access programs and what have you. These kinds of things are not necessarily anything that a president has to know about. In other words, they don't possess the need to know. And this is exactly what Burett was talking about when he spoke with Tyrus. He argues that unelected bureaucrats wield too much influence over classified information and congressional oversight. In fact, they also have the ability to withhold that information from members of Congress and other elected leaders right on up to the President of the United States. But in his interview, Burchett also further alleged that military pilots and service members who have reported encounters with unidentified objects often also face professional consequences. And this, of course, is a reference to the stigma that has long prevailed in which many have talked about over the years. People who come forward and talk about UFOs or their knowledge of them often face not only ridicule, but some have also received a significant amount of pushback, or at least so they claim. There have been efforts, in other words, in place, to prevent people from talking about what they know and letting those who do so anyway know that there will be consequences. So according to his account, Burchett said that some witnesses who he has spoken to, by the way, supposedly chose to destroy photographs or videos depicting UAP rather than risking damaging their careers by sharing that information. Others, he said, underwent lengthy debriefings and psychological evaluations that became part of their personnel records. That's a really important part right there because for many years we've been hearing from pilots, not even military pilots, mind you, but actually civilian pilots, who, when they have observed uap, prefer not to talk about it because they are concerned that this might lead to psychological evaluations or might otherwise appear on future records that they have, which can impact whether they can find employment in the airline industry. Broadly speaking, within the airline industry, it seems that UFO sightings are frowned upon. And for a long time, pilots have been discouraged from talking about anything they've seen. A couple of select quotes from Representative Burett during this interview. He had said specifically that, quote, I had a meeting at the Pentagon this week on the issue, a very high level meeting. I'm not at liberty to say who was there and what was, but. But I was there over two hours, if that tells you anything. He also adds on the subject of government secrecy and disclosure, that the disclosure is real. But he also adds that the problem that we're having right now is that the deep state is blocking a lot of this. He also made reference to something I've heard him talk about before, which is kind of humorous. He notes that he had been in this security hearing and a little punk with a man bun tells me the president's on a need to know basis now, what world am I living in? To this he also added, quote, you got power, you got control, and you've got arrogance. And really those are the things that run Washington, D.C. and you throw in a little corruption. Now, on the subject of those military UAP witnesses and psychological evaluations, he said that many had said that they had been evaluated because of their UAP experiences and they could get pulled from the flatline as a result. So what I was talking about in the airline industry, the discouragement of UAP reporting. Military pilots in the past have seen very severe penalties if they say that they've seen things they can explain, and if indeed this ends up on their personnel records as part of a evaluation. And as bur. That's just wrong. That's a stigmatizing of anybody. And also it's a coverup of what the heck's going on, and government does not have the right to decide what I can and cannot handle. So, in short, Representative Burchett keeps up the good fight as far as the UAP subject goes. But of course, there's been a lot of news about this in recent days. And before we get into some discussion about a recent official Pentagon report that was published on this subject, I also wanted to give a mention to Brandy Vincent riding over a Defense scoop, who had the following to say late last week, quote, experts in the Pentagon's all domain anomaly resolution office are investigating a report from the u. S. Navy involving roughly 100 mysterious airborne objects and watercraft that were recorded operating off the coast of Virginia. So what's this all about? Well, Brandy, of course, learned about this the same way that many of us did. It was mentioned in the fiscal year 2025 all domain anomaly resolution office report on UAP. And you heard that right. This was the 2025 annual report, which was finally released last week. We're going to be talking about that in depth here in just a moment. But as Brandi notes in her Defense scoop article, there had been 319 new reports that came in over that fiscal year, and officials confirmed that 274 UAP reports were observed or captured in the air domain, 44 in the space domain and one in the maritime domain. Now, really quickly, the 44 in the space domain, as we will soon discuss, have essentially all been resolved. I'll tell you more about that here shortly. But of the one in the maritime domain, that's the one that's of interest to us here and now because as Brandy explains, the single maritime domain UAP case Arrow received. This, according to the report, by the way, involved a report from US Navy assets operating off the coast of Virginia. The sighting report described approximately 100 airborne UAP and two likely uncrewed surface systems. ARRW is actively investigating this event in coordination with the reporting unit. Now, while there are few details provided there, this is an intriguing report. Close to 100 airborne UAP and two likely uncrewed surface systems. What were the surface systems? Were these some sort of launch platforms for these other 100 objects that were observed? Could that point to the possibility of there being a foreign adversary like China or Russia operating some kind of oceanic motherships, for lack of a better term, but essentially some kind of a launch platform, some sort of a containment vessel from which drones or UAVs could be launched? Or is this something a little more complex? Well, for the time being, we don't know. Again, Arrow is actively investigating this event in coordination with the reporting unit. No further details really are provided apart from the fact that the report came from U.S. navy assets. But indeed, reports like these are intriguing to me for a range of different reasons. One, of course, they Involve perhaps a link to the long standing USO mystery, the idea that there are objects that can easily traverse not only our airspace, but also enter the water or emerge out of it. And vague though this report, this incident described in the 2025 annual UAP report produced by Arrow, as vague as this report is, it does seem to describe some kind of a technology that's consistent with UAP reports we've been hearing for quite some time. In fact, there is a component here that even is reminiscent of what we discussed last week with the famous 2004 Nimitz incident. Because if you recall, while the object was initially detected on radar and was said to have first been observed dropping from somewhere above 60,000ft, passing very rapidly through the radar space that was being scanned, and then stopping very abruptly and then hovering about 50ft above sea level, that object was initially detected on radar. But when they scrambled FA18s to fly out there and see whatever this object was initially, the object later identified as the Tic Tac was not what was seen. Now, if you recall, what was first observed was some sort of a disturbance on the surface of the water, which actually seemed to suggest that there was some sort of an object directly beneath it. In fact, the way that this was characterized by pilot Dave Fravor was resembling a seamount. He said that out there off the California coast, there are a lot of seamounts where essentially you have a large mountain of prominence that extends all the way up almost to the ocean surface. And so as the water passes over that, it actually causes a whitewater disturbance. And Navy pilots are pretty used to seeing that out there off the California coast because there are a lot of areas of fairly shallow water. So initially they thought they were seeing a seamount because there appeared to be something disturbing the water. And as they flew in a little closer, they said that there was almost a T or cross shape which at least superficially resembled the shape of an aircraft under the water. But again, to be clear, it was only a superficial resemblance. That according to Dave Fravor, who got the closest to the surface of the water of any of those pilots before, he and others also observed above that area of disturbance the object we now recognize as the Tic Tac. And so a part of the debate about that incident involves whether there had in fact been some kind of an underwater vessel, something out of which the Tic Tac emerged. And reports like the one covered there at Defense Scoop and described in the recent Pentagon report released by Arrow last week do seem to at least imply that there may be an oceanic counterpart to the UAP mystery, that some of these things are actually being launched out of larger vessels which are operating in our oceans. A very intriguing possibility indeed. But with that in mind, when we come back, we're going to shift our attention over to Arrow's new report. What the latest report reveals, what the new facts and figures are, and what the major takeaways were. We'll get into that and much more when we return right here on the Micah Hanks program.
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The Pentagon's All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office has just released its latest annual report on unidentified anomalous phenomena. And they concluded that while no newly resolved cases point to advanced forces, foreign technology, or extraordinary capabilities demonstrated by these craft, close to 200 reports remain unexplained. So what are the unidentified objects in our skies? Welcome back. So the fiscal year 2025 consolidated annual report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena was released last week. Of course, it arrives only a couple of months before we are supposed to see the next report because keep in mind, these are mandated to be released around October 31st every year. Many people wondered, by the way, about that date. I don't know if that was something that was intentional. In other words, somebody in Congress thought it might be a good laugh to have these reports come out on Halloween. Who knows? But in any case, that was when we were supposed to see the 2025 annual report last Halloween, and we're just now seeing it here as we are almost concluding July. So in a few more months, the next annual Report is going to be due. Something tells me we probably aren't gonna see that one on time either. And keep in mind, we're also still awaiting the second volume of Arrow's historical report. We were supposed to see that quite some time ago. So who knows what the holdup is about that. Now, speaking recently during one of those public appearances that he made, Sean Kirkpatrick, who is still an advisor to Arrow, but now works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, essentially said he's aware of what is holding up that report. And he said that people would probably be very unimpressed, maybe frustrated if they had an idea of what that was. So we could speculate about what some of the holdup on getting these reports out in time might be. In any case, we have now finally seen the 2025 consolidated report. And during the reporting period, which lasted from June 2, 2024 to May 30, 2025, Arrow said it received 319 new UAP reports. So that brings the total case holdings that Arrow has in its database up to 1870 since the office's creation back in 2022. And so what exactly does the new report teach us? Well, here are a few major takeaways and then also we will have some supplementary discussion about what in my opinion was one of the most important takeaways from the new report. But according to the document, there are 274 incidents that occurred in the air domain, 44 incidents that occurred involving objects observed in space and one which we heard about in the last segment actually that occurred in the maritime domain. Notably, none of the space domain cases originated from space based sensors. Instead, 42 reports came from civilian pilots through the Federal Aviation Administration. In other words, pilots flying through our airspace who were observing objects much higher up which they suspected of being objects in space. And in fact they were 100% correct on that point. These objects were indeed operating in space. But there were also two space related objects that originated from US Space Command ground based sensors. Now how do I know that all these objects were indeed in space? Well, because using all source intelligence analysis and 3D modeling arrow in its report says they were able to conclude with high confidence that all of the space related observations during the last reporting period were attributable to satellite flaring. A well understood phenomena, they say in which satellites reflect sunlight creating the appearance of unusually bright stationary or slowly moving lights. Now going all the way back to 2022, the debrief has reported on these. We initially of course began reporting on what at the time were being characterized as so called racetrack uaps. A lot of pilots were then and in fact still today say that they see these racetrack uaps and the general description is of an object with what appears to be a light on the front which is flying in circles at high altitude, at least according to the descriptions provided by pilots. Now what is actually happening though and what is clearly demonstrable in certain circumstances? Because with all of the different kinds of stargazing apps and also apps that track virtually every known satellite in orbit, keep in mind there are some actual classified payloads that are launched into orbit. So we don't know exactly what everything is, but the majority of satellites in Earth's orbit are known. They are named. You can track them online using a variety of different platforms. And so if we know the time, if we know the direction that a pilot is facing and they happen to have filmed the so called racetrack uaps in virtually every instance where video is provided, you can clearly correlate those objects with Starlink satellites. And I mean literally in every instance, Mick west and another contributor over there on the Metabunk forum named Flarky have clearly demonstrated time and time again that every time one of these objects or what appears to be one object. More on that in a moment. But anytime these so called racetrack UAPS appear, what pilots are actually seeing are Starlink satellites. Now, how in the world could a string of Starlink satellites appear to be one single object flying in a circle? This has been one of the issues that many pilots have taken with this explanation. They say there was clearly an object flying in a circle. We weren't seeing multiple individual objects. But in fact, what's happening with the so called racetrack UAPS is that when you have a Starlink satellite chain, each of the individual Starlink satellites, as it passes through a region over the Earth where sunlight from across the horizon illuminates, it causes that satellite to flare very brightly for just a few seconds, and then it dims again. Then as the next starlink passing behind it enters that same region of the sky where sunlight reflects off of it, it also flares very brightly and then dims. And then the same happens with the next Starlink satellite behind it. And so what the optical illusion that results appears to be conveying is what pilots often interpret as being a single object which is continuously passing through the same region of the sky over and over again. And the human mind tends to interpret this illusion as though they are seeing a single object with a light on the front. And in the instances where the object is flying in that circular pattern and the light is facing the direction of the observer, they're able to see that bright flare. And then as it dims, the interpretation here again is that the object is banking and turning away. But then when the light reappears, naturally they presume they're seeing the same object and thereby it's flying in a circle. And every time the light is facing in their direction, the they're seeing the illuminated portion of the aircraft that is facing the observer, and hence the idea of a racetrack uap. But again, in instances where people have claimed they've seen these aircraft flying in circular formations at high altitude or even in space, in virtually every instance where video has been made available of those objects, Mick west and others, when provided that video, have been able to successfully attribute this to satellite flaring. And now Arrow has said that of some 44 reports that they received in the space domain employing similar processes, and arguably far more capable processes that have access to more information than we here on the civilian level do. But in literally every case, 44 out of 44 space UAP reports, those pilots were reporting observations of Starlink or other kinds of satellites reflecting sunlight. Now this should be a major takeaway from the report, although it is not the most significant one in my opinion, but it's nonetheless a very important takeaway. And the reason why is I get these same reports all the time. At the UAP sightings reporting system, pilots and others often describe seeing these objects which turn out in every instance to be satellites. And one way we're able to determine that so accurately is because the reports that are provided are so good. People genuinely think they're seeing something unknown, but they provide such good descriptions and other data, what direction they were facing, what time it was, what region of the sky these appeared. And sometimes they also accompany that with video. But and in every case it's very clearly discernible that we're seeing Starlink satellites. So essentially the same thing that I'm finding and that other UFO investigators like Mick west and others, again yes, they are skeptics, but they're deeply interested in UFOs and they are also accurately interpreting the phenomena that are being described and providing very reasonable explanations for those sightings. Now Arrow is doing the same and hence they've said that every space based UAP sighting in the last reporting period could be attributed to these satellite flaring phenomena. We need to be highly aware of the fact that this occurs frequently and that these objects are often misattributed to being uap. That's just a reality and one at this point that we really need to accept if we want to advance our understanding of uap. Now at this point we get into some of the more intriguing findings though from the most recent report, because Arrow also reported that it resolved 114 of 319 cases, attributing those to ordinary objects and events, including balloons, birds, satellites, etc. Also important, none of the resolved incidents indicated advanced foreign adversary capabilities or breakthrough technologies. In other words, they didn't identify anything in the current data set and find out that China or Russia was operating a drone based on those case resolutions. But that brings us to the 191 cases that have been placed in Arrows active archive. These essentially are the unknowns. And we have 191 of those from the last reporting period that were not prosaic objects like satellites, not birds, not planes, not drones. They don't know what these 191 objects are. And so rather than classifying these incidents as unexplained anomalies, Arrow simply Says the reports remain open pending the availability of additional sensor data or improved analytical techniques that could eventually permit resolution. Nine additional reports, they say, have been referred to members of the intelligence community and science and technology partners for further technical analysis. So let's look at some trends here for a moment, because there are several that have been identified in the incoming reports of cases where witnesses described an object's appearance. Spherical objects remain approximately 40% of reported morphologies. In other words, the largest single percentage lights, represented roughly 33%. They also note that nearly one quarter of all reports, about 25%, lacked enough information to determine the object's apparent shape. Now, you might be wondering, I mean, if you could see it, then how in the world do you not know what it's shaped like? But again, we have to also keep in mind some of these reports come to us via radar or other sensors, which may have detected an object, but that didn't necessarily mean that it was visible to the observer at that time. They also note that most airborne sightings occur between 10,000 and 35,000ft. All reports above 45,000ft declined significantly from the previous reporting period, a change Arrow attributes largely to improvements yet again in identifying satellite flares. Now, this does bring us to what I found to be the most intriguing part about all this, the sensitive military facility sightings. Because although there were no flight safety incidents associated with UAP during this last reporting period, there were several cases Arrow identified involving sightings that occurred near sensitive military installations and critical infrastructure. In some instances, they said, witnesses described objects whose reported performance characteristics appeared to exceed current known technology. Very intriguing. However, Arrow caution that these reports lacked accompanying technical details, and this essentially prevented Arrow from being able to make any kind of validations of those observations. In fact, I would probably guess that some of the sightings we're hearing about here are actually among those released, or at least details and descriptions of those sightings. Keep in mind, there were anecdotal reports. There was no data that accompanied them, no videos or imagery. But we've certainly heard about some of those reports in the more recent pursue releases that we've continued to cover here on the program. Now, very significantly to me, Arrow noted that if future evidence were to corroborate some of these sightings around sensitive military facilities, they could represent a, quote, currently unmitigated threat vector, unquote. In other words, Arrow seems very concerned about what some of these reports might entail, and through collection of better data about these and from the airspace around these facilities, they are hoping to identify something but naturally, we aren't hoping to identify an unmitigated threat vector, but certainly that seems to be on the table. Errol also noted that two reports described possible electronic or avionics interference that was experienced by aircraft operating near reported uap. Intriguingly, while they said that there was no flight safety incident reported during this period involving uap, two aircraft were reportedly impacted their electronics and onboard systems during UAP sightings. So I am a bit confused about that. I mean, maybe they didn't log these as being any kind of direct threat. But again, when an aircraft is flying and all of a sudden its systems start going haywire because a UAP appears, whether due to electromagnetic interference or whatever else, that to me sounds like something to be concerned about. And finally, among its conclusions, Arrow reiterated two conclusions that have remained consistent across previous reports. Investigators have found no evidence that the U.S. government or any private organization has recovered or exploited materials derived from uap. And the office has received no verified reports of adverse health effects directly associated with UAP encounters. So that, in a nutshell, is what the new report found. And I'm certain that many out there are thinking, yet again, we get a big nothing burger from Arrow. Absolutely nothing of consequence in this report. But in my humble opinion, if we are talking about a potentially unmitigated threat vector associated with UAP sightings near highly sensitive military facilities, that sounds like something to be taking seriously, and that does not sound like nothing to me. So, in fact, the recent Arrow report may be one of the more consequential reports on UAP that we've heard about in recent days. But when we come back, I want to talk a little more about what Arrow officials I have recently spoken with have had to say, because while I was in Toronto, Canada, at the SCU's annual event, we were joined, of course, by the former science advisor to Arrow, who was one of the speakers, and I want to share some insights into what he had to say and what others were talking about at the big event up there in Canada when we return here in a moment on the Micah Hanks program. Aero official go on the record. Yeah, there's been a lot of talk recently about ARROWS investigations into uap, not only because this report finally appeared online, in fact, a former official and no less than the science advisor to the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, recently joined us there in Toronto, Canada, at the recent Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. Eventually I have more to say about that in a moment. First, I want to remind you, if you aren't already an ex subscriber you're only getting part of the story. And every week we have additional dispatches as well as, of course, the monthly Enigmas specials. All of that for just $7 a month, or you can get one month free. Sign up for one year at a time with the annual plan that'll get you the entire back catalog and of course, the ad free listening experience of this show and all the subscriber shows for just $77 a year. But now, diving back into the discussion, we left off completing our summary of the recent Arrow report, which was a good thing to have on my mind as I headed off to Canada over the weekend because I was up there moderating the panel discussions and emceeing the annual Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies event, which we normally hold down in Huntsville, Alabama. Some of our teammates are based there, and so it's been more convenient to to host the event there in Rocket City. But this year we went international, and I couldn't imagine a better place than Toronto, Canada. A special thanks also to my Debrief teammate Chrissy Newton, and also our good friend Dan McClure, who are local Torontonians and who made that event possible, really helped with coordination and planning. But of course, leading the charge was Robert Powell, who did all the primary planning and coordination for this year's event. It went off extremely smoothly and we had a very great time. Also, a wonderful dinner at the Windsor Arms Hotel on Friday night. And just imagine this. You know, here I am, I walk into the event, everybody's there, everybody's excited. I find my way to the table, they assign me at table number one. And so when I sit down for dinner, I'm seated to the right of Luke Gaultier, a French government official. To his left is Dr. Randy Bostick, former science advisor to Arrow. So Dr. Bostic's left was Robert Powell, one of our executive board members at SCU and of course, a dear friend of the program who's been on with us many times. To my immediate right was Christopher Mellon, who was our keynote speaker. And to his immediate right was Hunt Willis, a attorney based right here in the old north state of North Carolina, where I live. But of course, he is a driving force behind the Disclosure Foundation. We mentioned Hunt and his excellent work when we covered the top secret umbrage NSA records that were recently released through a FOIA request, which, of course, Mr. Willis had been leading the charge on that and wrote an excellent overview about what those documents revealed there@disclosures.org so, considering my dining companions for the evening, it was Quite a discussion we had there at dinner, to say the least. And a great way to kick off an entire weekend of discussion about the intercontinenuity between scientific research and government officials and government agencies when it comes to the broader international issue of unidentified anomalous phenomena. So after our dinner there at the Windsor Arms, Christopher Mellon gave the keynote speech. It was an excellent talk that he gave, of course, and he was kind enough to mention the debrief a couple of times and some of the essays that he's published with us during that keynote address. Then on Saturday morning, we kick things off bright and early with a Canadian favorite, longtime Canadian researcher Chris Rutkowski. And then right after Chris, Randy Bostick, PhD, got up and he gave his talk about the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office and its investigations into UAP. At one point, Dr. Bostic, who I found to be an extremely nice person, really enjoyed talking with him. Very personable guy, but also somebody who has some very deep insights into how science can and should be applied toward uap. He also had authored some of the case resolutions that have appeared there at Arrow's official website, which we've discussed here on the program in the past. And so I found his insights to be extremely useful. But also the fact that he was willing to attend an event like this, talk with UAP researchers, and address an international audience with participants from around the world in furthering our broader understanding of uap, that really meant a lot, not only to me, but I think, to the entire SCU team and all of the attendees who joined us there in person at the event. But there were also some very intriguing discussions that were occurring later that day, because during a panel discussion in which Dr. Bostic participated, along with the debrief's very own Chrissy Newton. Also, Canadian reporter Daniel Otis, who we've had on the program with us, my good friend and colleague Doug Bittner, PhD, a scientist who has worked with NASA, the NSA, and others. But now we're very fortunate to have him helping us investigate UAP with scuff. And then finally, French researcher Michael Valiant, a name that will be well known to people who study the French UAP Enigma and its Japan program. Valiant joined us on stage there for this panel discussion as well. But at one point, I directed my line of questioning to Dr. Bostic and primarily asked him about these two UAP types that we've heard a lot of discussion about in recent months. And these, of course, are large triangular objects and also these orange or reddish colored orbs. And so at this point, I want to Go to a short audio sound bite where I asked this question of Randy and he provides some feedback about what kinds of information Arrow is obtaining about these objects, what that means and what really stands out to Dr. Bostick, as the former science advisor to Arrow about these two classes of UAP and the recurrence of their reporting to Arrow. You'll hear my question for Dr. Bostic and his response in the following audio. Randy, you know, while you have the microphone, I want to direct the question at you, but also have Doug answer this recently during several appearances. And I think this is quite significant. And in fact you and I discussed it a bit at dinner last night. The current director of the Alderman anomaly resolution office, Dr. John Kozlowski, has talked about his own interest and apparently the collection, ongoing collection by Arrow, of two particular kind of reports involving UAP types. Plasma, like orange or reddish orbs, and then of course, triangular shaped craft. He is described sometimes as small as maybe a Prius type vehicle, sometimes traditionally, these triangular craft are known to be larger and they seem to exhibit very unusual behavior and dynamics such as hovering, almost instantaneous acceleration. These are all things that I think it's extremely unprecedented to have the director of an official Pentagon led UAP investigation talking about publicly not only informing senators about, but also discussing with popular science educators like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. So in your view, and then Doug, I'd like you to chime in on this too. What is the significance of those two types and what has Arrow learned about them? And then Doug, maybe you can follow up with how you would approach the study of them in a technical manner.
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Randy, so what we've learned, I don't know that I would say we've learned anything other than just the information that we've collected, which was Talked about by Dr. Keselowski and you mentioned the types of things. One thing I thought was really interesting is we talked to two different groups in two different states even who saw these triangular type objects and they both compared them to a Toyota Prius, which I don't know if the aliens are driving Prius or what, but that was very interesting. And you know, just the descriptions we get, the behaviors, some of the more odd behavior is that they seem to know when they're approached or observed to move, to get out, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. And then of course the orange orbs, which are a common theme. Even when you read some of the Internet reports, reports collected by a MUFON and some of the others, those are common themes. And, and that's really what I think when you look at Arrow, which is an office that, that's collecting information, I think maybe people think there's a lot more going on there than really is, but they're really collectors. And so they get all this and try to make sense of it. And some of this sense is what are these common observables that run through the reports? You know, we take every report seriously, but you know, if it's a one off or whatever, you just sort of file it and maybe it correlates with something later. But I think when you have people consistently reporting morphologies, behaviors, I think that gives an organization focus to go out, share that with the community. Because as Arrow has collected that information, they can, they can tell that to the community. Hey, this is what's going on. These are the things that are most common now, you know, is that the sci fi effect where now you're going to get 10,000 reports of triangles and orbs because you put it out there? Maybe. But I think it's worth it to just let the population know that this is something that most likely whatever you want to believe it is, is real because it has been observed. It's not necessarily one off, made up stories. There's got to be some truth to it, whatever's being, being, being seen by the people out there.
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And before I ask Doug how we investigate that, if you can answer this question, but I do want to ask it, Is there anything beyond anecdotal evidence, supplemental data, instrumental data, imagery that you are able to speak to that informs the opinion Arrow has about those types of objects? I mean those are very specific descriptions, in other words, that are given. So what is the data or what kind of information informs Arrow's interest in those two categories?
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B
Nothing in particular. It's, you know, as a scientist just trying to in my mind determine what, what is it that's being accomplished by a glowing orb? What if I am? Whatever is the cause of this glowing orb, what is, what is the intent? What is the purpose? The triangle shape. I was talk to many scientists and people around the country, like, what is it about a triangle shape that's advantageous for anything? It's not terribly aerodynamic unless you're a very fast airplane. You know, we've all seen the shapes of some of our advanced jet aircraft. But you know, if they're just floating around in a pointed triangle, really isn't the most stable configuration. So without any real physical evidence, you just try to go through these things. You know, it's. They always seem to be silent. They don't necessarily move fast. Are they using ion propulsion? Is there some kind of an electric field generated that allows them to move around? So you try to think of all these things. And now, okay, now do I need to put out instruments that can measure electric field? What do I do? But yeah, it always confounded me. Why triangles? Why orange spheres? If I were a bad guy trying to collect in a restricted area, or if I were aliens following Star Trek rules and the Prime Directive, I probably wouldn't want to be a big light or something that's going to attract attention. You know, I don't want to be anomalous. I want to blend in with everything. So, yeah, there's nothing really there that suggests that. But that's the thought process you have to go through. And, you know, let Doug talk about, once you do that, then what is it that you now have to do to try and get more information to try and do that? Attribution or characterization.
- [44:15]
A
So there we have my first official public dialogue with a former Arrow official. And of course, he is talking right there in front of live audience, asking questions that have been on my mind and the minds of many of you out there as well. Why triangles? Why orange orbs? I also thought it was pretty notable, even though he was joking, that Dr. Bostic would say in a live public forum like that, maybe aliens want to drive Priuses. Describing, of course, the consistency in the descriptions from witnesses of the size and the shape of these objects. So altogether, it was a very eventful weekend up there in Toronto. Again, I want to thank all the organizers at the scu. It was my pleasure, of course, to be in attendance and not only moderating those panel discussions, but as always, trying to get to the bottom of the UAP mystery through ongoing dialogue with former government officials and scientists. But now when we return, I want to shift our attention over to the realm of conspiracy theorizing when we wrap things up right here on the Micah Hanks Program.
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Foreign.
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Welcome to the Grand Dark Conspiracy, my friends. And welcome back to the final segment of this week's installment of the Micah Hanks Program. Yes, after the relatively serious nature of the discussion that we've been having up until this point, the recent Arrow Report, the SCU event up there in Toronto, feedback from former officials like Dr. Randy Bostick and people who I really respect and who I appreciate deeply for going on the record for talking about this subject. So, frankly, if ever we were living in an age of disclosure, I think that these are the kinds of things that signal that. And I'm So thankful to, in some small way, be a part of that, to be helping to facilitate discussions about these kinds of issues, to be able to be talking with former public servants, scientists tasked with resolving military UAP sightings, and asking them questions in front of a live audience with the entire world watching. Keep in mind, we had a live stream, countless people around the world tuning into that live stream and watching those conversations. And so, again, the unprecedented level of transparency and openness that all of those participants at the event over the weekend in Toronto showed is something to be remembered and something I am personally very appreciative for. And when we hear all this discussion about the age of disclosure, I can tell you this for certain. If you had told me 10 years ago, I would be standing on a stage with the former science advisor to an official UAP program within the United States Pentagon, talking about triangular UAP and mysterious orange orbs of light, I might have called you a liar. And so what I'm trying to convey is this is an unprecedented time. We are having a rather unprecedented conversation. We are discussing what appear quite obviously in many instances, to be objects of technological appearance, aircraft or spacecraft of some kind, which are operating in our skies. And even more sobering than the interactions I had with Dr. Bostic and Dr. Doug Bittner and others at the event were the statements made by another colleague of mine who's also been on the show with us, Dr. Kevin Knuth of University at Albany. But Dr. Kevin Knuth, during his very short talk that he gave at the event over the weekend, he was talking about the performance dynamics, the characteristics associated with UAP, the speeds at which they can move. And Dr. Knuth said, let's stop kidding ourselves. We don't have technology that can do this. We don't have aircraft that can move like this. These things cannot be ours. There is simply no other interpretation other than the idea that these are from space. We need to stop kidding ourselves, and we need to accept that obvious fact. And I realize there are many out there who will disagree with Dr. Knuth, and they'll say, well, but we don't really have enough good evidence to support the contention that we are dealing with actual space visitors. I can respect people who want to step back a bit and say, let's not leap to judgment. But again, also seeing Kevin's perspective here as a physicist looking at some of the highest profile UAP cases on record, hearing what former government officials like Dr. Randy Bostick and others have had to say, I mean, he's looking at this and saying, as a Physicist, I can see no other alternative. We need to wake up to the obvious reality that has been right in front of us for 79 years and really probably much longer than that. And when Dr. Knuth said that at the event, I turned around and whispered to Robert Powell, who was sitting right behind me. I said, that's pretty sobering if you think about really, really is. And so it was somewhat unfortunate that while we were up there having that very serious conversation with scientists and former officials in Toronto on social media, there was a very different kind of conversation going on. Yes, another conspiracy theory had erupted involving the debrief. Not really targeting me per se. It was actually more directed at my co founder and good friend of many years, Tim McMillan. The conspiracy theory goes something like this. Tim is secretly a CIA agent, and the debrief is secretly backed by the CIA. Now, you might be wondering what the sources of this incredible information might be. Well, although the postings that were making these allegations were primarily being made by an individual who goes by the online handle UFO Joe, otherwise known as Joe Murgia, the actual origin of the statements that stirred up this bees nest had apparently been filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who, during a recent podcast interview, declined to specifically name the media outlet in question, but nonetheless said that there is a media outlet whose leader is based in Germany. And sources had told Mr. Corbell that we were backed by the CIA. It's obvious he's talking about the debrief because for many years, Tim did live in Germany, but now he no longer does. He and his family have recently moved to Italy. And I couldn't help but kind of laugh at the irony over the weekend because, yes, naturally, many people at the SCU event had seen this online, and they were jokingly coming up to me and saying, are you a CIA agent? We were all having a pretty good laugh at this. We were all laughing at the fact that while we're all sitting up there in Toronto and having serious discussions, there are people out there on social media who can do no better than propagate nonsensical conspiracy theories that have no basis whatsoever in reality. The saddest part to me, really, is that many of those people who were attacking Tim, and Tim, of course, taking all this in good humor, he's making a joke out of it himself. But many of the very ones who were attacking Tim and making the accusations about him being a CIA agent, they know me. They have my phone number. These people could reach out to me at any time if they ever wanted clarification on anything. About the Debrief, our operations, where we're based, what kind of backing we have, and of course, I've already made all this information completely available to the public. We are self funded through advertising revenue. I launched the company independently with Tim and our other partner, MJ Banias, in late 2020, after a couple of years of planning and all that after I had initially come to Tim with the idea for the site. I've often said that when I initially approached him with the idea and with the name the Debrief, if I'd had my way, we would have just been a UFO publication. But it was Tim who wisely said, let's cover a lot of other areas in emerging science and technology that will be better than limiting ourselves to the subject of uap. And Tim was very right on that point. And so once we as a team launched the site, almost immediately, as you can imagine, the conspiracy theories ensued. And I'll point out, over the years, the conspiracy theorists have not just been among the UFO faithful, the online activists, the social media stars, the UAP proponents and the grifters who are out there promoting any idea, however silly it may be, if it gets them clicks, if it gets them downloads, or whatever it is they're trying to promote. There are also those on the skeptical side of things. I have had people who I think you would call categorically skeptics, call me up and ask who is secretly funding the debrief? And I've told them, well, me and the credit card in my back pocket. I've had friends, longtime colleagues come up to me and say, how well do you really know Tim McMillan? And I want to say well. Well enough to see his kids sitting in his lap during video calls that we've had over the years, to see his wife come into the back of the room and ask him to come in there and help her with something in the middle of a meeting. The reality is Tim is a retired law enforcement officer and he is a stay at home dad who manages from his home, currently in Italy, the debrief's operations along with me. And I couldn't imagine a more admirable position for someone to hold than being a family man and an independent business owner. That's Tim McMillan. But for those conspiracy theorists out there, both on the skeptical side and of course the UFO advocacy side, they have to believe somewhere deep down that he is something more mysterious, more concerning, a CIA operative, and that the debrief couldn't be doing what it does in any way, shape or form without secret funding. From the US Intelligence community. Stop and let that sink in for a moment and how absurd all this is. And I'm literally traveling to an international event. I'm sitting there having dinner with Christopher Mellon, Canadian government officials, attorneys, scientists, and the former science advisor to the Pentagon's all Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. And one of the jokes that we're all laughing about that evening is the conspiracy theory that my team and I are CIA agents. Talk about. Surreal. But apart from it being somewhat funny, it does make for a good joke. And I'm appreciative of the fact that people up there in Toronto over the weekend, we're seeing it for what it is. Nonsense. This is unfortunate to me also because with all of the serious work that's being done to try and advance our understanding of the UAP issue, there are many out there who either don't realize the nonsense that they succumb to and how unhelpful it is that they continue to promote those nonsensical ideas, unfounded myths, rumors and conspiracy theories, or perhaps they know exactly what they're doing and they know that what they're saying isn't true, but they say it anyway. Why? Well, if that's the case, I'll let you be the judge. Why would people say nonsensical things that aren't true, especially when it gets a lot of attention? Oh, darn it. I let it slip, didn't I? I do think in many instances there are people who know better, but they say nonsense anyway because it gets them attention. But even more sad, in many other instances, these people actually believe this nonsense. It brings something to mind. There's a great quote from John Alexander that appeared in his book UFOs Myths, Conspiracies and Realities right at the very beginning. John Alexander gives us his requirements for researching UFOs, which seem extremely apropos right about now, and I want to share them with you. First of all, he says, one, being a UFO researcher requires a sense of humor. You will be attacked sooner or later. Second, it requires an understanding of conspiracy theory because you're now part of the plot. And three, finally a day job or to be independently wealthy. Nobody's making big money from the topic. I think John Alexander obviously has a better understanding of the UFO issue and what is required to be a UFO researcher than most. And I think that people out there who are reading about conspiracy theories involving secret CIA operations and other nonsense related to my company and my co founders and I, they should go back and read what John Alexander had to say about this in the aforementioned book, I think he had some great perspectives, and he is absolutely right. Understanding this topic also requires being able to understand conspiracy theory. Which brings us to a final question here in the very last few moments of the program. Why are conspiracy theories so prevalent when it comes to studying UFOs? Now, to be clear, UFOs or UAP are by no means the only subject that seems to appeal so much to conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists. But it is a topic that, like many scientific subjects, involves observations that are often brief, ambiguous, poorly documented. They involve classified information. They are technically difficult to interpret. And that much was clear to me from talking with Randy Bostick and others over the weekend. And so, in my opinion, it really seems that the ambiguity that is concomitant with the UAP topic is conducive to creating a very high uncertainty information environment. Kind of the same thing, you might say, as the low information zone the researcher Mick west often references, although he specifically is talking about the fact that UFO reports often fall into the low information zone. And essentially the less information we have, the more difficult it is for us to resolve a UFO sighting. Mick will often tell you that as long as we have videos and good data, 9 times out of 10, we can resolve a UFO sighting. But when someone tells you an incredible UFO report and they don't have any kind of imagery or anything else to back it up, all we're left with is essentially a very good story, but it's one that falls into the low information zone. So with UAP or UFOs, we have a high uncertainty, low information type environment, and humans, as we know, are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty. One of the other excellent speakers there at the event over the weekend was Dr. Christian Peters, a German political scientist, who I hope will actually be contributing there at the debrief for us very soon. But he looks at UAP through the lens of politics. And of course, politics is also an area where you often find a lot of conspiracy theories. But during his talk on Saturday, Christian Peters actually pointed out that politics essentially is humans grappling with uncertainty. And that to him is One reason why UFOs complementary the discussion of political science so well. And I was actually very captivated by his discussion because I fundamentally agree. And I think that when you start thinking of UAP in terms of political science, but you also recognize that Both politics and UFOs are very attractive to conspiracy theorists. It helps us to understand why so often conspiracy theories end up attaching themselves to this topic. Really. I think fundamentally humans are just uncomfortable with uncertainty when evidence is incomplete, our brains naturally begin filling in missing pieces. Sometimes that process produces reasonable hypotheses, but a lot more often it produces elaborate narratives that unfortunately are not always, if ever, based in fact. Or at least that's what my CIA handlers told me to say. Right? As always, follow my work online@thedebrief.org and@micah hanks.com for the here and now I'm wrapping things up. Thanks as always for being here. You guys take care. And until next time, stay strange out there.
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Sa.