Portland
Antifa response to rumored KKK rally turns into ‘dance party’; police arrest 3, look for vandalism suspect


Portland protest, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020

Douglas Perry | The Oregonian/OregonLive and Andrew Theen | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Three people were arrested following a lengthy demonstration in downtown Portland’s Lownsdale Square park Saturday afternoon, and police are searching for another individual who is believed to have vandalized a war memorial in an adjacent park.

Saturday’s demonstration came in response to a previous social media rumor that the Ku Klux Klan was organizing a white supremacy rally at or around the downtown Portland park Saturday.

No Klan rally took place. It’s not clear if an actual event had been organized.

Shortly after 8 a.m., Portland police tweeted, “The organizer for the [Klan] rally in front of the Multnomah County Courthouse has communicated to PPB he has cancelled the event planned for this morning and does not intend to show up. PPB continues to monitor the situation.”

Counter-protesters showed up regardless, including antifascist activists, or antifa.

According to police, officers attended the event and stayed away while it was peaceful, but officers intervened when “some people in the group began acting in a violent, threatening manner against attendees who were legally capturing photos and videos.”

Heaven Davis, 19, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief.

Brandon Farley, 31, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Willy Cannon, 25, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and abuse of a memorial to the dead.

“I want to acknowledge the community members who came down to peacefully assemble and exercise their freedom of speech rights,” Police Chief Jami Resch said in a statement. “Unfortunately, a group of people chose to engage in dangerous, illegal behavior. I appreciate the thoughtful, measured response by our officers and law enforcement partners.”

Resch said the rally meant that other areas of the city were “negatively impacted” because officers were downtown for the event.

A driver struck a pedestrian at Southwest 2nd Avenue and Madison, but it’s not clear whether that was related to the demonstration. The pedestrian suffered non-life threatening injuries.

Three people were treated for pepper spray exposure, which police said was deployed by “community members.” The police agency said in a statement that officers “did not use force against anyone during this event.”

But officers said demonstrators had weapons. Some used “Metal-tipped umbrellas” to “jab people," police said, and “chase them down the street."

Cops said that rocks, concrete, batons, food and cans were thrown at officers and other attendees during the four-hour event.

Police also circulated a photo of a person clad in all black spray-painting the war memorial.

But those attendees were not the bulk of the demonstrators Saturday.

Most of the 200 or so mask-wearing people at downtown Portland’s Lownsdale Square late Saturday morning were there to tap their feet to the live band that was playing. And to eat pizza, boxes of which were delivered shortly after police made an arrest of someone "engaging in criminal activity.”


“Criminals!” screamed a man wearing a bandana over his face.

“Fascists!” yelled another.

“I just came for the dance party,” said a third, quietly, before he laughed uproariously.

Pointing weapons at a group of people on the sidewalk is NOT de-escalating the situation.
The Portland Police are intentionally provoking a fight.
It's time to go home and declare today a win. There's SO MUCH more work to be done together. https://t.co/zrRD69oKcY— PopMob (Popular Mobilization) (@PopMobPDX) February 8, 2020



A band plays at an anti fascist gathering in downtown #Portland pic.twitter.com/p6VnlUqnYq— Douglas Perry (@douglasmperry) February 8, 2020

Portland police reported that some of the partiers, before they started partying, used pepper spray on others at the park and, when the police arrived, threw “objects” at the officers.

“Some demonstrators possess weapons, including bats and pepper spray,” Portland police tweeted as the event got underway. “Criminal activity will not be tolerated.”

The march was supposed to disband around noon. Shortly before 1 p.m., police tweeted that what appeared to be lit flares were being thrown into the roadway near Lownsdale Square. Shortly after, officials said people were seen “actively defacing” a monument within Chapman Square Park with what appeared to be spray paint, leading to more arrests. By the time the crowds disbanded, at least three people had been arrested.

- Douglas Perry and Andrew Theen

A band plays at an anti fascist gathering in downtown #Portland

Man who fractured transgender woman’s skull for using public restroom sentenced to nearly 6 years

Updated Feb 07, 2020

Lauren Jackson.


By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh | The Oregonian/OregonLive

An Idaho man who brutally beat a transgender woman after she used a women’s bathroom at an Oregon coast park was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in prison.

Fred Costanza, 37, was was convicted by a Lincoln County jury last month of second-degree assault and harassment in the Aug. 24 attack that shattered Lauren Jackson’s jaw and fractured her skull, court records show.


The jury also found Costanza guilty of a first-degree bias crime under Oregon’s newly overhauled hate crime law, which includes protections for those who identify as transgender.



Transgender woman beaten over bathroom use on Oregon coast is healing, flourishing

“I’m in the best place in my life, even after this attack,” Lauren Jackson told The Oregonian/OregonLive. Seth Costanza, her suspected attacker, faces a felony hate crime.

Circuit Judge Sheryl Bachart handed Costanza a 70-month sentence, the mandatory minimum for second-degree assault, a Measure 11 crime, and ordered the defendant pay restitution for the injuries Jackson suffered.

“I feel so supported and validated," Jackson told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “This kind of behavior isn’t OK."

Fred Joseph Costanza (Lincoln County Sheriff's Office)

According to witnesses, Costanza walked over 100 yards across Agate Beach State Recreation Site in Newport to confront Jackson, 29, after she used the women’s public restroom at the park.

The man pulled Jackson by the hair and struck her more than 10 times before leaving the park with his wife, witnesses told police.

Jackson, who was visiting Oregon for the first time, spent the next week in the hospital. She has since settled in the Portland area.

In an interview Friday, Jackson said she hopes to use her experience to “make the world a safer place for transgender people.”

“We all deserve to be able to exist, and to be happy,” she said.

Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn’s new book examines a nationwide crisis unfolding in Yamhill, Oregon: 

Beat Check podcast Today 7:00 AM


Beat Check with The Oregonian is a weekly podcast produced and hosted by reporter

Andrew Theen | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Nicholas Kristof didn’t have to escape Yamhill, Oregon, on his way to some of the world’s most prestigious universities and eventually a vaunted columnist gig at the New York Times.

Kristof came from a family with tons of human capital – parents with good jobs, who instilled the importance of education in him from an early age.

But many of his friends and classmates weren’t so lucky.

“Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope,” a new book by Kristof and his wife, fellow Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Sheryl WuDunn, describes the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Yamhill and elsewhere in the United States -- one not so different from those the journalistic power couple have covered internationally.

On the latest episode of Beat Check with The Oregonian, Kristof and WuDunn explain why they decided to focus on Kristof’s childhood town and why they still have hope for an American revival despite the abundant evidence of societal strife they documented.

Many of the dozens of kids who rode his Number 6 school bus to the rural country school Kristof attended, are gone. And the blame for their deaths of despair – by drugs, depression, suicide or obesity, Kristof and WuDunn argue –should be shared by the country of their birth.

Their parents lost blue collar jobs amid an ever-changing economy. A toxic combination of drugs and alcohol, domestic violence, school dropouts and unexpected children led to what amounts in some cases to generational family tragedies. In their book, they argue that the social safety net has failed generations of Americans and that society has turned its back on millions, casting blame at their feet.

We also talked about The Oregonian’s Samantha Swindler’s coverage of a U.S. Bank employee, and her supervisor, who were fired for helping a customer who was waiting on funds to become available by bringing him $20 hours before Christmas.

Here’s the full episode:


You can subscribe to Beat Check with The Oregonian on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

See Mount St. Helens erupt through art, at new Portland Art Museum exhibition

Posted Feb 09, 2020 By Jamie Hale | The Oregonian/OregonLive


Lucinda Parker, courtesy of the artist and Russo Lee Gallery

You've seen Mount St. Helens from afar, or maybe on a trail up close. You may have seen it before it erupted or long after its north face exploded.

But you've never seen Mount St. Helens quite like this.

On Feb. 8, the Portland Art Museum will open a new exhibition called "Volcano!" dedicated to the southwest Washington mountain that erupted in dramatic fashion 40 years ago this spring.

With modern art, photography and some of the oldest surveyor sketches around, the exhibition puts a broad spotlight on St. Helens – before, during and after its famous eruption on May 18, 1980.

"Basically, the exhibition is a survey of images of Mount St. Helens in art," curator Dawson Carr said. "The exhibition is going to take people through one big cycle in the life of a volcano."

Carr usually curates exhibitions of European art before 1900, but as a self-professed volcano nut he couldn't pass up the chance to dig into the art portraying one of the biggest eruptions in modern history.



Albert Bierstadt, courtesy of The L.D. "Brink" Brinkman Collection

An 1889 painting of Mount St. Helens by Albert Bierstadt.



Emmet Gowin, Courtesy of Pace/MacGill

A 1983 photograph by Emmet Gowin titled "Debris Flow at the Northern Base of Mount St. Helens, Looking South" that will appear in "Volcano!"



Henk Pander, City of Portland Public Art Collection, courtesy of the Regional Arts and Culture Council

This 1981 painting of the Mount St. Helens eruption by Henk Pander belongs to the City of Portland.


While initially conceived as a more general exhibition of volcanic imagery from across time and around the world, the museum quickly settled on the idea of focusing on a single local volcano instead, and one that Pacific Northwest residents know particularly well.

Both images and ash from the erupting volcano spread around the world in 1980, making St. Helens a household name globally. In the decades since, those who live near the mountain have grown to know its new, flatter profile and the desolate flanks still recovering from disaster.

The three faces of the mountain – before, during and after the eruption – have offered a wide variety of artistic inspiration. In the "Volcano!" exhibit, you'll find dreamy paintings made in the 19th century, when newly arrived white settlers captured its perfectly conical peak, as well as paintings made in recent years that take a more modern and sometimes abstract approach.

That variety of styles also demonstrates the broad appeal of volcanoes, which have captivated artists for hundreds of years, Carr said.

"They're so beyond human power and imagination," he said of volcanic eruptions. "They're threatening, but at the same time they're so awesome and visually impressive that you have fear mixed with a kind of pleasurable terror."

That mixed emotion was once referred to as "the sublime," Carr said, and was applied to the famously dark and dramatic paintings of the eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius by artists like Joseph Wright and Pierre-Jacques Volaire.

Some of the Mount St. Helens art in the exhibition shares a similar darkness, but many paintings are done in bright, vibrant colors instead, some even reflecting the urban environments that were so close to (though never truly threatened by) the eruption.


The exhibition primarily features work from Pacific Northwest artists, including painters Lucinda Parker, Henk Pander and George Johanson.






Portland Art Museum

Inside the new "Volcano!" exhibition at the Portland Art Museum.



Emmet Gowin, Courtesy of Pace/MacGill

A 1983 photograph titled "Ash over New Snow, The South Flank of Mount St. Helens, Washington" by Emmet Gowin.



George Johanson, courtesy of the artist

This colorful 1984 painting of the Mount St. Helens eruption by George Johanson will appear in "Volcano!" at the Portland Art Museum.


Those paintings stand in stark contrast to some of the fine art photography in the exhibit, including work by Emmett Gowin, Frank Gohlke and Marilyn Bridges, much of which shows the volcano in the years immediately following its eruption. Apocalyptic imagery fills the frames, which highlight debris flows, a smoking crater and ash-covered snow. Rich textures draw the eye to what is ultimately a scene of utter destruction.

"These photographs of the aftermath are just as apocalyptic as the eruption itself," Carr said.

It can be easy to get sucked into images of destruction, but in the end "Volcano!" showcases the mountain's present and future – particularly the astonishingly fast return of life that has surprised even the researchers tasked with studying it.

Mount St. Helens has undergone many transformations in a short time, and continues to change before our eyes. That's exactly what makes it such a captivating artistic subject, said Ian Gillingham, spokesman for the Portland Art Museum.

"The way that the mountain has regenerated itself has been shocking," Gillingham said. "I'm hoping through these different artistic views you get an idea of what's happening through the changes in the biology and morphology of the mountain."

It may ultimately be a story of regrowth, but it's the art inspired by the mountain's eruption that remains the most powerful.

People are just drawn to images of catastrophe, and to erupting volcanoes in particular. There's a reason the new exhibit isn't built around any of the other volcanoes nearby, say, Mount Hood or the Three Sisters.

Volcanic eruptions are simply "stupendous events" to depict, Carr said. "They're really beyond the shadow of any doubt the most visually spectacular of nature's displays of power."


“Volcano!” will be on display from Feb. 8 to May 17, 2020, at the Portland Art Museum. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $20 for adults, $17 for students and seniors and free for kids. The museum is located at 1219 S.W. Park Ave., Portland. Get more information online at portlandartmuseum.org or call 503-226-2811.

--Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB

UFO briefings for Trump, senators followed Navy’s 2019 ‘Tic Tac’ statement

UFO

by: Greg Haas

Posted: Feb 8, 2020 / 06:44 AM PST / Updated: Feb 7, 2020 / 01:56 PM PST

MYSTERY WIRE — The US Navy announcement in May, 2019, that the UFO video of the “Tic Tac” was authentic was received many different ways.

There was an element of “I told you so” among the UFO community.

Tom DeLonge, who had some influence in the 2017 release of that video, was quoted by the New York Times as saying it was “long overdue.”

And in official government circles, things began to move in ways that the public had never seen before. Among the biggest steps: The president and several senators were briefed by the Pentagon.

Trump acknowledged the briefing when asked about it by ABC News. “I did have one very brief meeting on it,” he said. “But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”

Among the senators who were briefed: Mark Warner of Virginia, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Politico and many other national news organizations reported the story:

READ: Senators get classified briefing on UFO sightings

That report indicates high interest among members of Congress.

There are people coming out of the woodwork.

FORMER GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL QUOTED BY POLITICO

Another intelligence official told Politico, “More requests for briefings are coming in.”

In a recent interview, UFO historian Richard Dolan said that the briefings would have been “the story of the decade” in years past. But it came amid a flurry of information following the Navy’s announcement in May.

CNN also reported the story, and provided background on more military sightings of UFOs.

“It’s easy to laugh at this, easy to think it’s silly, or it’s just a bunch of hokum out there. But Senator Mark Warner, who is the vice chair of the intelligence committee, said, “Look, I think it’s important,” he told us just this afternoon. “I think it’s important that the military is taking this more seriously now than they did in the past.”

CNN’S TOM FOREMAN

Lt. Danny Aucoin, a Navy pilot, described to CNN what he saw during one of the sightings off the East Coast. “No distinct wings, no distinct tail.” No distinct exhaust. Seemed like they were aware of our presence, because they would actively move around us.”

‘Victim of the Beast 666’ headstone a puzzle in Utah history

MYSTERY WIRE — The Salt Lake City Cemetery holds a mystery.

In a far northeastern corner, a grave marker with an inscription:

LILLY E. GRAY
JUNE 6, 1881-NOV. 14, 1958
VICTIM OF THE BEAST 666

The Utah Division of Archives and Records Service has followed the mystery into the state’s extensive records, but there’s no definitive explanation there. More detailed records of Lilly Gray’s life come from research by Jennifer Jones for The Dead History.

READ: Lilly Gray: Victim of the Beast 666

The birth date on the headstone is inaccurate, with records showing she was born June 4, 1880, in Ontario, Canada, to Wilmer and Francis Gray. She had a twin sister named Ethel. The family moved to Michigan shortly after the birth of the twins.

No record of Lilly surfaces until her 1918 marrage to Richard C. Walsh in Chicago. Richard died in 1925.

Lilly married again, less than a year later. Her husband was Frank Zimmerman, and they both worked at a post office in Chicago. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1943.

How she met her next husband, Elmer Gray, remains a mystery. She moved to Salt Lake City in 1950 for unknown reasons, and they married at the courthouse in Elko, Nevada, on July 11, 1952. Elmer was 71 and Lilly was 72.

While Elmer had numerous run-ins with the law previously, he settled down in marriage.

Lilly died of natural causes on the date inscribed on the headstone. Elmer lived on for nearly six more years. He died of a stroke on Halloween, 1964. He is buried in the same cemetery, but in a different area.

Jones writes in the Urban Legends section for The Dead History that Lilly Gray seemed to have a normal life, and that Elmer is responsible for the inscription. Concluding that Elmer Gray was a troubled man, Jones reports that the inscription probably had more to do with Elmer’s medical condition more than a hatred for the government, as some have speculated:

The truth behind Lilly’s headstone doesn’t involve murder, cults, or devil worship. Just an elderly man who had trouble staying on the right side of the law, and probably suffered from some mental effects of Parkinson’s Disease.

The Dead History account indicates that Elmer Gray used an alias during his troubled past, but had resumed using the name Gray by the time he met Lilly, who was Lilly Zimmerman at the time.

Luis Elizondo keeps his distance from ufologists for a reason
UFO

Luis Elizondo led AATIP – the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program – when he worked for the Pentagon. He left a career to widen the discussion about UFOs, something that became impossible within government. In his second extended interview with investigative reporter George Knapp, Elizondo opens up on subjects he wouldn’t discuss before. Previously unaired, this interview was recorded June 27, 2018, in Las Vegas. First of 9 Parts.


by: George KnappPosted: Jan 16, 2020 / 11:33 AM PST / Updated: Jan 16, 2020 / 06:15 PM PST

George Knapp: Lue when we spoke last December, first time sitting right here, you had told me you were pretty much unfamiliar with the UFO community at large, and on purpose. You didn’t know this community and how it reacted. Now that you’ve had eight months, often being pounded by these folks, what are your thoughts?

THE INTERVIEW
Luis Elizondo keeps his distance from ufologists for a reason
Sorting out the AATIP, AAWSAP and BAASS UFO studies with Luis Elizondo
AATIP’s UFO findings more than Pentagon admits, Luis Elizondo says
Seeing the big picture crucial to UFO discussions, Luis Elizondo says
AAWSAP got UFO studies – and a lot more – started in 2007
Forces at Skinwalker Ranch may confound science … but not forever
Luis Elizondo on what should be secret, and studying ‘metamaterial’
To The Stars Academy knows more UFO videos are out there
Public role has tortured him, but Luis Elizondo saw it as the only way

Luis Elizondo: Well, that largely remains true to this day. I have purposely continued to try to sequester myself from from the rest of the larger community on purpose. It’s not that they don’t have anything good to say, I’m sure they do. But I am consciously trying to avoid having any type of analytic bias introduced into the analysis of the data that we’re engaged in. So what do I mean by that? You get a report, you look at the report, and there are some data points in there. And as you’re trying to conduct analysis on those data points, all of a sudden, subconsciously, you recall, maybe a conversation or an interview with somebody on TV. And all of a sudden now, without even trying to do it deliberately, some of those analytic bias now are being superimposed on your ability to analyze the data in a fair and objective way. And again, it’s not that these individuals aren’t smart or they don’t have anything good to say. A lot of them are exceptionally smart, in fact, probably a lot smarter than I am. But in the same respect, I really try to limit myself in being exposed to outside data points and innuendos, and suppositions. I personally don’t find that helpful. I think alternative analysis is critical. I think someone coming in with an opposing view is very, very important. But I, again, for me, I’ve always tried to lean towards just the facts, just the data. And leaving what my opinions are, try to leave those on the side because in the end, it doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what the data says.

Knapp: You know, you could pretty much predict how the mainstream science guys — (Neil deGrasse) Tyson and those folks — are going to react to this. Dismissive as they’ve always been. The UFO people, it would seem like almost a surprise that they are so, not just alternate opinions, but hostile. As an intelligence guy or counterintel guy, how would you characterize that? I mean, is that a predictable kind of a thing?

WHO IS LUIS ELIZONDO? Read our dossier on his role in UFO investigations

Elizondo: It is. And I think it’s not just the UFO community or anybody else. I think anybody who has a preconceived notion of what something should be, and we saw this, even in DoD with senior leadership. They get an idea in their head and they think this is the way it’s going to be. It’s very hard to come in with a different narrative and expect people to just accept it. Because they spent a lot of time and effort in formulating these theories and these opinions, and in some cases you have some folks who’ve made actually very successful cottage industries. Pushing an agenda so people will, in essence, follow their narrative. And then all of a sudden you have some information that contradicts that And it can be a hard pill to swallow. And really you have two choices: either a get on board or fight it, and sometimes fight it violently. And we’ve seen that. We’ve seen individuals who are absolutely opposed to what we’re doing because in their opinion, it does not conform to the narrative that they have been been pushing for a long time. Now, you said something that I would like to address as well concerning folks like Mr. deGrasse Tyson, the very famous very, very intelligent physicist. Keep in mind, he and others are also subject to the same analytic bias. Let’s let’s look at it this way. Here’s a gentleman who spent a good portion of his younger career, proving the existence of something that by definition can never be observed. This is a man who spent a good portion of his career proving the existence of black holes that by definition, can’t be observed directly. The only way you can observe them is through the indirect measurements and direct measurements of how that black hole affects its environment, right, and perturbs the orbits of other things. And these things are millions of light years away. And so, here it is, you have a scientific-minded individual, proving the existence of something that we’ll never see in our lifetime. And yet something that is here on Earth that people are saying is occurring that you cannot see directly, not everybody anyways, all of a sudden now is too far of a reach. Right? And so I think we all have to pay attention to analytic bias. And again, back to the reason why I purposely do not pay attention much to the folks outside of the scientific community when it comes to data collection. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter about what your opinions are and what your feelings are. It matters what the data says. And that’s the only way we’re going to get ahead and that’s been so far the key, at least I think in our case. The key to our success here in TTSA is that we are facts-driven. It doesn’t matter what any one of us personally believes or thinks or anything else. It’s what can be observed and what can be extrapolated from that data.

Knapp: TTSA has taken some lumps. Tom has taken some lumps, unfairly to a large degree. I mean, when you look at what has happened since you stepped on that stage last October, it’s amazing change in the national conversation about this topic. TTSA is a driving force in that.

Elizondo: I’d like to think we are “a” driving force. I don’t think we are “the” driving force. I think to try to figure out what is the driving force, you have to look at it collectively. And George, I’d say you’re part of that driving force. I’d say people like Bob Bigelow, who’s been doing this long before AATIP became public, and he had his nose to the grinding wheel pursuing this endeavor. And and folks like Senator Harry Reid and Stevens and Inouye. Folks who believed in this enough, and who wanted to protect their country enough that they were willing to invest their time, resources and their reputations into an otherwise really, really sticky portfolio. A portfolio that a lot of people just don’t want to talk about because it’s surrounded by stigma, right? And that stigma is a political killer. It’s a career killer. It’s a, you know, there’s nothing good about it. You don’t get into this portfolio thinking, “Hey, I’m going to make a name for myself.” In fact, it’s probably either going to get you fired or it’s going to get you ostracized or it’s going to get you nowhere that you want to go. Fast.

NEXT STORY: Sorting out the AATIP, AAWSAP and BAASS UFO studies with Luis Elizondo


Copyright 2020 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Historian ‘shocked’ at media’s new attitude toward UFOs - Part 1UFO / 4 days ago

UFO briefings, ‘Unidentified,’ and soft disclosure: Historian analyzes information flow -- Part 2UFO / 4 days ago  

‘UFO leak of the century’ contained in 15-page document, historian says -- Part 3UFO / 4 days ago

Arizona UFO incident in 1953 followed Nevada explosions; radar blamedUFO / 6 days ago

The Navy cryptically says it has top-secret UFO briefings that would cause 'exceptionally grave damage' to US national security if published

Sinéad Baker  Jan 15, 2020

An image from a video filmed by US Navy pilots in 2015 showing pilots reacting to a flying object. US Department of Defense/Business Insider


The Navy says it has material about UFOs that, if released, "would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States."
The Navy said it "discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET" in response to a freedom-of-information request, which asked about a series of videos that showed pilots baffled by mysterious, fast objects in the sky.
The Navy previously confirmed it was treating these objects as UFOs — which means they are being treated as unexplained but not necessarily extraterrestrial.

One of the videos was published by published by The New York Times in 2017, and pilots told The Times they saw the objects accelerate, stop, and turn in ways that went beyond known aerospace technology.

The Navy has said it has top-secret information about unidentified flying objects that could cause "exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States" if released.

A Navy representative responded to a Freedom of Information Act request sent by a researcher named Christian Lambright by saying the Navy had "discovered certain briefing slides that are classified TOP SECRET," Vice reported last week.

But the representative from the Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence said "the Original Classification Authority has determined that the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States."

The person also said the Navy had at least one related video classified as "SECRET."

Vice said it independently verified the response to Lambright's request with the Navy.


Lambright's request for information was related to a series of videos showing Navy pilots baffled by mysterious, fast objects in the sky.

The Navy previously confirmed it was treating these objects as UFOs.

An image from a 2004 video filmed near San Diego showing a UFO. CNN/Department of Defense

The term UFO, along with others like "unidentified aerial phenomena" and "unidentified flying object," does not necessarily mean the object is thought to be extraterrestrial. Many such sightings ultimately end up having logical and earthly explanations — often involving military technology.

A spokeswoman for the Pentagon had also previously told The Black Vault, a civilian-run archive of government documents, that the videos "were never officially released to the general public by the DOD and should still be withheld."


The Department of Defense videos show pilots confused by what they are seeing. In one video, a pilot said: "What the f--- is that thing?"

The Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough said this week that an investigation into "sightings is ongoing."

Joseph Gradisher, the Navy's spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, told The Black Vault last year: "The Navy has not publicly released characterizations or descriptions, nor released any hypothesis or conclusions, in regard to the objects contained in the referenced videos."

According to The Black Vault, Gradisher said the Department of Defense videos were filmed in 2004 and 2015. The New York Times also reported that one of the videos was from 2004.

You can watch the 2004 video here, as shared by To the Stars Academy, a UFO research group cofounded by Tom deLonge from the rock group Blink-182:


One of the videos was shared by The New York Times in December 2017, with one commander who saw the object on a training mission telling The Times "it accelerated like nothing I've ever seen."


Another pilot told the outlet: "These things would be out there all day."

Pilots told The Times that the objects could accelerate, stop, and turn in ways that went beyond known aerospace technology. Many of the pilots who spoke with The Times were part of a Navy flight squadron known as the "Red Rippers," and they reported the sightings to the Pentagon and Congress.

"Navy pilots reported to their superiors that the objects had no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes, but that they could reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds," the Times report said.

Scientists also told The Times they were skeptical that these videos showed anything extraterrestrial.


Gough, the Pentagon spokeswoman, would not comment to Vice on whether the 2004 source video that the Navy possessed had any more information than the one that has been circulating online, but she said that it was the same length and that the Pentagon did not plan on releasing it.

An image from the 2015 video. NYT

John Greenewald, the curator of The Black Vault, told Vice in September that he was surprised the Navy had classified the objects as unidentified.

"I very much expected that when the US military addressed the videos, they would coincide with language we see on official documents that have now been released, and they would label them as 'drones' or 'balloons,'" he said.

"However, they did not. They went on the record stating the 'phenomena' depicted in those videos, is 'unidentified.' That really made me surprised, intrigued, excited, and motivated to push harder for the truth."

US President Donald Trump said in June that he had been briefed on the fact that Navy pilots were reporting increased sightings of UFOs.

SEE ALSO: Here's why the Pentagon is so interested in UFO sightings

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The UFO Sightings that Pushed the UK to Take 'Flying Saucers' More Seriously

The incidents interrupted Exercise Mainbrace, a massive set of NATO war-game maneuvers.

DAVE ROOS  JAN 15, 2020

In late September 1952, only months after a rash of “flying saucer” sightings over Washington, D.C. made headlines around the world, dozens of military officers participating in NATO exercises in the North Atlantic were struck by their own UFO fever.

Exercise Mainbrace was the largest peacetime military exercise since World War II. The war-game-style maneuvers simulated NATO’s response to a mock attack on Europe, presumably by the Soviet Union. The Mainbrace operation involved 200 ships, 1,000 planes and 80,000 soldiers from multiple NATO countries—including large deployments from the United States and the United Kingdom.

In a year dominated by news reports of UFO sightings, Pentagon officials half-joked with Naval Intelligence that they should keep an eye out for aliens during the NATO exercises, said Edward Ruppelt, the U.S. Air Force captain in charge of the top-secret Project Blue Book UFO investigations.

As it turns out, they weren’t off base. “[N]o one really expected the UFOs to show up,” Ruppelt wrote in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. “Nevertheless, once again the UFOs were their old unpredictable selves—they were there.”

READ MORE: Interactive Map: UFO Sightings Taken Seriously by the U.S. Government
Not a weather balloon




The USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, where one of the Mainbrace sightings was made.

The National Archives

The first Mainbrace encounter came on September 13 when the captain and crew of a Danish destroyer spotted a triangular-shaped object moving through the night sky at alarming speeds. The unidentified craft emitted a blue glow and was estimated by Lieutenant Commander Schmidt Jensen to be traveling upward of 900 miles per hour.


On September 20, an American newspaper reporter named Wallace Litwin was aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier participating in the Mainbrace exercises, when he saw a commotion on deck: several pilots and flight-crew members pointing at a silver sphere in the sky that appeared to be following the fleet. Litwin quickly shot four color photos of the round object, which he assumed was a weather balloon.

In a letter to a UFO investigator years later, Litwin recounts that he went below deck and joked with fellow newspaper correspondents that he had just “shot a flying saucer.” This caught the attention of the ship’s executive officer, who informed Litwin that no weather balloons had been released that day. The officer then radioed the Midway, the only other ship in the vicinity, which also confirmed that no weather balloons were in the air or unaccounted for.

“In other words, the skies above this NATO fleet were very carefully observed and nothing flew around overhead unobserved,” wrote Litwin, “But I knew that I had taken a picture (4) of what looked like a ping-pong ball 10 feet over my head.”

Ruppelt and the Project Blue Book team followed up with the Navy and interviewed members of the flight-deck crew. Some dismissed it as a weather balloon, while others had their doubts.

“It was traveling too fast, and although it resembled a balloon in some ways,” wrote Ruppelt. And “it was far from being identical to the hundreds of balloons that the crew had seen the aerologists launch.”


READ MORE: Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified 'Close Encounters'
The Topcliffe sighting: ‘faster than a shooting star’



A British Meteor fighter jet circa 1950s, similar to the aircraft that the RAF's encountered the Topcliffe UFO.

SSPL/Getty Images

The most perplexing sighting—the one that may have single-handedly relaunched the British military’s interest in UFOs—was reported by a half-dozen Royal Air Force (RAF) officers and air crew based in Topcliffe, Yorkshire, England.

It took place on September 19, as a British Meteor fighter jet was returning to the Topcliffe airfield from exercises over the North Sea. When the plane had descended to 5,000 feet, crew on the ground spotted a silvery, circular object traveling several thousand feet above the Meteor, but on its same trajectory.

In a report preserved in the National Archives, RAF Flight Lieutenant John Kilburn of 269 Squadron said the object then began to descend toward the Meteor, “swinging in a pendular motion…similar to a falling sycamore leaf.” At first, Kilburn thought it was a parachute or engine cowling that had broken loose from the jet.

Then the object stopped suddenly in mid-air, rotated on its own axis and zipped off at incredible speeds over the horizon.

“The acceleration was in excess of that of a shooting star,” reported Kilburn. “I have never seen such a phenomenon before. The movements of the object were not identifiable with anything I have seen in the air.”

Unlike previous UFO sightings kept hush-hush by the RAF and Royal Navy, the Topcliffe sighting was leaked to the press—and splashed across the front page of Sunday newspapers. “‘Saucer’ Chased RAF Jet Plane,” reported the Sunday Dispatch with a photo of five of the airmen, including Kilburn.

The circus-like publicity surrounding the Topcliffe incident put the British military intelligence in a difficult spot. They couldn’t ignore questions from the press, but they also weren’t interested in a serious investigation into UFOs. They’d already been down that road.

READ MORE: UFO Stories
The secret UFO report shared with Churchill



A letter from Winston Churchill to the Secretary for Air, dated July 28, 1952, requesting an explanation on flying saucers.

The National Archives UK

While conducting research in the UK National Archives in 2001 for a book called Out of the Shadows: UFOs, the Establishment & the Official Cover-Up, British journalist and UFO investigator David Clarke made an incredible discovery. Despite officials’ repeated denials that they existed, he uncovered documents that referenced top-secret UK government UFO investigations.

The six-page report from the Ministry of Defence’s Directorate of Scientific Intelligence (the equivalent of the CIA in America), dated June 1951, was produced by a top-secret panel of military-intelligence experts known as the “Flying Saucer Working Party.”

According to the report, the five-member team had been meeting since 1950 to analyze reports of unexplained sightings from RAF and Royal Navy pilots. The Flying Saucer Working Party, much like the Air Force higher-ups overseeing the Project Blue Book investigations in America, dismissed all sightings by experienced military personnel as either “mistaken identification of conventional aircraft,” “optical illusions and psychological delusions,” known “astronomical or meteorological phenomena” or “deliberate hoaxes.”


The clandestine team concluded that the only way to get substantiated data on UFOs would be to establish a global network of radar stations and photographers continuously monitoring the sky for aberrations.

“We should regard this, on the evidence so far available, as a singularly profitless enterprise,” they wrote. “We accordingly recommend very strongly that no further investigation of reported mysterious aerial phenomena be undertaken, unless and until some material evidence becomes available.”

This was the conclusion shared with Winston Churchill when he fired off a memo in the summer of 1952 reading, “What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience.” Churchill was shown the top-secret report and the topic of UFO investigations was briefly laid to rest. That is, until Exercise Mainbrace.

READ MORE: The Time Winston Churchill Wrote About Aliens
Mainbrace revives British UFO investigations—sort of

In the wake of the Topcliffe sighting and resulting newspaper coverage, the British military intelligence was forced to “officially recognize the UFO,” according to Ruppelt of Project Blue Book. In 1953, the British Air Ministry established a “UFO desk” within the Deputy Directorate of Intelligence known cryptically as “AI3.” From then on, all unexplained sightings by British military personnel would be controlled internally, classified as “restricted” and not shared with the press.



A chart of various UFO sightings from the 1950s through the 70s in the U.S. and U.K.

The National Archives UK

Clarke, for one, isn’t surprised that dozens of sailors and airmen spotted unidentified and unexplainable aerial phenomena during two weeks of high-stakes exercises.

“You have all these military personnel on high alert looking for potential intruder aircraft,” he says. “There’s a good chance they’re going to see things that might have otherwise been ignored.”

As to the seriousness of the British military’s investigations into Topcliffe and later UFO sightings, Clarke cites a newspaper clipping published months after the Mainbrace exercises where a reporter pressed an Air Ministry official for the results of their investigation. The official said he had “no idea” if the investigation was ongoing or if its conclusions would be shared with the public.

“Was there any chance that it might turn out to be a flying saucer?” wrote the reporter. “One gathered from the low chuckle of the official that there was not the remotest chance. ‘We take those stories with a large spoon of salt, old boy,’ he said.”

UPDATED:

JAN 15, 2020

ORIGINAL:

NOV 19, 2018

Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO 'Close Encounters'

When the U.S. government tapped the academic to help investigate UFOs, he was initially a skeptic. But not for long.

GREG DAUGHERTY

Denver Post/Getty Images

Nevada County Police Blotter: UFO’s spotted in the sky

News | February 9, 202

NEVADA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

Saturday

4:12 a.m. — A caller from Rough and Ready Highway reported former friend stole some necklaces from her unlocked vehicle.

5:46 a.m. — A caller from Big Blue Road reported 20 white colored UFO’s appearing in the sky and heading south.

THE CALLER SAW SOMETHING

#UFO FIRST WORD IS 'UNIDENTIFIED' THERE IS NEVER ANY MENTION OF ALIENS OR GREYS OR LITTLE GREEN MEN. 

SUCH PHENOMENA COULD BE THE SAME AS TRADITIONS OF FAIRY FOLK AND THE LIKE 

SEE JACQUE VALLEE 

Jacques Vallee - Passport to Magonia PDF