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The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force Franc Milburn Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 183 THE BEGIN-SADAT CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 183 The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force Franc Milburn The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force Franc Milburn © The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002 Israel Tel. 972-3-5318959 Fax. 972-3-5359195 [email protected] www.besacenter.org ISSN 0793-1042 November 2020 Cover image: Screen capture of US Navy footage of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, US Department of Defense The Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies is an independent, non-partisan think tank conducting policy-relevant research on Middle Eastern and global strategic affairs, particularly as they relate to the national security and foreign policy of Israel and regional peace and stability. It is named in memory of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, whose efforts in pursuing peace laid the cornerstone for conflict resolution in the Middle East. Mideast Security and Policy Studies serve as a forum for publication or re-publication of research conducted by BESA associates. Publication of a work by BESA signifies that it is deemed worthy of public consideration but does not imply endorsement of the author’s views or conclusions. Colloquia on Strategy and Diplomacy summarize the papers delivered at conferences and seminars held by the Center for the academic, military, official and general publics. In sponsoring these discussions, the BESA Center aims to stimulate public debate on, and consideration of, contending approaches to problems of peace and war in the Middle East. The Policy Memorandum series consists of policy- oriented papers. The content of the publications reflects the views of the authors only. A list of recent BESA Center publications can be found at the end of this booklet. International Advisory Board Founder of the Center and Chairman of the Advisory Board: Dr. Thomas O. Hecht Vice Chairman: Mr. Saul Koschitzky Members: Ms. Marion Hecht, Mr. Robert Hecht, Prof. Riva Heft-Hecht, Hon. Shlomo Hillel, Mr. Joel Koschitzky, Amb. Yitzhak Levanon, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Mr. Robert K. Lifton, Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney, Mr. Seymour D. Reich, Mr. Greg Rosshandler, Amb. Zalman Shoval, Amb. Norman Spector, Ms. Drorit Wertheim International Academic Advisory Board Prof. Ian Beckett University of Kent, Dr. Eliot A. Cohen Johns Hopkins University, Prof. Irwin Cotler McGill University, Prof. Steven R. David Johns Hopkins University, Prof. Lawrence Freedman King’s College, Prof. Patrick James University of Southern California, Prof. Robert J. Lieber Georgetown University, Prof. Michael Mandelbaum Johns Hopkins University Research Staff BESA Center Director: Prof. Efraim Karsh Research Associates: Mr. Emil Avdaliani Dr. Efrat Aviv, Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Bartal, Mr. Edwin Black, Dr. Yael Bloch-Elkon, Col (Res.) Dr. Raphael G. Bouchnik-Chen, Brig. Gen. (res.) Moni Chorev, Dr. Edy Cohen, Dr. James Dorsey, Dr. Gil Feiler, Prof. Jonathan Fox, Prof. Hillel Frisch, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, Prof. Eytan Gilboa, Dr. Gabriel Glickman, Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, Col. (res.) Aby Har-Even, Eado Hecht, Dr. Tsilla Hershco, Dr. Doron Itzchakov, Dr. Alex Joffe, Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Mr. Yaakov Lappin, Prof. Udi Lebel, Dr. Alon Levkowitz, Prof. Ze’ev Maghen, Dr. Mark Meirowitz, Ambassador Arye Mekel, Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Raphael Ofek, Mr. Amir Rapaport, Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, Col. (res.) Dr. Uzi Rubin, Dr. Jonathan Rynhold, Prof. Shmuel Sandler, Dr. Yechiel Shabiy, Dr. Eitan Shamir, Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham, Prof. Shlomo Shpiro, Dr. Max Singer, Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum, Dr. George N. Tzogopoulos, Dr. Jiri Valenta, Dr. Albert Wolf Program Coordinator: Alona Briner Publications Editor (English): Judith Levy The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force Franc Milburn EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In June 2020, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence unveiled the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) at the Office of Naval Intelligence—a successor to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). This paper dives down the rabbit hole with Defense Department insiders, scientists, and declassified material to find answers to a host of questions: Are mystery craft near-peer adversary platforms or exotic US platforms? What is the technology behind them? What kind of threat do they pose? What are the geostrategic implications? And what are we not being told? Franc Milburn is a strategic and operational advisor. A former intelligence officer, he is an alumnus of Sandhurst and the London School of Economics. He has previously written for the Middle East Economic Survey, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. @FrancMilburn . The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force Franc Milburn THE US SENATE’S UAP REPORT On August 4, 2020, the Pentagon announced the establishment of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). This followed Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Marco Rubio´s June 17 report, which was attached to the Senate Intelligence Authorization Act for 2021. Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist approved the establishment of the multi-agency UAPTF, which is to be led by the Navy under the “cognizance” of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSDI). The task force was created to “[improve] understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAP,” with the mission “to detect, analyze and catalog UAP that could potentially pose a threat to US national security.” Presumably, “UAP” refers to the same craft that the military, FBI, CIA, DIA, and others have been detecting and analyzing for the past seven decades. The release stressed the Pentagon’s “paramount concern” for “the safety of our personnel and the security of our operations.” The Department of Defense [DoD] and military departments “take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report.” These incidents appear to now be taken more seriously in public than the much-maligned Project Blue Book, about which one UFO historian commented: “The Air Force baked it, the press served it, and the public ate it.” The Blue Book, which ran from 1952 to 1969 and succeeded projects Sign (1948) and Grudge, summarized its investigations thus: • No UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force was ever an indication of threat to our national security; 6 I The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force • There was no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as “unidentified” represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge; and • There was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as “unidentified” were extraterrestrial vehicles. Despite these conclusions, military and scientific interest in UFOs continued in secret after 1969. The Senate Intelligence Committee currently “supports the efforts [of the UAPTF] at the Office of Naval Intelligence [ONI] to standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena, any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to US military assets and installations.” The Committee directed the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), together with other agencies, to submit a report within 180 days of the date of the enactment of the Act to congressional and armed services committees on UAP. A key question about the UAPTF is this: Why isn’t the US Air Force leading it, when the stated mission of the Air Force is to “fly, fight and win...in air, space and cyberspace”? A recent podcast from the To The Stars Academy, which includes former Pentagon, intelligence, and aerospace insiders, suggests that this might reflect lingering stigma over the Blue Book, adding that there is a logic to the Navy’s taking the lead in view of its global mobility. Some Navy reports derive from the same areas where the USAF operates. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Chris Mellon suggests that the Air Force had difficulty acknowledging “mission failure,” describing it as “a bitter pill to swallow.” Lack of forthrightness might also have played a part. “AATIP did not have the access to sensitive classified Air Force information, [which was] in different stovepipes. Congress is making it very clear they want all hands on deck. They want all these organizations to contribute everything they have regardless of what compartment it’s in. They want the full picture.” MIDEAST SECURITY AND POLICY STUDIES I 7 Mellon´s colleague Louis Elizondo, a TTSA director, former career counter-intelligence officer, and former AATIP director, says: Everything is a potential threat until one is sure it is not a threat… when you look at what we are seeing from an intelligence perspective, there seems to be key interest in our military capabilities and specifically in our nuclear capabilities. If that´s the case and we don´t know what they are, we don´t know how they work, we don´t know who´s behind the wheel, we don´t know what their intentions are and somehow they can operate with impunity in our airspace, I think it´s a safe bet to say… that something with this level of technological capability could be a threat, should it want to be a threat…Anyone who says for sure they know it´s not a threat – they don´t know what they are talking about.” Journalist Tom Rogan writes that the Navy “is front and center for a simple reason: its nuclear platforms keep attracting UFOs.” The Committee requires “Identification of any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put United States strategic [nuclear] or conventional forces at risk.” UAPs have regularly appeared at or near nuclear weapon sites ever since the late 1940s.

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