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The Advertiser
02-06-2025
- Politics
- The Advertiser
Defence says it's had no UFO briefings from the US. These newly revealed emails show otherwise
Australia has been receiving high-level briefings from the United States' UFO task force for years, despite the repeated denials of the top military brass, newly revealed emails show. Freedom of information documents from December 2021 show US officials discussing a briefing regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs) - the modern term for UFOs - with its Five Eyes allies. The email chain included officials from the United States UAP Task Force (UAPTF) and an Australian defence representative, using a US Department of Defence email address. "Re tomorrow's UAP briefing, I received confirmation from Australia and Canada they will be here ... and of course UK," a UAPTF official wrote. However, a scheduling conflict led to the meeting being rescheduled for early January, 2022, much to the annoyance of the Office Under the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (OUSD). "I recall you and your team said last week that you wanted to come in today to brief the other partners. Because of this I urged the partners to build time into their schedules and come in for the brief," the OUSD official wrote. "The last thing we want to do is be dismissive of our allies and their time," a UAPTF official replied. The former Chief of Air Force - and now Vice Chief of Defence - Air Marshal Robert Chipman twice told senators during an estimates hearing that Australia had not been briefed on UAPs after the email exchange and rescheduled Five Eyes briefing. In November 2022, Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson asked if the US had discussed UAPs with Australian intelligence services or the Air Force. "I'm not aware of any formal discussions that we've held with the US," Air Marshal Chipman said. "I imagine it would have come across my desk if those discussions were held in the last four months." During the Senate estimates hearing the following year, the Air Marshal was more adamant in response to Senator Whish-Wilson's questions, which specifically queried if Australian defence attaches had received UAPTF briefings. "No," Air Marshal Chipman said. "No briefings at all," Senator Whish-Wilson said. "No," Air Marshal Chipman repeated. Briefing notes prepared in May 2022 for Air Marshall Chipman's Senate estimate hearing also state that neither "the US nor any other nation or ally" had requested or offered to collaborate on the issue of UAPs. "Defence has no desire to seek collaboration on this issue," the briefing note states. The Department of Defence refused to answer questions from The Canberra Times. Grant Lavac, an Australian civilian UAP researcher, said the lack of transparency was "quite concerning". "The Chief of Air Force leads all discussions on UAP in Australia, so if there's one person that needs to know what is happening on this topic in an Australian context and our discussions with allies, it's him," Mr Lavac said. "He's either uniformed because there is a complete lack of intelligence sharing, or there's a degree of incompetence, or it's something more sinister like plausible deniability. "Any one of those three scenarios is concerning." It's not the first time the Australian Defence Force has misled Senators about the nation's UAP activities. In 2024, Defence officials admitted Australia sent representatives to a UAP briefing in the Pentagon, after vigorously denying any involvement. The agenda of the meeting, which was attended by members of the Five Eyes alliance, was later released by the US government. It shows the alliance - which includes US, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand - met for a "caucus working group" to "cultivate shared awareness of allies' UAP issues, detection, and mitigation activities and challenges". They discussed the need for "networks to share Five Eyes UAP reporting", including documents marked "top secret" and "special intelligence", along with UAP "collection planning". "The intention is to develop a framework for future UAP collaboration," one document said. Australia's UAP policy has previously been criticised for being out of step with its closest military allies, including the US, which introduced mandatory UAP reporting for defence personnel in 2021. The US considers UAPs a potential flight safety and national security risk, while other allies have acknowledged the unknown aerial phenomenon, including the UK, Canada, France and Spain. The Canberra Times has previously reported Australian Defence personnel don't feel comfortable reporting UAP sightings through official channels and freedom of information documents revealed senior Defence officials mocked the subject while preparing briefing notes. Australia has been receiving high-level briefings from the United States' UFO task force for years, despite the repeated denials of the top military brass, newly revealed emails show. Freedom of information documents from December 2021 show US officials discussing a briefing regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs) - the modern term for UFOs - with its Five Eyes allies. The email chain included officials from the United States UAP Task Force (UAPTF) and an Australian defence representative, using a US Department of Defence email address. "Re tomorrow's UAP briefing, I received confirmation from Australia and Canada they will be here ... and of course UK," a UAPTF official wrote. However, a scheduling conflict led to the meeting being rescheduled for early January, 2022, much to the annoyance of the Office Under the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (OUSD). "I recall you and your team said last week that you wanted to come in today to brief the other partners. Because of this I urged the partners to build time into their schedules and come in for the brief," the OUSD official wrote. "The last thing we want to do is be dismissive of our allies and their time," a UAPTF official replied. The former Chief of Air Force - and now Vice Chief of Defence - Air Marshal Robert Chipman twice told senators during an estimates hearing that Australia had not been briefed on UAPs after the email exchange and rescheduled Five Eyes briefing. In November 2022, Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson asked if the US had discussed UAPs with Australian intelligence services or the Air Force. "I'm not aware of any formal discussions that we've held with the US," Air Marshal Chipman said. "I imagine it would have come across my desk if those discussions were held in the last four months." During the Senate estimates hearing the following year, the Air Marshal was more adamant in response to Senator Whish-Wilson's questions, which specifically queried if Australian defence attaches had received UAPTF briefings. "No," Air Marshal Chipman said. "No briefings at all," Senator Whish-Wilson said. "No," Air Marshal Chipman repeated. Briefing notes prepared in May 2022 for Air Marshall Chipman's Senate estimate hearing also state that neither "the US nor any other nation or ally" had requested or offered to collaborate on the issue of UAPs. "Defence has no desire to seek collaboration on this issue," the briefing note states. The Department of Defence refused to answer questions from The Canberra Times. Grant Lavac, an Australian civilian UAP researcher, said the lack of transparency was "quite concerning". "The Chief of Air Force leads all discussions on UAP in Australia, so if there's one person that needs to know what is happening on this topic in an Australian context and our discussions with allies, it's him," Mr Lavac said. "He's either uniformed because there is a complete lack of intelligence sharing, or there's a degree of incompetence, or it's something more sinister like plausible deniability. "Any one of those three scenarios is concerning." It's not the first time the Australian Defence Force has misled Senators about the nation's UAP activities. In 2024, Defence officials admitted Australia sent representatives to a UAP briefing in the Pentagon, after vigorously denying any involvement. The agenda of the meeting, which was attended by members of the Five Eyes alliance, was later released by the US government. It shows the alliance - which includes US, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand - met for a "caucus working group" to "cultivate shared awareness of allies' UAP issues, detection, and mitigation activities and challenges". They discussed the need for "networks to share Five Eyes UAP reporting", including documents marked "top secret" and "special intelligence", along with UAP "collection planning". "The intention is to develop a framework for future UAP collaboration," one document said. Australia's UAP policy has previously been criticised for being out of step with its closest military allies, including the US, which introduced mandatory UAP reporting for defence personnel in 2021. The US considers UAPs a potential flight safety and national security risk, while other allies have acknowledged the unknown aerial phenomenon, including the UK, Canada, France and Spain. The Canberra Times has previously reported Australian Defence personnel don't feel comfortable reporting UAP sightings through official channels and freedom of information documents revealed senior Defence officials mocked the subject while preparing briefing notes. Australia has been receiving high-level briefings from the United States' UFO task force for years, despite the repeated denials of the top military brass, newly revealed emails show. Freedom of information documents from December 2021 show US officials discussing a briefing regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs) - the modern term for UFOs - with its Five Eyes allies. The email chain included officials from the United States UAP Task Force (UAPTF) and an Australian defence representative, using a US Department of Defence email address. "Re tomorrow's UAP briefing, I received confirmation from Australia and Canada they will be here ... and of course UK," a UAPTF official wrote. However, a scheduling conflict led to the meeting being rescheduled for early January, 2022, much to the annoyance of the Office Under the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (OUSD). "I recall you and your team said last week that you wanted to come in today to brief the other partners. Because of this I urged the partners to build time into their schedules and come in for the brief," the OUSD official wrote. "The last thing we want to do is be dismissive of our allies and their time," a UAPTF official replied. The former Chief of Air Force - and now Vice Chief of Defence - Air Marshal Robert Chipman twice told senators during an estimates hearing that Australia had not been briefed on UAPs after the email exchange and rescheduled Five Eyes briefing. In November 2022, Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson asked if the US had discussed UAPs with Australian intelligence services or the Air Force. "I'm not aware of any formal discussions that we've held with the US," Air Marshal Chipman said. "I imagine it would have come across my desk if those discussions were held in the last four months." During the Senate estimates hearing the following year, the Air Marshal was more adamant in response to Senator Whish-Wilson's questions, which specifically queried if Australian defence attaches had received UAPTF briefings. "No," Air Marshal Chipman said. "No briefings at all," Senator Whish-Wilson said. "No," Air Marshal Chipman repeated. Briefing notes prepared in May 2022 for Air Marshall Chipman's Senate estimate hearing also state that neither "the US nor any other nation or ally" had requested or offered to collaborate on the issue of UAPs. "Defence has no desire to seek collaboration on this issue," the briefing note states. The Department of Defence refused to answer questions from The Canberra Times. Grant Lavac, an Australian civilian UAP researcher, said the lack of transparency was "quite concerning". "The Chief of Air Force leads all discussions on UAP in Australia, so if there's one person that needs to know what is happening on this topic in an Australian context and our discussions with allies, it's him," Mr Lavac said. "He's either uniformed because there is a complete lack of intelligence sharing, or there's a degree of incompetence, or it's something more sinister like plausible deniability. "Any one of those three scenarios is concerning." It's not the first time the Australian Defence Force has misled Senators about the nation's UAP activities. In 2024, Defence officials admitted Australia sent representatives to a UAP briefing in the Pentagon, after vigorously denying any involvement. The agenda of the meeting, which was attended by members of the Five Eyes alliance, was later released by the US government. It shows the alliance - which includes US, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand - met for a "caucus working group" to "cultivate shared awareness of allies' UAP issues, detection, and mitigation activities and challenges". They discussed the need for "networks to share Five Eyes UAP reporting", including documents marked "top secret" and "special intelligence", along with UAP "collection planning". "The intention is to develop a framework for future UAP collaboration," one document said. Australia's UAP policy has previously been criticised for being out of step with its closest military allies, including the US, which introduced mandatory UAP reporting for defence personnel in 2021. The US considers UAPs a potential flight safety and national security risk, while other allies have acknowledged the unknown aerial phenomenon, including the UK, Canada, France and Spain. The Canberra Times has previously reported Australian Defence personnel don't feel comfortable reporting UAP sightings through official channels and freedom of information documents revealed senior Defence officials mocked the subject while preparing briefing notes. Australia has been receiving high-level briefings from the United States' UFO task force for years, despite the repeated denials of the top military brass, newly revealed emails show. Freedom of information documents from December 2021 show US officials discussing a briefing regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs) - the modern term for UFOs - with its Five Eyes allies. The email chain included officials from the United States UAP Task Force (UAPTF) and an Australian defence representative, using a US Department of Defence email address. "Re tomorrow's UAP briefing, I received confirmation from Australia and Canada they will be here ... and of course UK," a UAPTF official wrote. However, a scheduling conflict led to the meeting being rescheduled for early January, 2022, much to the annoyance of the Office Under the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (OUSD). "I recall you and your team said last week that you wanted to come in today to brief the other partners. Because of this I urged the partners to build time into their schedules and come in for the brief," the OUSD official wrote. "The last thing we want to do is be dismissive of our allies and their time," a UAPTF official replied. The former Chief of Air Force - and now Vice Chief of Defence - Air Marshal Robert Chipman twice told senators during an estimates hearing that Australia had not been briefed on UAPs after the email exchange and rescheduled Five Eyes briefing. In November 2022, Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson asked if the US had discussed UAPs with Australian intelligence services or the Air Force. "I'm not aware of any formal discussions that we've held with the US," Air Marshal Chipman said. "I imagine it would have come across my desk if those discussions were held in the last four months." During the Senate estimates hearing the following year, the Air Marshal was more adamant in response to Senator Whish-Wilson's questions, which specifically queried if Australian defence attaches had received UAPTF briefings. "No," Air Marshal Chipman said. "No briefings at all," Senator Whish-Wilson said. "No," Air Marshal Chipman repeated. Briefing notes prepared in May 2022 for Air Marshall Chipman's Senate estimate hearing also state that neither "the US nor any other nation or ally" had requested or offered to collaborate on the issue of UAPs. "Defence has no desire to seek collaboration on this issue," the briefing note states. The Department of Defence refused to answer questions from The Canberra Times. Grant Lavac, an Australian civilian UAP researcher, said the lack of transparency was "quite concerning". "The Chief of Air Force leads all discussions on UAP in Australia, so if there's one person that needs to know what is happening on this topic in an Australian context and our discussions with allies, it's him," Mr Lavac said. "He's either uniformed because there is a complete lack of intelligence sharing, or there's a degree of incompetence, or it's something more sinister like plausible deniability. "Any one of those three scenarios is concerning." It's not the first time the Australian Defence Force has misled Senators about the nation's UAP activities. In 2024, Defence officials admitted Australia sent representatives to a UAP briefing in the Pentagon, after vigorously denying any involvement. The agenda of the meeting, which was attended by members of the Five Eyes alliance, was later released by the US government. It shows the alliance - which includes US, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand - met for a "caucus working group" to "cultivate shared awareness of allies' UAP issues, detection, and mitigation activities and challenges". They discussed the need for "networks to share Five Eyes UAP reporting", including documents marked "top secret" and "special intelligence", along with UAP "collection planning". "The intention is to develop a framework for future UAP collaboration," one document said. Australia's UAP policy has previously been criticised for being out of step with its closest military allies, including the US, which introduced mandatory UAP reporting for defence personnel in 2021. The US considers UAPs a potential flight safety and national security risk, while other allies have acknowledged the unknown aerial phenomenon, including the UK, Canada, France and Spain. The Canberra Times has previously reported Australian Defence personnel don't feel comfortable reporting UAP sightings through official channels and freedom of information documents revealed senior Defence officials mocked the subject while preparing briefing notes.
Fox News
13-04-2025
- Science
- Fox News
Viral CIA file about aliens attacking soldiers takes off with UFO intrigue
A declassified document posted to the CIA's website is raising eyebrows with claims of an alleged UFO attack on Soviet forces. The viral report summarizes an article published by Canadian Weekly World News and the Ukrainian paper Holos Ukrayiny and was initially released to the public in May 2000. The firsthand report describes a retaliatory alien attack after Soviet soldiers reportedly shot down a UFO flying over a military base. The aliens reportedly emerged from the wreckage, fusing together into one object and bursting into a bright light and turning all but two of the soldiers to stone. Read the report. Mobile users click here "If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case," an unnamed CIA representative was quoted as saying in the report. "The aliens possess such weapons and technology that go beyond all our assumptions. They can stand up for themselves if attacked." Canadian Weekly World News estimates the supposed incident occurred between 1989 and 1990 and was initially published in 1993. According to the document, information acquired by U.S. intelligence revealed reports of a "low-flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer" over a Soviet unit participating in training exercises. Officials wrote that "for unknown reasons" the soldiers launched a surface-to-air missile at the unknown aircraft, causing it to crash near the military base. The report describes how "five short humanoids with 'large heads and large black eyes' emerged" from the downed spaceship and fused together to create one "single object" while emitting a loud buzzing noise. The spherical object reportedly then burst into a blinding bright light. Eyewitness testimonials claim 23 soldiers suddenly "turned into stone poles." Two men reportedly survived the encounter because they were standing in a shaded area and were not completely exposed to the blast of light. Officials wrote that the remains of the "petrified soldiers" and the spaceship were transported to a secret scientific research base near Moscow, where it was discovered the soldiers' molecular structure matched that of limestone. The document claims scientists believe the cause was a "source of energy" not yet known to humans. The CIA did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. While the initial context of the document remains unknown, it likely originated from a telegram or another form of open-source information. However, former CIA agent Mike Baker is skeptical of the extraordinary claims detailed in the report. "If there was an incident, regardless of the nature of the incident, I suspect that the actual report doesn't look much like what has now come out from five or six or seven iterations of what originally was [written]," Baker told Fox News Digital. In 2020, the Department of Defense announced the creation of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) with the goal to "detect, analyze and catalog" unknown objects that could pose a threat to national security. The creation of the program comes after years of government efforts to investigate questionable aircraft. While UFOs are typically associated with aliens, Baker insists officials are required to look into unidentified objects in the interest of national security. "The Pentagon was saying if aviators are flying, and they identify something that they can't readily say what this is, then [officials] should, as a matter of national security, make sure that they catalog it and figure out what it was," Baker told Fox News Digital. "There's a reason why you have a method of investigating these things. It doesn't mean you're investigating alien spacecraft, but that's where people's minds go when they hear about these sorts of things." The Pentagon did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an order to declassify decades-old government files pertaining to UFOs, possibly revealing federal secrets while pulling back the curtain on any potential "cover-up." "A lot of people believe that there is a smoking gun somewhere in the files," former U.K. Defense Ministry official and UFO expert Nick Pope told Fox News Digital. "It is a very widely held belief that elements in the U.S. intelligence community know that some of this is extraterrestrial and have documents and files relating to this. And that, of course, is what everyone really wants to know. That's the $64,000 question." As for the extraordinary claims of a Soviet-era alien invasion and retaliatory attack, Baker does not buy it. "I'm sure there's something out there," Baker said. "I just don't think that they landed decades ago, turned Soviet soldiers into limestone and we're just now hearing about it. I don't think that's the case."
