Last Call For Grays And Greens

The Pentagon isn't about to confirm the existence of aliens, but the Defense Department's new Office Of Weird Crap will go over all the reported encounters with unidentified "anomalies" just in case.

 

A new office at the Pentagon is scrutinizing hundreds of reports of unidentified objects in air, sea, space and beyond, senior U.S. defense officials said Friday, and while it has discovered no signs of alien life, the search is set to expand.

The issue has taken on increasing seriousness as a bipartisan group of lawmakers presses the Defense Department to investigate instances of unidentified phenomena and disclose publicly what they learn. Established in July, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is evaluating recent reports and soon could evaluate accounts that date back decades, officials said.

The Pentagon’s top intelligence official, Ronald Moultrie, told reporters during a news conference, the first to discuss the office and its ongoing work, that “At this time … we have nothing” to affirm the existence of space aliens.

The proliferation of drones, including those operated by foreign adversaries and amateur hobbyists, account for many of the reports, officials said.

“Some of these things almost collide with planes,” said Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the new office, who spoke to the media alongside Moultrie on Friday. “We see that on a regular basis.”

The U.S. government employs sophisticated sensors around the globe to collect data, and the office analyzes it for relevant information, they said, declining to elaborate.

While most of the reports the Pentagon investigates are about aerial objects, defense officials are increasingly concerned about unusual activity below the surface of the ocean, in space and on land. For that reason, the Pentagon now uses the term unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, rather than previous descriptions such as “unidentified flying object.”

Moultrie said that, “Unidentified phenomena in all domains … pose potential threats to personal security and operational security, and they deserve our urgent attention.”

Unidentified “trans-medium” objects, he said, is a class of phenomena that would jump between domains, like from the air to the sea. None has been documented yet, Moultrie noted.

The research is likely to expand next year. Congress wrote a provision into the next defense policy bill, which is awaiting President Biden’s signature, that requires the Defense Department to complete a “historical record report” about detailing unidentified phenomena observed and documented by the United States. If approved by Biden, the National Defense Authorization Act will then trigger “quite a research project, if you will, into the archives,” Kirkpatrick said.

Defense officials already are digging through old reports. Kirkpatrick, a physicist and career intelligence officer, said he will “adhere to the scientific method — and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes.” Some past reports, he acknowledged, may be highly classified and not yet known to him.

 

So yeah, Mulder and Scully are on the job in this era of instant information, deepfakes, drones and conspiracy theories. Even the Pentagon has to admit publicly now that the truth is out there.

Has to be a really wildly compelling job though if all my years watching X-Files, Special Unit 2, Warehouse 13 and Alien Nation meant anything.

 

 

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorist Problem, Con't

An accused January 6th terrorist from Tennessee is now facing even more criminal legal trouble after being charged with a terrorist plot to kill the FBI agents investigating his previous January 6th terrorism.

 

Edward Kelley, who was previously charged with assaulting an officer during the Capitol riot, and Austin Carter, also from Tennessee, have been charged with conspiracy, retaliating against a federal official, interstate threats and solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

According to an affidavit, Kelley and Carter had a list of names of 37 law enforcement members to assassinate.

The list noted which officers were involved in Kelley’s arrest in May in Knoxville, Tennessee, on the January 6-related charges or present during the search of his home, and it included some of their phone numbers, according to the affidavit.

An “acquaintance” of Kelley and Carter gave the list to police and began cooperating with investigators, according to the affidavit.

CNN has reached out to Kelley’s attorney. Carter’s attorney, Joshua Hedrick, told CNN in a statement, “Our investigation is only just beginning, but we are looking forward to providing a zealous defense of Mr. Carter, who has asserted his innocence.”

In a news release Friday, the Justice Department said Kelley not only discussed attacking law enforcement agents with Carter and their unnamed acquaintance, but also planned to attack the FBI’s Knoxville, Tennessee Field Office.

“If I’m extradited to DC or you don’t hear about my status within 24 or 48 hours..if they are coming to arrest me again, start it,” Kelley told the acquaintance during a recorded call Wednesday, according to the affidavit. “You guys are taking them out at their office. What you and [Carter] need to do is recruit as many as you can…and you’re going to attack their office.”

When the acquaintance asked if Carter was in support of part of Kelley’s plans, Carter told the individual that “this is the time, add up or put up” and “to definitely make sure you got everything racked, locked up and loaded.”

 

We already had the attempted terrorist attack on the Cincinnati FBI field office this year in retaliation against the search of Mar-a-Lago for stolen classified materials. What do you think's going to happen when Trump starts facing indictments?

Oh, and if a Black or Muslim man plotted to kill dozens of FBI agents, the right wing noise machine would be talking about it for years.  January 6th terrorist does it and nary a peep out of the BACK THE BLUE crowd.

There's a reason for that.

Cajun Country Criming

If you can't beat your lifelong rival for parish Sheriff in a fair election, blow 'em up with a pipe bomb, right?

Politics is serious business in Cajun country, but Lafourche Parish Sheriff Duffy Breaux said he didn’t think it would get so serious that a onetime rival for office would try to kill him.

Social patterns are strongly influenced in this town 50 miles southwest of New Orleans by those who work in the dominant industries, oilfield roughnecks, commercial fishermen and farmers - quick to laugh and quick to anger.

They love good times, LSU football and politics.

U.S. Attorney John Volz says former sheriff Cyrus ″Bobby″ Tardo, 58, twice defeated for office by Breaux, hired a crew of former law officers and their associates to set a pipe bomb that almost blew Breaux’s foot off 10 days before Christmas.

Tardo also was charged last week with attempted first-degree murder in Lafourche Parish, where a bond of $2 million has been set for him.

Tardo and his three co-defendants have all professed their innocents, though they have not yet entered pleas.

Investigating authorities have declined to speculate on a motive, but Breaux said political revenge may have been involved.

″I can only see one thing - it’s a political thing,″ Breaux said. ″I always defeated him. Maybe he wanted me out of the way. I never thought a man would stoop that low.″

Tardo, a former state policeman, was elected sheriff in 1971. Breaux defeated him for the sheriff’s office in 1975, then won again when Tardo challenged him in 1979. Tardo then ran for parish president and won. He lost that post to Vernon Galliano in 1986. Parish is the Louisiana term for county.

Louis Breaux, a cousin of the sheriff and a second-term councilman, said he cannot believe the charges brought against Tardo.

″Talk to anyone in the parish. It’s hard to believe. He was pretty much of a loner, not much of a good mixer, not a hothead at all,″ he said Friday. ″People take their politics seriously in Lafourche Parish, but to try to kill a man? That’s going pretty far out.″

 

Something tells me Pardo and Breaux have hated each other for decades, and they finally made national news over that seething rivalry. Congrats, gents. It'll make a fascinating HBO comedy.