Hard to blame the Scientific Coalition for Ufology for holding off on publishing its pace-setting analysis of the increasingly famous 2004 Tic Tac incident. When you’ve got a chance to coordinate the release of a professionally researched, 270-page study with a reporter working for an extension of the National Academy of Sciences, you jump at it, right?

According to report co-author Robert Powell, that’s why SCU’s “A Forensic Analysis of Navy Carrier Strike Group Eleven’s Encounter with an Anomalous Aerial Vehicle” went public when it did, last Wednesday, side by side with simultaneous coverage in the NAS quarterly journal “Issues in Science and Technology.” This in itself was news — NAS rarely, if ever, devotes any space to The Great Taboo. And SCU’s application of scientific scrutiny to the mystery that galvanized the New York Times in 2017 would’ve broken new ground for a venerated nonprofit whose mission statement commits it to “providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology.”

“I know, honey, but it’s the National Academy of Sciences, OK, it’s supposed to work” CREDIT: aconsciousrethink.com

Having filed 26 FOIAs with the Navy, the Marine Corps, NORAD and the Defense Intelligence Agency for more information about what happened off the California coast on 11/14/04, and after assembling a seven-person multi-disciplinary team to examine that evidence, SCU made the first formal – or, at least,the first transparent – pass at breaking down the physics behind those events, whose centerpiece was F-18 gun-cam footage. Hindered by gaping data holes — e.g., where are those radar records? — SCU nevertheless served up a clear accounting of its challenges and methodology. And it concluded that “the object encountered displayed properties unexplainable within our current understanding of physics.”

Psst — that’s the cue for “Issues in Science” reporter Keith Kloor to corral outside experts to review the data. But that’s not what happened.

De Void still has takeaways to address from last month’s SCU conference in Huntsville, Alabama. But Kloor’s inability to focus on the significance of the SCU report – even as he concedes that congressional committees have “quietly interviewed a number of military pilots who claim to have witnessed UFOs while on training missions” – is too distracting for De Void to resist.

Kloor, who also attended the Huntsville gig, told readers in his “UFOs Won’t Go Away” article how surprised he was to discover that none of the SCU panelists discussed abductions or Big Foot. Maybe he was also a little disappointed. All he found were “just lots of mathematical formulas from physicists about the challenges of interstellar travel and space propulsion, and clinical examinations of several incidents involving supposed UFOs, such as the Nimitz case.”

Rather than dive into any of those issues, Kloor backs off. Instead, he feels compelled to pursue the psycho-sociological angle (which no one has ever ever ever done before), which of course involves dragging the tired old complicated UFO history into the mix, which takes 18 whole pages to showcase his command of stale arcana. Then he makes an unforced error, over Roswell, of all things.

“A local newspaper was told by an Air Force intelligence agent,” Kloor writes of the alleged 1947 downed-flying saucer incident, “that a nearby military base had ‘come into the possession of a Flying Saucer.’ This was a deliberate falsehood. So was the next official –” Whoa, wait, hold up there, partner. The military intentionally planted a #fakenews story about a UFO crash? Really? Why? Seventy-two years later and this is the first we’re hearing about it? Sourcing? That’s called a scoop, man. Why’d you bury the lead on page 7?

De Void isn’t going to debate Kloor’s spin on history, it’s not worth the time. Plus, he’s all over the board with everything else, ping-ponging from the controversies surrounding the To The Stars Academy, to airing out speculation over whether or not former military intelligence officer Luis Elizondo is a disinformation spook. Even when he sticks to the Tic Tac incident, Kloor can’t lose his own baggage over Elizondo’s contention that related encounters “remain largely ignored and unevaluated.”

“That does not seem to be the case with the Nimitz event, unless the former airmen and sailors who spoke on the record to Robert Powell, the lead author of the paper, have concocted the aforementioned chain of events – and in coordination with one another to keep their stories straight,” Kloor writes. “But here again, Powell and his colleagues, despite their bias in favor of extraordinary explanations of what happened, also did their homework.”

They also did their homework. Despite their bias in favor of extraordinary explanations. But, um, which of SCU’s extraordinary explanations is Kloor referring to? How many are there? A list would be nice. An informed discussion of how SCU actually did its homework would’ve been even better.

Ultimately, SCU’s report on the Nimitz/Tic Tac incident – not to mention its conference in March – is a plea for more government data, like maybe an unedited version of the F-18 video, or those elusive radar records. “We do believe,” declare the authors, “that sufficient information has been provided in this paper to justify the release of all information related to this incident so that a complete scientific investigation can be conducted.”

As with Powell’s thorough FAA radar work on the 2008 Stephenville UFO incident, and SCU’s collaboration on the 2013 Customs and Border Protection infrared video from Puerto Rico, the mainstream media is oblivious to this obvious follow-up to the NY Times exclusive that caused such a stir 16 months ago. Aside from the tepid “Issues in Science” piece, there’s been zero coverage of SCU’s analysis in the aftermath of its publication last week. Maybe everybody’s waiting for the Times again, so they can all follow the leader.

So much for the Keith Kloor bump. The National Academy of Sciences deserves better than this. We all do.