It has been two years since the world was shaken by the ground-breaking news delivered by the New York Times, which reported on the existence of a formerly classified Pentagon-run program called AATIP, which was in charge of studying UFO military reports –or at least that was what we were led to believe… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, what has changed as a result of these revelations?

Before we go any further, we should get a couple of things on the table: I’m fully aware of the reputation I’ve acquired due to my previous editorials related to TTSA among the younger members of the UFO research community; for those who perceive any kind of dissent or questioning which contravenes the narrative promoted by Tom DeLonge and his associates as ‘trolling’, my criticism squarely puts me in the “wrong side of history” in their eyes.

In the service of full transparency, I’ve never denied my ontological rejection of the very concept of ‘UFO Disclosure’ –never mind the fact that the term means a lot of different things to a lot of different people… just like UFOs!– because I agree with my friend and colleague Robbie Graham: Instead of empowering citizens with the knowledge that governments are aware of a non-human presence in our planet, Disclosure does exactly the opposite –it chains citizens to solely rely on ‘officially-sanctioned channels’, and on the other hand it creates the paradox that people will only believe in the official narrative they are already predisposed to believe —“this politician is telling me what I want to hear, ergo this other contradicting government response is lying!”

I have also made the effort to educate myself on the history of UFO research –Jacques Vallee’s Forbidden Science journals (vol. 1 to 4) are a must-read for anyone seriously interested in this subject– which has led me to two firm conclusions: (1) From the very start the United States government has attempted to manipulate the public perception on UFOs, and part of that manipulation has even included making people believe they know a whole lot more about it than us; that someone, somewhere deep inside has all the answers. (2) Due to the high strangeness and absurdity patently displayed by the phenomenon, it is more than likely that the biggest and darkest secret kept by the powers that be… is that they don’t really know anything about the UFO phenomenon –yes, they may have collected all sorts of juicy evidence throughout the years, yet that doesn’t necessarily mean they bothered to properly study it; or if they did study it, that they managed to understand what they were dealing with. It is this very ignorance among the reasons why Intelligence agencies have continuously attempted to infiltrate and gather data from UFO civilian groups; they did it with NICAP, APRO, CUFOS, and we now know they tried to do it with MUFON using Robert Bigelow as an intermediary.

With that out of the way, and trying to respond to my initial query –what has changed 2 years after the Dec ’17 revelations?– with the less amount of bias possible, let us look at the impartial statistics provided by Google Trends, when we search the popularity of the keyword ‘UFOs’ between the period of December 16, 2017 –the date when the NYT article “Glowing Auroras and Black Money: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program” was published– to December 16, 2017.

What we find is a very interesting graph which shows the biggest spike coinciding with the Dec. ‘017 date, along with two more relevant rises in the use of the keyword ‘UFOs’: the first one between the period of May 26 – June 1st of 2019, which perfectly coincides with the publication of the second NYT article referring to UFO Navy sightings; and the second one between the period of Sept. 15 – 21 of 2019, which again coincides with another mainstream publication (Time Magazine) reporting on how the US Navy had officially admitted the three videos which have been promoted by TTSA (“FLIR-1”, “Gimbal” and “Go-Fast”) do indeed show anomalous objects which remain unidentified.

The map provided by Google Trends shows the United States as the country in which the use of the keyword ‘UFOs’ received more interest; this is hardly surprising, since this whole trend was started by an American organization (TTSA) through articles published by the most prestigious American news outlets, with the rest of mainstream media merely serving as a global echo-chamber.

If we change the keyword to “USS Nimitz” we obtain a similar graph, with the biggest spike at the beginning of our analyzed time period, and other rising spikes also coinciding with the aforementioned publications although not as marked as our first graph –we do find other spikes on different time periods like for example between Oct. 13-19, 2019, which coincides with the announcement that TTSA was teaming up with the US Army, for the purpose of studying physical samples of alleged non-Earthly origin, in case these materials contain properties which could be potentially weaponizable.

(Here, it is interesting to note that China is the country in which the keyword “USS Nimitz” has been more predominant during our analyzed time period)

The popularity of the keyword “TTSA” is harder to analyze, since the acronym may mean different things in different countries. But the graph does show a huge spike coinciding with the Time Magazine article of September 2019, followed by a smaller one in the next month which coincides with the announcement of the US Army partnership.

On the other hand, the keyword “David Fravor” –the most vocal witness in the UFO Navy sightings– shows a huge spike between the period of Oct. 6-12, 2019; coinciding perfectly with the interview he gave on the wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

The results of these analytical exercises are clear, and confirm what I’ve said in the past: To the Stars has become THE dominant force in the modern field of UFOlogy. They alone are moving the UFO narrative on a global scale.

Now, whether they are moving said narrative toward achieving the purported goal of UFO Disclosure remains to be seen, because —as I’ve also said in the past— what we’ve been witnessing with these ‘limited handouts’ from TTSA is a kind of “one step forward, two steps back” kind of dance, due to the conflicting information which puts into question the veracity of their allegations. Jack Brewer over at The UFO Trail has done a great job fact-checking the claims made with relation to the AATIP program, and many things just don’t seem to add up with their story.

For starters, let us go back to the spike in our graphs for the period of September 15-21 of 2019: The Time Magazine article inflamed the public’s imagination with the idea that the Navy was ‘officially’ acknowledging the TTSA videos, and most of the global media merely added to the hype (“Navy admits UFOs are real!”); yet what few people realized is that the Navy was only breaking their silence due to the insistent queries of researcher John Greenewald Jr. who runs The Black Vault website, AND that neither TTSA nor Luis Elizondo were ever sanctioned to release them for public viewing; also throughout this past year we’ve seen Elizondo’s credentials further put into question and so far the Pentagon spokespersons contacted by Greenewald keep insisting he was never the director of AATIP. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Pentagon is now saying AATIP’s purpose wasn’t to study UFOs in the first place!

Yes, thanks to TTSA the world is talking more about UFOs. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re getting any closer to ‘Disclosure’, or that the public opinion has dramatically swayed into accepting the existence of the phenomenon due to their partial revelations; which so far only amounts to three short black-and-white grainy videos, and vague hints that deep inside the government someone possess much more compelling evidence –including material pieces from UFOs– which cannot be released for reasons of National Security, or even discussed in depth for fear of breaking secrecy oaths.

So let us go back and continue to review in which ways the public opinion has been impacted by AATIP and TTSA, by providing a few examples of notable personalities who have made public statements about UFOs during the last 2 years. Although this next exercise will be less objective than the Google Trends one, since it is based on what I’ve perceived through my online searches and social media, it is still backed up by evidence which can be easily verified online:

Positive Impact

Negative Impact

Indifferent (Meh) Impact

Xeni Jardin: A co-founder of the highly influential Boing Boing website, Xeni once tweeted about the Navy UFO videos in order to ask for “non woo explanations.” She then has moved on to other topics like all the prestigious scientists who received money from the late pederast Jeffrey Epstein. Aliens are cool and shit, but we need to fight the pedos first.

A co-founder of the highly influential Boing Boing website, Xeni once tweeted about the Navy UFO videos in order to ask for “non woo explanations.” She then has moved on to other topics like all the prestigious scientists who received money from the late pederast Jeffrey Epstein. Aliens are cool and shit, but we need to fight the pedos first. Chris Hayes: Progressive American journalist and television news anchor Chris Hayes loves to cover all sorts of political scandals, but UFO Disclosure doesn’t seem to be included among them. Like Xeni, he once tweeted about the Navy videos, but what bothered him was the fact that nobody seemed to care about these seemingly historic revelations; he also touched upon this perplexing reaction on his show on MSNBC, but unlike Tucker Carlson he hasn’t continued to cover these stories. I guess ‘draining the swamp’ doesn’t give you much time to look up to the sky.

Progressive American journalist and television news anchor Chris Hayes loves to cover all sorts of political scandals, but UFO Disclosure doesn’t seem to be included among them. Like Xeni, he once tweeted about the Navy videos, but what bothered him was the fact that about these seemingly historic revelations; he also touched upon this perplexing reaction on his show on MSNBC, but unlike Tucker Carlson he hasn’t continued to cover these stories. I guess ‘draining the swamp’ doesn’t give you much time to look up to the sky. Ed Asner (Celebrities): I follow seasoned Hollywood actor Ed Asner on Twitter, and during this year I noticed a Tweet he sent mentioning how many people saw a UFO at the base he was stationed when he was in the Army. Asner insisted he remained agnostic about the topic, though, and I haven’t noticed any other UFO mentions from his account. I mentioned this in one of my previous articles simply as a way to illustrate the same phenomenon Chris Hayes also perceived: how despite the implications of what has thus far been revealed –one of the branches of the most powerful military in the world admits their pilots are encountering vessels that could completely outmatch them in combat– most of the world are more worried about criticizing JJ Abrams for Episode 9’s plot holes or fighting about impeachment than starting a serious discussion about the phenomenon.

I follow seasoned Hollywood actor Ed Asner on Twitter, and during this year I noticed a Tweet he sent mentioning how many people saw a UFO at the base he was stationed when he was in the Army. Asner insisted he remained agnostic about the topic, though, and I haven’t noticed any other UFO mentions from his account. I mentioned this in one of my previous articles simply as a way to illustrate the same phenomenon Chris Hayes also perceived: how despite the implications of what has thus far been revealed –one of the branches of the most powerful military in the world admits their pilots are encountering vessels that could completely outmatch them in combat– most of the world are more worried about criticizing JJ Abrams for Episode 9’s plot holes or fighting about impeachment than starting a serious discussion about the phenomenon. Other Nations’ Military: So far no other country has bothered to follow the example of the US Navy with a similar admittance —“hey, our pilots see those things too! Here’s a video”— which is problematic because it impedes a global effort to tackle the subject. And if history has taught us anything is that the UFO phenomenon is too big to be fully studied by one single nation.

So far no other country has bothered to follow the example of the US Navy with a similar admittance —“hey, our pilots see those things too! Here’s a video”— which is problematic because it impedes a global effort to tackle the subject. And if history has taught us anything is that the UFO phenomenon is too big to be fully studied by one single nation. Politicians: As of today, only Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has publicly admitted his interest in UFOs, and the subject has never been brought up during the 2019 debates; that could change next year once the final Democratic candidate is selected and debates Trump, yet it remains unlikely. We also know some US senators have been officially briefed on the UFO Navy encounters, but most of their names remain secret. Until people in office dare to come out of the “UFO closet,” Disclosure will remain a pipe dream; perhaps the only way to force the hand of Washington is through public pressure, which is why the UFO community should do well in taking lessons from the LGBQT community and environmental groups.

Conclusion

As we have already admitted, there’s no denying that TTSA has become the UFOlogical 200-pound gorilla in record time, and that thanks to them there’s been a notable change in the public UFO discussion. Publications which wouldn’t dare to touch the topic with a ten-foot pole are now ready to embrace it –although this may also be the result of a desperate attempt to remain afloat at a time when Millennials don’t buy newspapers or watch TV news. Because of the Navy videos, the president of the United States has been forced to talk about UFOs on the record, and not while being the guest of a late night TV show.

It is impressive. But it’s not enough.

Right now it feels like we’ve reached some sort of cultural impasse in which talking about UFOs is no longer taboo, but neither are we being compelled to talk about the phenomenon with the seriousness it deserves. If TTSA is to remain King Kong in UFO land, it needs to do more than just keep talking about the same Navy encounters over and over again, because the folly of America UFOlogy is the compulsion of putting all their eggs in one basket (Roswell anyone?) and we should know by now there’s never going to be a ‘silver bullet’ case. They need to finally recognize it takes more than three grainy, monochromatic clips that only last a few seconds to sway the public opinion.

They have won the battle on the mainstream media front. Congratulations! Now they need to concentrate on the scientific front: Release of peer-reviewed papers which could be accepted by professional scientists and academics, in order to force them to talk about UFOs in the open, instead of behind closed doors like they always do.

At the same time, they need to seriously consider their tactics when it comes to responding to the questions of independent researchers with regards to their claims, and the credentials of their members. Shielding behind the backs of retired senators just won’t cut it: they need to nip the conflict in the bud and allow neutral journalists to conduct an investigation which will either confirm or deny their allegations –did Elizondo direct AATIP, yes or no? Was Elizondo sanctioned to release the Navy videos to the public, yes or no? Was AATIP’s purpose to study UFOs, yes or no? And if so, what kind of investigation did they conduct?

And finally, may I also suggest paying attention to the other aspects of the phenomenon they have neglected so far: like the impact the phenomenon can have in the lives of the people who have had close encounter experiences with it —both negative AND positive.

King TTSA’s reign is absolute but they need to improve their act, or they will keep getting attacked right and front, and eventually they will fall from the lofty position from which they are currently proudly pounding their chest.

They also need to tell their supporters to stop rooting for a specific date for ‘UFO Deliverance’. Repeating incessantly online that “Disclosure will come in 2020” serves no one, and it cheapens your message once it is revealed you said the exact same thing in 2019; and before that in 2018; and before that in 2017; and before that… (get the picture?). I get it, young folks are desperate to “see Disclosure within their lifetimes,” but that very desperation it what makes you vulnerable to believe in empty promises.

If there’s one piece of advice I could give to the new people in the field for the coming decade is: be ready for the long haul. UFOlogy doesn’t need sprinters; it needs marathon runners.