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Pentagon UFO Study - Media Monitoring


Just remember the RAND Report on UFO's What to Do? by George Kocher (1968) ask yourself why do they keep all the books written by ufologist?

Right, @blowfish . Many people don't remember it because they haven't read it or even heard of it, or read to any extent the written history of the modern 'ufo' phenomenon, including scholarly research into earlier, similar, reports of such phenomena. NICAP has the whole Rand Report at its website, at this link:

The RAND Corporation on UFOs !
 
I took a closer look at the timeline of the TTSA to see what role Elizondo, AATIP and those released videos actually could have had for the existence of the company.

First a recap of Elizondo's timeline:

DeLonge on TTSA announcement event on October 11:
Luis Elizondo literally finished his career at the Department of Defense as a senior intelligence officer in the office of the secretary of defense days ago and now he is on the stage with us.
Months ago I had some very important people from inside the government talking about somebody that one day I would possibly be able to meet. And I remember the words were you you can’t know his name but if you were ever to know his name you would have to keep that to yourself till the day you die.

And then I remember there was a big breakthrough where we started referring to this guy by the letter L. Days ago days ago. This person finished his career at the Department of Defense as one of the senior covert intelligence officers in the office of the secretary of defense. I think you need to really listen carefully to what he says. And I still even, working our way up to today, I get the chills when you, when you, when you say it. So I want you to all meet Luis Elizondo.
Transcript of To the Stars Academy Press Conference | Openminds.tv

NYT on Elizondo's resignation letter (which resulted in a no results FOIA response):
Mr. Elizondo, in his resignation letter of Oct. 4
Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program

Leslie Kean on her Facebook page:
This video was cleared for public release by the DOD at the same time as the two we provided in the New York Times in December .
It was cleared for release in August.

WP article on December 16, 2017:
Just before leaving his Defense Department job two months ago, intelligence officer Luis Elizondo quietly arranged to secure the release of three of the most unusual videos in the Pentagon’s secret vaults: raw footage from encounters between fighter jets and “anomalous aerial vehicles” — military jargon for UFOs.
Head of Pentagon’s secret ‘UFO’ office sought to make evidence public

So according to these, Elizondo got those videos cleared for release in August, resigned in October, finished his work there in November, days before joining TTSA, and DeLonge claims to have learned even his name only some days before. So assuming nobody lies, those videos were cleared before Elizondo had any direct contact with DeLonge.

The timeline of the TTSA is detailed in their Offering Circular:
To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, Inc. (“TTS Academy”) was formed subsequent to the balance sheet date of December 31, 2016 on
February 13, 2017 as a Delaware public benefit corporation.
Thomas DeLonge ... Director ... Appointed to indefinite term of office. March 14, 2017
James Semivan ... Director ... Appointed to indefinite term of office. March 14, 2017
Harold Puthoff ... Director ... Appointed to indefinite term of office. March 14, 2017
On April 26, 2017, TTS Academy entered into a Licensing Agreement with Thomas DeLonge and Mr. DeLonge’s affiliated entities Mr. Handsome,
LLC and Good in Bed Music, ASCAP (the “DeLonge Entities”), memorializing a verbal license the DeLonge Entities had with the Company since
2011 for the use of certain intellectual property rights, in particular Mr. DeLonge’s legal and professional name and likeness, trademarks and
copyrights (including master recordings) relating to Mr. DeLonge and the musical band professionally known as Angels and Airwaves. TTS
Academy will pay the DeLonge Entities a royalty on gross sales ranging from 0.5 – 15% depending on the product category, with a minimum
royalty guarantee of $100,000 in each calendar year.
On April 27, 2017, Archive West Investments contributed 100% of the shares of To The Stars, Inc. to Gravity Holdings, LLC. On June 1, 2017,
TTS AAS entered into a Contribution Agreement with Gravity Holdings, LLC in which Gravity Holdings, LLC contributed all of its shares of To
The Stars, Inc. to TTS AAS in exchange for 55,000,000 shares of TTS AAS Class A Common Stock. The DeLonge Family Trust is the sole
member of Archive West Investments and Gravity Holdings, LLC (see “Interest of Management and Others in Certain Transactions”).
In May 2017, we issued a total of 12,500,000 shares of Class A Common Stock and 5,400 shares of Class B Common Stock to Gravity Holdings,
LLC, JimSemI, LLC, and Harold Puthoff in exchange for a nominal cash payment and past and anticipated future efforts to support the company’s
business and objectives.
The Stockholders Agreement was entered into between the company and holders of Class B Common Stock, Gravity Holdings LLC, JimSem 1,
LLC, and Harold E. Puthoff (collectively, “stockholders”), on May 31, 2017.

So formed in February, Puthoff&Semivan appointed directors in March, DeLonge arranging business agreements with himself in April, and shares to Puthoff&Semivan in May. Interestingly, they apparently already knew in May there will be two additional directors, which ended up being Elizondo and Justice:
The Stockholders Agreement fixes the number of directors at five. Each stockholder who holds at least 20% of the shares of Class B Common Stock
may designate himself or herself as a director, and Thomas M. DeLonge or any Affiliate thereof (“Lead Investor”) may designate a director of his
choosing.
...
**There are two additional directors to be appointed.
That was supposedly around 5 months before DeLonge even met Elizondo. Since directors where specifically limited to 5, did they really know they need a "Director of Global Security & Special Programs" before knowing about Elizondo, or did they just pick that number for some other reason ?

In any case, according to the version of the story DeLonge has told, the company was formed long before there was any public knowledge of AATIP, Elizondo or his decision to become part of this, or those videos. And that document doesn't give any direct indication their unrealistic plans on whatever space-time metrics, telepathy and so on had anything to do with that stuff. Which is in line with that crazy Joe Rogan episode, where DeLonge demonstrated he believes just about anything, including badly made CGI videos of supposed military craft based on alien technology, so he could just as well have dreamed up that company based on those ideas:

If we simply assume none of them have lied, the links between TTSA and the rest of this stuff are looking rather lose, more like an afterthought. And considering how badly TTSA has been messing up, it looks like a rather unfortunate and unnecessary part of this story. If Elizondo had simply told NYT that there was a program called AATIP, and the already leaked Nimitz material was real, we would have the good parts, and avoided the rest.

Looking at that timeline also made me properly realize important details regarding that $600,000 loan from his not a hot dog stand:
TTS Academy will be the parent company of To The Stars, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

TTS Academy has created a science, aerospace and entertainment consortium that collaborates with global citizens to investigate the outer edges of
science and unconventional thinking and provide access through multi-media entertainment content and education. Assets, liabilities and equity will
be subsequently rolled up to the parent company TTS Academy for the purposes of the Regulation 1-A filing with the Securities and Exchange
Commission concurrent with the issuance of these consolidated financial statements.
TTS AAS was incorporated in February 2017, and although the Entertainment Division on-going
through our subsidiary TTS has been conducted for several years, we are intending to expand into completely new businesses. Our Aerospace and
Science Divisions have no customers and no revenues. There is no history upon which an evaluation of our past performance and future prospects in
the entertainment industry can be made.
The company is a business that has not yet generated profits and has sustained net losses of $422,670 and $322,912 during the years ended
December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. As of December 31, 2016, the company had net operating loss carry forwards of approximately
$515,000 that may be offset against future taxable income through 2035. To date, revenues have not been sufficient to fund operations. Thus, until
we can generate sufficient cash flows to fund operations, we are dependent on raising additional capital through debt and/or equity transactions.
We have received one loan from Our Two Dogs, Inc. (“OTD”) in two disbursements – one for $300,000 in April 2016 and another for $200,000 in
March 2017 (see “Interest of Management and Others in Certain Transactions”). The note was amended on August 10, 2017 to provide for $300,000
to be provided in 2017, making the note agreement a total of $600,000. The note bears interest at 6% per annum and is due on December 31, 2018.
In addition, the holder can require the note to be repaid prior to maturity in the amount equal to 10% of the net proceeds from any third party debt or
equity financing. As of December 31, 2016, the principal balance of the April 2016 note was $300,000 with accrued interest of $13,512 due under
then note.

So that loan he gave himself was to offset the losses of TTS, and half of it dates back almost a year before TTSA was even formed. TTSA then inherited those liabilities from TTS. So he is using that new investment money to pay for his past losses of the "entertainment division", which was supposedly the money making part. That has to be why TTSA had to be formed as this mess of a company with all the strange connections to the previous ones. Otherwise it would have been pretty difficult to channel new investment money to cover his earlier losses that have next to nothing to do with his current pipe dreams. Guaranteed royalty of $100,000 also isn't a bad deal from a business that's losing money.

I wonder how many of those starry-eyed "investors" realize they are really financing the past, not the future?
 
Realm: Good post and Constance you hit it on the nail. I watched Stanton's interview which was excellent and we only see the glimpse of data that they keep back. Classified material will never see the light of day if affects national security simple as Stanton has said over and over again. Therefore we are left with the snippets of information and eyewitness accounts.
 
Billy Cox really socks it to TTSA about their need for a new game plan.

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15641/ttsa-needs-new-game-plan/

OK, seriously. What’s up with the molasses-slow dribble of jet fighter/UFO videos being posted by this To The Stars Academy thing? Is there a plan here? Some sort of strategy not immediately obvious to the naked eye? Or is this what it’s beginning to look like, that nobody’s really in charge? . . .
 
Constance : Good repost and who paid for the RAND Study in 1968?
How many other official and non official reports were done which have not come to light?
Yes it ROSWELL and who has the official report?
Also were copies made and sent to US Allies ?
 
Constance : Good repost and who paid for the RAND Study in 1968?
How many other official and non official reports were done which have not come to light?
Yes it ROSWELL and who has the official report?
Also were copies made and sent to US Allies ?

Good questions, @blowfish. Essential questions touching the enforced ignorance and ambiguity in which we've had to live for seven decades concerning the nature of the extended reality within which we live and the conditions of our existence. I don't think our existence is threatened by species from elsewhere; I came to that conviction in the 90s, having spent several years reading ufo history, databases, and case studies of the manifestations of ufo phenomena in our time and research concerning historical cases of similar phenomena in the deep past. If these others wanted to destroy us or our planet, they would have done so long ago. If they intended to somehow take over the earth and displace us as natives of this planetary world, they would have done so before we'd damaged this planet's ecology to the extent we have. There's nothing to be afraid of, but knowing so little of what is known by the military/government/MIC, most people are left vulnerable to existential fear and dread about the reality of living civilizations beyond our planet, and prey to anxieties and wild speculations about what these 'others' might do to us, our families, our world.

There have always been, since the late 1940s, individuals high in the military and intelligence agencies who were well-informed about, and attempting to deal with, the accumulating evidence of visitation of our planet by more evolved, more advanced, species, and who wanted this information to be shared with the public. At various times in the ongoing argument concerning the obligation to share this information with the rest of us, those pushing for disclosure came closer to accomplishing it. But they failed to persuade those highest up in the power structure, and here we are today still wondering and frustrated by how much that is known is not yet known to us. This is both absurd and morally outrageous.

I like Richard Dolan's book titled, approximately, After Disclosure, which forecasts the results of eventual disclosure, which is inevitable in this world so long lied to. Sure, there will be chaotic feelings in pockets of the populace, but the organized world we've built on earth will not come apart at the seams. But many people will be angry that so much significant information -- very interesting information when we calm down and absorb it -- has been withheld from human societies as a whole. Dolan has an interesting chapter concerning the difficulties the PTB will have in responding to, justifying, the extent of this widespread cover-up of knowledge we all have a right to know. He speculates, reasonably, that the repercussions for instituted 'authority' -- a major loss of faith in governmental authority -- has become in itself a major motivation for continuing the cover-up. The whole situation created by all those who have withheld critically important knowledge from the rest of us has been a major fuck-up, a global mistake on a grand scale of folly.
 
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Billy Cox really socks it to TTSA about their need for a new game plan.

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15641/ttsa-needs-new-game-plan/

OK, seriously. What’s up with the molasses-slow dribble of jet fighter/UFO videos being posted by this To The Stars Academy thing? Is there a plan here? Some sort of strategy not immediately obvious to the naked eye? Or is this what it’s beginning to look like, that nobody’s really in charge? . . .

That's a good question, who is in charge? Let's see who's who, and who then could be in charge:
  • Thomas DeLonge: Director, co-founder, President (of both TTSA&TTS), interim CEO, Full-time
  • James Semivan: Director, co-founder, Vice President Operations, Contractor, (Also owner of a consulting firm called JimSem1, LLC)
  • Harold Puthoff: Director, co-founder, Vice President Science and Technology, Contractor, (Also President and CEO of EarthTech International, Inc., and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin)
  • Luis Elizondo: Director of Global Security & Special Programs
  • Steve Justice: Aerospace Division Director
  • Kari DeLonge: Chief Content Officer, Full-time (also Treasurer of TTS)
  • Louis Tommasino: Chief Financial Officer, Contractor (also the owner of Louis Tommasino CPA and Associates, a firm providing tax services, auditing and financial consulting)
  • Lisa Clifford: Secretary (both TTSA&TTS), Full-time, (also Executive Assistant to Tom DeLonge)

Advisory Board:
  • Chris Mellon: National Security Affairs Advisor
  • Adele Gilpin: Biomedical Research & Attorney
  • Norman Kahn: National Security & Program Management Consultant
  • Colm Kelleher: Biotech Consultant
  • Garry Nolan: Genetics Technologies Consultant
  • Paul Rapp: Brain Function & Consciousness Consultant

We can cross out those who are just advisors/consultants, and the company is hardly run by the secretary/assistant of DeLonge or CFO who is just a contractor. Justice is a director of a division that doesn't really exist in practice, and he has been pretty invisible anyway.

What about Tom's sister Kari? Before this she was "Chief Marketing and Product Officer of TTS since its inception in 2011". Most likely she is still doing the same stuff in practice, handling the entertainment stuff, just through the parent company now. It also doesn't look as bad to grant one's sister 5,000,000 stock options (worth $25 million with the prices they charge from the gullible investors) when she is at least listed as full-time TTSA employee, right?

In any case, there isn't that much content to manage at the TTSA. Would you expect her to write down their "analysis" of the videos they publish, if they actually have someone who supposedly was actually investigating those for years? Although given their blunders with the "Go Fast" video, it doesn't look like anyone actually investigated anything. How about managing that website? Who do you think is actually pressing the button when they publish a new video for example? Tom? Kari? Nope, it's Joe Brisbois:
Joe Brisbois (@JoeBrisbois) | Twitter

He seems to be the one managing their COI-pages at least. I presume he is a web designer and TTSA is just one of his customers. He is marked as the author of the published content in the source code of various pages there and the internal address of the COI page is this (this opens the same page on your browser):
TTSA Community of Interest

So we are left with Tom Delonge, Elizondo, Puthoff and Semivan. The last two are marked as contractors and have their own consulting companies, and Semivan has been pretty invisible, and I still don't really understand his role in the company. In addition to his assistant and sister, DeLonge is the only one specified as full-time employee on their offering document (but that was before Elizondo joined the group).

Tom is supposed to be just the interim CEO, and they are aiming to find someone to take his place. He has also pretty much disappeared from the scene, which is not that surprising after that disastrous Joe Rogan episode. Basically his only visible contribution is retweeting stuff that is published by the TTSA social media accounts, and those accounts are probably handled by Brisbois/mostly automatically by that platform when articles are being published. Which would also explain why those social media accounts are not actually responding to any questions and so on. There's nobody to handle those, and they haven't paid anyone to do that sort of thing. Even their press inquiries are outsourced to a PR company.

Then we have Elizondo, their bouncer, who has been their public face, who has indicated being pretty much all in on this, but has lately given some distress signals on how he believes to be hated and so on. He has appeared to be going increasingly into a damage control mode in regards to their published content, avoiding specifics of their videos, and trying to stress what matters is the content he has seen but they haven't shown, similar to how Nolan has tried to defend their incorrect conclusions. With UFOs, the good data is always that which is not available, especially after the available data is exposed as something else than what it was supposed to be.

I believe the TTSA is basically what the documents indicate and what we are seeing from the outside. DeLonge is in charge, in principle, but that's just because no one else is, and seeing his performance on Rogan, I'm not sure that's better than nothing. Most of the others are consultants, doing some occasional interviews/articles and having some meetings or so, but that's about it, at least as far as the visible results go. Elizondo is doing the PR/damage control, but seemingly would rather just take his position as the bouncer already.

Now that they have published their promised 3 videos, 1 of which was an old one and the other two evidently parts of a single rather mundane video, it's unclear if they actually have anything else to offer. I would expect them to be currently having a crisis meeting or a couple to try to figure out how to deal with their grave mistakes with the Go Fast clip, but I'm not sure if they even care enough to do that. Since Elizondo even refused to admit their mistakes with that party balloon blunder, I'm not confident they will do that now either, especially since the implications are much more drastic. On the other hand, it will become pretty difficult to argue against undeniable mathematical facts.

Since it's now obvious they haven't actually analyzed those videos properly, or done any basic sanity checks on the numbers, and haven't published the originals or other supporting evidence (CoC documents or FOIA responses), it doesn't look like they are that interested in investigating that stuff or delivering accurate information. It looks to be more about marketing for them. Their main focus is quite evidently collecting money from the credulous believers. Consequently, that's where the real story seems to be at this stage, following the money. There's some interesting stuff going on there, and there's a chance that won't be investigated just by those interested in UFOs.
 
ETA: @blowfish also asked "who paid for the RAND Study in 1968?" and
"How many other official and non official reports were done which have not come to light?"

My impression is that RAND, like Battelle, (and most probably other think tanks) were contracted to and closely allied with the military and intelligence agencies of our government. As the paper I linked the other day at NICAP (written by a RAND scientist in the early years of research into and discussions of the modern ufo phenomena) indicated, his paper was written and stored at RAND {and shared with the institutional community of insiders} but not put forward as a public statement by RAND. Decades passed before his paper became available to citizen researchers. Nor did scientists at the Battelle Institute publish their research concerning ufos and 'memory metal' to the public. Jacques Vallee referred to citizen ufo researchers as "an invisible college" -- invisible by necessity since most scientists involved in it could not risk their reputations by acknowledging their research concerning ufos. What military and governmental insiders have learned about ufos has similarly been sequestered in committees/enclaves of researchers from cooperating institutions that have not reported out to the public. Re 'who paid for all this?', naturally the public in the taxes it pays into the Fed's coffers.
 
That's a good question, who is in charge? Let's see who's who, and who then could be in charge:

We can cross out those who are just advisors/consultants, and the company is hardly run by the secretary/assistant of DeLonge or CFO who is just a contractor. Justice is a director of a division that doesn't really exist in practice, and he has been pretty invisible anyway.

What about Tom's sister Kari? Before this she was "Chief Marketing and Product Officer of TTS since its inception in 2011". Most likely she is still doing the same stuff in practice, handling the entertainment stuff, just through the parent company now. It also doesn't look as bad to grant one's sister 5,000,000 stock options (worth $25 million with the prices they charge from the gullible investors) when she is at least listed as full-time TTSA employee, right?

In any case, there isn't that much content to manage at the TTSA. Would you expect her to write down their "analysis" of the videos they publish, if they actually have someone who supposedly was actually investigating those for years? Although given their blunders with the "Go Fast" video, it doesn't look like anyone actually investigated anything. How about managing that website? Who do you think is actually pressing the button when they publish a new video for example? Tom? Kari? Nope, it's Joe Brisbois:
Joe Brisbois (@JoeBrisbois) | Twitter

He seems to be the one managing their COI-pages at least. I presume he is a web designer and TTSA is just one of his customers. He is marked as the author of the published content in the source code of various pages there and the internal address of the COI page is this (this opens the same page on your browser):
TTSA Community of Interest

So we are left with Tom Delonge, Elizondo, Puthoff and Semivan. The last two are marked as contractors and have their own consulting companies, and Semivan has been pretty invisible, and I still don't really understand his role in the company. In addition to his assistant and sister, DeLonge is the only one specified as full-time employee on their offering document (but that was before Elizondo joined the group).

Tom is supposed to be just the interim CEO, and they are aiming to find someone to take his place. He has also pretty much disappeared from the scene, which is not that surprising after that disastrous Joe Rogan episode. Basically his only visible contribution is retweeting stuff that is published by the TTSA social media accounts, and those accounts are probably handled by Brisbois/mostly automatically by that platform when articles are being published. Which would also explain why those social media accounts are not actually responding to any questions and so on. There's nobody to handle those, and they haven't paid anyone to do that sort of thing. Even their press inquiries are outsourced to a PR company.

Then we have Elizondo, their bouncer, who has been their public face, who has indicated being pretty much all in on this, but has lately given some distress signals on how he believes to be hated and so on. He has appeared to be going increasingly into a damage control mode in regards to their published content, avoiding specifics of their videos, and trying to stress what matters is the content he has seen but they haven't shown, similar to how Nolan has tried to defend their incorrect conclusions. With UFOs, the good data is always that which is not available, especially after the available data is exposed as something else than what it was supposed to be.

I believe the TTSA is basically what the documents indicate and what we are seeing from the outside. DeLonge is in charge, in principle, but that's just because no one else is, and seeing his performance on Rogan, I'm not sure that's better than nothing. Most of the others are consultants, doing some occasional interviews/articles and having some meetings or so, but that's about it, at least as far as the visible results go. Elizondo is doing the PR/damage control, but seemingly would rather just take his position as the bouncer already.

Now that they have published their promised 3 videos, 1 of which was an old one and the other two evidently parts of a single rather mundane video, it's unclear if they actually have anything else to offer. I would expect them to be currently having a crisis meeting or a couple to try to figure out how to deal with their grave mistakes with the Go Fast clip, but I'm not sure if they even care enough to do that. Since Elizondo even refused to admit their mistakes with that party balloon blunder, I'm not confident they will do that now either, especially since the implications are much more drastic. On the other hand, it will become pretty difficult to argue against undeniable mathematical facts.

Since it's now obvious they haven't actually analyzed those videos properly, or done any basic sanity checks on the numbers, and haven't published the originals or other supporting evidence (CoC documents or FOIA responses), it doesn't look like they are that interested in investigating that stuff or delivering accurate information. It looks to be more about marketing for them. Their main focus is quite evidently collecting money from the credulous believers. Consequently, that's where the real story seems to be at this stage, following the money. There's some interesting stuff going on there, and there's a chance that won't be investigated just by those interested in UFOs.

@Realm, it seems to me that you waste a lot of energy fussing over what can and cannot be learned about the individuals we know to be involved with the TTS group and its projects, and attempting from limited data to undermine those projects before they are well-underway. See my recent post concerning the reluctance of scientists to publicly acknowledge their participation in ufo research since the beginnings of the modern ufo phenomenon. There might be many scientists already at work in association with and within the sponsorship of TTS, and it might be a long time before TTS publicly shares the eventual results of their work (if not their identities). Best thing to do, rationally, is to wait and see what emerges in months and years ahead from TTS's scientific projects. At this point, you're essentially trying to find your way around in a dark room with a very small flashlight.
 
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Interesting report from Garry Nolan about the process of how TTSA got the videos and released them. Got this from Fearless @Frank Stalter ’s UFO News Network on FB.
=======

Via Garry Nolan concerning the DoD declassified videos which were released through To The Stars Academy :
—————————
'The term RELEASE is where everyone is tripping up. These videos were obtained from a Freedom of Information Act filing. They were prepared internally at the DoD through a vetting process that allowed them to be released through FOI.

You are not going to get the DoD to come out and "announce" there are such things as UFOs buzzing around our aircraft carrier groups. They did not actively "release". They passively allowed the FOIA process to occur.

Now whether there was INTERNAL acquiescence to this that is a "hidden" active process by people other than Lue... probably you will never know. But we should be happy that it ended up the way it did (whether through active help, passive bureaucratic sleepiness, or otherwise).

Active announcement/release would probably upset any White House to be upstaged in such a process as that should clearly be a government level announcement. What you got was people internally at the DoD who decided this information was worth getting out, made sure the video was properly vetted so as to not release "proprietary" data or US military capabilities, and then prepared for eventual FOI access. It was then accessed.'
 
ETA, @Realm, given the secrecy in which ufo data is still held by the US government, it's pointless to complain that all such data is not being shared with the public. You're banging your head against a so-far immovable wall. Documents and data accessible to TTS through Luis Elizondo cannot all be made public because of the restrictive laws and structures in place inhibiting such public sharing. That doesn't mean that such documents and data cannot be shared privately by governmental and non-governmental researchers working together privately with this material.
 
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'The term RELEASE is where everyone is tripping up. These videos were obtained from a Freedom of Information Act filing. They were prepared internally at the DoD through a vetting process that allowed them to be released through FOI.
...
What you got was people internally at the DoD who decided this information was worth getting out, made sure the video was properly vetted so as to not release "proprietary" data or US military capabilities, and then prepared for eventual FOI access. It was then accessed.'

So according to the timeline I summarized before:
Just before leaving his Defense Department job two months ago, intelligence officer Luis Elizondo quietly arranged to secure the release of three of the most unusual videos
And Leslie Kean said they were "cleared for release in August".

So did he basically arrange at that time some review process and storage to somewhere with some useful keywords that he could later use in a FOIA request?

Kean reportedly first met Elizondo in a confidential meeting on October 4, the same day his resignation letter is supposedly timestamped:
On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program

I believe Kean told those videos were shown to her in that meeting. So if those were acquired through the FOIA, when was that request filed and how soon did they get the response? Did Elizondo file it while he was still working in the department? Or did they actually show the videos before they got such responses?

Kean reportedly still has the documents that show how those were cleared, but refuses to show those. Why? TTSA has told not to? Are they hiding the exact keywords how those can be found?

Elizondo said the organization obtained the video through "reporting channels," but declined to get into detail about the group's "sources and methods." He said they followed the "proper process" to get the video and that "the Department of Defense approved the release."
Video shows Navy jet's encounter with a UFO, group says - CNNPolitics

So, is "reporting channels" FOIA, or something else?

It seems to me they are either hiding something because proper processes were not actually followed, or alternatively because the processes are too mundane (FOIA) and show they don't have the sort of connections some believers are counting on, but just had some keywords for processes that anyone could use. They pretty much stated the latter while releasing the third video.
 
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So, is "reporting channels" FOIA, or something else?

It seems to me they are either hiding something because proper processes were not actually followed, or alternatively because the processes are too mundane (FOIA) and show they don't have the sort of connections some believers are counting on, but just had some keywords for processes that anyone could use. They pretty much stated the latter while releasing the third video.

As I'm sure you understand, FOIA responses are legally required to be provided by government agencies (though rarely easily obtained from those agencies, and then largely consisting of black mark-throughs that obscure the really significant information).

If TTS is holding back -- in your fevered imagination"hiding something" -- obtained through inside channels between some DOD employees and significant citizen researchers, that's another situation entirely, and equally one that does not guarantee disclosure to we the people.

Maybe you should run for Congress and attempt to change the security regulations that block information re ufos from the public. You certainly seem to have enough energy for that kind of work. ;)
 
Whoever keeps the large stash of files should think about the hard work done by credible researchers like Stanton, Don and Gene , Chris who been around the field for a longtime. Instead of snippet release dump the lot of classified UFO files including Roswell file held inside the vault for these researchers and the general public too. Instead, it a ongoing drama of those folks getting a drip feed videos.
 
Did Elizondo file it while he was still working in the department? Or did they actually show the videos before they got such responses?

I rechecked a couple of earlier pieces since FOIA doesn't really make sense with the timeline as I detailed before. Looks like Nolan gave incorrect information, again. They almost certainly didn't use FOIA, and it seems Elizondo most likely didn't use proper processes all the way, although he might have though he did at the time. That's what they are most likely trying to hide now, yet another mistake/oversight. It also makes sense they now emphasized how others could get those videos through FOIA, and didn't mention chain-of-custody documentation anymore. After all, once those FOIAs return results, their improper processes do not really matter anymore.

This seems to be what actually happened:
Early on, I had assumed that Elizondo had utilised the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to see that the videos were released, but my rather forceful enquiries with the DIA and Office of the Secretary of Defence and Joint Staff (OSD/JS) had demonstrated that this was probably not the case. Likewise, I engaged in lengthy telephone correspondence with staffers at the Assistant to the Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs (ATSD/PA), but they couldn’t shed any light on the matter either. Upon talking to someone heavily involved in this affair, I was able to recently learn that Elizondo had used an internal DOD records–release channel unrelated to the FOI Act. My confidant wasn’t entirely comfortable with telling me exactly what this method was without consulting with Elizondo himself, and I didn’t further push the matter. Put simply, I didn’t know how the videos were formally released, but that has now changed.

On the 25th of February, 2018, Elizondo was interviewed by reporter George Knapp for the radio podcast show “Coast to Coast”. In that presentation, Elizondo revealed that he used the services of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR). In conjunction with that effort, Elizondo said he utilised a pair of DOD publications which govern the clearance and release of certain information to the public. Importantly, Elizondo stated that the actual document he used was a “DD Form 1910”.

Specifically, DOPSR is an office which resides within the Office of the Secretary of Defence (OSD) and is “responsible for managing the Department of Defense security review program, reviewing written materials both for public and controlled release”. They coordinate “official work products with Defense enterprise stakeholders to ensure that information being released is both accurate and represents the Department’s official position”. The two publications at the center of Elizondo’s video release efforts are “DOD Directive 5230.09, Clearance of DoD Information for Public Release”, which was certified as current on the 22nd of August, 2015, and “DOD Instruction 5230.29, Security and Policy Review of DoD Information for Public Release”, which was promulgated on August the 6th, 1999. As mentioned, the form Elizdono apparently used was a DOPSR–issued “DD Form 1910”. Its title is “Clearance Request for Public Release of Department of Defense Information”. Completed forms are submitted to the Chief of DOPSR, and a copy is sent for coordination with to the DOD’s Director for Freedom of Information and Security Review (DFOISR). Copies of whatever material, be it documents or audio–visual material, that the applicant wants released are submitted with the “DD Form 1910”, and processing can take weeks or months.
UFOs - Documenting The Evidence

While the details of the program weren’t widely known, Harris says that the program files the Pentagon has pored over so far—Pentagon staffers have been reviewing AATIP documentation since around the time the Times story broke—were unclassified.
...
Elizondo, for his part, clarified to WIRED that he didn’t believe the videos themselves were ever classified: They were just stored on a classified system. Either way, though, it seems that they made their way into the world without the typical release process, which the Department of Defense requires of “all documents that are submitted for official public release.”
...
Information is classified, according to the National Archives, if its improper release would present a national security problem. So why would a secret program looking at aerial anomalies—“aerodynamic vehicles engaged in extreme maneuvers, with unique phenomenology,” says Harris—remain unclassified? Sounds like those UAPs weren’t so threatening after all.
...
First of all, Harris maintains the Pentagon isn’t the source of the videos. “The official who is authorized to release this video on behalf of DOD did not approve the release of this video,” she says. She’s adamant: “I stand firm that we did not release those videos.”

Which means that although the videos may have originated within the DOD, which Harris acknowledges they may have, there’s no public proof or Pentagon acknowledgement of their association with AATIP.
...
The Community of Interest page says the videos come from the Defense Department, have gone through the official declassification review process, and have been approved for public release. Further, it boasts that the academy can prove it with chain-of-custody paperwork.

Those chain-of-custody files aren’t public, but To The Stars did show WIRED some paperwork suggesting that the videos had gone through the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR), which is one part of the DOD’s document release procedure. DOPSR, says this guide, conducts “security and policy reviews on all documents that are submitted for official public release.” “It means that one of the steps for the review of a product has been completed,” says the Pentagon’s Harris.

But that documentation doesn’t actually clear material for release. “An approval from DOPSR does not equate to public release approval,” says Harris. To release AATIP videos by the book, someone would have had to coordinate with the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. So the videos on the To the Stars don’t carry any more weight than the same videos published by the Times.
What Is Up With Those Pentagon UFO Videos?

So nothing was declassified, as it wasn't classified in the first place. DoD denies releasing anything, because they didn't. NYT and Kean refuse to show the documents, because they are not what they should be, more like partial internal process documentation. TTSA wants others to file FOIAs, as it gets them off the hook. They haven't released their much hyped CoC documents, as they don't actually have the proper ones.

So once again, TTSA seems to be the untrustworthy party and origin of incorrect information and ensuing confusion. Although their failures with the processes and unsubstantiated claims of the CoC are much smaller problem than their invalid claims on what the videos actually show. Interestingly, according to the former blog, the Gimbal footage has also been leaked earlier but in a limited manner:
Also, the newer “Gimbal” footage, as I have discovered, was also leaked by USN personnel, though not to an online server for all to see.
 
Compare these:
GIMBAL is the first of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) that has been through the official declassification review process of the United States government and has been approved for public release. This footage, and all official USG footage you will see on TTS Academy’s Community of Interest (COI), comes with essential chain-of-custody documentation validating that it is received in its original and unaltered form and is authentic. The US Department of Defense uses this process in order to meticulously ensure that information and material retain their integrity without revealing sources and methods. This documentation is what sets this footage apart from anything else that has previously made its way to the public domain, by establishing its authenticity and thereby giving it enormous historical significance.

While that fact alone is of historical significance, what this 34 seconds of video provides is remarkable.
...
With the chain-of-custody documentation, GIMBAL can officially be designated as credible, authentic “evidence” of a UAP.
GIMBAL VIDEO

FLIR1 is the second of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) that has been through the official declassification review process of the United States government and approved for public release. It is the only official footage captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at the 2004 Nimitz incident off the coast of San Diego. Like GIMBAL, this footage comes with crucial chain-of-custody (CoC) documentation because it is a product of US military sensors, which confirms it is original, unaltered, and not computer generated or artificially fabricated. While there have been leaked versions on the internet, the CoC establishes the authenticity and credibility that this version is the original footage taken from one of the most advanced sensor tracking devices in use.
...
With the chain-of-custody documentation, FLIR1 shows credible evidence of a flying vehicle that demonstrates characteristics unlike anything we know, understand, or can duplicate.
2004 USS NIMITZ FLIR1 VIDEO

With this:
GO FAST is an authentic DoD video that captures the high-speed flight of an unidentified aircraft at low altitude by a F/A-18 Super Hornet ATFLIR forward-looking infrared system. While TTSA was the first to obtain a copy, it should be available to any member of the press or public via the Freedom of Information Act.
...
The date, location, and other information has been removed by the originating authority as part of the release approval process.

GO FAST was selected for release, like GIMBAL and FLIR1, after review by multiple government organizations.
2015 GO FAST FOOTAGE

These supposedly went through the same processes at around the same time, and should have the same kind of CoC and documentation.
 
I can't resist the temptation anymore, I just have to rip apart these earlier calculations Bruce Maccabee has made (as copied from Metabunk). Remember that he seemed to be the go to expert for Garry Nolan for example:
Bruce Maccabee TENTATIVE CALCULATIONS
B. Maccabee

Mar. 9, 2018

(((Plane at 25000 ft = 4.1 nm
Object altitude calculated as: (4.1 nm [height of plane] – (4.1 slant range [plane to object]) x sin 22 = 4.1 – 1.54 = 2.46 below airplane altitude;

Height of object = (height of plane – distance below plane ) = 4.1 – 2.5 = 1.6 nm (not close to surface)

The sensor is aimed 35 deg left of plane axis and this angle increases to 57 or 58 so at the end so the object was traveling with a velocity component parallel to the track of the airplane.

Estimated size of object based on apparent size of black-hot image is approx. (1.5 deg angular width of screen based on narrow FOV) x ([1.5 mm to 2mm diameter of black dot image size on 92 mm wide screen]/[92mm screen width]) x 0.0174 rad/deg x 4.1 nm[slant range] x 6077 ft/nm = 10 to 15 ft!....

At 4.1 nm range to the object, the distance across the 1.5 deg FOV is (4.1nm) x [1.5 deg x 0.0174 rad/deg]= 0.1 nm.

It crosses the FOV at about a 45 deg angle so the actual approximate distance across the FOV is 0.1 nm/0.707 = 0.14 nm;

it crosses in 4 to 3 sec implying a differential speed of the plane and object of 0.14 nm/ ( 4 to 3 sec)/(one hour/ 3600) = 126 to 170 kt)…

Since the plane is going at about 250 kt the object was going at the speed approx. (250 – 150) = 100 kt in the same direction as the airplane but clearly slower)calculation assumes land speed is approx. same as air speed) )))

Let's go through those step by step:
(((Plane at 25000 ft = 4.1 nm
This to me is already a good example how he doesn't seem to understand how much accuracy matters in these calculations. 4.1 nm=24912ft, so he is just introduced an additional error of around 90 feet for no good reason. The altimeter is likely highly accurate, giving figures with 10 feet accuracy, so there's no sense to lose accuracy like that from the get go.

Object altitude calculated as: (4.1 nm [height of plane] – (4.1 slant range [plane to object]) x sin 22 = 4.1 – 1.54 = 2.46 below airplane altitude;

So he is using 4.1 slant range to object, which corresponds to the video between 4237 and 4239 seconds. At that time, the video clearly indicates the camera is pointed 28-29 degrees below the aircraft axis. So why the hell is he calculating sin 22? It was 22 degrees at the beginning of the video, when we don't even know the range yet, but we know pretty much for certain it's more than 4.4nm, as that is the first figure the rangefinder gives and then it starts to decrease.

So he is making his calculations on figures that do not even match those that are clearly visible in the video.

Let's see if even that simple calculation is actually correct with those figures:
4.1-4.1*sin(22)=2.564
Nope, he messed that one up as well, introducing yet another error of 0.1nm. Was that because he actually used more accurate altitude in that calculation than his awful rounding? Nope, that would just cause a bigger error. He just couldn't calculate 4.1 – 1.54.

Height of object = (height of plane – distance below plane ) = 4.1 – 2.5 = 1.6 nm (not close to surface)

And yet another rounding from that already incorrect 2.46 to 2.5, luckily this time it reduces his earlier error somewhat.

The correct altitude would be closer to 2.2nm. That's already more than 27% off!

That's pretty unbelievable, considering the actual calculation, when using correct numbers, is pretty simple.

Guess what: Even Google can do that in two steps, you don't even need a separate calculator.

First write "25000 feet to nautical miles", and it responds "4.1144708". Then use that and write the rest of the equation to the search field in nautical miles, using the correct angle: "4.1144708-sin(28 degrees)*4.1" and it responds "2.18963739258". That's 4055 meters, which seems to be very close to the correct value.

The sensor is aimed 35 deg left of plane axis and this angle increases to 57 or 58 so at the end so the object was traveling with a velocity component parallel to the track of the airplane

Which is basically just a lucky guess from him, since he doesn't seem to understand the parallax effect and doesn't even try to calculate how the plane was moving.

Estimated size of object based on apparent size of black-hot image is approx. (1.5 deg angular width of screen based on narrow FOV) x ([1.5 mm to 2mm diameter of black dot image size on 92 mm wide screen]/[92mm screen width]) x 0.0174 rad/deg x 4.1 nm[slant range] x 6077 ft/nm = 10 to 15 ft!....

He is almost certainly using an incorrect FOV, which should be 0.7 degrees, so that already introduces more than 2x error. I also cannot comprehend why he is calculating screen dimensions in millimeters instead of pixels, which would have more precision in this case.

That "0.0174 rad/deg" is PI/180, so changing degrees to radians there, although with a rounding error again, it should be 0.0175 with that precision. So he is calculating sin(1.5 degrees)*4.1nm there to get the width/height of the camera view area at that distance, but for some strange reason left out the trigonometric function he is using. And apparently he also moved the (incorrect) FOV angle of 1.5 outside that sin and instead multiplies that in first, introducing yet another but this time very small error.
(Edit: on a closer look, it seems he just put the result of the sin function there as value, which made it harder to see what he was doing)

For some strange reason, even his value for converting nautical miles to feet is off by one, it should be 6076. Why can't he use even a single correct number in his calculations? (even though that's yet another small difference that doesn't count much)

So, let's see if even that calculation is done correctly with all those incorrect values. I'm getting a rounded range of 11-14 feet, so I guess he rounded those to the nearest 5 ft or something. Doesn't really matter to introduce additional inaccuracies, as it's all based on incorrect numbers anyway, and those size estimates are pretty inaccurate. In reality the object is around 3 to 7 feet when the calculation is done with correct values.

At 4.1 nm range to the object, the distance across the 1.5 deg FOV is (4.1nm) x [1.5 deg x 0.0174 rad/deg]= 0.1 nm.

To be more precise, it's 0.107nm with his incorrect values, so his rounding again loses 7% of accuracy there.

It crosses the FOV at about a 45 deg angle so the actual approximate distance across the FOV is 0.1 nm/0.707 = 0.14 nm;

If he had used accurate numbers from the previous calculation, that would have been 0.15 nm.

it crosses in 4 to 3 sec implying a differential speed of the plane and object of 0.14 nm/ ( 4 to 3 sec)/(one hour/ 3600) = 126 to 170 kt)…

Great, more inaccurate numbers, but who cares, since he is using the wrong tool for the job anyway. So the result with those numbers is 126 to 168 knots, would have been 135 to 180 knots if he wouldn't have lost the accuracy above.

So now the important question is: What did he actually just calculate? He calculated the apparent speed of the object moving across the screen. As if the plane was stationary. But it wasn't, and the object was high up. He doesn't seem to understand at all how most of that apparent speed is because of the movement of the plane. Even though he calculated earlier the object is at high altitude.

Since the plane is going at about 250 kt the object was going at the speed approx. (250 – 150) = 100 kt in the same direction as the airplane but clearly slower)calculation assumes land speed is approx. same as air speed) )))

He is using the CAS speed, while in reality he should be using the TAS speed, which is actually around 370 kt.

If he would have done the sensible thing and calculated the track of the jet and the relative distances and velocities between that and the target, he wouldn't need to care about the land speeds, and the presumably larger difference in winds on the ground level, but just the relative differences between the altitudes of the jet and the target.

Similarly he could have calculated pretty good estimates for the speed by using the rangefinder closing velocity values. The results from both of those methods are close to each other, so the display actually provides enough data to verify the speed estimates to certain degree with different means.

I really cannot understand why there seems to be a common myth that he is supposedly some sort of an expert on these sorts of calculations. He seems to be pretty clueless.

Considering his later "calculations" apparently resulted a speed of 330 kt, I would rather trust a random number generator.

Edit: Here's his revised version:
REVISION OF SPEED CALCULATION MARCH 12. [by Bruce Maccabee]

I have re-evaluated the speed of crossing the FOV (1.5 deg is assumed) during the short time that the image of the water was nearly stationary and pointing at a fixed area about 10 nm from the plane.

In my TENTATIVE CALCULATION I estimated "4 to 3 seconds" of crossing time.

However, when I subsequently counted the number of video frames I found that it took about 55 frames at 30 frames/ sec which corresponds to 55/30 = 1.8 sec.

The exact distance to the object at that time is not known because the system had not yet locked on.

However when it did lock on a short time later the range was about 4.1 nm and decreasing.

I therefore "guesstimate" the range at 4.5 nm.

The width of the FOV is 1.5 deg x 0.0174 rad/deg = 0.026 rad which corresponds to 0.117 nm at 4.5 nm distance,

The object crossed the FOV area at an angle of about 45 deg so the distance traveled as it crossed the FOV was about (0.026 rad) x 1.41(to account for the 45 degree crossing) x 4.5 nm = 0.165 nm.

It traveled this distance in about 1.8 sec for a speed of 0.092 nm/sec which is about 330 kt....about twice the larger speed previously calculated but certainly not an earth shaking speed.
So still doesn't seem to understand the parallax effect and the contribution of the movement of the plane to the apparent speed, is using the wrong FOV, admits he messed up calculating the frames, which is still the wrong tool to use, he still seems to have issues with his vision if he believes the distance was 4.1 nm when the target was locked, it makes no sense to use "guesstimates" when the accuracy of the actual values from the display is already a problem, but at least there are some values available, and his results are much worse than those with all the errors he was trying to fix. Seems like some of his earlier errors helped to mitigate some of his other errors...
 
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