How release of Pentagon’s secret UFO programme could be a ‘game-changer’

The US government is keeping tabs on any and all claims of UFO sightings as part of an ‘above top-secret’ programme, a whistleblower has alleged.

‘Immaculate Constellation’ is an alleged database of high-quality photographs, videos, firsthand accounts and electronic sensor evidence of UFOs.

Officials use the off-the-books programme to ‘detect’ and ‘quarantine’ UFO materials without congressional knowledge or oversight, according to a leaked report shared with the Substack newsletter Public.

American military and intelligence officials have a ‘high level of confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the data gathered’, which includes mentions of not only UFOs but ‘Alien Reproduction Vehicles’, or reverse-engineered crafts.

If confirmed, the very existence of ‘Immaculate Constellation’ would be a ‘game-changing development’, the UK’s top UFO expert told Metro.

In one sighting described in the report, ‘orb’ unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), as UFOs are now officially known, swarmed an advanced fighter jet.

‘The F-22 broke trajectory and attempted to evade but was intercepted and boxed in by approximately 3-6 UAPs,’ the report claimed.

‘One UAP manoeuvred in proximity (>12 meters) to the area directly starboard of the cockpit. There the UAP established a rigid spatial relationship with the F-22, maintaining its exact position and orientation parallel with the F-22’s cockpit despite multiple evasive rolls and manoeuvres.’

The Department of Defense denied the existence of the programme last week to reporters, stressing the Pentagon has ‘no record, present or historical of any type of special access programme’.

Such programmes, called SAPs, have special security privileges that protect highly classified information for the sake of national security. They must, however, be disclosed to chairs and top House and Senate intelligence committee members.

Though the whistleblower’s report, said to have been handed to Congress, described ‘Immaculate Constellation’ as an ‘Unacknowledged Special Access Program’.

‘Immaculate Constellation’ was reportedly created in 2017 after The New York Times revealed a similar scheme known as the Advance Aerospace Threat Identification Program that investigated UFO sightings.

Nick Pope, who worked on the British Ministry of Defence’s ‘UFO desk’ in the early 1990s, said if ‘Immaculate Constellation’ is the programme’s codename, then only two big pieces of information remain.

‘The agency that runs it, and the name of the director,’ Pope told Metro, adding: ‘This is a potentially exciting – and game-changing – development.

‘The UFO community often says that if disclosure was easy, the US government would have done it by now.

‘So perhaps disclosure comes with a dark side – a secret too terrible to be told. Does Immaculate Constellation hint that humans were created by beings from the stars?’

‘Is Earth just a science experiment – either real or simulated on an alien supercomputer? It’s a wild theory, but in a world already torn apart by hatred caused by differences in religious belief, revealing a secret that would upend religion itself could have a catastrophic effect.

‘One could understand why the US government would do anything to keep this information secret.’

Pope says officials’ confidence in the Immaculate Constellation programme never being known to the public explains its on-the-nose name, a reference to the stars and Christian belief in the Immaculate Conception.

‘Normally, highly classified programmes are assigned a randomly generated codeword, to avoid giving any inadvertent hint about the subject,’ Pope says.

‘So a project to build a new type of nuclear weapon might be called “Blue Table” but not “Big Mushroom”. But if the whole programme is off the books, the normal rules wouldn’t apply.’

There is no evidence that the government possesses, has covered up or has reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology, according to a congressionally mandated Pentagon report published in March.

Neither is there any evidence that any UFO sightings represented alien visitation to Earth, with top-secret spy planes, commercial drones and rogue weather balloons among the entities mistaken for little green me-piloted crafts.

The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) concluded that if higher-quality data were available, ‘most of these cases also could be identified and resolved as ordinary objects or phenomena’.

But even officials admit that the report’s conclusions will do little to stop claims of covert programmes and alien technology being kept under wraps by shadowy cabals.

AARO’s report pointed to a 2021 Gallup survey that found more than four in 10 Americans believe that UFO sightings were, in fact, alien spacecraft.

‘Aside from hoaxes and forgeries, misinformation and disinformation is more prevalent and easier to disseminate now than ever before, especially with today’s advanced photo, video and computer-generated imagery tools,’ AARO said.

‘Internet search and content recommendation algorithms serve to reinforce individuals’ preconceptions and confirmation biases just as much as to help educate and inform.’

Pope stresses that it’s not surprising the Department of Defense denied knowledge of the alleged existence of Immaculate Constellation, given it would unlikely be a Pentagon operation anyway.

That, or this leaked report about an ‘Immaculate Constellation’ could just be a simple way for officials to identify any blabbermouths in their ranks.

‘In relation to UFOs, there’s clearly a believer faction in the US government, military and Intelligence Community,’ Pope explained.

So to help figure out whether any such believers would ever leak classified information, counterintelligence officers do ‘barium meal tests’ on them.

‘Suspects are given a piece of information that’s tempting to pass to the media, but each is given a slightly different version,’ Pope said, explaining that three suspects may have been told the programme is codenamed Immaculate Conception, Constellation and Cosmos respectively.

‘If this is what happened, they’d now know that Suspect B was the leaker, and would have taken appropriate action against the individual concerned,’ Pope added.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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