Top 10 UAP News Stories of 2024
The end of 2024 finds us writing our third year-end Top Ten UAP article. The volume of UAP news and information has grown each year, demonstrating that interest in the UAP topic continues to grow with both the public and the media.
Each of the past three years has been a fascinating mix of Congressional hearings, proposed laws, and official government reports on the topic. This year we add a historically important UAP flap to the mix.
Did the activity and news reporting move the needle on UAP disclosure? Did it advance our knowledge of what is or has gone on with respect to UAP? I believe it has. Enjoy the Top 10 list below as you decide for yourself.
#10 - New AARO Director Named
What list of top UAP news stories would be complete without recounting the foibles of the DoD’s AARO?
In August of this year, after spending several months with an acting Director, the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office named a new permanent Director. The previous Director, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick came to be nearly universally viewed as unhelpful if not obstructive during his tenure. The AARO historic report released just before his departure has been viewed as poor quality work, full of errors and failing to address some obviously required topics.
The new Director, Dr. Jon T. Kosloski, while under the same careful DoD oversight as Kirkpatrick, has the potential to be less obstructive and misleading than Kirkpatrick. Time will tell.
#9 - Army Colonel Karl Nell Says the Quiet Part Out Loud, MSM Takes Note
The march of highly qualitified and reputable people speaking out on the UAP topic continued in 2024, most notably with a very direct statement by retired U.S. Army Colonel Karl Nell. While Nell had been active for a few years in the UAP space, His bold statement made a the SALT Conference in May gained widespread media coverage. The statement combined with his accomplished background and excellent reputation, created a news making event.
His statement: “non-human intelligence exists; non-human intelligence has been interacting with humanity. This interaction is not new, and it’s been ongoing, and unelected people in the government are aware of that.”
#8 - The Senate holds public and closed hearings with new AARO Director Jon Kosloski
On November 19 of this year, the U.S. Senate held both public and private hearings with the new head of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Jon T. Kosloski.
The hearings, headed up by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, was called due to concerns about “drone” activity around military bases. Gillibrand was quoted as saying: “We’re doing it specifically focused on what happened at Langley and some of these massive drone strikes we’re having all across the country,”
The headline quote from Kosloski was entirely predictable: “it is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology.” At the same time, he admitted: “We do have some very anomalous objects,”
This hearing delivered several positives: It told the AARO that congressional eyes are on them and results are expected, it continued to build interest inside Congress on the topic, demonstrating to members that it is safe to broach the UAP topic and it kept the phenomenon in the public eye.
#7 - AARO Reports Proposed Special Access Program: "Kona Blue"
The release of the AARO’s historic report brought along with it a surprise. The report uncovered a proposed government program whose purpose was “the retrieval and exploitation of “non-human biologics.”
Kona Blue was proposed in the 2010’s by the Department of Homeland Security. It was a “Proposed Special Access Program” or PSAP. The program was proposed but reportedly never approved.
The importance of this disclosure is immediately apparent. If non-human intelligences have never interacted with humans on earth as the government narrative insists, why would any government entity propose a program to study the bodies of non-humans? The existence of the proposal contradicts the ongoing government narrative. That this discovery was made by AARO, a government entity in its own right, tells us that this activity very likely did occur.
#6 - UAP Related Legislature Is Proposed, But Goes Up In Smoke
Once again in 2024 influential members of Congress proposed UAP related legislation. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Senator Mike Rounds together revived their previous UAP Disclosure Act (UAPDA) legislation for attempted inclusion into the Nation Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The results were not positive. The UAPDA language was cut out of the NDAA during House/Senate negotiations. For a second year in a row this potentially powerful bill was not enacted, to the dismay of the UAP community.
#5- Luis Elizondo Releases Imminent
In August of 2024, the former head of a U.S. government UAP program, Luis Elizondo made a huge splash with the long-awaited release of this first book, Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs. The book immediately went to #1 on the New York Times best seller list. Elizondo’s work received a great deal of media coverage including book reviews by the New York Times and the Associated Press. Additionally, he made many main stream media appearances and many, many more appearances at other outlets worldwide, including on the popular Joe Rogan Podcast.
The book gave the current state-of-the-art telling of the public’s understanding of the UAP phenomenon. Placing that level of knowledge on UAP into the hands of so many people combined with raising the awareness of the topic via his extended media tour was instrumental in advancing both knowledge and awareness of the UAP topic amongst the general public.
#4 - The House of Representatives is Briefed and Holds Hearings on The UAP Topic
For the third year in a row, the House of Representatives was active in investigating the UAP phenomenon. Congress received a briefing in January and held hearings on the UAP topic in November.
The January closed door briefing was held with Thomas Monheim, the inspector general of the intelligence community. The purpose, according to Rep. Glenn Grothman, was “to track down exactly what the military thinks of individual instances of these objects flying around.”
The Representatives left the briefing disappointed, frustrated by the lack of new information, specifically about whistleblower David Grusch’s allegations. One Representative complained that they “haven’t gotten the answers that we need.”
The hearings were held on November 13 this year, and included four witnesses:
- Tim Gallaudet Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (RET.)
- Luis Elizondo Former Department of Defense Official and author of the book Imminent
- Michael Gold Former NASA Administrator
- Investigative Journalist Michael Shellenberger and who exposed the Immaculate Constellation program
The goal of the hearing was to help the public to understand the government’s long involvement with UAP and to drive home the point that UAP are a national security concern. There was good media coverage of the event and it was generally considered a success.
#3 - The AARO Historic Report is Released
On March 6, volume 1 of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s Historic Report was released. To say that the report was a whitewash is an understatement. Congressionally mandated in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the report’s purpose was to discover and describe the history of the U.S. government’s involvement in investigations of UAP.
The report’s flaws were manifest. It contained factual errors, misspellings and perhaps most importantly, omissions of both well documented historic UAP reports and suspected UAP programs. The report was widely panned by knowledgeable sources as inaccurate, incomplete and poorly written, while receiving a whitewashing from the mainstream media.
#2 - Michael Shellenberger Outs the Secret Access Program "Immaculate Constellation"
For the second year in a row, Investigative Journalist Michael Shellenberger broke a massive UAP related story. On October 8, he released an article disclosing the name and purpose of a Department of Defense secret, Special Access Program called Immaculate Constellation.
According to Shellenberger “the existence of IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION demonstrates the extant capability to detect, quarantine, and transfer UAP and ARV [Alien Reproduction Vehicle] collection incidents” in a rapid manner to prevent information from spreading through military and intelligence channels. This article single-handedly confirmed to the world that the U.S. has or had a UFO recovery program.
#1 - The worldwide "Drone" flap of November - December 2024
Somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon, a group of people responsible for hiding the UFO reality from the world spent much of the 4th quarter of this year saying, “Thank god for drones!” The ubiquitous drone has become the perfect cover for the DoD’s effort to erase a major UFO flap from the front page of the news.
None-the-less, this still ongoing flap (as of December 31, 2024) is one of historic proportions. Recent UAP activity is by all appearances longer in in duration, has had more sightings and is more global in scope than say, the 1952 Washington D.C. UFO flap, a major event of historic importance. By the 28th of December 2024, a total of U. S. 30 military bases in 3 countries had confirmed sightings of UAP in their airspace. Additionally, dozens of power stations, airports, ports and other pieces of infrastructure nationwide had experienced drone incursions. Of course, tens of thousands of people have seen unidentified objects with their own eyes.
As is the case with everything UFO related, the United States government has been a reliable purveyor of disinformation to the public. Therefore, we don’t know with certainty what exactly is spooking citizens worldwide. The best guess is that people are seeing a broad array of items in the sky: mis-identified planets, satellites and aircraft, along with hobbyist drones, military equipment, DoD black project hardware… and UFOs.
Still ongoing as we end the year, it will be interesting to see how the event ends and how effective the government whitewashing of the event will be. Can we say conclusively this is not the catastrophic disclosure event predicted by some? Time will tell.