The Truth Is Out There…but it may still be Unidentified

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• Earthlings have a long history of encounters — some closer than others — with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), formerly known as UFOs.
• For years, there have been claims linking UAP encounters to nuclear incidents. Historian, prolific author and self-professed “document geek” Larry Hancock says this idea makes sense: If an advanced civilization were observing us, advancements in nuclear physics would undoubtedly be a significant milestone worth monitoring closely.
• What does the U.S. government know about extraterrestrial intelligence? What’s being hidden? When will we know the truth?

“People generally refer to me as a ‘document geek,’” says historian Larry Hancock, who has been studying the paperwork and the politics behind the American government’s knowledge of extraterrestrial intelligence since 1965. 

Based on his extensive research on CIA, FBI and military documents dating back to the 1940s,  Larry has established himself as one of the most knowledgeable experts on the bureaucratic red tape under which U.S. agencies have buried hundreds of encounters with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). His 2017 book “Unidentified: The National Defense Problem of UFOs” delves into the links between UAP encounters and nuclear incidents.  

Larry thinks one of the most notable things about UAP — based on both eyewitness reports and hard evidence like the infamous TicToc video — is the apparent subterfuge. “These things do not act covertly,” he says of these phenomena. “There’s no sign of them really disguising [themselves].”

And though he doesn’t speculate about the meaning of this overt behavior (if any), it seems to confirm that UAP “intelligent and responsive” craft come with “really good technology.”

Larry joined host David Dorr for a stellar Galactic Macro episode of Top Traders Unplugged to break down the facts, the cover stories and the lingering questions about UAP — specifically the many sightings that intersect with nuclear incidents and facilities. 

Below, he explains just a few of the ways the Air Force and other U.S. entities have studied (and covered up) evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence and technology.

Are we alone in the universe? It’s classified

Larry says that over the years, there were two distinct narratives at play. One was the official storyline disseminated by the Air Force Public Affairs Office. The other revolved around confidential documents collected within air technical intelligence sectors that varied in sensitivity. Some were classified based on the subject matter; others on the method of information collection. (Safeguarding the nature of the instrument or device used for collection — known as “compartmentalized sourcing” — is often routine.)

Eventually, a substantial body of reports amassed within the Air Force’s intelligence departments, but they remained inaccessible to the public for several decades. Only after the complete closure of the project were these documents made available, albeit in an arduous format — microfiche. Researchers had to painstakingly gather, read, and compile the information from the microfiche and enter it into a database. 

“Quite frankly, this subject actually could not even be studied until four or five decades after all that work had been done [to enable others to] see the data,” says Larry, who is a U.S. Air Force veteran himself.

The Air Force occasionally permitted journalists limited access to a handful of files, but always under strict control. Although the FBI and Navy conducted their own inquiries, UFO investigation was primarily an Air Force pursuit. Unless Congress intervened, either through a special committee or for public study, documents pertaining to any UFO research remained out of reach to laypeople. 

But one thing is clear to Larry now: “The Air Force was convinced these things were real — and as early as 1947, we see Air Force Intelligence reports that say they’re real.” 

The Cold War, the CIA and UAP over Washington, D.C.

In 1952, a series of high-profile UAP incidents on the East Coast, particularly in Washington, D.C., drew significant attention. President Eisenhower sought answers from the Air Force, which was “a little embarrassed because they couldn’t even put interceptors over Washington, D.C. for an hour,” Larry explains. “It’s not something you want to talk about at the height of the Cold War.”

So the President sought help from the CIA, whose technical experts “started to laugh it off” before they saw the Air Force’s files and elevated the issue to the National Security Council. However, the Council insisted on obtaining input from a scientific panel before taking the CIA and Air Force reports seriously. This panel was assembled, but its conclusion was to treat the issue as a matter of “psychological warfare” and move it to a communications domain. They reportedly even “called in Walt Disney” to help the government spin the truth. The panel’s primary concern was that if the U.S. didn’t downplay UAP incidents, the sheer volume of reports could pose a significant national defense threat.

In “Unidentified,” Larry puts Air Force public relations and Air Intelligence statements side by side to illustrate the “total disconnect” — which he says “isn’t surprising, in terms of anything that’s related to national defense.” 

But what still troubles him is that NASA seems to be doing the same thing in 2023.

NASA’s ‘embarrassing’ report 

On September 14, 2023, NASA held a live hearing, named a new research chief and released its own report on UAP, “which was pretty much a dud,” says David. 

NASA’s report called UAP “one of our planet’s greatest mysteries,” but that “despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed and curated observations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definitive, scientific conclusions about UAP.”

David and Larry both call bullshit on NASA’s claim.

“It’s just embarrassing, really — they didn’t do anything meaningful and were kind of playing dumb,” says David of the hearing.

“I’m not sure they have taken a look at what actually exists in the files because we do have numerous vetted technical observations,” Larry says. “Actually, radar video recordings of movements of UAP is one of the most significant.” 

Those recordings originated with the U.S. Army, which had an installation beside one of the first national atomic weapons stockpiles. Soldiers “started seeing a wave of UFOs down at ground level, at very low altitudes,” Larry explains. The Army reported these incidents to the FBI and the Air Force.

The Army “got so little response from the Air Force that they deployed their own observation teams,” many of whom were artillery spotters who used optical instruments to “collect a whole body of information, recording these things moving at tremendous accelerations [and] stopping instantaneously,” he adds.

The Air Force declined to study the phenomena, but the original Army recordings from 1948 are still on file. Still, “nobody seems to want to look at them,” Larry argues.

Friends or foes? IFF radar knows 

David asks Larry to sum up the best evidence about the extraterrestrial nature of UAP as he understands it. If “the truth is out there,” what’s the whole truth?

“One thing is clear: We’re dealing with unidentified intelligence. That’s the way I like to look at it,” Larry replies. “There is a whole phenomenological aspect to this and an experiential aspect. I think one of the things we haven’t done is to parse this out. … It’s just like biology or anything else. You need to study things independently. If you mix everything together, you’re lost.”

The unassailable nature of certain detection and tracking technologies is what gives him so much confidence “We know it’s there if it reflects radar,” he explains. “If it’s got an infrared signature, we know it’s there. This is not strictly experiential. It’s not a hologram — it’s got to be there if it bounces radar back to me.”

In some instances, UAP have transmitted electronic signals, including known radar frequencies, to U.S. aircraft. UAP have even sent coded messages to us, using the same codes the military uses to identify its aircraft. 

Larry cites something curious that happened twice over a radar station in Arizona. A UAP arrived in the airspace at 12,000 miles an hour and stopped. Then, Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) radar interrogated the craft. IFF devices and systems protect aircraft from being fired upon accidentally. In practice, an IFF device hails an unknown craft with a particular code. If it’s friendly, the craft will recognize the code and send a code back. 

In the Arizona incidents, the UAP actually identified itself as friendly. But observers knew, based on its speed and movements, that it wasn’t any kind of craft they knew. The military eventually explained it as a “balloon at night.”

Unconventional technology and astonishing intelligence

As far back as 1952, the Air Force did an analysis that found multiple UAP can interact with each other, including maneuvering at high speed.

“There’s no doubt that intelligence is there. There’s no doubt that unconventional technology is there,” says Larry. “I think we have to accept that. And we haven’t accepted that.”

But he adds that these findings have “nothing to do with extraterrestrials” — extraterrestrial life forms, that is. 

He is “annoyed” by recent statements from U.S. agencies that make a point to say they’ve found nothing to indicate the existence of extraterrestrials. Larry thinks the first order of business should simply be determining the nature of the unknown intelligence and technology at play. 

David wonders whether we’ll understand anything substantive in the years to come.

“As it seems like we’re getting closer to, perhaps, disclosure … it seems every answer opens up 10 questions,” David notes. “Do you think the questions-to-answers ratio will go up, or … the more we learn, the more questions we’ll have?”

Larry says that the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is “simply going for identification” — and that “they’re doing exactly what the Air Force and [Project] Blue Book did, decade after decade.” 

By that, he means the AARO looks at incidents by itself and tries to explain each incident as if it exists in a vacuum. 

“If they can explain it, great,” Larry says of AARO’s treatment of UAP. “Otherwise, it goes into an unidentified bucket. Now, if it goes into an unidentified bucket, who’s looking at it to answer that question? Is anybody looking any further? Have they turned it over to DARPA? Have they turned it over to MIT?”

The only questions the U.S. government truly seems to want to answer about UAP are whether they’re drones … and if they are Chinese. And some UAP are both, but not the “real” UAP Larry and David are talking about. 

“I don’t see any getting any answers until the questions are right,” Larry says. “And they’re not asking the right questions.”

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This is based on an episode of Top Traders Unplugged, a bi-weekly podcast with the most interesting and experienced investors, economists, traders and thought leaders in the world. Sign up to our Newsletter or Subscribe on your preferred podcast platform so that you don’t miss out on future episodes.