Last summer, when there was a tremendous amount of buzz about UFOs being encountered by our Navy fighter pilots, Republican Congressman Mark Walker of North Carolina’s 6th district wrote a letter to the Navy asking for details. There was a bit of a delay, but then-Undersecretary of the Navy Thomas Modly did eventually write back to Walker. This was first reported last year by Politico, but the full contents of the (non-classified) letter weren’t released. Now The War Zone has obtained a copy of the full letter and published it.

To say that the response was disappointing is a serious understatement. Mody spoke almost entirely in vague generalities, eventually making it clear that he wasn’t even addressing the specific topic that Walker was inquiring about. Walker described the letter as “frustratingly insufficient.”

It also does not discuss any Navy connection to the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program (AATIP), or its predecessor, the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program, which existed for various periods of time within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. You can find out more about those programs in these previous War Zone pieces.

“The wide proliferation and availability of inexpensive unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has increasingly made airspace de-confliction an issue for our aviators. Naval aircrews have been provided reporting guidance to determine the frequency and location of UAS operating in training areas,” Modly wrote to Walker. “The guidance supports objective, data-driven analysis of incursions. The DON continues to dedicate resources to the tracking and investigation of reports that could affect the safety of our aircrews.”

As I said, you can read the entire letter at the link above, but Mody spoke in generalities, saying that the Department of the Navy (DON) “takes these reports very seriously and continues to log sightings and fully investigate the accounts.”

But as you can see in the excerpt above, Mody then goes on to muddy the waters, talking about “inexpensive unmanned aerial systems (UAS).” He’s talking about drones. Walker wasn’t asking about drones, though that’s another, far more earthly concern that’s a valid topic of discussion. The Congressman was specifically asking about the UAPs being reported by pilots from the Nimitz and Roosevelt carrier groups, among others. He wrote:

“Based on pilot accounts, encounters with these UAPs often involved complex flight patterns and advanced maneuvering, which demand extreme advances in quantum mechanics, nuclear science, electromagnets, and thermodynamics. If the accounts are true, the unidentified crafts could pose a serious security risk to our military personnel and defense apparatus. They could also represent a tremendous opportunity for advancements in science and technology that can contribute to the public good.”

Does that sound to you like Walker was talking about drones that kids are picking up at Walmart for under fifty bucks? Of course not. He was talking about UFOs and the pilots who have been seeing them. Walker also made explicit reference to the AATIP program in his letter and asked whether or not the DON had found “material evidence or otherwise that substantiates these claims.” Mody ignored those questions entirely.

This was a series of non-answers from the Navy that avoided the questions being asked. Walker is on the House Committee on Homeland Security and is the Ranking Member for its Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism. Do you suppose that someone like that might be entitled to some straight answers, even if they had to be delivered in a classified fashion? Instead, Mody seemed to twist the knife a bit in his letter, saying that the Navy would continue to work with the House Armed Services Committee (of which Walker is not a member.)

I suppose this denial and obfuscation shouldn’t surprise us too much. The Pentagon has gone almost entirely silent on this subject over the winter, saying as little as possible and being highly evasive when someone does drag an answer out of them. But we’ll keep pounding our heads against that wall until we eventually get some answers.

Meanwhile, in case you wanted some extra reading on the topic of the fascinating technology these UFOs are apparently demonstrating, it turns out that our military has been working on antigravity technology since the 50s and they’re still doing it today. Of course, there’s no evidence that they ever figured it out, but they’ve been trying. Lots of good data at the linked article. Enjoy.