Why Did The Navy File A Patent For An 'Alien' Spacecraft?

The U.S. Navy recently filed a patent for a new kind of aircraft, one that can move from outer space to underwater because it can "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level." It physically resembles a UFO which Navy pilots had dubbed "the Tic Tac," and its alternative propulsion model was so outlandish that the patent office straight up rejected it. Then the Navy wrote to the patent office back and insisted they accept the application, claiming that the technologies are in fact "operable."

If you think that seems like a design reverse-engineered from a captured alien spacecraft, it does ... in the sense that it's total bullshit (more on that in a moment). The truth is almost as weird. The U.S. government, or some faction within it, wants people to think they have an alien spacecraft.

The Government Has Spent Years Secretly Studying UFOs

For a long time, the military forbade personnel from making any reference whatever to UFOs -- which, just a reminder, is a term for literal unidentified flying objects, things that absolutely exist and needn't have anything to do with aliens. Then in 2019, they finally changed their policy and invited pilots to note UFOs, since it's kind of important to be able to report when you see a potential dragon drone from China. Makes sense, right?

But that change came pretty soon after we'd learned the Pentagon had a secret program for years to study UFOs, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), started in 2007. And though we might downplay it as monitoring mundane objects of unknown but terrestrial origin, we also got to see videos of these UFOs behaving in ways that don't seem much like Earth vehicles at all.

This is why in the last couple of years, you've seen these "Military pilot reports encounter with apparent alien craft!" viral headlines. Those videos were obtained from the Pentagon and given to the media by a UFO group called To The Stars, which was founded by (and here's where it starts to get stupid) Blink 182's Tom DeLonge. Tom might seem an unlikely person to start such a group, but he can be quite mysterious -- he's always been interested in nanotechnology, and is sometimes unable to correctly recall his own date of birth.

Related: 5 Projects You Won't Believe The US Government Is Working On

Some Experts Seem Sure That These UFOs Are Aliens

If you go by media appearances, everyone with information about AATIP seemed to believe the program spotted more than just unregistered private jets. Leader Luis Elizondo told a bunch of different publications, and I'm paraphrasing, "I'm not saying it was aliens ... but it was aliens." Another guy who spoke out repeatedly on the topic was Christopher Mellon, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence. He referred to the vehicles as "intelligently controlled," but accepted the premise that the beings controlling them were not human. It's like a Bizarro World X-Files, with the government openly and loudly talking about aliens to anyone who will listen.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon says AATIP was shut down in 2012 because it produced no results, just paperwork. But that paperwork was somehow even weirder than the basic "It was definitely aliens" stuff. A research contract went to an institute in Utah's Skinwalker Ranch, as documented by biochemist Colm Kelleher. Some of the institute's papers, authored by one Dr. Eric Davis, were "Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions" and "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy." If their talk about alternative propulsion models sounds a little too complicated to understand, fear not, because they also seriously featured this illustration of Einstein chatting with dinosaurs:

Which brings us to the UFO patent. My own physics knowledge is limited. When I read descriptions of "room temperature superconductivity" and "an inertial mass reduction device," I don't know whether that's actual tech, like the patent states, or nonsense sci-fi technobabble. I can just look to the words of unbiased physics professors who say, um, it's nonsense sci-fi technobabble. Those technologies don't exist. If they did, the government would have parallel universe computers already, and they wouldn't be revealing it in an unclassified patent.

The patent's inventor credits the work of Stanford's Dr. Harold E. Puthoff, who founded a group called EarthTech International. That group contributed to those wacko Skinwalker Ranch UFO papers. Puthoff was also a top-ranked Scientologist who claimed to have ESP, and he ran a CIA experiment which he claimed authenticated the psychic abilities of Uri Geller, a confirmed fraud.

Related: 7 Heroically Dumb Projects The Government Blew Your Taxes On

So What The Hell Is Going On Here?

Remember To The Stars, the Blink 182 guy's organization that released those UFO videos? Harold Puthoff, the guy behind that patent tech, is a co-founder of To The Stars. And Eric Davis, the author of that wormhole paper written for Pentagon UFO cash? He's also with To The Stars. Colm Kelleher of Skinwalker Ranch? He's To The Stars' biotech consultant. Chris Mellon, the intelligence guy on TV? He'd gone from government work to private equity, and he pushed his money right into To The Stars. Luis Elizondo, who headed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program? He's a director at To The Stars.

So it would appear the Pentagon has some kind of weird partnership with this particular group of UFO enthusiasts. But here's another twist: Journalists have been unable to verify that Elizondo really did lead AATIP. The Pentagon denies that he did. They freely admit now that AATIP existed, but say that Elizondo was never involved with it (though everyone agrees he worked for the government in some capacity). Helene Cooper, the New York Times reporter who interviewed Elizondo and broke the AATIP news, says she had doubts about his story as soon as she got out of the interview and had a moment to think it all over, but she left him in the article because the real bombshell -- AATIP's existence -- was sound.

So to summarize, someone in the U.S. military has been paying UFO enthusiasts for research work, several of whom are now part of a group founded by Blink 182's former singer and guitarist. Meanwhile, someone in the U.S. Navy is backing a patent for a reality-bending spacecraft based on alien tech "discovered" by that same group.

Related: The 10 Most Bizarre Military Experiments

A Stupid Waste Of Taxpayer Money? Or Something Else?

It's no secret what To The Stars gets out of this relationship, considering that the original Pentagon contract was reportedly worth $22 million. Their website's homepage has a big button on top calling on you to "invest now," and their primary work appears to be TV shows about UFOs, like this History Channel series. They've also scored a nice deal with the government to share unspecified "exotic materials" they claim to have in their possession, which supposedly will help with inertial mass reduction and other sci-fi tech. All of their military ties make their work seem more legit (thus Elizondo appearing to exaggerate his role in AATIP).

As for why the government has seemingly been playing along for the last 12 years or so, either someone within the military believes this stuff, or else they have other motivation to get that belief out into the public. Maybe they consider UFO enthusiasts a key voting demographic. Or maybe they're prepping the public for when they drop a giant "alien" squid on New York prior to election day. Or maybe all of this is intended to hide an even darker truth: that the U.S. military budget is so gigantic that they'll just write checks to anybody who asks.

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For more, check out How The Defense Industry Lit A Trillion Dollars On Fire - Cracked Explains:

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