FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.—On Dec. 27, President Joe Biden signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act into law allocating nearly $817 billion toward protecting the United States.
Buried deep in the massive 3,854-page document is subsection 1673. It relates to “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) reporting procedures.” UAP is the government acronym used for unidentified flying objects—popularly known as UFOs.
Among other things, 1673 establishes a “secure mechanism” for authorized reporting of UAPs, with protections for whistleblowers, programs, and government departments that have information on them.
Section 1673 also provides security for any government activity, program, or contractor relating to UAPS such as “material retrieval and analysis, reverse engineering, research, and development.”
Although 1673 makes no reference to UAPS being of extraterrestrial origin, Melinda Leslie, of the UFO Research Center in Sedona, Arizona, said the section’s existence is “huge.”
For years, the government denied the existence of UFOs. Now, codified in the 2023 NDAA, 1673 has taken the debate in a whole new direction.
“The NDAA is the real story,” Leslie told The Epoch Times, and most previous investigations were mere distractions or coverups.
In a social media post, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon wrote that the UAP provision is “unprecedented.”
“This is arguably the biggest story mainstream news organizations have ever failed to cover,” he wrote. “Even before this ‘whistleblower’ legislation was signed into law, credible individuals were providing Congress information alleging that the US government has recovered extraterrestrial technology.”
In other words, the truth about UFOs is still out there. And every so often, the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, gets a phone call about an unusual sighting in the night sky. Is it a UFO—or something else?
Lowell Observatory historian Kevin Schindler says mostly it is a natural occurrence, like the planet Venus shining bright after sunset. And then those are tongue-in-cheek moments such as the letters that suggested there were extraterrestrials from Cassiopeia.
“We do have a variety of people asking things like that,” Schindler says.
But, UFO researchers say some cases defy explanation and include eyewitness reports from credible sources—from military people to commercial pilots.
These sightings have taken the debate over UFOs to a more sober level—to such an extent that the government formed an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) in August 2020 to study the topic in detail.
In its unclassified report, “Preliminary Assessment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” dated June 25, 2021, the task force concluded that the subject of UAPs is worth further study and research funding. However, the report would not acknowledge an extraterrestrial origin.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena “pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security,” the report to congressional intelligence officials warned.
While available reporting on UAPs is “largely inconclusive,” the report said sightings fall into five categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. Government or industry development programs, foreign adversary systems, and “other.” The report added that a few UAPs demonstrate advanced technology, though most reports “probably lack a single explanation.”
In October 2022, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the formation of an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Study with 16 members versed in the subject.
“Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are [and] the language of scientists is data,” according to a NASA fact sheet.
The independent study group will examine UAP data over the next nine months and report on its findings around mid-2023. NASA asserted it is “going in with an open mind, and we expect to find that explanations will apply to some events and different explanations will apply to others.”
“We will not underestimate what the natural world contains [and] there is a lot to learn.”
NASA press secretary Katherine Rohloff said the study aims to identify data from the civilian government, commercial, and other sources that can shed light on UAPs. Using that data, the space agency will recommend a “roadmap” for future UAP analysis.
In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced the establishment of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office to examine and assess potential aerial threats near military installations.
The DoD said UAPs include anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged, and “trans-medium objects.”
“Put simply, UAPs are objects that, when encountered, cannot be immediately identified and may exhibit anomalous behavior,” said DoD press operations spokeswoman Sue Gough.
Gough cautioned that the lack of attribution “does not necessarily indicate the significance of each sighting or a threat to national security.”
“Anomalous behavior means that DoD operators or sensors cannot make immediate sense of collected data, actions, or activities,” Gough told The Epoch Times in an email.
Gough said that by combining data collection with rigorous science, “any object we encounter can likely be isolated, characterized, identified, and, if necessary, mitigated.”
The DoD’s position is to collect as much data and see where it leads.
Gough added, “We will not rush to conclusions in our analysis. In many cases, observed phenomena are classified as ‘unidentified’ simply because sensors [could not] collect enough information to make a positive attribution.”
Mellon, in his post, said he is not claiming that information provided to Congress or the AARO proves alien visitation. However, based on credible government witnesses and reports, “I can vouch for the fact that the AARO office has serious leads to pursue.”
Mellon wrote the NDAA legislation expands the scope and resources of the AARO in the development of a science plan to “assess the sometimes mysterious and mind-bending capabilities” of UAPs.
Since the purported crash of a UFO took place in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1948, the idea of visitors from other planets has captured the public’s imagination like no other. There have been thousands of reports of UFOs over the years since, ranging from direct sightings of strange lights and actual craft to alien abductions.
Incidents such as these sparked a series of investigations by the U.S. Air Force, beginning with Project Sign in 1947, Project Grudge in 1948, and Project Blue Book from 1952 to 1969. The studies looked at more than 12,000 reported sightings in total, concluding UFOs were not a national security threat or of extraterrestrial origin.
People who study UFOs are known as “ufologists.” And many ufologists, like documentary filmmaker Ron James of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), believe ample proof exists that UFOs are here and not of this world. More importantly, the government knows this.
“When we say government, we’re not talking about guys at the Pentagon,” said James, MUFON’s director of public relations.
“We’re talking about programs buried for years away from the institutional memory of the armed forces in pseudo-government, private ventures that are accountable to nobody and impossible to penetrate with the FOIA [Freedom Of Information Act].”
James’s latest project, “Accidental Truths,” seeks to address the government’s “new narrative” of UFOs and the key people involved in concealing their existence. The 90-minute film’s release is due in early 2023. James said MUFON amassed a growing database of 120,000 UFO sightings and encounters since the group’s founding in 1969, receiving hundreds more cases each month.
He said at least 97 percent of cases MUFON receives and investigates have a natural explanation, like the weather, satellites, or aircraft. The other 3 percent can’t easily be explained and requires further study.
“When you talk about the field [of UFO research], you don’t cover it in one umbrella,” James told The Epoch Times. “Many of these avenues are conjecture, testimony, little documented evidence—which is fine.
“Things that are science fiction today are science fact tomorrow.”
More than 70 years after the Roswell incident, James said we know “something is going on.”
“We don’t know exactly [but] we have a pretty good idea.”
While Roswell catalyzed interest in UFOs, references to strange flying objects appear in texts going back to biblical times, James said.
“This topic has been at the forefront of our culture and the general population since the 40s. Since the Roswell thing took off.”
In December 2017, the New York Times published an article exposing what it said was a secret Pentagon program to investigate UFOs beginning in 2007. Former U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) reportedly obtained funding for the program. However, James said government investigations into UFOs amount to little more than a “dog and pony show.”
“That’s how it’s been from the beginning. The acronyms [for the studies] are adding up,” James said.
Through “compartmentalization” of various government entities, “it gives them the ability to say we don’t know anything about [UFOs], even though it’s a real thing,” James said.
“By compartmentalization—and by what we call ‘stovepiping’—they’re able to sequester information. And then they have plausible deniability.”
James believes there is a power struggle within certain levels of government between those who wish to cover up the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs and those who want to expose it. He said the government acknowledging the reality of alien technology and energy sources would be Earth-shaking.
“It would destroy every paradigm, every power structure, every means of control that keeps the planet in check. It’s all about energy. Whoever controls the energy controls the entire planet,” James said.
Despite official denials of non-terrestrial UFOs, sightings of strange objects continue to this day. The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), a national clearinghouse of information on unidentified aerial sightings, has logged more than 150,000 reports over 47 years of operation. The center in December posted 1,255 new UFO sightings on its website.
On Nov. 7, NUFORC received a report from multiple airline pilots describing a “dramatic display” of lights over the midwestern United States the night before.
“Moreover, several other flight crews allegedly reported the same event over their backchannel, so-called ‘guard,’ radio frequency, and discussed the event extensively over an estimated 20-25 minutes,” according to NUFORC’s website.
James said the UFO debate is far from over yet he doesn’t believe the new investigations will reveal anything significant.
“It’s not going to reveal anything we don’t already know. If [the government] can drag it out for another 50 years, they’ll do it,” James said. “At some point, they will have to acknowledge the existence of non-human intelligence. Where it goes after that depends on what that relationship is about.”
One organization focused on the search for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations through radio signals is SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence). SETI began as a government program in 1960. However, questions over its scientific value led Congress to terminate it in the 1970s, though SETI researchers reorganized privately in the 1990s.
SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak said there has been no shortage of UFO reports since he joined the organization.
“I get a phone call almost every day from someone having difficulty with aliens in their personal lives,” Shostak said. “It’s not a new phenomenon for me.”
Shostak agreed that public fascination with UFOs remains high while conspiracies of government cover-ups abound.
“The fundamental fact is that ever since the 1960s, poll after poll has shown that one-third of the American populace believes that the aliens are buzzing the skies. Many call me up,” Shostak told The Epoch Times.
Shostak said every time a new UFO study group enters the media cycle, it only stirs hope “that something new will happen,” and Americans “love a conspiracy.” But the evidence regarding alien visitation is doubtful. Otherwise, we’d see them in our everyday lives.
“Maybe the aliens have lost interest or have been repelled by the fast food,” he joked. “If the aliens were visiting—if there were good evidence of that—you’d have thousands of scientists looking into this.”
“They’d be beavering away at this every day,” Shostak told The Epoch Times. “What could be more important than the idea extraterrestrials have decided to come to Earth for—whatever reason? And they’re not doing that. That means [scientists] are not convinced.”
The late American astronomer Percival Lowell, founder of the Lowell Observatory in 1894, stands out among 20th-century scientists who believed in life on other planets.
Schindler said Lowell, from a wealthy Boston family, built the observatory housing its 24-inch refractor telescope to prove the existence of aqueducts, or “canals,” made by intelligent beings on Mars.
Lowell was not “one of these wacky guys with all these crazy ideas,” Schindler said. “He was well-educated and went to Harvard because he was a Lowell.”
“He started [the observatory] because he wanted to prove there was life on Mars.”
Lowell would also study the field of planetary formation and how the solar system might have evolved, theorizing the existence of a ninth planet—Planet X. Lowell died in 1915, though his research would inspire other astronomers to carry on, leading to the discovery of Pluto on Feb. 8, 1930.
“It’s interesting he wanted to prove there was intelligent life on Mars and didn’t—wanted to discover a planet and didn’t. He probably went to his grave unfulfilled in some ways because he didn’t do that one big thing,” Schindler said.
“In hindsight, he probably had more impact than he could imagine.”
Schindler said there is no scientific consensus to draw reliable conclusions about the origin of UFOs based on the amount of evidence that exists. Statistically, the existence of life on other worlds is highly probable, he said, given recent discoveries of planets circling other stars using the Hubble telescope.
On the other hand, James believes there is a “tremendous amount of evidence” that UFOs are from other worlds in the form of photographs, video, eyewitness reports, and debris recovered from alleged crash sites. It’s just a matter of when, and if, the government feels the time is right to disclose the truth about alien life and technology, he said.
“If Elon Musk lands on Mars next to a mushroom, the whole [no] life on Mars thing is pretty blown. There are just too many things to make it possible to continue covering it up,” James said.
Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
Bypass Big Tech Censors
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.