Skinwalker Ranch is one of the most famous sites in contemporary parascience, and Bigelow has been involved in it since long before AATIP (roughly since 1995; Harry Reid may have been on board with the project that entire time although it's difficult to say for sure). Colm Kelleher has also been involved in Skinwalker Ranch since the start. So I think it's important to understand that this is not a case of the DoD taking interest in Skinwalker Ranch, but a case of Bigelow directing their interest there.
Despite occasional claims by Bigelow, Kelleher, and others, paranormal phenomenon are not clearly documented at Skinwalker Ranch prior to the ownership of the Shermans in 1994, immediately before they sold the property to Bigelow. The exact details of this transaction, how Bigelow became aware of the property, etc., are opaque, but it presents a substantial possibility that the paranormal history was fabricated by the Shermans to motivate the sale.
Bigelow and his various organizations (NIDSci, a more genera parascience and paranormal organization, and later BAAS, his aerospace company) have owned the ranch and been conducting research there for 27 years, and yet they have failed to produce any reasonable documentary evidence of the phenomenon. What they have produced is innumerable stories like this one, full of intrigue but absent of evidence. Some might see it as too dismissive to suggest that there isn't something paranormal at Skinwalker Ranch, but at this point people even in the UFO community are inclined to agree that Bigelow has made a huge effort and doesn't have anything to show for it.
Bigelow's decision to completely close the property to entry by other researchers, and hiring a small security force to keep people out, has been taken as a bit of an affront. This coincided with his signing a number of media deals including a "Curse of Oak Island"-esque History Channel series, creating the appearance that Bigelow is more interested in finding funding and press than finding the truth.
I have previously expressed my belief that Bigelow's involvement in DoD UAP programs, facilitated by Sen. Reid, was primarily an effort to obtain government funding to continue his Skinwalker Ranch pursuits. This article seems to support that perspective.
> I have previously expressed my belief that Bigelow's involvement in DoD UAP programs, facilitated by Sen. Reid, was primarily an effort to obtain government funding
I also think something a lot of people do not understand is that the military routinely runs false flag operations. This is one reason I've been so highly skeptical of the recent congressional hearings. As far as I'm aware, every encounter is at best testified via second hand. Has anyone that has testified claimed to see "biologicals" themselves, or just that they heard or read about it? In the latter, we can't trust in that setting (though it would warrant more investigation).
They run these operations for several reasons. One is simply stupidity. Someone in the military might just believe remote viewing is possible and give funding. Another is to generate noise. When spies steal data, how do they know if those data and reports are genuine? It wouldn't be the first time a military got an adversary to waste countless time and money on futile pursuits. Another is simply to create a black op. You can't pour money into nothing, so you pour it into something else. These again usually use noise because when someone comes looking for that money you want to take them on a wild goose chase. The US Military has had access to the Alien story for 75+ years now and lots of people have built "evidence" around that story and many __want__ to believe in that story. I mean it is the conspiracy theory person's wet dream, that what appears complicated is actually very simple because ̶o̶m̶n̶i̶p̶o̶t̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶m̶n̶i̶s̶c̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶z̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ "the government" did it and the world is simple again and all is right. Spooks also love this kind of simplification, as we all do. Our monkey brains are satisfied when we have no more to dig into and "just know" (it's also why we confidently talk out our asses on places like this site about things we have no remote qualification to discuss). But it doesn't require stupidity to create all this noise, nor does it require 4D chess. It just requires time, chaos, and many different actors with many different unknown agendas (which would still requisite digging into to learn more, not stopping at this explanation).
So idk if the government is recklessly spending money or they understand that this is a useful false flag, or if they just don't care in even determining the difference anymore because either way it seems useful to the end goals.
I am skeptical, especially Mr Grusch seems like full of sh*t. But a pilot named David Fravor testified along him, described his first hand account under oath. The second pilot that that flew along side with him on that occasion corroborated his words as well in 60 min interview: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/navy-ufo-sighting-60-minute...
Having a very qualified pilot there at least worth attention.
First, while perhaps a minor quibble, I don't think it makes sense to call something a "false flag" operation when it's merely the result of poor decision making. Otherwise we'd have to call every contracting boondoggle the DoD has been involved in a "false flag," and the term loses all meaning. The distinction is important, because I find it very unlikely that the DoD's involvement in Bigelow's research was at all intentional.
We can point to two things to support this idea: first, that the DoD shut down AATIP apparently just about as soon as the broader executive branch became aware of it. Second, the fairly clear evidence that AATIP was only ever funded because of Sen. Reid's dogged support---in other words, it never really was a DoD initiative, it was Sen. Reid's project (and Sen. Reid's friend) and the DoD was merely the channel for that funding.
After the abrupt and awkward end of AATIP, having produced almost no useful results at all, the DoD replaced it with their own in-house program which has since operated in a far more normal way... without any field trips to Skinwalker Ranch.
Many people, almost everyone I think, radically overestimate the significance of AATIP because they are not familiar with the general world of DoD contracting. AATIP was a tiny project in a massive budget, and one apparently included at the behest of a powerful senator, which is an extremely common way that all sorts of misventures get added to the DoD. There's little evidence that AATIP ever had serious support from any high level of military intelligence, and some evidence that military intelligence mostly ignored it. This kind of thing happens all the time, a simple result of the DoD's secondary function as one of the primary pork barrels for the US Senate. In short, calling AATIP a "false flag" attributes a lot more executive function to the DoD than appears to have happened here, and indeed than happens in the vast majority of small, eccentric DoD projects.
AATIP would have come and gone almost completely unnoticed were it not for the massive press round it received, years later, as a self-serving promotional stunt for the private, for-profit TTSA. TTSA aggressively tried to link itself to AATIP for cachet, but even those links are questionable when inspected closely. That too passed without much impact on anything, but not before other events like the Chinese balloon program thrust UAPs solidly into the media spotlight. This creates an endlessly frustrating situation in which the media, the public, and even apparently some of congress are inclined to interpret current UAP events in the context of the AATIP, even though there is almost no connection between the two.
AATIP is a result of an eccentric millionaire leveraging a very powerful senate connection to capture a bit of flab on the DoD budget for his own self-interest. This kind of thing happens over and over again, it just usually doesn't have the sex appeal of UFOs.
Publicly no one with first hand experience has testified, but the Inspector General Office for the Intelligence Community independently interviewed (allegedly) over 40 witnesses with first hand knowledge, corroborating some of Grusch's claims (we have no idea the extent or what specifically). They brought their independent findings to the gang of eight (including schumer and rubio) who immediately introduced legislation to accelerate "disclosure" of the phenomenon (namely the UAP disclosure act within the DoD 2024 appropriations bill). Take from that what you will.
> Bigelow's decision to completely close the property to entry by other researchers, and hiring a small security force to keep people out, has been taken as a bit of an affront. This coincided with his signing a number of media deals including a "Curse of Oak Island"-esque History Channel series, creating the appearance that Bigelow is more interested in finding funding and press than finding the truth.
as noted in the linked article, Bigelow sold the ranch to Brandon Fugal, who has continued research with a private team, closed off access, and now has two television shows about the ranch and other phenomena.
I think it's totally reasonable to just blame this on Fugal, but Bigelow and Fugal are also not totally independent actors. At the time some felt that it was an arrangement to Bigelow's benefit, and Bigelow's ongoing involvement at the site seems to make that idea at least reasonable. But you could take the perspective that the monetization was an independent strategy of Fugal. Certainly they've taken different angles, and sideshows like TTSA show that the federal contractor approach is probably a better one than mass media. For my own part, I think that things have gone largely according to Bigelow's plan.
If you watch the recent Sean Ryan podcast with the current owner Brandon fugal, as well as Jeffrey Mishloves new thinking aloud interview with Bigelow, you can obtain more details about the history, which seem to be missing or incorrect in your presentation.
The sale to Shermans was for merely $200,000. And Bigelow didn’t solicit the DoD’s interest: after he’s been out there a while they came calling to him.
Where did you even get your version of the details from? What motivated your bizarre take?
Also, the most interesting aspect of this article is the Hitchhiker effect and Models of Contagion.
We know little of the Sherman's motivations and it seems likely that they needed to sell the ranch for some other reason. The stories of paranormal visitation likely started out as most do, as small time rumors, and expanded in scale to the skinwalker ranch phenomenon to meet the opportunity to sell to Bigelow.
Brandon Fugel should not be trusted. Because of the History Channel series he has a clear financial interest in the ranch, and it's obvious on casual inspection of the show that he has few compunctions when it comes to the ways he promotes his interests. The television show is an embarrassment to anyone with a sincere interest in the topic, it is worse than its obvious inspiration The Curse of Oak Island and that is saying a lot. And yet Fugel's role is to occasionally pop in to stir the drama.
Bigelow claims that the DoD came to him, but these types of contracts are usually awarded through back channels after lobbying by the firm that eventually wins them... This is the norm in defense acquisition. We know that Bigelow was drumming up political support for his projects from Reid as early as when he was making plans to purchase Skinwalker Ranch. It's extremely hard to believe that the DoD happened to select him as the best provider when the program only existed due to influence from his good friend and compatriot Reid... Far more likely that Bigelow himself established the parameters of the contract before he was considered for it, a practice that is basically normal in DoD contracting.
I know I am being harsh but you cannot judge these events based only on the accounts of the people that benefit from them. They are benefitting enormously from the information vacuum associated with military intelligence and the credulousness of the media. There is virtually nothing to check them when they make claims about what happened, and there are plenty of indications that they take advantage of this situation to create the story that they want. It's good to be skeptical, but you need to also be skeptical of the people who stir up these conspiracies.
Religion, faith, UFOs, paranormal b.s., these are all variants of willfully believing fiction as reality.
I don't think it takes much imagination to see how a public indoctrinated with the above are beneficial to those seeking power and influence through lies and deceit.
I'd like to visit this place, but there are no cheap flights to the obverse side of the flat earth from where I live, and United won't fly over the edge of the world's ice barrier. Damn.
This is just folie en famille[1] / folie à plusieurs, right?
The Skinwalker visitor fits the criteria as the folie imposée and the main contributors of stress and isolation are easily inferred - the site is remote, and visitors are aware of its history which frames their time there as particularly stress-inducing.
Readit News
Despite occasional claims by Bigelow, Kelleher, and others, paranormal phenomenon are not clearly documented at Skinwalker Ranch prior to the ownership of the Shermans in 1994, immediately before they sold the property to Bigelow. The exact details of this transaction, how Bigelow became aware of the property, etc., are opaque, but it presents a substantial possibility that the paranormal history was fabricated by the Shermans to motivate the sale.
Bigelow and his various organizations (NIDSci, a more genera parascience and paranormal organization, and later BAAS, his aerospace company) have owned the ranch and been conducting research there for 27 years, and yet they have failed to produce any reasonable documentary evidence of the phenomenon. What they have produced is innumerable stories like this one, full of intrigue but absent of evidence. Some might see it as too dismissive to suggest that there isn't something paranormal at Skinwalker Ranch, but at this point people even in the UFO community are inclined to agree that Bigelow has made a huge effort and doesn't have anything to show for it.
Bigelow's decision to completely close the property to entry by other researchers, and hiring a small security force to keep people out, has been taken as a bit of an affront. This coincided with his signing a number of media deals including a "Curse of Oak Island"-esque History Channel series, creating the appearance that Bigelow is more interested in finding funding and press than finding the truth.
I have previously expressed my belief that Bigelow's involvement in DoD UAP programs, facilitated by Sen. Reid, was primarily an effort to obtain government funding to continue his Skinwalker Ranch pursuits. This article seems to support that perspective.
I also think something a lot of people do not understand is that the military routinely runs false flag operations. This is one reason I've been so highly skeptical of the recent congressional hearings. As far as I'm aware, every encounter is at best testified via second hand. Has anyone that has testified claimed to see "biologicals" themselves, or just that they heard or read about it? In the latter, we can't trust in that setting (though it would warrant more investigation).
They run these operations for several reasons. One is simply stupidity. Someone in the military might just believe remote viewing is possible and give funding. Another is to generate noise. When spies steal data, how do they know if those data and reports are genuine? It wouldn't be the first time a military got an adversary to waste countless time and money on futile pursuits. Another is simply to create a black op. You can't pour money into nothing, so you pour it into something else. These again usually use noise because when someone comes looking for that money you want to take them on a wild goose chase. The US Military has had access to the Alien story for 75+ years now and lots of people have built "evidence" around that story and many __want__ to believe in that story. I mean it is the conspiracy theory person's wet dream, that what appears complicated is actually very simple because ̶o̶m̶n̶i̶p̶o̶t̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶m̶n̶i̶s̶c̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶z̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ "the government" did it and the world is simple again and all is right. Spooks also love this kind of simplification, as we all do. Our monkey brains are satisfied when we have no more to dig into and "just know" (it's also why we confidently talk out our asses on places like this site about things we have no remote qualification to discuss). But it doesn't require stupidity to create all this noise, nor does it require 4D chess. It just requires time, chaos, and many different actors with many different unknown agendas (which would still requisite digging into to learn more, not stopping at this explanation).
So idk if the government is recklessly spending money or they understand that this is a useful false flag, or if they just don't care in even determining the difference anymore because either way it seems useful to the end goals.
Having a very qualified pilot there at least worth attention.
We can point to two things to support this idea: first, that the DoD shut down AATIP apparently just about as soon as the broader executive branch became aware of it. Second, the fairly clear evidence that AATIP was only ever funded because of Sen. Reid's dogged support---in other words, it never really was a DoD initiative, it was Sen. Reid's project (and Sen. Reid's friend) and the DoD was merely the channel for that funding.
After the abrupt and awkward end of AATIP, having produced almost no useful results at all, the DoD replaced it with their own in-house program which has since operated in a far more normal way... without any field trips to Skinwalker Ranch.
Many people, almost everyone I think, radically overestimate the significance of AATIP because they are not familiar with the general world of DoD contracting. AATIP was a tiny project in a massive budget, and one apparently included at the behest of a powerful senator, which is an extremely common way that all sorts of misventures get added to the DoD. There's little evidence that AATIP ever had serious support from any high level of military intelligence, and some evidence that military intelligence mostly ignored it. This kind of thing happens all the time, a simple result of the DoD's secondary function as one of the primary pork barrels for the US Senate. In short, calling AATIP a "false flag" attributes a lot more executive function to the DoD than appears to have happened here, and indeed than happens in the vast majority of small, eccentric DoD projects.
AATIP would have come and gone almost completely unnoticed were it not for the massive press round it received, years later, as a self-serving promotional stunt for the private, for-profit TTSA. TTSA aggressively tried to link itself to AATIP for cachet, but even those links are questionable when inspected closely. That too passed without much impact on anything, but not before other events like the Chinese balloon program thrust UAPs solidly into the media spotlight. This creates an endlessly frustrating situation in which the media, the public, and even apparently some of congress are inclined to interpret current UAP events in the context of the AATIP, even though there is almost no connection between the two.
AATIP is a result of an eccentric millionaire leveraging a very powerful senate connection to capture a bit of flab on the DoD budget for his own self-interest. This kind of thing happens over and over again, it just usually doesn't have the sex appeal of UFOs.
as noted in the linked article, Bigelow sold the ranch to Brandon Fugal, who has continued research with a private team, closed off access, and now has two television shows about the ranch and other phenomena.
If you watch the recent Sean Ryan podcast with the current owner Brandon fugal, as well as Jeffrey Mishloves new thinking aloud interview with Bigelow, you can obtain more details about the history, which seem to be missing or incorrect in your presentation.
The sale to Shermans was for merely $200,000. And Bigelow didn’t solicit the DoD’s interest: after he’s been out there a while they came calling to him.
Where did you even get your version of the details from? What motivated your bizarre take?
Also, the most interesting aspect of this article is the Hitchhiker effect and Models of Contagion.
Brandon Fugel should not be trusted. Because of the History Channel series he has a clear financial interest in the ranch, and it's obvious on casual inspection of the show that he has few compunctions when it comes to the ways he promotes his interests. The television show is an embarrassment to anyone with a sincere interest in the topic, it is worse than its obvious inspiration The Curse of Oak Island and that is saying a lot. And yet Fugel's role is to occasionally pop in to stir the drama.
Bigelow claims that the DoD came to him, but these types of contracts are usually awarded through back channels after lobbying by the firm that eventually wins them... This is the norm in defense acquisition. We know that Bigelow was drumming up political support for his projects from Reid as early as when he was making plans to purchase Skinwalker Ranch. It's extremely hard to believe that the DoD happened to select him as the best provider when the program only existed due to influence from his good friend and compatriot Reid... Far more likely that Bigelow himself established the parameters of the contract before he was considered for it, a practice that is basically normal in DoD contracting.
I know I am being harsh but you cannot judge these events based only on the accounts of the people that benefit from them. They are benefitting enormously from the information vacuum associated with military intelligence and the credulousness of the media. There is virtually nothing to check them when they make claims about what happened, and there are plenty of indications that they take advantage of this situation to create the story that they want. It's good to be skeptical, but you need to also be skeptical of the people who stir up these conspiracies.
For some odd reason, the Pentagon and certain corners of the Republican party really want you to believe in UFOs.
I don't think it takes much imagination to see how a public indoctrinated with the above are beneficial to those seeking power and influence through lies and deceit.
Critical thinkers are a con-man's kryptonite.
I'm disappointed.
Your understandable reading of that is kind of charming tho. Maybe they do! Or they should! Haha :)
The Skinwalker visitor fits the criteria as the folie imposée and the main contributors of stress and isolation are easily inferred - the site is remote, and visitors are aware of its history which frames their time there as particularly stress-inducing.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux