Area 51 Veteran And CIA Electronic Warfare Pioneer Weigh In On Navy UFO Encounters

Published Nov 25, 2019 6:07 PM EST

It’s a 70-year old mystery that, until recently, had been largely relegated to society’s rebelliously curious. Now, thanks in no small part to three Department of Defense videos showing some kind of unidentified aircraft soaring through restricted airspace, the topic of UFOs has suddenly reemerged as a subject worthy of mainstream attention. First hitting the public almost two years ago after originally being filmed by the targeting pods of Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters in 2004 and 2014-2015 , interest in these clips has only been bolstered by a recent official statement from the Navy saying, indeed, these blurry objects are “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” or “UAP.” In other words, their type and origin remain unknown, at least officially.

Despite all the attention from the media and the general public, for a man who’s worked on some of the most highly-classified aerospace programs in the world, all this new UFO talk isn’t all that impressive. In fact, for T.D Barnes, a former Special Projects engineer at Area 51, this entire UFO story sounds very familiar.

T.D. Barnes’ journey into the world of black projects began in 1954, when the young Army radar systems officer was selected to work with the world’s first operational surface-to-air missile systems (SAM), the Nike Ajax and Nike Hercules . Later, through defense contractor Unitech, Barnes would work out of NASA’s enigmatic High-Range Tracking Station-Beatty, assisting with secret space programs, such as NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) joint attempt at developing a nuclear rocket engine for manned flight to Mars, a project codenamed NERVA.

Finally, by the early 1960s, Barnes would be whisked away by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to work on “Project OXCART,” the development of the A-12 spy plane, at the ultra-reclusive and then quite new Area 51 .

Former Area 51 Special Projects Engineer T.D. Barnes standing in front of a Lockheed A-12, one of many programs Barnes worked on at Area 51., Tdbarnes.com

When the focus shifted to the A-12’s successor, the SR-71 Blackbird, Barnes would end up at Area 51’s Special Projects section, part of the Air Force’s Foreign Technology Division (FTD). Until Barnes’ retirement in the late 1970s, for almost two decades, he would work deep inside a world of government secrecy that most will never even get a glimpse of.

When it comes to recent accounts of Navy UFOs, with decades working on the world’s most advanced aerospace projects, T.D. Barnes has a theory:

“This takes me back to circa the 1960s when the CIA designed and was building the Mach 3 A-12 Blackbird to replace the U-2 ,” says Barnes. At the time, the CIA was gravely concerned that the Soviet Union’s new P-14 “Tall King” radar system would be able to detect the A-12 flying over their airspace. To combat these concerns, the CIA launched an audacious program to develop technology that could electronically generate and interject false targets into the Soviet radars, to trick them “seeing” and tracking non-existent “ghost aircraft.” The project’s codename was PALLADIUM.

An A-12 Oxcart. , USAF

was first to establish a potential historical relationship between PALLADIUM and the Navy’s UFO sightings last Spring. The history of the project is as such:

In 1960, when the Soviet Union moved a Tall King radar system to Cuba, the CIA began covertly using PALLADIUM to trick Russian air-defense radars into thinking unidentified aircraft were flying towards and even into Cuban airspace. As one of the few members of the PALLADIUM team, Barnes served as the air-defense artillery (ADA) and electronic/electromagnetic countermeasures (ECM/ECCM) officer for the classified program.

“Using an electronics-laden C-97 [EC-97G], we could make Soviet radars believe they were tracking any number of aerial objects,” mused Barnes. “At one point, a Russian MiG-15 pilot even claimed he could see the target and had a lock on it.”

Ultimately, PALLADIUM gave the United States forewarning that Russia’s radar capabilities were advanced enough they would soon be able to track and shoot down the Blackbird surveillance planes. As a result, no official crewed surveillance flights were ever conducted over Russia with the jet.

When it comes to the more recent Navy UFO encounters, Barnes says, “I don’t have the answers to what the Navy aviators saw, but in my mind, I’m thinking, we are doing it again.”

Barnes’s comments are remarkable given The War Zone’s recent exclusive on the Navy’s latest revolution in electronic warfare, the Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against Integrated Sensors, or NEMESIS.

Similar to the 1960s Project Palladium at its most basic level, but almost unimaginably superior in scale and capabilities, NEMESIS gives the Navy the ability to simultaneously fool a vast array of enemy sensors spread out over a large area, giving the illusion of ghost fleets of vessels on and below the surface of the ocean and formations of aircraft in the sky. The shadowy system achieves this via networking a vast array of disparate electronic warfare platforms and decoys together, including various swarms of unmanned aircraft and vessels, to create high-fidelity and unified electronic warfare effects across a battlefield.

S. Eugene Poteat at CIA Headquarters, The Institute for World Politics

When it comes to potential PALLADIUM-like connections with recent UFO events, there’s likely no one more capable of providing answers than the arguable father of electronic intelligence warfare, retired CIA executive officer, S. Eugene “Gene” Poteat. Described as one of the “Wizards of Langley,” Poteat is the man who founded and for 15-years ran PALLADIUM while working at the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology office.

Now in his late 80s, in a rare interview, Poteat said he wasn’t familiar with the recent Navy UFO encounters, yet admitted the events sounded “interesting.” Ultimately, Poteat said he would need to see more of the Navy’s data in order to give his opinion.

A source of contention amongst aviation and UFO enthusiasts, beyond Navy eye-witness accounts and the three brief ATFLIR targeting pod videos released by former Blink-182 frontman Tom Delonge’s UFO-related company To The Stars Academy , no other data on the alleged UFO encounters has been made public.

Poteat was, however, able to offer some little-known details about PALLADIUM that potentially hold significance to recent UFO reports. “To determine Russia’s ability to detect small targets, we used submarine-launched balloon-based metallic spheres,” said Poteat. “The idea was for the early warning radar to track our electronic aircraft. Then for our submarine to surface and release the calibrated spheres up and into the path of the oncoming false aircraft.”

Though descriptions of “balloon-based metallic spheres” sound somewhat similar to eyewitness accounts of UFOs, Poteat explained that the different size spheres were used to detect Russia’s radar cross-section detection capabilities and not to try and fool the Soviet Union into thinking they were seeing a flying saucer.

This fact was previously discovered by The War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway who also found a balloon-borne radar reflector patent that fits the description of exactly what some Super Hornet pilots saw off the East Coast in 2015, described as bizarre floating “orbs with cubes inside.” Check out his full report here .

Similar to what Rogoway surmised, Poteat’s description of sub-launched radar balloons potentially supports a prosaic explanation for at least some of these strange encounters.

1955 Image of CIA Sub Launched Surveillance Balloon. , CIA Library

Undeniably, there are some conspicuous similarities between when the USS Nimitz (in 2004) and USS Roosevelt (in 2014-2015) carrier strike groups began to encounter strange unknown aerial objects. Namely, these encounters occurred only after the groups had begun using a host of brand-new and highly sophisticated technologies, both of which The War Zone

was first to point out .

In both instances, 2004 and 2014-2015, the carrier groups underway were equipped with revolutionary new systems that would give them huge leaps in networked air defense capabilities. In the first instance, the Navy’s groundbreaking Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) was preparing for its first deployment ever. In the second, a far more capable evolution of CEC was about to head on deployment, along with the new and massively capable E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, which is networked into the CEC ecosystem. The War Zone’s in-depth coverage of this cutting-edge integrated air defense system and how it fits into the larger story about the Navy pilot encounters can be found here.

Also by 2015, many Super Hornets had gained new the significantly upgraded Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar systems. This seems to have drastically helped with detecting the hard to track objects in question. Again, you can find The War Zone’s extensive coverage on this aspect here .

T.D. Barnes believes the deployment of these new technologies to be key and thinks it’s likely the Navy’s “UFO encounters” involved simultaneously testing of ship’s air defense capabilities and the ability of new technologies to defeat them. “Testing and evaluating advanced technology, both domestic and our adversaries was much of what we did while I was with Special Projects at Area 51,” said Barnes.

Some argue, had the Navy’s UFO encounters been related to classified testing, military personnel would have been briefed and made aware they were part of a training mission. Still bound by security oaths, T.D. Barnes was limited in what he was willing to say, however, the Area 51 veteran didn’t out-right dispute the idea sailors would have been in on operational plans had these been training events.

“When we were testing the MiG-21 against our planes, we’d often use National Guard pilots, who were only told that they were on a classified mission against foreign-made technology on Nellis Gunnery Range. They knew nothing about it being a CIA, DIA, Navy, and Air Force Foreign Technology Division project out of Area 51,” said Barnes.

Even with eyewitness accounts, and the Navy’s recent statements that these objects are truly “unidentified,” T.D. Barnes still feels fairly certain someone in Pentagon knows exactly what the Nimitz and Roosevelt Carrier Groups were dealing with. In Barnes’ opinion, the edited and shortened ATFLIR videos and pilot’s demeanor suggests aviators were at least vaguely aware of what they were targeting. “The videos ‘I’ve seen, the pilots were whooping it up. I think they knew,” said Barnes, referring to the “Go Fast” and “Gimbal” videos. With the pilots who have spoken about the incidents, all deny having any knowledge of what were the mysterious objects they encountered.

Screenshot of the DoD “Nimitz UFO” video., Public Domain

For the Navy to point at video evidence and say, that’s “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” represents a rare move by a branch of the American military. For a lot of people, this declaration seems to slam the door on any debate of whether or not the objects in question are highly exotic and classified aerospace technology. However, referring back to The War Zone’s in-depth coverage on Special Access Programs (SAPs), if these aircraft were related to an unacknowledged SAP or waived-unacknowledged SAP, the existence of this technology would be denied to everyone outside of the program. Moreover, if these were highly classified technologies emerging from a SAP being run by another branch of the Department of Defense, the Navy could indeed be unaware of what these objects really are.

Barnes told me he’s aware of many past UFO sightings in the Seattle and Southern California regions that were actually advanced aerospace tests by Boeing or Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks. According to Barnes these “proof of concept” flights frequently occur prior to a company bringing the platform to Area 51 in hopes of selling it to the Air Force, Navy, or other branches of government.

“These were definitely UFOs because they were so secret that they didn’t exist,” said Barnes.

When asked, both T.D. Barnes and Gene Poteat declined to comment on whether they were aware of any oblong shape, hypersonic capable, aerospace platforms in existence.

When it comes to the subject of UFOs in general, T.D. Barnes offered me these parting words:

“On NASA High Range and Area 51, I spent thousands of hours tracking aircraft. Though I tracked many that I could not identify, I never suspected them of being extraterrestrial. On these same projects, I worked with many test and operational pilots. I have never heard of one suspecting that they may have spotted a UFO. I believe a true extraterrestrial sighting would excite the world to the point that there would be millions of people leaving the city lights to stare at the heavens hoping to see whatever it is. That would be all the media would talk about. That said, I would like to think that we’re not the only rock in the universe with life.”

“On NASA High Range and Area 51, I spent thousands of hours tracking aircraft. Though I tracked many that I could not identify, I never suspected them of being extraterrestrial. On these same projects, I worked with many test and operational pilots. I have never heard of one suspecting that they may have spotted a UFO.

I believe a true extraterrestrial sighting would excite the world to the point that there would be millions of people leaving the city lights to stare at the heavens hoping to see whatever it is. That would be all the media would talk about.

That said, I would like to think that we’re not the only rock in the universe with life.”

Contact the editor: Tyler@thedrive.com

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发布于美国东部时间2019年11月25日下午6:07。

这是一个持续了70年的谜团，直到最近，它还主要局限于社会上那些充满好奇心的叛逆群体。如今，多亏了美国国防部发布的三段视频，视频中出现了某种不明飞行物在禁飞区内翱翔，不明飞行物（UFO）的话题突然重新成为主流关注的焦点。这些视频最初由海军F/A-18E/F“超级大黄蜂”战斗机的瞄准吊舱在2004年和2014-2015年拍摄，并在近两年前首次进入公众视野。最近，海军的一份官方声明进一步激发了人们对这些视频的兴趣，声明中指出，这些模糊的物体确实是“不明空中现象”（UAP）。换句话说，至少在官方层面，它们的类型和来源仍然未知。

尽管媒体和公众对此事高度关注，但对于一位曾参与过世界上一些最高机密航空航天项目的人来说，所有这些关于不明飞行物的讨论并不算什么新鲜事。事实上，对于曾在51区担任特别项目工程师的TD·巴恩斯来说，整个不明飞行物的故事听起来都非常熟悉。

TD·巴恩斯涉足秘密项目领域的旅程始于1954年，当时这位年轻的陆军雷达系统军官被选中参与世界上首批投入使用的地对空导弹系统（SAM）——耐克阿贾克斯和耐克大力神导弹的研发工作。后来，通过国防承包商优尼泰克公司，巴恩斯在NASA神秘的比蒂高空跟踪站工作，协助开展秘密太空项目，例如NASA和原子能委员会（AEC）联合研发用于载人火星飞行的核火箭发动机，该项目代号为NERVA。

最后，到了 20 世纪 60 年代初，巴恩斯被中央情报局 (CIA) 迅速调往高度隐秘且当时还很新的 51 区，参与“牛车计划”（A-12 间谍飞机的研发）。

前51区特别项目工程师TD Barnes站在一架洛克希德A-12飞机前，这是Barnes在51区参与的众多项目之一。（Tdbarnes.com）

当研发重点转移到A-12的后继机型SR-71“黑鸟”时，巴恩斯最终进入了51区特别项目部门，该部门隶属于空军外国技术部（FTD）。在巴恩斯于20世纪70年代末退休前的近二十年时间里，他一直深入政府机密领域工作，而大多数人甚至一无所知。

对于近期有关海军不明飞行物的报道，TD Barnes 在世界上最先进的航空航天项目上工作了几十年，他提出了一个理论：

“这让我想起了上世纪60年代，当时中央情报局设计并建造了速度高达3马赫的A-12‘黑鸟’侦察机，以取代U-2侦察机，”巴恩斯说道。当时，中央情报局非常担心苏联新型P-14“高王”雷达系统能够探测到飞越其领空的A-12。为了消除这些担忧，中央情报局启动了一项大胆的计划，旨在开发一种能够以电子方式生成并向苏联雷达投放虚假目标的技术，以欺骗苏联雷达“看到”并追踪并不存在的“幽灵飞机”。该项目的代号是“钯”（PALLADIUM）。

一架A-12“牛车”攻击机，美国空军

去年春天，PALLADIUM 项目率先发现了与海军不明飞行物目击事件之间可能存在的历史联系。该项目的历史如下：

1960年，苏联将“高王”（Tall King）雷达系统移至古巴后，中央情报局开始秘密使用“钯”（PALLADIUM）计划，欺骗苏联防空雷达，使其误认为有不明飞机正飞向甚至进入古巴领空。作为“钯”计划团队的少数成员之一，巴恩斯担任该秘密计划的防空炮兵（ADA）和电子/电磁对抗（ECM/ECCM）官员。

巴恩斯沉思道：“利用一架装满电子设备的C-97（EC-97G），我们可以让苏联雷达误以为它们正在追踪任意数量的空中目标。有一次，一位俄罗斯米格-15飞行员甚至声称他看到了目标，并且已经锁定了它。”

最终，“钯金”行动提前警告美国，俄罗斯的雷达技术已经足够先进，很快就能追踪并击落黑鸟侦察机。因此，美国从未正式使用黑鸟战机对俄罗斯进行过任何有人驾驶的侦察飞行。

谈到最近海军遭遇不明飞行物事件时，巴恩斯说：“我不知道海军飞行员看到了什么，但在我看来，我们又在重蹈覆辙了。”

考虑到《战区》最近独家报道了海军在电子战领域的最新革命——针对集成传感器的多元素特征网络模拟（NEMESIS），巴恩斯的评论就显得格外引人注目。

NEMESIS系统在最基本的层面上与20世纪60年代的“钯计划”（Project Palladium）类似，但在规模和能力上却几乎是难以想象的。它使海军能够同时欺骗分布在广阔区域内的大量敌方传感器，从而在海面和水下制造出幽灵舰队，并在空中制造出编队飞行的假象。这套隐秘的系统通过将各种不同的电子战平台和诱饵（包括各种无人机和舰艇群）联网来实现这一目标，从而在战场上创造出高度逼真且统一的电子战效果。

S·尤金·波特亚特，中央情报局总部，世界政治研究所

谈到近期不明飞行物事件与钯计划（PALLADIUM）的潜在联系，恐怕没有人比被誉为电子情报战之父的退休中央情报局高级官员S·尤金·“吉恩”·波特亚特更能提供答案。波特亚特被誉为“兰利奇才”之一，他曾在中央情报局科技局任职期间创立并运营钯计划长达15年。

现年近九旬的波蒂特在一次罕见的采访中表示，他对近期海军的UFO遭遇事件并不了解，但他承认这些事件听起来“很有意思”。最后，波蒂特表示，他需要看到更多海军的数据才能发表意见。

除了海军目击者的证词和前 Blink-182 乐队主唱 Tom Delonge 的 UFO 相关公司 To The Stars Academy 发布的三段简短的 ATFLIR 瞄准吊舱视频外，关于所谓的 UFO 遭遇事件的其他数据尚未公开，这在航空和 UFO 爱好者中引发了争议。

然而，波蒂特透露了一些关于钯的鲜为人知的细节，这些细节可能与近期的UFO报告有关。“为了确定俄罗斯探测小型目标的能力，我们使用了潜艇发射的基于气球的金属球，”波蒂特说。“我们的想法是，让预警雷达追踪我们的电子飞机。然后，我们的潜艇浮出水面，释放这些经过校准的金属球，使其进入来袭假飞机的飞行路径。”

虽然“基于气球的金属球”的描述听起来与目击者对不明飞行物的描述有些相似，但波蒂特解释说，不同大小的球体被用来探测俄罗斯的雷达横截面探测能力，而不是试图欺骗苏联，让他们以为自己看到了飞碟。

此前，《战区》的泰勒·罗戈威发现了这一事实，他还找到了一项气球载雷达反射器专利，该专利与一些超级大黄蜂战斗机飞行员在2015年于美国东海岸附近看到的现象完全吻合，他们当时看到的是奇怪的漂浮“内部有立方体的球体”。点击此处查看他的完整报道。

与罗戈韦的推测类似，波蒂特对水下发射的雷达气球的描述可能为至少其中一些奇怪的遭遇提供了一种平淡的解释。

1955年美国中央情报局潜艇发射的侦察气球照片。（图片来自美国中央情报局图书馆）

不可否认，2004 年的“尼米兹”号航母打击群和 2014-2015 年的“罗斯福”号航母打击群遭遇不明飞行物的情况存在一些显著的相似之处。具体而言，这些遭遇都发生在这些打击群开始使用一系列全新且高度复杂的技术之后，而《战区》杂志也指出，这两种技术都与航母打击群遭遇不明飞行物的情况有关。

是第一个指出这一点的人。

在2004年和2014-2015年的两次事件中，当时正在航行的航母战斗群都配备了革命性的新系统，这将使其网络化防空能力实现巨大飞跃。在第一次事件中，海军开创性的协同作战能力（CEC）正准备进行首次部署。在第二次事件中，功能更强大的CEC升级版即将部署，同时部署的还有新型的、性能卓越的E-2D“先进鹰眼”预警机，该预警机已接入CEC生态系统。关于这一尖端集成防空系统及其在海军飞行员遭遇事件中的作用，《战区》网站对此进行了深入报道，详情请点击此处。

到2015年，许多超级大黄蜂战斗机都配备了性能大幅提升的有源相控阵雷达（AESA）系统。这似乎极大地提高了探测难以追踪目标的能力。关于这一点，您可以点击此处查看“战区”网站的详细报道。

TD·巴恩斯认为这些新技术的部署至关重要，并认为海军的“不明飞行物遭遇战”很可能同时测试了舰艇的防空能力和新技术对抗不明飞行物的能力。“我在51区特别项目组工作期间，我们主要的工作就是测试和评估先进技术，包括国内的和敌方的，”巴恩斯说道。

有人认为，如果海军的UFO遭遇事件与机密测试有关，那么军方人员会事先被告知并意识到自己正在参与一项训练任务。由于仍受保密誓言的约束，TD·巴恩斯在发言方面受到限制，但这位51区老兵并没有直接否认，如果这些事件真的是训练活动，那么水兵们理应参与作战计划。

巴恩斯说：“当我们用米格-21战斗机测试我们飞机的性能时，我们经常使用国民警卫队的飞行员，他们只被告知这是在内利斯靶场执行一项针对外国制造技术的秘密任务。他们对这是中央情报局、国防情报局、海军和空军在51区开展的外国技术项目一无所知。”

即使有目击者的证词，以及海军最近关于这些物体确实是“不明物体”的声明，TD Barnes仍然相当肯定五角大楼里有人确切地知道尼米兹号和罗斯福号航母战斗群当时面对的是什么。Barnes认为，经过剪辑和缩短的ATFLIR视频以及飞行员的举止表明，飞行员至少对他们的目标有所了解。“我看到的视频里，飞行员们都在欢呼雀跃。我认为他们知道，”Barnes说道，他指的是“Go Fast”和“Gimbal”视频。所有谈及此事的飞行员都否认知道他们遇到的神秘物体是什么。

美国国防部“尼米兹号不明飞行物”视频截图，公共领域

海军拿出视频证据，称之为“不明空中现象”，这在美国军方中实属罕见。对许多人来说，这一声明似乎彻底终结了关于这些物体是否属于高度机密的航空航天技术的争论。然而，回顾《战区》对特殊准入项目（SAP）的深入报道，如果这些飞行器与某个未公开的SAP或已放弃公开的SAP有关，那么除了该项目之外，任何人都无从知晓这项技术的存在。此外，如果这些高度机密的技术源自国防部其他部门运行的SAP，那么海军也可能确实对这些物体的真实性质毫不知情。

巴恩斯告诉我，他知道西雅图和南加州地区过去发生过很多不明飞行物目击事件，但实际上那些都是波音公司或洛克希德·马丁公司臭鼬工厂进行的先进航空航天测试。巴恩斯说，这些“概念验证”飞行通常发生在公司将平台运往51区之前，目的是将其出售给空军、海军或其他政府部门。

“这些绝对是UFO，因为它们太神秘了，以至于人们都不知道它们存在，”巴恩斯说。

当被问及是否知道存在任何椭圆形、高超音速飞行能力的航空航天平台时，TD Barnes 和 Gene Poteat 都拒绝置评。

谈到不明飞行物这个话题，TD·巴恩斯临别时跟我说了以下这番话：

“在NASA高空靶场和51区，我花了数千小时追踪飞行器。虽然我追踪到了很多无法识别的飞行器，但我从未怀疑过它们是外星飞行器。在这些项目中，我与许多试飞员和飞行员共事。我从未听说过有哪位飞行员怀疑自己可能目击过不明飞行物。我相信，如果真的有人目击到外星人，那将会令全世界为之疯狂，届时会有数百万人离开灯火通明的城市，仰望星空，希望能一睹究竟。届时，媒体的头条新闻将会铺天盖地。话虽如此，我仍然愿意相信，我们并非宇宙中唯一存在生命的星球。”

“在NASA高空靶场和51区，我花了数千小时追踪飞行器。虽然我追踪到很多无法识别的飞行器，但我从未怀疑过它们是外星飞行器。在这些项目中，我与许多试飞员和一线飞行员共事。我从未听说过有哪位飞行员怀疑自己可能目击过不明飞行物。”

我相信，如果真的有人目击到外星人，那一定会让全世界为之疯狂，数以百万计的人会离开灯火通明的城市，仰望星空，希望能一睹究竟。届时，所有媒体都会争相报道此事。

也就是说，我愿意相信我们并非宇宙中唯一拥有生命的星球。

联系编辑：Tyler@thedrive.com

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