Australia did attend the May 2023 AARO UAP Five Eyes Forum

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick 

During his presentation to the NASA public meeting on 31 May 2023, former All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Director, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, stated that he had recently held a forum on UAP for the Five Eyes partners. The Five Eyes partners are the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. A number of UAP researchers and journalists sought comment from these countries as to whether or not they attended the Five Eyes UAP Forum. In a blog dated 1 July 2023, I specifically sought evidence that a representative from the Australian government had attended.

Royal Australian Air Force

Australian researcher Grant Lavac posed a number of questions to Richard Marle M.P. Australian Minister for Defence; one of which was: 

"What was the extent of Australia's involvement in the Five Eyes Forum on UAP and who from Australia was represented?"

The response letter, dated 30 June 2023, came from B Sleeman, Acting Head of Air Force Capability. In part, it read:

"Air Force did not attend the Five Eyes Forum on UAP..."

Senator Whish-Wilson

In a July 2023 Australian Department of Defence response to question on notice number 91, of the Senate Estimates Committee, submitted on 20 June 2023, by Senator Whish-Wilson, inter alia was:

"Q: Did Australia attend the recent Five Eyes meeting held in May 2023? If so, did it attend the briefing on UAPs?"

A: Australia did not attend a United States briefing on UAPs."

However, later, Senator Whish-Wilson posed another question on notice at the 2023-2024 Supplementary Buget Estimates Committee, dated 2 November 2023.

"Did the Australian Department of Defence receive an invitation from the US All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to attend the inaugural Five Eyes Forum on UAP in May 2023 led by AARO's Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick?"

The 15 December 2023 answer was "Yes. A Defence representative at the Australian Embassy in Washington attended."

Comments:

1. Which is correct? The July 2023 negative assertion or the November 2023 positive assertion?

2. If the latter, who from the Australian Embassy attended? What agency or government Department were they from? 

3. After the briefing who did this individual inform about the contents of the UAP briefing? Was there a written report? Is this available under the FOI Act?

Currently a number of Australian UAP researchers, including myself, are searching for the answers, to these and other questions.

The frustration of UAP research

Frustration

The last few weeks have been a very frustrating time for those researching UAP, if one judges by the tide of emotive content on social media platforms such as Twitter/X; Reddit and Facebook. 

It seems that many people have been following aspects such as the Schumer amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, in minute detail, commenting on every twist and turn that has emerged. Some have been distracted by various comments by "celebrity" researchers, which may or may not be true. Yet other "celebrity" researchers have made categorical statements about other high-profile researchers, which seem to have no basis in fact. Well, you might say it's just your average day on social media. However, all this seems to have converged to a point where even seasoned researchers and experiencers are needing to take a reality check.

A reality check

Perhaps what is needed is to stop incessantly checking your social media feeds and step back. Take a breath and see if what you have been totally absorbed in, translates to those around you, such as your friends and family. Are they concerned that the full Schumer amendment didn't go through? Are comments from "celebrity" researchers causing them lack of sleep at night? I suspect that the answer to questions like these, is no.

The long and the short of it

There's the "short" game and there's the "long" game. After some 57 years of interest in the topic, I'm still in it for the "long" game. I just read a tweet from Lue Elizondo who reminded us that he and his associates have a "plan B" and a "plan C" and so they certainly fit into the "long" game scenario.

So, fellow researchers, have patience. I know there is a lot to ask of you when you want the answers "now." However, I sense that the phenomenon is operating on a much longer timescale, than the one we are used to.

In summary, an old adage goes "Only time will tell." How much time? Unfortunately, we don't know; and that's very frustrating indeed. 

More Australian UAP related documentation digitized

 Barry Greenwood

Over the last six years, Boston based researcher Barry Greenwood and others, have been quietly working away scanning the holdings of the U.S. Center for UFO Studies. Greenwood et al visited the holdings in 2017, 2018, 2019 and more recently in the last twelve months. On each occasion Barry has been on the lookout for Australian material. For example, the 2019 visit resulted in the discovery of some older Australian cases, which I reported on in a blog post, dated 1 August 2021. 

On one of the later visits, Barry located a box in a "paint cupboard." This box was simply labelled "Australia." He shipped this back to his home for later inspection. Barry has recently found the time in his busy schedule, to digitize the contents of the box and has shared these scans with Melbourne based researcher Paul Dean and myself. A total of 16.4GB of material.

Included in the material are newspaper clippings; detailed ACOS investigation reports; items from UFOIC and the AFSRS; letters from individuals detailing their individual sightings; as well as many other items. There are literally hundreds of hours of viewing.

[ACOS - The Australian Co-ordination Section for the Center for UFO Studies. UFOIC - UFO Investigation Centre (Sydney). AFSRS - Australian Flying Saucer Research Society (Adelaide.)]

Thanks go to Barry and the others for their diligent work.

Isaac Koi

U.K. researcher Isaac Koi recently advised that he has uploaded images of 3,500 Australian UAP related news clippings to the website of the Swedish Archives for the Unexplained (AFU). Using AI generated code, Isaac searched the Australian TROVE collection of digitized Australian newspapers for UAP related clippings. This AFU Australian clippings collection may be accessed here. For a fuller description by Isaac of his work on this project click here.

Well done to Isaac for his continuing work on digitizing material and making it freely available.