What are UFOs, unidentified objects, in the sky that have officials within the U.S. Defense Department deeply concerned? Why did the U.S. military deny for decades that these objects were real? Why did U.S. Officials deny eyewitness accounts of very real phenomena in our skies?

Did the U.S. government hide two major crashes of these anomalous objects and the possible extraction of alien lifeforms? Why are the sightings of these observable intelligent objects being documented more and more around nuclear sites all over the world?

U.S. Defense and Intelligence officials have finally come clean that these are very real questions and the  national security implications are genuine. In December, news broke that included in the 2,000 page National Defense Authorization Act was a provision that mandates the establishment of a specific department within the DOD to study the UAPs. It is a similar office to the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP program)  that The New York Times revealed in its exclusive and was confirmed by Luis Elizondo, who headed that program under the DOD.

I’ve also done numerous podcast interviews with Elizondo about the issue.

On my latest #TheSaraCarterShow podcast update, however, I interview Nick Pope, a retired U.K. Defense Official that oversaw the British Defense Ministries, secretive UFO desk. He spoke in detail about the recent U.S. legislation mandating research in the field as, ‘groundbreaking.’

The bill “is the most comprehensive set of legislative mandates that we’ve ever seen on this,” said Pope, from his home in Northern California. 

“There was some material in the last defense bill. But but this is like that one put on steroids,” Pope added. “I mean, it calls for the DOD and the military and the intelligence community and other stakeholders to basically make a joined up effort across government to get to the bottom of the UAP mystery. And it takes about the need for a science plan. And for everyone to finally work together and find out what’s going on in our airspace.” 

What makes this DOD bill incredible is that it calls for the investigation into the reportedly serious health issues of people who have come into contact with these unidentified objects, such as the case more than 40 years ago in the Rendelsham Forest area, in Great Britain, where U.S.Air Force Officials, stationed at RAF Woodbridge,  said they encountered unidentified objects that operated without sound and did not appear to be any known technology. One of the officials, described to the CIA and other Defense officials in detail one of the objects, which he said had markings on the outside that appeared to be symbols.

Pope described the importance of the Rendelsham Forest case and why that case made it impossible for the U.S. or British government to deny such an incident.

“It’s not just hearsay, we’ve got an audit trail of verifiable government documents, both from the United States and the United Kingdom, including a report from the deputy base Commander, Colonel Charles Halt. And he’s very clear, he talks about a structured, apparently metallic craft, again, under intelligent control performing speeds and maneuvers that seem to go way ahead of anything that we have in our inventory.”Halt is a retired United States Air Force colonel and a former deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters, near Woodbridge, Suffolk.

“This thing was briefly tracked on radar, it fired beams of light down into the weapons storage area, which some claim affected the ordinance in some way,” Pope continued. “And there were physical ground traces in terms of radioactivity levels, which seemed significantly higher than the average background.” 

Pope emphasized, “what’s remarkable about this case is it bridges the historical with the more modern, because clearly the the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force, now replaced by arrow, the old domain anomaly resolution office we’re clearly aware of, of this incident.” 

The bill also requires the new DOD UAP office to study what it describes as ‘transmedium objects’ which are those that have appeared and according to official documents, allegedly interacted with our nuclear facilities both in the U.S. and in Russia, according to the NDAA. 

As to whether humanity will ever make contact in our lifetime. Pope believes so but he hypothesizes that advanced life forms may be monitoring us, much like the writers of Star Trek hypothesized that advanced life forms may not want to interfere with developing civilizations. The advancement of nuclear technology, however, may have changed all that, he said.  

“The answer might be something along those lines, that too, in a universe, nearly 14 billion years old, there might be ancient, ancient civilizations out there with technology, millions and millions of years ahead of us and to civilizations like that,” he said. “A newly emerging civilization, like us might be one of the last truly interesting things in the cosmos. And they might not want that sort of cultural contamination that would come with first contact, they might want to watch us and say, you know, look at this amazing, but often frustrating, sometimes scary, sometimes wonderful species called humanity. Let’s watch them and see where they go, what path they choose, rather than just, you know, landing on the White House lawn and bringing us into the Federation.” 

If you want the full interview with me and Nick Pope go to the #TheSaraCarterShow podcast. I believe, as an investigative columnist and Earthling, that it is imperative that we investigate these unexplained sightings.

It does no good to put our heads in the sand and pretend that what is happening in our sky isn’t real and humanity deserves to know the truth.

You can follow @SaraCarterDC on Twitter or @SaraCarterOfficial on Truth