Public Affairs emails with The Debrief

Agreeing only to speak on background, a senior member of the Intelligence Community whose responsibilities for decades involved
underwater surveillance and reconnaissance programs told The Debrief there was validity to claims of extremely fast-moving
underwater objects being detected by U.S. military systems.
"On occasion, there are detections made of non-cavitational, extremely fast-moving objects within the ocean." The intelligence
official declined to elaborate further, citing the high-levels of security classification associated with underwater reconnaissance.
Officials who had read the reports say the UAPTF appears particularly interested in "transmedium vehicles." While this may seem
unusual, many accounts exist—some going back centuries—in which people say they have observed unidentifiable craft operating in
and out of the water.
The Debrief reached out to Steven Zaloga, co-author of the annual World Military Unmanned Aerial Systems Market Profile &
Forecast and senior defense analyst for the Teal Group in Virginia, about the state of current or near-future development of
"transmedium" vehicles or systems. Zaloga indicated he was unaware of any past or present technologies that are close to being
capable of transitioning between air and submersible travel. "I have no idea what-so-ever on objects able to cross the air/water
barrier," Zaloga said in an email.
What is The Pentagon Officially Saying ABOUT UAP?
Although The Debrief learned of the issuance and information reportedly detailed in the two UAPTF intelligence position reports,
officials we spoke with declined to provide any specifics as to why the most recent report focused on waterborne associations with
UAP.
One active defense official familiar with the current UAP investigations said the UAPTF has a wealth of photographic evidence,
collected from military pilots' personal devices as well as sophisticated DoD surveillance and reconnaissance platforms. The source
also told us some of the best evidence the UAPTF has acquired comes from measurement and signals intelligence (MASINT), rather
than from videos or still images.
Although officials we spoke with didn't provide any specifics to this point, it is assumed that any Top-Secret or Sensitive
Compartmentalized Information used to help form the UAPTF's current opinions would not have been included in the UAP position
reports, based on their wide-spread distribution.
Before publication, The Debrief reached out to The Pentagon for comment on the information leaked from the UAPTF reports.
Pentagon Spokesperson Susan Gough did not confirm or deny the existence of the UAP intelligence reports, and declined to make
any comment on their contents. We followed up and requested the current media posture outlined by the official public affairs
guide for UAP and dictated by Department of Defense policy (DoDI 5405.03). Ms. Gough referred back to her previous statement,
indicating that the DoD does not discuss UAP publicly. As noted elsewhere, refusal by the Pentagon to discuss UAP is hardly anything
new.
In 2017, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Dana White confirmed to Politico that the DoD had studied UFOs
under the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Additionally, White said the program had been run by the former
Director of National Programs Special Management Staff for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Luis
Elizondo. However, in an effort to "correct the record," in December 2019 the Pentagon issued a statement saying AATIP was not
UAP related, and that Elizondo had "no responsibilities" in the program.
In May of this year, The Debrief informed The Pentagon Public Affairs Office that we had conducted a number of interviews with
former senior Pentagon officials, a senior White House advisor and obtained documents, which all showed AATIP was involved in
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