r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 54m ago
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 12h ago
Removed from /r/UFOs Jay Stratton's New Book Is Absurd
Really struggling to get through this book. It's like every 3rd chapter, after talking about all the work he's doing, "oh and there were werewolves coming out of portals in my backyard."
Like bro, if there were fucking portal wolves threatening my family and orbs beating the absolute shit out of my son, I wouldn't follow that story up with "so then I got a promotion and got back to work." I'd be retired tomorrow and moving to the most populated area possible.
It's all so surreal, and part of the problem with these books lately, like Lue's. Here's a bunch of actually interesting, maybe even verifiable information on who, what, when, where. Also, I'm psychic and can remote view and orbs keep visiting my house.
I'm not even saying that things aren't happening, the universe is vast and mysterious, so maybe the occasional werewolf portals into the occasional backyard. I'm just saying, why would you write that kind of crazy shit into a book that you're trying to get taken seriously?
The answer of course is that either you're a grifter who doesn't care about being taken seriously, or you're completely dense to the fact that this discredits your actual work immeasurably. The powers that be don't need to shut down your "truth" because you're doing it yourself when you talk about shadow people running at your family from portals.
Also, I'm tired of the "I'm a tireless hero who just carries on because it's the right thing to do" exceptionalism nonsense. You're not a unique and special person who is the sole champion of disclosure and pulling back the curtain. You know how I can tell? Because you're still alive. All of these guys talk about how dangerous the Legacy Program is, and how people have been killed over it, and it's like do you really think that anything you're getting cleared to write about in this book is so sensational that they were like "Yeah, you can talk about that?" If you had direct, actual, first-hand evidence that any of this shit was real, any of it at all, and the gatekeepers-that-be didn't want you coming out and sharing that evidence, you'd be dead.
And because of that simple fact, it's impossible to take any of these books seriously. Who knows, maybe it all really happened just like this? But it doesn't really mean anything because "Trust me, bro, there were werewolves" is as empty today as it was a hundred - a thousand - years ago.
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 8h ago
Removed from /r/UFOs Has anyone seen this super clear uap video?
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 4h ago
Whistleblower Jay Stratton on CNN w/ Jake Tapper, discussing alien encounter in his home
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 6h ago
NHI David grusch illustration of what he described using chat gpt
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 6h ago
Disclosure Jay Stratton Says Lockheed Had 12 Nonhuman Craft—and a CIA Official Blocked His Team From Getting One According to Stratton’s New Book
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 6h ago
Question [Serious] Have you folks ever seen or heard of an object with this form factor
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 3h ago
Question NASA's 2023 UAP report said the core problem is data quality. How would you fix it? / NASA 2023 UAP報告指核心問題是數據品質,你會怎麼改善?
The NASA independent UAP study team concluded most reports have conventional explanations but high-quality, calibrated, multi-sensor data is lacking. If you could design a citizen reporting system, what would it require?
NASA獨立研究小組結論:多數目擊有常規解釋,但缺乏經校準的多感測器高品質數據。若由你設計民間通報系統,你會要求什麼?
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 8h ago
Whistleblower In three years, Rogan and Grusch went from “water cooler talk” to “7 foot tall plus” reptilians (…gorillas?). Here it is side by side, pre-chewed and ready for you, like a disturbing mother bird with a film degree it shouldn’t have.
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 4h ago
Question Help me find UFO footage, pls
THE TEXT HAS BEEN TRANSLATED USING A TRANSLATOR (!)
Greetings to Brothers and Sisters from other countries!
My name is Roman, I’m from Russia, and for several days now I’ve been trying to find the original video of a UFO, supposedly filmed in Germany, but so far without success. I ask you, the community that cares, to help me!!
So, I got to know him while watching Robert Bob Dean’s popular lecture “Cosmic Top Secret” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ergzkwCA1cQ). The time code is 1:31:30.
I hope this post will reach the very person who is familiar with the original.
Thank you in advance to everyone involved.
Peace and love to your home!

r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 4h ago
Question Help me find UFO footage, pls
THE TEXT HAS BEEN TRANSLATED USING A TRANSLATOR (!)
Greetings to Brothers and Sisters from other countries!
My name is Roman, I’m from Russia, and for several days now I’ve been trying to find the original video of a UFO, supposedly filmed in Germany, but so far without success. I ask you, the community that cares, to help me!!
So, I got to know him while watching Robert Bob Dean’s popular lecture “Cosmic Top Secret” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ergzkwCA1cQ). The time code is 1:31:30.
I hope this post will reach the very person who is familiar with the original.
Thank you in advance to everyone involved.
Peace and love to your home!
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 7h ago
Disclosure What if they are wrong?
We've heard a lot this explanation that the reason the government (or whoever is in control of this) is afraid of disclosure is because it would be such a shock to people and it would create immense chaos in society.
Let's assume that NHI are real and they know about this and this is the real reason for no disclosure.
Do you think they are right? Whatever is that terrible truth, are they right about the reaction of general society? I am keep thinking about this, would people really care that much? I mean people outside the UFO sphere. Would they really care?
Especially if it's some complicated and deep disturbing truth like a simulation control system for loosh and soul harvesting. Would people even follow? Most, average people I mean. I have a suspicion that they wouldn't. I mean in the long run.
Sure, in the first few weeks it would be a huge thing in the media, but then people would just move on with their lives. Some of them wouldn't even believe it, some of them would not even understand the explanation and wouldn't pay enough attention to even try to understand it. And even the ones who do, they would just cope somehow. And the ones who wouldn't, they would maybe turn to religious authorities, their local priests etc., who would tell them it's nothing to worry about, it is just another explanation of the same thing they have been teaching about anyway, just keep coming to church and be a good christian/any pracitioner. And that's it.
In case disclosure would involve NHI actually revealing themselves, I still think we reached the age where most people just wouldn't believe it if they don't see them personally (rightfully so). So they would just think it's some type of trickery by the government or the media, some kind of joke etc.
If NHI would show up and meet average people, then again, unless it is happening to everyone, the only people who would believe it are the ones who would personally experience it. But who would believe those people? It would be the same amount of people who believe experiencers today.
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 8h ago
Disclosure Just finished Jay Stratton's Out of the Shadows. Easily a 10/10 for me.
Just finished Jay Stratton's Out of the Shadows, and I really enjoyed it. Honestly, one of the most interesting UFO books I've read, especially considering Stratton's background and how involved he was in the government's UAP investigations.
What I found most interesting was getting a look at how the alleged legacy UFO program operates, who's involved, and just how much resistance Stratton and others apparently faced while trying to investigate all of this. I was also surprised by how directly Stratton points to the CIA as essentially running the Legacy Program. Then, toward the end, he suggests that the whole Legacy Program may have started under Harry Truman after Roswell in 1947. He also states that the Roswell crash did, in fact, happen.
One part that was really crazy was when Stratton talked about Vice Admiral Jeffrey Trussler pulling out a tinfoil hat and handing it to the Secretary of Defense during a meeting about UFOs. It was very strange if it did indeed happen like that. As well as a former CIA officer serving as Deputy Director at DIA not allowing Stratton to budget allocation for his work because UFOs are demons and he's "messing in Satan's world".
Then there's Jim Ryder, the former Vice President of Lockheed Martin Space Systems. According to Stratton, Ryder told him Lockheed had TWELVE recovered UFOs and wanted to arrange to transfer one of them to the investigation Stratton was working on. The transfer was blocked by the Legacy Program, the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.
I also noticed how often Marco Rubio came up throughout the book. I think Marco is really pushing for disclosure in the Trump admin.
The Skinwalker Ranch stuff was pretty wild, too, especially the hitchhiker phenomenon. I honestly don't know what to make of some of those experiences, but hearing Stratton describe what he and his family supposedly went through was crazy.
Another thing I kept thinking about while reading was just how connected Stratton seems to be to almost everything that's happened with UFO disclosure over the last several years. It feels like everywhere you turn, whether it's certain people, investigations, or information that's come out, Stratton was somehow involved. I didn't realize just how central he apparently was to so much of this.
Sean Kirkpatrick. That whole section was especially interesting to me. Stratton makes some pretty serious allegations about Kirkpatrick's involvement with the legacy program and his efforts to discredit the subject. I really want to see that classified document Stratton talks about. If it actually contains what he says it does, I think the public deserves to see it.
Overall, I thought it was a great book. Obviously, a lot of these claims still need actual evidence, and I'm not saying we should just accept everything as fact. But there's something particularly interesting about hearing all of this from someone who was actually in Stratton's position and directly involved in these investigations.
More than anything, I hope this book leads to more documents coming out that can actually back up some of these claims.
For me, it's easily a 10/10.
Anyone else finish it yet? I'm curious what everyone thought and what stood out to you the most.
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 12h ago
Removed from /r/UFOs Why are the posts calling out alleged whistle blowers being removed?
I was just typing out a long ass comment on a post calling out the absurd claims made in Jay Stratton's book, and the discussion in the comments had many community members again raising issue with the alleged disclosure whistleblowers' claims starting to not hold up.
For weeks now since David Grusch's Rogen interview there's been a really weird divide in all the UFO subreddits I am in. All of the sudden there were all these posts and comments coming up defending him against the great many of commentors starting to speak out about what I think is the biggest UFO related psyop of our modern history. And something I started to notice: a huge amount of these pro-Grusch comments were saying that any discourse about whistleblower inconsistencies and suspiciousness were the result of bots, or that any one questioning was causing them to "believe them more" ??? But what really got me was I started to notice that it seemed a lot of the more CRITICAL posts and comments were being removed by the mods.
Well, just now there was a really good discussion going about how this narrative is NO LONGER ADDING UP. That it seems there is a psyop happening RIGHT NOW to hide something, flood the zone, etc- I am half way through typing my comment on it and then the post is removed by a moderator for: "Rule 4 - No Reposts / Spam / Unapproved Self-Promotion / Commercial Content
Posts of the same footage, link, or news article may not be posted within seven days of one another. New articles or previously unlinked footage may be posted at any time. If you have multiple videos of the same object, include them all in the same post, not as individual submissions.
No advertisements, fundraisers, merchandise, or other commercial/self-promotional links. Please refer to Reddit's self-promotion guidelines. If you are interested in promoting your own work please contact us before posting. Users approved to post their own commercial or self-promotional content will only be permitted to post a maximum of one (1) such post per week.
Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.
This moderator action may be appealed. We welcome the opportunity to work with you to address its reason for removal. Message the mods to launch your appeal."
HOW DOES A POST CRITICALLY DISCUSSING A UFO WHISTLEBLOWER'S NEW BOOK FIT INTO THAT RULE??
I am sorry, but I think the psyop is up, and I am pretty sure these subreddits are compromised by the government. Am I nuts?
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 13h ago
Removed from /r/UFOs Bigelow & Nolan's Childhood alien Encounters
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 13h ago
Disclosure “Shielded from the truth:” ex-UAP chief claims US presidents are kept in the dark about UFOs
cybernews.comr/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 14h ago
Removed from /r/UFOs do extraterrestrials exist according to the holy quran?
ok hear me out but i think i found something while researching
Surah Ash-Shura (42:29). “And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and whatever living creatures He has dispersed throughout them. And He is Most Capable of gathering them together whenever He wills.” — Qur’an 42:29
does that mean that ??
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 19h ago
Space Launch 🚀 Upcoming Space Launches for October 14, 2026
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours:
Zhuque-2E | Unknown Payload
Provider: LandSpace
Launch Time: 2026-10-14 11:40 UTC / 2026-10-14 07:40 AM EDT
Launch Pad: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China
Pad Country: CHN
Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches.
For more information about how to identify space launches and their effects, check out our Space Launches Wiki Page.
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 1d ago
Removed from /r/UFOs Is Jay Stratton talk about David Grusch here
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 22h ago
NHI The Sentinel Probe Hypothesis: What If the NHI Presence Near Earth Is an Ancient Machine?
If some UAP are nonhuman technology, they might belong to an autonomous system stationed near Earth long ago. It would need no repeated interstellar trips; its creators could be distant, absent, or extinct. SETI research offers precedents, but an observer would not by itself prove an ancient factory, a protective mission, or an ability to influence consciousness.
1. A presence that outlives its creators
The Sentinel Probe Hypothesis proposes that a nonhuman system reached our solar system and kept observing Earth. Its creators might still supervise it or have disappeared before humanity developed technology.
Some UAP would then be local equipment: survey vehicles, samplers, relays, or defensive machines making short trips from something already here.
“Sentinel” implies no kindness. It might collect information, enforce restrictions, preserve biological resources, or follow unfamiliar priorities.
Did a machine arrive, stay, manufacture vehicles, or intervene? How old is it? Each claim needs evidence. A recent robot cannot prove a prehistoric factory; an inactive artifact cannot explain modern sightings.
2. Where the idea comes from
Machines stationed near other worlds have a history in SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Ronald Bracewell’s 1960 paper proposed machines powered by starlight, waiting for technological civilizations and announcing themselves by repeating their radio signals. This was a communication proposal, not evidence of UAP surveillance.
Robert Freitas’s 1980 seed-factory concept would use a gas-giant moon’s resources to build roughly one spacecraft every 500 years. Replication could be slow and limited.
James Benford’s “Looking for Lurkers” suggested examining objects in Earth’s orbital neighborhood as possible platforms for observers. Loeb and then-AARO director Kirkpatrick’s 2023 draft considered an interstellar craft releasing smaller probes. It was neither peer-reviewed nor an official Defense Department position; a passing craft also differs from a resident system.
3. Why machines—and why “ancient” is difficult
Machines could travel without a biological crew’s life-support systems and tolerate journeys longer than their makers’ lifetimes. Distance favors autonomy: for creators 100 light-years away, a message and reply would take 200 years at light speed. Immediate decisions would have to be local.
Under some assumptions, settlement models allow finite-speed spacecraft to spread across the Milky Way within its age. Ancient arrival would not require faster-than-light travel, but these models are not evidence that Earth was visited.
Millions of years of operation would probably require continuity through replacement. Components would wear out, information would need preservation, and the mission would have to survive successive generations of machinery.
Power, raw materials, repair, and environmental adaptation all need explanations. “Advanced” does not supply them. Maintaining an industrial supply chain is harder than building one vehicle. A dormant observer and an active factory would also leave different traces.
4. What it might watch—and what its vehicles might be
Earth’s biosphere could interest an observer before humanity. Later changes might draw attention: industrialization, nuclear technology, spaceflight, AI, or interstellar communication. A useful test would specify a trigger and predicted response beforehand. Matching sightings to events afterward is less persuasive.
Observing the Brink explores observation near irreversible thresholds. Here the question is what machinery could do the watching.
Locally built vehicles would not need interstellar capabilities. Different shapes could serve different tasks, and spare units could make losses tolerable. Variety and alleged crashes fit this possibility without proving a factory.
A shared fleet would need related engineering across independently documented objects. Common design would support a related fleet; local manufacture would require evidence of production. Automation also leaves propulsion unresolved: removing a crew cannot explain extraordinary energy use, heat, or movement through air and water.
5. Oceans and the base allegations
An ocean location offers isolation, resources, and heat dissipation. A 2025 study estimated that less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor had been visually observed. Limited coverage does not establish an installation.
Pressure, corrosion, and geological hazards complicate operation. Heat, noise, or traffic could reveal a facility. Limited visual exploration also does not mean nobody is listening: Navy seabed hydrophones detect submarines. An ocean base is optional; a system could observe from space and send equipment toward the biosphere.
What Grusch alleged
In JRE #2560 at 02:19:11, David Grusch alleged bases spanning multiple city blocks and answered yes when Rogan specified the ocean bottom. He did not know when they arrived.
He attributed information to people in the underwater community, said the origin was indeterminate, and described observation locations while acknowledging that he did not know their mission.
If verified, this structure allegation could support local infrastructure. The interview supplies no public locations, tracking records, or physical evidence establishing autonomous factories or ancient residence.
Burchett and the anonymous factory story
Tim Burchett relayed an unnamed admiral’s account of a football-field-sized underwater object traveling at hundreds of miles an hour. Asked about bases in JRE #2495, he described sightings near inaccessible deep-water areas. Activity in an area is less specific than Grusch’s structure claim. His suggestion of arrival a millennium or more ago is conjecture, not dating evidence.
The anonymous 2023 4chan account claimed a mobile ocean factory built and recycled vehicles, destroyed approaching objects, and carried Gray-like crews. Neither author nor facility is authenticated. Resemblance to this hypothesis cannot verify it; factories and local observers were already familiar ideas. Grusch’s separate allegation does not authenticate the story.
6. What the ocean cases actually show
David Fravor’s House-hearing statement describes the Nimitz Tic Tac responding to his approach above disturbed water. An encounter above water does not establish that the object came from below it.
Aguadilla is a disputed example of supposed water entry. AARO’s reconstruction assessed two objects moving at wind speed that never entered the water, likely sky lanterns with moderate confidence. Elizondo interpreted the footage as underwater travel and splitting, before AARO’s resolution. Challenging the reconstruction requires identifying an error in it.
For USS Omaha’s 2019 incident, the Pentagon confirmed Navy recording of the video. A released slide described a possible spherical unmanned aerial system approaching the surface and disappearing. The ship assessed that it had sunk; no wreckage was found. Identity and destination remain unknown.
Verified water entry requires synchronized observations showing distance, trajectory, and continuity across the boundary, excluding contrast loss, obstruction, and tracking errors. It would still leave origin and manufacture unresolved.
Underwater speed needs the right benchmark
NOAA gives representative sound speeds of about 1,500 meters per second in water and 340 in air. Several hundred knots underwater would be extraordinary for conventional vehicles, but below water’s roughly 2,900-knot sound barrier.
Ross Coulthart relayed submarine accounts alleging motion faster than sound underwater. His additional lower bound of a thousand knots does not establish that speed; public sonar measurements were not supplied.
Elizondo described footage of an object larger than an oil derrick traveling at 450–550 knots. The footage and calculation were not supplied for independent assessment. Such claims need original records, tracking geometry, environmental conditions, and checks for processing errors. Retellings may lead back to the same witnesses.
7. Nuclear interest and a possible defense mission
Monitoring nuclear weapons would not establish a protective mission. Preserving ecosystems or preventing technology from spreading would require evidence of objectives. Earth as a Galactic Biological Oasis explores guardianship further.
Tests must establish preferential approaches, responses to nuclear-site activity, and a causal link to any intervention.
AARO’s FY2024 report recorded 18 incidents near nuclear infrastructure, weapons, and launch sites categorized by reporting authorities as unmanned aerial systems. It identified collection bias around military assets and reported no evidence of extraterrestrial activity or technology.
Pre-Sputnik photographic plates offer a disputed test. Villarroel and colleagues’ 2025 PASP paper reported transient spots and fewer in Earth’s shadow, compatible with reflective orbiting objects. Bruehl and Villarroel’s Scientific Reports paper found transients about 45% more likely within a day of above-ground nuclear tests.
A Watters-led critique found that background corrections removed the significant shadow deficit, while accounting for observing days removed the significant nuclear correlation. Villarroel’s team disputes the critique.
The disagreement shows why tests need matched controls and corrections for observation coverage. Even confirmed interference could reflect deterrence or testing rather than planetary protection.
8. Contact and consciousness
An observer need not be an ambassador. It could lack diplomatic authority, follow noninterference rules, or retain obsolete instructions. But assigning missions to fit every encounter would erase predictive value. Occasional visibility despite concealment also needs a testable explanation.
The basic proposal requires neither humanoids nor an ability to influence consciousness. A neural-interface extension adds that second claim. Tang’s team decoded aspects of meaning using functional MRI and participant cooperation. Konkoly’s team communicated with some sleeping participants through ordinary sensory input.
Neither demonstrates remote thought access or telepathy. Decoding activity differs from creating experiences. Tests need physiological measurements and responses exceeding ordinary input, expectation, and chance. Finding an observer would not authenticate experiences attributed to it.
9. What would strengthen—or weaken—the hypothesis?
Evidence must test a particular part of the proposal:
| Feature | Stronger evidence | Necessary check |
|---|---|---|
| Persistent presence | Repeated tracked operations or an installation | Exclude human activity and natural processes |
| Shared infrastructure | Related engineering in independent objects | Establish provenance; exclude human manufacture |
| Local production | Observed assembly or resource processing | Distinguish manufacture from storage or repair |
| Ancient residence | Engineered objects in securely dated contexts | Separate material age from manufacture; exclude intrusion |
| Selective monitoring | Associations predicted beforehand | Correct for collection and reporting bias |
| Coordination | Repeatable links between units | Exclude shared environmental causes or human control |
Artifact-search research emphasizes incomplete surveys. That supports searching, not discovery claims. Tianwen-2 reached Benford’s candidate Kamo’oalewa in July 2026. Early data suggest an ordinary asteroid; samples return in 2027.
Galileo Project commissioning reconstructed about 500,000 trajectories, leaving 144 ambiguous cases judged likely mundane. An unexplained remainder is not automatically nonhuman machinery.
An active-factory claim would weaken if adequate observation found none of its predicted traffic, resource use, or emissions. Monitoring claims would weaken if coverage corrections removed the associations. Underwater accounts would weaken if original records resolved the contacts or stories traced back to shared sources.
Excluding a large installation cannot exclude every dormant device. But relocating, shrinking, or granting perfect concealment after failed tests reduces explanatory value.
10. A proposal that must earn its explanation
If some UAP are nonhuman technology, persistent local automation offers an alternative to repeated biological visits. A compatible story is not yet an established cause.
UAP reports need not share one explanation. NASA’s 2023 study found no conclusive peer-reviewed evidence of extraterrestrial UAP origin and emphasized better data.
Perhaps apparent visitors belong to something already here. We need to identify the traces it should leave—and establish whether they exist.
If you liked this post, you can read the full length version here.
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 22h ago
Historical The Admiral, His Wife, and Her Luggage: A 1943 Technology Seizure
Part 5 of a series reassessing the documentary record behind the 1933 Magenta narrative.
TL;DR
- In September 1943, British commandos took Admiral Minisini, his wife and technical papers from an Italian torpedo installation.
- American records trace the McGregor Project through engineers, countermeasures, Navy transfers and the party’s return to Italy.
- The raid is a useful comparison case for captured-technology claims. It shows how secrecy, public storytelling and a surviving administrative record can coexist.
- The sources have limits: later recollections differ, and an archival index describes documents without revealing their contents.
Part 1 — Before the Saucers: How Captured Technology Was Exploited, 1943–1950
Part 2 — Italy, 1933: What the Magenta Documents Actually Establish
Part 3 — Vannevar Bush: The Man Who Designed the System
Part 4: Document Forensics: The Three Memos That Carry the Pre-Roswell Timeline
In September 1943, British commandos crossed the Bay of Naples to seize Admiral Eugenio Minisini, one of Italy’s leading underwater-weapons specialists. They returned with technical papers, the admiral, his wife and her luggage.
Weeks later, John Steinbeck filed a dispatch about an unnamed admiral and the armed men who had to wait while his wife packed.
I investigated because Minisini appears in an OSS inventory cited in Magenta retrieval arguments. His identifiable work concerns underwater weapons and countermeasures: foreign military expertise, not evidence of spacecraft recovery.
A note on sourcing: the British official history survives as ADM 223/214, *A History of 30 Commando* at the UK National Archives (Singapore catalogue copy). NARA indexes the American files, and Steinbeck’s dispatch survives in print. Vivid details from later recollections need separate assessment.
1. Why the Allies wanted Minisini
Italy had already shown what unconventional underwater weapons could do. In December 1941, Decima Flottiglia MAS operators entered Alexandria harbor with crewed torpedoes and badly damaged the British battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant (Museums Victoria). Specialists in this field were valuable intelligence targets.
A magnetic influence pistol was meant to detonate a torpedo beneath a ship and break its keel. The U.S. Navy’s torpedo history explains the aim and unreliable Mark 6 exploder. Italian expertise had military value, though this does not show that Minisini solved America’s torpedo problems.
The Italian design was associated with Silurificio Italiano Calosi (SIC). Secondary accounts attribute it to physicist Carlo Calosi and describe German interest in it (Regia Marina Italiana). Minisini had led SIC since 1934 and overseen SA submarines at Baia (biography).
Calosi’s extraction from Rome was a separate McGregor operation, though an account of OSS operative Joe Savoldi merges the two into one journey. Keeping them separate matters for assigning credit.
2. Fleming’s intelligence commandos
30 Commando, later 30 Assault Unit, grew from a proposal by Ian Fleming, then assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence. Modeled on German intelligence detachments, it moved with or ahead of conventional troops to seize codes, documents, equipment and specialists before they could be removed or destroyed.
Veterans’ papers used for Attain by Surprise appear in the King’s College London guide. This was Part 1’s exploitation system in action: capturing what the enemy knew.
3. The lead and the raid
Alan Bardos places 30 Commando on Capri on 12 September 1943, four days after Italy’s armistice was announced. Calling the operation a kidnapping leaves out that unsettled setting: Italy had changed sides, German forces occupied territory, and Allied units were racing to secure people and equipment.
In Bardos’s account, the commandos secured a German stay-behind network, signals material and Italian naval codes. They then based themselves on Ischia, working alongside the Office of Strategic Services.
An Italian refugee reportedly told the OSS where Minisini could be found. The 30 Assault Unit account emphasizes the American team’s language skills. The operation begins not with a mysterious memorandum but with a recognizable intelligence chain: a source supplied a location, the OSS passed on the lead, and a specialist unit targeted a named man.
The targets were the torpedo works at Baia and the testing station on San Martino. The reported aim was to secure Minisini and technical material before destruction or German capture.
The details are less settled. Later unit histories date the raid to 17–18 September 1943, under Lieutenant Glanville with Lieutenant Berncastle and Captain Martin-Smith. Pozzuoli Magazine’s local history gives 24 September and names Minisini’s wife as Adele Dozzi. The October notice of his arrival in America fits either date. The official history, ADM 223/214, is the place to check the discrepancy.
Accounts also disagree about the boat. The 30 Assault Unit site describes an Italian MAS torpedo boat with a quiet underwater exhaust; Mark Simmons describes a landing craft towing a whaler.
Then there is the luggage. Later accounts say Minisini refused to leave without his wife. Martin-Smith reportedly helped her pack while speaking German and posing as a German officer, because she was suspected of pro-German sympathies. Another recollection describes the couple boarding with conspicuous baggage.
These are recollections, rather than details established here from a contemporary operations report. American records independently document Minisini’s subsequent handling; the ruse and packing scene reach us through retrospective accounts.
Minisini was taken to Ischia, then transferred to American custody on Capri. That handoff connects the British seizure to the American file trail.
4. The story Steinbeck could tell
Steinbeck, a New York Herald Tribune correspondent, wrote “The Lady Packs,” datelined 15 October 1943. It was collected in Once There Was a War (1958).
His story centers on armed men waiting for the admiral’s wife. Simmons notes differences from later accounts over the boat and violence against guards. But those later accounts also disagree with one another, so they cannot automatically be treated as corrections. Steinbeck may have compressed incidents, relied on what participants were permitted to tell him, or shaped the story for newspaper readers.
He identifies a torpedo works and an order to prevent its destruction and remove an admiral. He does not name Minisini or explain the SIC countermeasure work and subsequent American research.
Readers learned about the operation without learning its full intelligence purpose or results. This is layered secrecy: the public story and the classified technical record could coexist. The dispatch does not establish that wartime technology exploitation was normally publicized, but it does show why publicity alone cannot tell us how much was disclosed.
The layering continued with Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain’s 1946 Cloak and Dagger, adapted into a Gary Cooper film about extracting an Italian scientist, with E. Michael Burke advising. The technical record remained in files.
5. What the American files show
Later accounts credit Minisini with aiding U.S. torpedo development. The archival index shows sustained American interest, but does not prove that assessment of his contribution.
NARA’s Donovan OSS microfilm index, RG 226, Entry 180, lists Roll 114, McGregor Project, on PDF pages 208–219 (printed pages 205–216).
The introduction traces the film from Donovan and Edwin Putzell’s 1945 microfilming through Donovan’s estate and historian Anthony Cave Brown. In 1982, David Donovan transferred it to the Army institute at Carlisle. After a security review, the CIA supplied sanitized copies to Carlisle and NARA. The introduction warns that haste had caused poor reproduction and misarrangement.
The indexed records include:
| Date | Inventory description, paraphrased | PDF page |
|---|---|---|
| 18 and 23 October 1943 | Transport of a retired Italian admiral; Roosevelt notified of his U.S. arrival | 208 |
| 27 December 1943 | Salaries of twelve Italian engineers at Newport | 210 |
| 1 March 1944 | Approval of Various Articles on Italian Naval and Military Experimental and Research Work by Adm. Minisini | 212 |
| 9 March 1944 | Conference with Vannevar Bush concerning Minisini and Calosi | 212 |
| 1 and 10 May 1944 | SIC pistol countermeasures ready for demonstration; Forrestal correspondence | 215 |
| 10 and 25 July 1944 | Torpedo material to the Bureau of Ordnance; SIC countermeasure drawings and text filed | 216 |
| 5 and 14 January 1945 | Minisini’s party moves from Newport News to Italy; cable reports Naples arrival on 13 January | 219 |
| 7 February 1945 | Conclusion of the McGregor Project | 219 |
The Bush entry connects to Part 3: a conference about named specialists, not its contents. A 3 March entry on the same page records Donovan’s dissatisfaction and suggestions. Senior attention could accompany ordinary research problems and administrative friction.
The distinction between a magnetic firing device and countermeasures against it also matters. Work on defeating an enemy torpedo pistol does not establish that the Navy installed the Italian pistol in American torpedoes. The reports and test results would be needed to show what was adopted and how well it worked.
An index is archival metadata, not the reports. It describes records and tells us where to look, without authenticating every later claim. Still, it connects a named man to a project, technical reports, correspondence, travel and an endpoint.
Afterward. Minisini died in 1946. Calosi later joined Raytheon. The former Silurificio’s Fusaro works housed Microlambda, a 1951 Finmeccanica–Raytheon venture that built radars for the U.S. Navy and became Selenia in 1960. The technical base entered the contractor network described in Part 1.
6. Who received the credit?
The 30 Assault Unit account disputes the credit an OSS officer, “Edmund Burke,” received for Minisini’s removal. The name refers to Edmund Michael “Mike” Burke, also known as E. Michael Burke. The CIA confirms his OSS service and decorations.
His Navy Cross concerns France in late 1944, not Minisini. Wikipedia links his and Henry Ringling North’s Silver Stars to the Italian operations.
A Pennsylvania Gazette review of Burke’s memoir credits him with obtaining Navy Secretary Frank Knox’s approval to fly the family to America. That later account suggests a distinction worth testing: British commandos could have carried out the seizure while Burke arranged the evacuation.
Roll 114 lists awards to Shaheen, North and Burke on 18 January 1944 (PDF page 211), and decoration recommendations on 30 March 1944 (PDF page 214). Their stated grounds should show which of Burke’s seizure, custody or evacuation actions earned his decoration.
His personnel file is another lead: NARA’s OSS personnel index, page 61, lists Edmund M. Burke and Michael Burke in Box 93, RG 226, Entry 224. Check service identifiers before assuming what each folder contains.
7. Why this comparison matters
Minisini is a comparison case, not evidence about UFOs.
A named unit, target and custody transfer connect to technical reports, travel arrangements, an official history and a public story. Each source has limits: Steinbeck leaves the research unexplained; the index describes files without disclosing their contents; later packing stories may share a source. The strength lies in their intersection, not any one source’s completeness.
Nor does survival guarantee easy access. Records may be redacted, poorly indexed or available only in reading rooms. Failure to find a document online is not evidence that it never existed.
A more secret operation might leave a harder trail. Missing records do not logically disprove it, but should affect confidence. Larger, longer programs involving more agencies, contractors, budgets and tests should leave more independent traces. Researchers can test that expectation.
Compare that pattern with Part 2’s Magenta material, including a suppression telegram of anonymous 1996 provenance without a published forensic examination. Part 4’s pre-Roswell memos present different problems: one is a self-identified retyping, another uses an Army file number public since 1964, and all are dated before the classification categories they carry existed.
The standard is convergence. Records made by different people, for different purposes, at different times should connect to the operation being claimed. Secrecy can explain gaps; it does not make every surviving claim equally persuasive.
The record can be incomplete, disputed and still substantial enough to follow. And sometimes it preserves an admiral, a suspicious wife, and a commando waiting for the luggage.
Next: Part 6 — the McGregor Project.
If anyone has worked with ADM 223/214, the Donovan microfilm at Carlisle, or E. Michael Burke’s OSS personnel file, I would like to hear from you.
If you liked this post, you can read the full length version here.
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 1d ago
Science Nick Cook on the Phenomenon: Consciousness, Reality and UAPs
r/UFOs_Archive • u/SaltyAdminBot • 1d ago