LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! IT’S A…A….WHATCHALLIT? First, the Pentagon changed its mind about what to call those odd things in the sky. What today are called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), were formerly known as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs.) But now they have also renamed the office in charge of figuring out what UAP/UFOs are. Eight months ago, DOD established the “Airborne Object Identification and Management Group.” But on further reflection, they have managed to change the moniker to the “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office” which (fortunately) can be reduced to the acronym “AARO.” Why the change? Well, one reason is that the office is expanding its gaze. No longer will AARO look only to the skies – but it will also investigate unidentified underwater objects…and ones that appear to move between the sky and sea – dubbed “transmedium.” They have done such a fine job figuring out what those unknown airborne objects are – figuring out the oceanic objects should be a breeze.
DOUBLE TROUBLE: In last week’s Dead Drop, we mentioned that Turkish President Recep Tayyap Erdogan kept Vladimir Putin twiddling his thumbs for a while before showing up for a meeting between the two leaders in Iran. At the time, we thought that in the video Vlad seemed remarkably patient while enduring the snub. Well, The Sun says they know why. The (rarely reliable) tabloid says that Putin had been replaced by a “body double” for the trip. The Tehran Vlad appeared more alert and mobile than Moscow Vlad who is rumored to be suffering from Parkinson’s disease or cancer. Perhaps casting some doubt on poorly Putin, however, CIA Director Bill Burns told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell at a security conference last week that Putin is “entirely too healthy.” (For more on that, check out Walter Pincus’s column in this week’s Cipher Brief.) Body double stories are nothing new. We’re old enough to remember when there were frequent, unconfirmed, reports that Saddam Hussein used body doubles. There were even suggestions that the guy who was tried and executed in Iraq was a faux Saddam. But for Putin, The Sun says the Russian leader previously admitted he had considered using body doubles (for some unstated reason) but that he ditched the idea. Well that clears it all up.
TOO HOT TO TROT: The Daily Mail online reported a very convoluted story of double and triple cross this week. They report that earlier in the year, Ukraine offered cash bounties for Russian pilots who were willing to defect and bring their aircraft with them. According to reports, Russians could get up to $2 million US dollars if they flew the SU-24 or similar aircraft into Ukrainian controlled territory. It seems that the Russian security service tried to pull a scam on Kiev by pretending a pilot was prepared to bolt – and bring his girlfriend along. But the pictures of the pilot’s “lover” created suspicion because Ukrainian security services decided the woman was “waaay too hot for” the purported defector. They subsequently determined she was “working as a fitness trainer by day but moonlighting as an FSB girlfriend-for-hire the rest of the time.”
DROPPING SHADE ON THE GRAY MAN: Also in last week’s Dead Drop, was an item about the Netflix film “The Gray Man” that was about to drop. We mildly mocked the movie because of its reported shopworn plot (CIA assassin, recruited from prison, becomes the target after finding out bad things about the Agency.) Now that we’ve seen it, we’d like to apologize. We were too kind to the movie. We could have looked past the couple of occasions where CIA officers refer to each other as “agents” and the hokey actions of hero “Court Gentry” (played by Ryan Gosling,) but unfortunately the number of cinematic plot holes exceeds the film’s body count – and trust us – it’s a large number. “The Gray Man” is a 2+ hour-long car, plane, trolley chase where Court (also known as “Six” since 007 was taken) barely takes a breath and never needs to reload. So far, many of the reviews elsewhere have been 50 shades of “meh.” AP called it “perplexingly bland.” So, we were surprised to see that Netflix announced plans for both a sequel and a spinoff. You can see the trailer for “The Gray Man” here.
SO THAT’S WHAT THEY DO: If you’re like us, you probably didn’t know that July 26th was “National Intelligence Professionals Day.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence knew, however, and they posted a 3-minute-long video to YouTube featuring one representative from each of the 18 members of the intelligence community briefly explaining what their part of the outfit does.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
BAD CALL SIGN: Ever wonder how Navy pilots get their call signs? You know, like in the latest Top Gun movie that features Tom Cruise as “Maverick” , Val Kilmer as “Iceman” and John Hamm as “Cyclone”? Well, in those instances, we’re pretty sure the labels come from screenwriters. But in real world, squadron mates ‘assign’ the call signs based on some memorable aspect of the pilot’s personality or performance. We recently stumbled across an article by a guy named Bobby Mackay who earned his call sign while flying F/A-18s over the Arabian Gulf. Without getting too explicit, let’s just say MacKay suffered severe gastrointestinal distress while aloft. Fortunately, he (eventually) landed safely, and his shipmates encoded his call sign as “STAB.” We’ll let you learn the meaning of that if you have the stomach for it. Suffice to say MacKay had the “wrong stuff” in his flight suit. Good thing that never happened to Maverick.
WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT: We spotted a tweet this week from someone about a “Go Fund Me” campaign to raffle off three rolls of toilet paper with Vladimir Putin’s face on every sheet. Proceeds from the campaign were earmarked to buy tourniquets for Zelensky’s forces fighting in Ukraine. The link to the campaign no longer works however, so we don’t know if the raffle just ended or if MacKay won the bid. In any case, we hope those raising money to support Ukraine are flushed with success.
ATTACK OF THE FLORIDA MAN: This is one of those stories that is both weird and entirely predictable. An Orlando television station says Corey Johnson, 29, a Florida man, was arrested for stealing a truck and rushing to the nearby Patrick Space Force Base to warn the government “about a fight happening between Chinese dragons and aliens.” The TV station reports that Johnson didn’t just make this story up out of the wild blue – but says he was sent by the President of the United States to deliver the warning. One thing is unclear to us. In a fight between Chinese dragons and aliens – for whom are we rooting?
DON’T LET THE DRAGONS AND SPACE ALIENS GET YOU DOWN: The best way to stay ahead of them is to share tips on what you see with us. Please don’t steal any trucks to deliver your warning. You can simply get them to us via email at: TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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