On Aug. 4, 2020, Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force.

That’s right. UAPs are the new UFOs.

On June 25^th, 2021, the task force presented a preliminary report that there is definitely something going on in the skies, but they have no idea what it is.

The Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of pictures and videos gathered by the Task Force, purportedly showing “what appears to be pyramid-shaped objects” hovering above the USS Russell in 2019, off the coast of California, with spokeswoman Susan Gough saying “I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations.”

I believe that the government is trying to obfuscate what is happening above our heads so as to not create alarm. The task force has gone through various increasingly confusing name changes over the past two years and have had little luck in getting to the bottom of hundreds of sightings.

The phenomena of UFOs began during WWII when pilots began to see unexplained oddities in the sky that they called ‘foo fighters’.

This was followed by the Roswell incident of 1947 in which debris was found at a ranch in New Mexico. The government claimed it was the debris of a weather balloon. People did not believe them.  Some conspiracists believe the wreckage was spirited to a hush-hush military site in southern Nevada called Area 51, where study of the aliens and their craft continues to this day.

From 1952-1969, the US government investigated 12,600 mysterious sighting through a program called Project Blue Book. This investigative committee was disbanded and there was no official program looking into UFOs or UAPs for almost fifty years.

On November 14, 2004, a UAP was recorded about 100 miles southwest of San Diego, CA. The USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, including the missile cruiser USS Princeton, were performing drills. Among the group were two F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter pilots. During the training, they were suddenly asked to proceed to new coordinates for a possible real-life situation. Before this, a radar operator in the group had been picking up anomalous aerial vehicles (AAVs) — the Navy’s term for UAPs — for several days at an altitude of over 80,000 feet.

However, after detecting AAVs at lower altitudes, the two pilots were sent to intercept the objects. At first, the pilots couldn’t see the AAVs, but they did notice a disturbance in the water. Suddenly, a Tic Tac-shaped aircraft appeared, moving quickly and erratically before speeding off. While the encounter wasn’t captured on video, a different pilot was able to record the aircraft leaving. This report was buried for almost twenty years, until the implementation of the Unexplained Aerial Phenomena Task Force in 2020.

This and 143 incidents have so-far been unexplainable by the UAP task force. They have recently listed five purposes of the program. Number four is to mitigate and defend US airspace. Possible explanations include foreign aircraft (Russia, China), secret US programs, or aliens.

It would seem that UFOs or UAPs are real and fascinating. And now, for the shameless plug. This is also the basis for the December 21^st publication of my fourth Clay Wolfe/Port Essex mystery, Cosmic Trap. Clay, Baylee, and gang are tasked with being the local liaison for two UAP Task Force members investigating multiple sightings in the skies of Port Essex.

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published four books in the Mainely Mystery series, with the fifth, Mainely Wicked, due out in August of 2023. He has also published three books in the Clay Wolfe/Port Essex series, with the fourth, Cosmic Trap, due out in December of 2022.

For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. In April of 2023, Cost will combine his love of histories and mysteries into a historical PI mystery set in 1923 Brooklyn, Velma Gone Awry.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.