Elon Musk Unveils UFO Fighter Jet That Defies Physics

Pentagon Confirms Military 

UFO  Aircraft That Defies Physics 

The Pentagon confirmed that a mysterious “Pyramid” UFO video as well as photos of three other bizarre flying objects, dubbed “Sphere,” “Acorn,” and “Metallic Blimp," are authentic, were taken by members of the U.S. Navy, and have been included in an investigation conducted by the military’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.
“I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations,” Sue Gough, a spokeswoman for the Defense Department, told the Washington Examiner. “As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.”
The website Extraordinary Beliefs said it had gained insight into an alleged classified “intelligence briefing” held on May 1, 2020, related to the study of UFOs through the Office of Naval Intelligence, and contended that briefing contained an estimated 10 videos and roughly a dozen photos documenting a number of unnamed aerial phenomena. In particular, the website referred to an “event series” from July 2019 “involving Strike Group 9 within the warning areas off of San Diego” where the USS Russell, an Arleigh Burke-class naval destroyer, “observed and recorded multiple ‘pyramid’ shaped craft.” A video of the incident appears to show a triangular object floating in the sky, and photos of the event appear to show more than one such UFO.

The outlet described a separate “event series” involving an FA-18 pilot and a weapon systems officer in the “warning area off the coast of Oceana” on March 4, 2019. The officer reportedly took the photos in the cockpit using his personal mobile phone, and “the intelligence briefing clarifies that the WSO captured THREE different craft on the same sorti with the same cell phone.”
The Mystery Wire website said that the March 2019 photos taken while the officer was seated behind the pilot included three mysterious floating objects — Sphere, Acorn, and Metallic Blimp. One of the photos was first posted to Twitter last May and has circulated since then, while a version of another photo appeared online in December. The website said it “has learned of sensitive briefings prepared by the UAP Task Force and delivered to multiple military and intelligence audiences” and that “the objects were able to remain stationary in high winds, with no movement, beyond the capability of known balloons or drones.” The outlet said it learned of the photos two years ago during a “private briefing” hosted by Robert Bigelow and others. Bigelow is the owner of Budget Suites of America, the founder of Bigelow Aerospace, and a UFO enthusiast.
Gough, the Pentagon spokeswoman, added to the Washington Examiner, “Also, to clarify, I am only confirming that the photographs and videos — what the Mystery Wire article refers to as ‘Sphere,’ ‘Acorn,’ and ‘Metallic Blimp,’ and the videos in the Extraordinary Beliefs article — were taken by Navy personnel. I have nothing for you regarding any other images or depictions in those articles.”

The Biden administration may miss the deadline to release a report on what it knows about UFOs, according to Sen. Marco Rubio, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee when it wrote up a 180-day directive for such a disclosure included in the $2.3 trillion bill that former President Donald Trump signed in December.
The deadline is in June, and a spokesperson for Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Washington Examiner that the intelligence community is "aware of the requirement and will respond accordingly.”The Senate Intelligence Committee directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the Pentagon and other agencies, to submit to Congress a report “on unidentified aerial phenomena (also known as ‘anomalous aerial vehicles’), including observed airborne objects that have not been identified.”
John Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence under Trump, told Fox News that reports of "unidentified aerial phenomena" already in the public eye are only part of the bigger picture.
"When we talk about sightings, the other thing I will tell you is, it's not just a pilot or just a satellite, or some intelligence collection," Ratcliffe said. "Usually, we have multiple sensors that are picking up these things, and ... some of these are unexplained phenomenon, and there is actually quite a few more than have been made public."
FORMER INTELLIGENCE CHIEF: 'QUITE A FEW MORE' UFOS DETECTED THAN PUBLIC KNOWS
Ratcliffe added: “We are talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain. Movements that are hard to replicate that we don’t have the technology for, or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”
The Defense Department announced the establishment of a UFO task force in August, saying the group would be led by the Navy under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

Last year, videos from the Navy were released through the Freedom of Information Act that showed UFOs moving at incredible speeds and performing seemingly impossible aerial maneuvers. One of the videos was shot in November 2004; the other two were shot in January 2015. The three videos were code-named “FLIR1,” “Gimbal,” and “GoFast.” In the 2015 videos, Navy pilots can be heard expressing disbelief.
Earlier this month, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday was asked about reports about unidentified “drones” approaching U.S. naval vessels off the coast of California.
“I am aware of those sightings, and as it’s been reported there have been other sightings by aviators in the air and by other ships not only of the United States but other nations — and of course other elements within the U.S. joint force,” Gilday said, adding, “Those findings have been collected, and they still are being analyzed.”

The Defense Department has confirmed that leaked photos and video of “unidentified aerial phenomena” taken in 2019 are indeed legitimate images of unexplained objects.
Photos and videos of triangle-shaped objects blinking and moving through the clouds were taken by Navy personnel, Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough said in a statement to CNN. She also confirmed that photos of three unidentified flying objects – one “sphere” shaped, another “acorn” shaped and one characterized as a “metallic blimp” – were also taken by Navy personnel.
“As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP,” Gough said.
She also said that the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, created in August to investigate UFO sightings observed by the military, has “included these incidents in their ongoing examinations.”
The Navy photos and videos were published by Mystery Wire and on Extraordinary Beliefs’ website last week but had been circulating online since last year.
There have been “a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years” the Navy said in 2019. Last year, the Pentagon released three videos showing “unidentified aerial phenomena” – clips that the US Navy had previously confirmed were real.

 

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE NGAD PROGRAM: Secret Aurora spy plane real - Here's the evidence

Was America's Top Secret Aurora spy plane real - Here's the evidence

Aurora is a rumored mid-1980s American reconnaissance aircraft. There is no substantial evidence that it was ever built or flown and it has been termed a myth.

The U.S. government has consistently denied such an aircraft was ever built. Aviation and space reference site Aerospaceweb.org concluded, "The evidence supporting the Aurora is circumstantial or pure conjecture, there is little reason to contradict the government's position."

Former Skunk Works director Ben Rich confirmed that "Aurora" was simply a myth in Skunk Works (1994), a book detailing his days as the director. Rich wrote that a colonel working in the Pentagon arbitrarily assigned the name "Aurora" to the funding for the B-2 bomber design competition and somehow the name was leaked to the media.

In 2006, veteran black project watcher and aviation writer Bill Sweetman said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that, yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that launched the program a generation ago."

The Aurora legend started in 1985, when the Los Angeles Times[5] and later Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine broke the news that the term "Aurora" had been inadvertently included in the 1985 U.S. budget, as an allocation of $455 million for "black aircraft production" in FY 1987.[6] According to Aviation Week, Project Aurora referred to a group of exotic aircraft, and not to one particular airframe. Funding of the project allegedly reached $2.3 billion in fiscal 1987, according to a 1986 procurement document obtained by Aviation Week. In the 1994 book Skunk Works, Ben Rich, the former head of Lockheed's Skunk Works division, wrote that the Aurora was the budgetary code name for the stealth bomber fly-off that resulted in the B-2 Spirit.

By the late 1980s, many aerospace industry observers believed that the U.S. had the technological capability to build a Mach 5 (hypersonic speed) replacement for the aging Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Detailed examinations of the U.S. defense budget claimed to have found money missing or channeled into black projects.[8] By the mid-1990s, reports surfaced of sightings of unidentified aircraft flying over California and the United Kingdom involving odd-shaped contrails, sonic booms, and related phenomena that suggested the US had developed such an aircraft. Nothing ever linked any of these observations to any program or aircraft type, but the name Aurora was often tagged on these as a way of explaining the observations.
British sighting claims

In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the jack-up barge GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, Chris Gibson saw an unfamiliar isosceles triangle-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and accompanied by a pair of F-111 fighter-bombers. Gibson watched the aircraft for several minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of the formation.

Artist's rendering of the Aurora from various angles

When the sighting was made public in 1992, the British Defence Secretary Tom King was told, "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers in the Air Staff and Defence Intelligence Staff if it did exist."[9]

A crash at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in AirForces Monthly. Further investigation was hampered by USAF aircraft flooding into the base. Special Air Service personnel arrived in plainclothes in an Agusta 109. The crash site was protected from view by fire engines and tarpaulins and the base was closed to all flights soon afterwards.[10] More recent analysis, however, indicates that the Boscombe Down crash was a towed missile decoy.[11]

An unsubstantiated claim on the Horsted Keynes Village Web Site purports to show photos of the trail left after an unusual sonic boom was heard over the village in July 2002. In 2005 the information was used in a BBC report about the Aurora project.

U.S. sighting claims

A series of unusual sonic booms was detected in Southern California beginning in mid-to-late 1991 and recorded by United States Geological Survey sensors across Southern California used to pinpoint earthquake epicenters.[13] The sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle, rather than of the 37-meter long Space Shuttle orbiter. Furthermore, neither the Shuttle nor NASA's single SR-71B was operating on the days the booms had been registered.[14] In the article, "In Plane Sight?" which appeared in the Washington City Paper on 3 July 1992 (pp. 12–13), one of the seismologists, Jim Mori, noted: "We can't tell anything about the vehicle. They seem stronger than other sonic booms that we record once in a while. They've all come on Thursday mornings about the same time, between 4 and 7."[6] Former NASA sonic boom expert Dom Maglieri studied the 15-year-old sonic boom data from the California Institute of Technology and has deemed that the data showed "something at 90,000 ft (c. 27 km), Mach 4 to Mach 5.2". He also said the booms did not look like those from aircraft that had traveled through the atmosphere many miles away at Los Angeles International Airport; rather, they appeared to be booms from a high-altitude aircraft directly above the ground, moving at high speeds.[15] The boom signatures of the two different aircraft patterns are wildly different.[4] There was nothing particular to tie these events to any aircraft, but they served to increase the number of stories about the Aurora.

Artist's rendering of the Aurora from behind

On 23 March 1992, near Amarillo, Texas, Steven Douglass photographed the "donuts on a rope" contrail and linked this sighting to distinctive sounds. He described the engine noise as: "strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses." In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was enhanced by Douglass' reports of intercepts of radio transmissions: "Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign "Dragnet 51" from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and "Darkstar Mike". Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo." ("Darkstar" is also a call sign of AWACS aircraft from a different squadron at Tinker AFB)[16] A month later, radio enthusiasts in California monitoring Edwards AFB Radar (callsign "Joshua Control") heard early morning radio transmissions between Joshua and a high flying aircraft using the callsign "Gaspipe". "You're at 67,000 feet, 81 miles out" was heard, followed by "70 miles out now, 36,000 ft, above glideslope." As in the past, nothing linked these observations to any particular aircraft or program, but the attribution to the Aurora helped expand the legend.

In February 1994, a former resident of Rachel, Nevada, and Area 51 enthusiast, Chuck Clark, claimed to have filmed the Aurora taking off from the Groom Lake facility. In the David Darlington book Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles, he said:



I even saw the Aurora take off one night — or an aircraft that matched the Aurora's reputed configuration: a sharp delta with twin tails about a hundred and thirty feet long. It taxied out of a lighted hangar at 2:30 a.m. and used a lot of runway to take off. It had one red light on top, but the minute the wheels left the runway, the light went off and that was the last I saw of it. I didn't hear it because the wind was blowing from behind me toward the base." I asked when this had taken place. "February 1994. Obviously they didn't think anybody was out there. It was thirty below zero – probably ninety below with the wind chill factor. I had hiked into White Sides from a different, harder way than usual, and stayed there two or three days among the rocks, under a camouflage tarp with six layers of clothes on. I had an insulated face mask and two sleeping bags, so I didn't present a heat signature. I videotaped the aircraft through a telescope with a five-hundred-millimeter f4 lens coupled via a C-ring to a high-eight digital video camera with five hundred and twenty scan lines of resolution, which is better than TV." The author then asked, "Where's the tape?" "Locked away. That's a legitimate spyplane; my purpose is not to give away legitimate national defense. When they get ready to unveil it, I'll probably release the tape."[17]
Additional claims[edit]

By 1996, reports associated with the Aurora name dropped off in frequency, suggesting to people who believed that the aircraft existed that it had only ever been a prototype or that it had had a short service life.[1]

In 2000, Aberdeen Press and Journal writer Nic Outterside wrote a piece on US stealth technology in Scotland. Citing confidential "sources", he alleged RAF/USAF Machrihanish in Kintyre, Argyll to be a base for Aurora aircraft. Machrihanish's almost 2-mile-long (3.2 km) long runway makes it suitable for high-altitude and experimental aircraft with the fenced-off coastal approach making it ideal for takeoffs and landings to be made well away from eyes or cameras of press and public. "Oceanic Air Traffic Control at Prestwick," Outterside says, "also tracked fast-moving radar blips. It was claimed by staff that a 'hypersonic jet was the only rational conclusion' for the readings."[18]

In 2006, aviation writer Bill Sweetman put together 20 years of examining budget "holes", unexplained sonic booms, as well as the Gibson sighting and concluded:



This evidence helps establish the program's initial existence. My investigations continue to turn up evidence that suggests current activity. For example, having spent years sifting through military budgets, tracking untraceable dollars and code names, I learned how to sort out where money was going. This year, when I looked at the Air Force operations budget in detail, I found a $9-billion black hole that seems a perfect fit for a project like Aurora.

In June 2017, Aviation Week reported that Rob Weiss, the General Manager of the Skunk Works, provided some confirmation of a research project and stated that hypersonic flight technology was now mature, and efforts were underway to fly an aircraft with it.

A British Ministry of Defence report released in May 2006 refers to USAF priority plans to produce a Mach 4-6 highly supersonic vehicle, but no conclusive evidence had emerged to confirm the existence of such a project. It was believed by some that the Aurora project was canceled due to a shift from spy-planes to high-tech unmanned aerial vehicles and reconnaissance satellites which can do the same job as a spyplane, but with less risk of casualties.

The main question here is, Does the US Air Force or America’s intelligence agencies have a secret hypersonic aircraft capable of a Mach 6 performance?. The continually growing evidence suggests that the answer to this question is YES. Perhaps the most well-known instance which provides evidence of such an aircraft’s existence is the sighting of a triangular plane over the North Sea in August 1989 by oil-exploration engineer Chris Gibson. As well as the famous “skyquakes” heard over Los Angeles since the early 1990s, found to be heading for the secret Groom Lake (Area 51) installation in the Nevada desert, numerous other facts provide an understanding of how the aircraft’s technology works. Rumored to exist but routinely denied by U.S. officials, the name of this aircraft is Aurora.

The outside world uses the name Aurora because a censor’s slip let it appear below the SR-71 Blackbird and U-2 in the 1985 Pentagon budget request. Even if this was the actual name of the project, it would have by now been changed after being compromised in such a manner.

The plane’s real name has been kept a secret along with its existence. This is not unfamiliar though, the F-117a stealth fighter was kept a secret for over ten years after its first pre-production test flight. The project is what is technically known as a Special Access Program (SAP). More often, such projects are referred to as “black programs.”

So what was the first sign of the existence of SR-91 Aurora ? On 6 March 1990, one of the United States Air Force’s Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spyplanes shattered the official air speed record from Los Angeles to Washington’s Dulles Airport. There, a brief ceremony marked the end of the SR-71’s operational career. Officially, the SR-71 was being retired to save the $200-$300 million a year it cost to operate the fleet. Some reporters were told the plane had been made redundant by sophisticated spy satellites.

But there was one problem, the USAF made no opposition towards the plane’s retirement, and congressional attempts to revive the program were discouraged. Never in the history of the USAF had a program been closed without opposition. Aurora is the missing factor to the silent closure of the SR-71 program.

Testing such a new radical aircraft brings immense costs and inconvenience, not just in the design and development of a prototype aircraft, but also in providing a secret testing place for an aircraft that is obviously different from those the public are aware of.

The Groom Dry Lake, in the Nevada desert, is home to one of America’s elite secret proving grounds which was Aurora’s most likely test location. Comparing today’s Groom Lake with images of the base in the 1970s, it is apparent that many of the larger buildings and hangars were added during the following decade. Also, the Groom Lake test facility has a lake-bed runway that is six miles long, twice as long as the longest normal runways in the United States. The reason for such a long runway is simple, the length of a runway is determined either by the distance an aircraft requires to accelerate to a flying speed, or the distance that the aircraft needs to decelerate after landing. That distance is proportional to the speed at which lift-off takes place. Usually, very long runways are designed for aircraft with very high minimum flying speeds, and, as is the case at Edwards AFB, these are aircraft that are optimized for very high maximum speeds. Almost 19,000 feet of the runway at Groom Lake is paved for normal operations.

Lockheed’s Skunk Works, now the Lockheed Advanced Development Company, is the most likely prime contractor for the SR-91 Aurora aircraft. Throughout the 1980s, financial analysts concluded that Lockheed had been engaged in several large classified projects. However, they weren’t able to identify enough of them to account for the company’s income.

Technically, the Skunk Works has a unique record of managing large, high-risk programs under an incredible unparalleled secrecy. Even with high-risk projects that the company has undertaken, Lockheed has a record of providing what it promises to deliver.

In 2006, renowned aviation writer Bill Sweetman had stated and derived to a conclusion that, “This evidence of 20 years of examining budget “holes”, unexplained sonic booms, plus the Gibson sighting , helps establish the program’s initial existence. My investigations continue to turn up evidence that suggests current activity. For example, having spent years sifting through military budgets, tracking untraceable dollars and code names, I learned how to sort out where money was going. This year, when I looked at the Air Force operations budget in detail, I found a $9-billion black hole that seems a perfect fit for a project like Aurora.”

NEW NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) INSANE UPGRADED   US   F-22

After several years of speculation, the United States Air Force (USAF) has confirmed that there will be only one Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) in the future. Speaking at a meeting in Washington D.C., Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall couldn't." have made the USAF's feeling clearer on the issue.

"We're not going to do two NGADs. We're only going to do one," he stated, according to John Tirpak of Air and Space Forces. While the finalists for winning the contract are currently unknown, top contenders will likely be a mix of Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, with support from competing jet engine manufacturers Pratt & Whitney and General Electric.

The NGAD program aims to take over the Air Force's F-22A Raptor stealth fighters by the 2030s. Despite their exceptional agility and stealth capabilities, the F-22 fleet's small size has made it excessively costly to maintain and upgrade due to its dependence on outdated non-open architecture systems and high-maintenance radar absorbent materials technology from the 1990s

To this end, the Air Force recently invited designs for an NGAD fighter, with the winning concept set to be announced in 2024. Ideally, according to Popular Mechanics, the Air Force would like to obtain 250 of these fighters, although they acknowledge that each one would likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars. To put things into perspective, the current F-35A stealth fighter costs around $85 million due to large-scale production. The NGAD fighter is expected to have improved sensors and communication links compared to the F-22, while also being more agile than the F-35.

 

PT 109 AND JFK

2nd – John F. Kennedy and PT 109

Tulagi, Solomon Islands. PT Boat Officers (L-R) James ("Jim") Reed ...

Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy aboard the PT-109, 1943. (John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library) It is arguably the most famous small-craft engagement in naval history, and it was an unmitigated disaster. At a later date, when asked to explain how he had come to be a hero, one of the young commanders involved, by then an aspiring politician, replied laconically, "It was involuntary. They sank my boat." John F. Kennedy's comment speaks a soldier's clear-eyed appraisal of the mechanics of heroism. It is of course unjust, however true it may be, and to do justice to the young Lieutenant Kennedy, we must look at everything that he leaves out— everything that happened after the Japanese sank his boat sixty years ago this summer in the South Pacific during World War II. To understand the events of August 1 - 2, 1943, which culminated in the sinking of PT-109, it is important to remember that it was dark— deeply, unrelievedly dark. The disorienting effect, even for experienced sailors, of a moonless, starless night on the ocean should not be underestimated. In this profound darkness, PT-109 stood at her station in Blackett Strait, south of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands, one of the remnants of an operation born into futility, the heir to bad planning and worse communication. Fifteen PT boats ("Patrol Torpedo" boats) had set out to engage, damage, and maybe even turn back the well-known "Tokyo Express," the Japanese navy's more or less regular resupply convoy that enabled resistance to the advance of U.S. forces in the islands farther south. When the patrol actually did come in contact with the Tokyo Express— three Japanese destroyers acting as transports with a fourth serving as escort— the encounter had not gone well. Thirty torpedoes were fired with no more effect than to make the Japanese even warier than they had been. Boats that had used up their complement of torpedoes were ordered home. The few that still had torpedoes remained in the strait, in the doubtful hope of catching the Express on its return voyage. The only thing that could be said about the action was that if the Japanese had not been damaged, neither had the Americans. That was about to change. PT-109 was one of the boats left behind. Lieutenant Kennedy rendezvoused his boat with PT-162 of his own patrol section and PT-169, which had been separated from another section, and the three boats spread out to make a picket line across the strait. At about 2:30 in the morning, a shape loomed out of the darkness three hundred yards off PT-109's starboard bow. So difficult was visibility that it was first believed to be another PT. When it became apparent that it was one of the Japanese destroyers, Kennedy attempted to turn to starboard to bring his torpedoes to bear. But there was not enough time. The destroyer, later identified as the Amagiri, the escort ship of the Express, struck PT-109 just forward of the forward starboard torpedo tube, ripping away the starboard aft side of the boat. Less than a minute had passed since the first sighting. The impact tossed Kennedy around the cockpit, and his radioman, John E. Maguire, was actually thrown from it. Most of the crew were knocked or fell into the water. The one man below decks, engineer Patrick McMahon, miraculously escaped, although he was badly burned by exploding fuel. Fear that PT-109 would go up in flames drove Kennedy to order the men who still remained on the wreck to abandon ship. But the destroyer's wake dispersed the burning fuel, and when the fire began to subside, Kennedy sent his men back to what was left of the boat. From the wreckage of the boat, Kennedy ordered the men with him, Edgar Mauer and John E. Maguire, to identify the location of their shipmates still in the water. Ens. Leonard Thom, Gerard Zinser, Ens. George Ross, and Raymond Albert were able to swim back on their own. Kennedy swam out to McMahon and Charles Harris. Towing the incapacitated McMahon by a life-vest strap, Kennedy returned to the boat, alternately cajoling and berating the hurt, exhausted Harris, who followed behind, to get him through the difficult swim. Meanwhile, Thom pulled in William Johnston, who was debilitated by the gasoline he had accidentally swallowed and the heavy fumes that lay on the water. Finally Raymond Starkey swam in from where he had been flung by the shock. Floating on and around the hulk, the crew took stock. Two men, Harold Marney and Andrew Jackson Kirksey, had disappeared in the collision, very likely killed at the impact. All the men were exhausted, a few were hurt, although none as badly as McMahon, and several had been sickened by the fuel fumes, with Johnston the most severely affected. On the other hand, there had been no sign of other boats or ships in the area; the men were afraid to fire their flare gun for fear of attracting the attention of the Japanese who were on islands on all sides. Furthermore, although the wreckage was still afloat because of its sealed bulkheads, it was taking on water, and it capsized on the morning of August 2. After a discussion of options, and aware that time was running out, the men abandoned the remains of PT-109 and struck out for an islet, three and a half miles away, that they hoped was unoccupied. Kennedy had been on the swim team at Harvard; even towing McMahon by a belt through his teeth, he was undaunted by the distance. Several of the other men were also good swimmers, but several were not; two, Johnston and Mauer, could not swim at all. These last two were lashed to a plank that the other seven men pulled and pushed as they could. Kennedy arrived first at the island, named Plum Pudding but called by the men "Bird" Island because of the guano that coated the bushes. So spent that he had to be helped up the beach by the man he had towed, Kennedy collapsed and waited for the rest of the crew. But Kennedy's swimming was not over. Alarmed by a Japanese barge that passed close by, Kennedy determined to swim down into Ferguson Passage, through which the American PTs passed when they were operating in Blackett Strait. Island-hopping and clinging to reefs, Kennedy made his way out into the passage, where he treaded water for an hour before deciding that the PTs were in action elsewhere that night. The return voyage nearly killed him as strong currents spun him out into Blackett Strait and then back into Ferguson Passage. Making the weary trip again, Kennedy stopped on Leorava Island, southeast of Bird Island, where he slept long enough to recoup himself for the final leg of the trip. Returning to Bird Island, Kennedy slept through the day but also made Ross promise to go out on the same trip that night. But Ross did not see any sign of the PTs either. On August 4 Kennedy led the men back into the ocean, striking out for Olasana Island in hopes of finding food and fresh water but also wishing to be closer to Ferguson Passage. Kennedy again hauled McMahon by the strap of his life vest while the rest of the crew clustered around the plank and thrashed their way along. Olasana Island proved to be something of a disappointment. The coconuts were more plentiful but had a sickening effect on some of the men. Fresh water was not in evidence, and the men were too nervous about Japanese patrols to explore more than a small corner of this larger island. When the night of August 4 turned wet and cold, Kennedy determined to try the next island over the following day. Naru, or Cross, Island is the last in the chain, and its eastern shores look out over Ferguson Passage. Kennedy and Ross climbed up on to its beach a little past noon on August 5. Fearing enemy patrols, the two men stepped carefully through the brush but only saw the wreck of a small Japanese vessel out on the reef. On the beach they spotted a small box with Japanese labels. When they broke it open, they were delighted to discover it contained Japanese candy. Even better, a little further up the island they discovered a tin of water and a one-man canoe hidden in the bushes. Having had a drink, Kennedy and Ross were just walking back onto the beach when they saw two men out at the Japanese wreck. The men, clearly islanders, took fright and paddled away from the wreck in a canoe, despite Kennedy's hails. Uncertain about the outcome of this encounter, that night Kennedy took the canoe into Ferguson Passage once more, with as little success as previously. In this photo taken in 1943 at Tulagi, Solomon Islands, George "Barney" Ross (top) poses with (left to right) James "Jim" Reed, John F. Kennedy, and Paul "Red" Fay. Ross was on board PT-109 when the Amagiri struck the boat. Kennedy decided to take the canoe back to Olasana; he stopped off long enough to gather the candy and the water to bring to the other men, leaving Ross to rest until the next morning. Arriving at Olasana, Kennedy discovered that the two men he and Ross had seen at Naru had made contact with the rest of the crew. The two men, Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, were islander scouts for the Allies. Their hasty departure from Naru had left them tired and thirsty, and they had stopped for coconuts at Olasana, where Thom had been able to convince them that the crew was American. The next morning, August 6, Kennedy returned with Gasa and Kumana to Naru, intercepting Ross along the way as he was swimming back. The islanders showed the two Americans where a boat had been hidden on Naru. When Kennedy was at a loss for a way to send a message, Gasa showed him how it could be scratched into a green coconut husk. Gasa and Kumana left with the message— NAURO ISL COMMANDER . . . NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT . . . HE CAN PILOT . . . 11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT . . . KENNEDY — as well as a backup note that they got from Thom when they stopped at Olasana. Perhaps not fully believing that their luck had changed, Kennedy insisted on going out with Ross into Ferguson Passage in the two-man canoe. Heavy seas swamped the canoe and so battered the men that they barely made it back to Naru. But the next morning, August 7, eight islanders appeared at Naru shortly after Kennedy and Ross awoke. They brought food and instructions from the local Allied coastwatcher, Lt. A. Reginald Evans, that Kennedy should come over to Evans's post. Stopping long enough at Olasana to feed the crew, the islanders hid Kennedy under a pile of palm fronds and paddled him to Gomu Island in Blackett Strait. Early in the evening of the seventh, a little more than six days after PT-109's sinking, Kennedy stepped onto Gomu. There was still a rescue to be planned with Evans, no small thing in enemy-held waters, but the ordeal of PT-109 was over. Evans had already notified Rendova of the discovery of PT 109's survivors, and the base commander was proposing to send the rescue mission directly to Olasana. Understandably somewhat wary of the ability of such a mission to be directed from afar, Kennedy insisted on being picked up first so that he could guide the rescue boats, PTs 157 and 171, among the reefs and shallows of the island chain. Late on the night of August 7, the boats met Kennedy at the rendezvous point, exchanging a prearranged signal of four shots. Kennedy's revolver was down to only three rounds, so he borrowed a rifle from Evans for the fourth. Standing up in the canoe to give the signal, Kennedy did not anticipate the rifle's recoil, which threw him off balance and dumped him in the water. It was a wet and thoroughly exasperated navy lieutenant who climbed aboard PT-157. The PTs crossed Blackett Strait under Kennedy's direction and eased up to Olasana Island early in the morning of August 8. The exhausted men of PT-109 were all asleep, and Kennedy, his relief and exhilaration enhanced by a couple of doses of medicinal brandy, began yelling for them, much to the chagrin of his rescuers, nervous over the proximity of the Japanese. But the rescue went forward without incident, and the men of PT-109 reached Rendova at 5:30 in the morning on August 8. For his courage and leadership, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and injuries suffered during the incident qualified him for the Purple Heart; Ens. Leonard Thom also received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. But the consequences of the event for John F. Kennedy were more far-reaching than simple decorations for a uniform. The story was picked up by the writer John Hersey, who told it to the readers of The New Yorker and Reader's Digest, and it followed Kennedy into politics, where it was a strong foundation of his appeal. For here was a war hero who had not won battles but who had shown courage and dogged will, responsibility for those he led and the ability to inspire them— and it would be hard to better this as a short list of qualifications for a political leader. "Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, 'I served in the United States Navy,'" wrote President John F. Kennedy in August 1963. A former naval officer, Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on 29 May 1917 to Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy. After attending public schools in Brookline, Kennedy went on to The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, and attended the London School of Economics from 1935 to 1936. Kennedy graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1940 and began graduate school at Stanford University. Despite having a bad back, Kennedy was able to join the U.S. Navy through the help of Captain Alan Kirk, the Director, Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) who had been the Naval Attache in London when Joseph Kennedy was the Ambassador. In October 1941, Kennedy was appointed an Ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve and joined the staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence. The office, for which Kennedy worked, prepared intelligence bulletins and briefing information for the Secretary of the Navy and other top officials. On 15 January 1942, he was assigned to an ONI field office the Sixth Naval District in Charleston, South Carolina. After spending most of April and May at Naval Hospitals at Charleston and at Chelsea, Massachusetts, Kennedy attended Naval Reserve Officers Training School at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, from 27 July through 27 September. After completing this training, Kennedy entered the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center, Melville, Rhode Island. On 10 October, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade. Upon completing his training 2 December, he was ordered to the training squadron, Motor Torpedo Squadron FOUR, for duty as the Commanding Officer of a motor torpedo boat, PT 101, a 78- foot Higgins boat. In January 1943, PT 101 with four other boats was ordered to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron FOURTEEN, which was assigned to Panama. Seeking combat duty, Kennedy transferred on 23 February as a replacement officer to Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron TWO, which was based at Tulagi Island in the Solomons. Traveling to the Pacific on USSRochambeau, Kennedy arrived at Tulagi on 14 April and took command of PT 109 on 23 April 1943. On 30 May, several PT boats, including PT 109 were ordered to the Russell Islands, in preparation for the invasion of New Georgia. After the invasion of Rendova, PT 109 moved to Lumbari. From that base PT boats conducted nightly operations to interdict the heavy Japanese barge traffic resupplying the Japanese garrisons in New Georgia and to patrol the Ferguson and Blackett Straits near the islands of Kolumbangara, Gizo, and Vella-Lavella in order to sight and to give warning when the Japanese Tokyo Express warships came into the straits to assault U.S. forces in the New Georgia-Rendova area. PT 109 commanded by Kennedy with executive officer, Ensign Leonard Jay Thom, and ten enlisted men was one of the fifteen boats sent out on patrol on the night of 1-2 August 1943 to intercept Japanese warships in the straits. A friend of Kennedy, Ensign George H. R. Ross, whose ship was damaged, joined Kennedy's crew that night. The PT boat was creeping along to keep the wake and noise to a minimum in order to avoid detection. Around 0200 with Kennedy at the helm, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri traveling at 40 knots cut PT 109 in two in ten seconds. Although the Japanese destroyer had not realized that their ship had struck an enemy vessel, the damage to PT 109 was severe. At the impact, Kennedy was thrown into the cockpit where he landed on his bad back. As Amagiri steamed away, its wake doused the flames on the floating section of PT 109 to which five Americans clung: Kennedy, Thom, and three enlisted men, S1/c Raymond Albert, RM2/c John E. Maguire and QM3/c Edman Edgar Mauer. Kennedy yelled out for others in the water and heard the replies of Ross and five members of the crew, two of which were injured. GM3/c Charles A. Harris had a hurt leg and MoMM1/c Patrick Henry McMahon, the engineer was badly burned. Kennedy swam to these men as Ross and Thom helped the others, MoMM2/c William Johnston, TM2/c Ray L. Starkey, and MoMM1/c Gerald E. Zinser to the remnant of PT 109. Although they were only one hundred yards from the floating piece, in the dark it took Kennedy three hours to tow McMahon and help Harris back to the PT hulk. Unfortunately, TM2/c Andrew Jackson Kirksey and MoMM2/c Harold W. Marney were killed in the collision with Amagiri. Because the remnant was listing badly and starting to swamp, Kennedy decided to swim for a small island barely visible (actually three miles) to the southeast. Five hours later, all eleven survivors had made it to the island after having spent a total of fifteen hours in the water. Kennedy had given McMahon a life-jacket and had towed him all three miles with the strap of the device in his teeth. After finding no food or water on the island, Kennedy concluded that he should swim the route the PT boats took through Ferguson Passage in hopes of sighting another ship. After Kennedy had no luck, Ross also made an attempt, but saw no one and returned to the island. Ross and Kennedy had spotted another slightly larger island with coconuts to eat and all the men swam there with Kennedy again towing McMahon. Now at their fourth day, Kennedy and Ross made it to Nauru Island and found several natives. Kennedy cut a message on a coconut that read "11 alive native knows posit & reef Nauru Island Kennedy." He purportedly handed the coconut to one of the natives and said, "Rendova, Rendova!," indicating that the coconut should be taken to the PT base on Rendova. Kennedy and Ross again attempted to look for boats that night with no luck. The next morning the natives returned with food and supplies, as well as a letter from the coastwatcher commander of the New Zealand camp, Lieutenant Arthur Reginald Evans. The message indicated that the natives should return with the American commander, and Kennedy complied immediately. He was greeted warmly and then taken to meet PT 157 which returned to the island and finally rescued the survivors on 8 August. Kennedy was later awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his heroics in the rescue of the crew of PT 109, as well as the Purple Heart Medal for injuries sustained in the accident on the night of 1 August 1943. An official account of the entire incident was written by intelligence officers in August 1943 and subsequently declassified in 1959. As President, Kennedy met once again with his rescuers and was toasted by members of the Japanese destroyer crew. In September, Kennedy went to Tulagi and accepted the command of PT 59 which was scheduled to be converted to a gunboat. In October 1943, Kennedy was promoted to Lieutenant and continued to command the motor torpedo boat when the squadron moved to Vella Lavella until a doctor directed him to leave PT 59 on 18 November. Kennedy left the Solomons on 21 December and returned to the U.S. in early January 1944. On 15 February, Kennedy reported to the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center, Melville, Rhode Island. Due to the reinjury of his back during the sinking of PT 109, Kennedy entered a hospital for treatment. In March, Kennedy went to the Submarine Chaser Training Center, Miami, Florida. In May while still assigned to the Center, Kennedy entered the Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts, for further treatment of his back injury. At the Hospital in June, he received his Navy and Marine Corps Medals. Under treatment as an outpatient, Kennedy was ordered detached from the Miami Center on 30 October 1944. Subsequently, Kennedy was released from all active duty and finally retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve on physical disability in March 1945.

Jfk's Pt-109 Flag       JFK Awarded Purple Heart - June 11, 1944     ·PT-109     · PT 109 Crew 2 ·but before he left rendova jfk took kumana and gaza aside and gave . jpeg·Researcher @ Large - PT-109, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy PT-109 island in front of Kolombangara island. The volcano in the ...   lt j g john f kennedy s pt 109   ·kennedy s pt 109 john f kennedy s pt 109   President Kennedy and the First Lady departing Air Force One followed The last day of President John F. Kennedy Nov. 22, 1963