WASHINGTON—A newly declassified batch of documents reveals that senior officials received multiple, urgent intelligence warnings during the late 1990s regarding the basic physics of aviation. The high-level briefings explicitly cautioned that giant metal cylinders are incredibly heavy. Furthermore, the reports warned that these massive vehicles require constant forward momentum to avoid plummeting directly into the earth.
The Gravity Threat
The documents show that intelligence briefers repeatedly tried to explain gravity to two different administrations. "We warned them that if a plane stops moving, it stops flying," said Dr. Thaddeus Mbeki-Ransome, Chair of Applied Hype Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study. "The data was clear. Heavy things want to go down. We put that in a memo. We put a little drawing of an arrow pointing down. They just stared at us."
According to the records, the daily briefs contained highly specific intelligence warnings. One file from 1998 noted that jet fuel is highly flammable. Another report warned that the sky has no solid ground to rest on. Analysts feared that a sudden loss of thrust would result in immediate, downward travel.
Unheeded Reports
National security advisors reportedly dismissed the intelligence warnings as too theoretical. They preferred to focus on immediate geopolitical threats rather than the laws of thermodynamics. "We had a whole folder labeled 'Gravity: The Silent Killer'," said Janet Holloway, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Things That Shouldn't Exist. "We told them that several tons of steel cannot naturally float. They told us we were being alarmist."
At press time, current intelligence officials issued a fresh round of urgent warnings confirming that water remains extremely wet.
