Lawmaker Questions Wyoming Adjutant General Over Presence Of UFOs

Halfway through a Wyoming legislative committee’s four-week budget-planning marathon Friday, a top lawmaker asked the state’s adjutant general about the prevalence of unidentified flying objects overhead, which the government now calls unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

Wyoming Adjutant General Greg Porter’s answer was that he couldn’t field that question in public.

“I’m asking if you’ve had any incidents of UAPs over your airspace?” asked Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, during Friday's meeting of the committee at the state Capitol in Cheyenne.

“For our air space, no. I’m aware of some other ones — near some other federal facilities — that I don’t think in open testimony here I could probably say much about that,” answered Porter.

Following a Cowboy State Daily request for clarification on either the UAP presence or the reasons Porter declined to discuss them publicly, the adjutant general gave “no additional clarification,” the Guard’s spokesman said in a text message.

Salazar in a follow-up phone interview said he asked the question because news of UAPs frequenting U.S. military installations “has become more of a concern” following national media reports.

Eight Sheriffs Said …

Salazar’s question came during Porter’s presentation about a bill passed this year that gives Gov. Mark Gordon the authority to call in the National Guard if drones encroach upon critical infrastructure.

That followed weeks of mystery drone or flying object sightings in New Jersey — and in Wyoming. 

Eight Wyoming sheriffs confirmed receiving reports of strange drone-like sightings, or seeing the objects themselves, in a series of January interviews with Cowboy State Daily.

Citing concerns about conflicts with federal agencies and laws, Gordon vetoed the bill when it reached his desk in March.

The Legislature overrode that veto to enact the law.

Can’t Blast Them Now

Porter told the Appropriations Committee on Friday that the Guard doesn’t have drone interdiction technology currently. If the department bought that equipment, it would likely be obsolete in 12-14 months, he said.

“Right now, none of the formations I have in Wyoming National Guard have a counter-UAS capability,” Porter said. “As we continue to look at that problem, it’s pretty significant.”

In comments similar to those of Gordon’s veto letter, Porter noted that the Federal Aviation Administration "really frowns on people taking out unmanned private drones, under any circumstances.”

It is a federal felony to destroy aircraft. 

Wyoming’s new law says the Wyoming Attorney General’s office “shall” represent National Guard members or law enforcement officials caught in litigation over upholding the state’s law by fighting drones.

Porter continued: “There are some significant authorities that are out there that we’ve not been able to overcome yet in terms of the ability to interdict drones.”

Ultimately, said Porter, his department agreed with the governor that “we’re not going to pursue that (technology) at the moment.”

Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, asked Porter if the Guard is at the “12-gauge shotgun” level of technology in this area.

“Yeah,” said Porter. “It is kinetic at that point, if we had to do it.”

The U.S. military is “talking every day about, ‘How do we deal with the drone threats?’” he added.

Just Glad They’re Gone

Among Wyoming sheriffs who saw strange objects in flight last winter, Niobrara County Sheriff Randy Starkey made headlines first.

He told Cowboy State Daily on Dec 13, 2024, that strange objects flew over his county in the Lance Creek area starting in late October 2024. They flew for about 45 minutes every night.

Starkey watched some of the flights himself.

Those continued into March or early spring, Starkey told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.

“(Just as) they all of a sudden showed up — they all of a sudden disappeared,” he said. They only flew in the cold-weather months.

Starkey still has no answers about who sent them or what they were, he said.

“We never got anybody to come forward and say, ‘Yeah, that was us,” Starkey said.

“I’m just glad they’re gone,” he said. “(I spent) a lot of late nights.”  

Not Since January, Ish

Besides Starkey, four of the eight sheriffs who interviewed about object sightings in December and January also spoke to Cowboy State Daily on Friday.

Those four all said they don’t know of any mysterious flight or mysterious drone reports placed after approximately late January.

Those sheriffs were:

• Johnson County Sheriff Rod Odenbach

• Weston County Sheriff Bryan Colvard

• Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny

• Washakie County Sheriff Austin Brookwell - who said "(the) last ones I think we found out were just agriculture drones."

Odenbach referenced a Thursday news report by the Buffalo Bulletin about a drone sighting over the town that had caused “concern.”

Buffalo Police Chief Sean Bissett, to whom Odenbach referred Cowboy State Daily, said that was just a recreational drone and officers spoke with its operator.

Three more sheriff’s offices, those of KC Lehr (Sublette County), John Grossnickle (Sweetwater County) and John Harlin (Natrona County) did not return Friday afternoon requests for comment by publication.

Gordon’s veto in March, however, left Grossnickle with both understanding and concern.

On the one hand, the governor’s points over federal law conflicts were valid, the sheriff told Cowboy State Daily at the time.

On the other hand, he said, he still had flying objects and safety worries tied to them as of early March.

Sweetwater County residents and law enforcement both had seen strange objects flying in formation over critical infrastructure like the Jim Bridger power plant; and an air medical pilot saw one in the air that appeared to be surveying the ground below with a light, Grossnickle’s office said at the time.

UFOs Enter The Chat

UFOs, or UAPs, have cleared lore status and entered multiple congressional hearings.

Congress heard what CBS News called “stunning testimony” of pilots’ UAP sightings in September 2023.

The U.S. House Oversight Committee held a Sept. 9 hearing on protection for UAP whistleblowers.

Among other witnesses, the committee hosted a former geospatial intelligence specialist for the U.S. Air Force who told them he suffered retaliation after reporting a disturbing encroachment at the NASA hangar at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.

In the summer of 2012, at 1:30 a.m. one morning, “I saw an approximately 100-foot-long equilateral triangle fly from  near the NASA hangar on base and come within 100 feet of where I was standing,” wrote the specialist, Dylan Borland, in his opening remarks to the committee.

“This craft interfered with my telephone, did not have any sound, and the material it was made of appeared fluid or dynamic,” Borland added. “I was under this triangular craft for a few minutes, and then it rapidly ascended to commercial jet level in seconds. It displayed zero kinetic disturbance, sound or wind displacement.”

Borland characterized himself as a “federal whistleblower, having testified … with direct firsthand knowledge of, and experience with, craft and technology that are not ours and are reportedly operating without congressional oversight.”

Borland was not alone.

Military veterans, a seasoned journalist, and a senior policy advisor for the Project on Government Oversight all pushed the committee to develop whistleblower protections in this area.

Most of those said they’d seen strange objects as well.

On Feb. 15, 2023, at about 7:15 p.m. off the Southern California Coast, U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins saw a self-luminous, Tic Tac-shaped object emerging from the ocean, according to his account to the committee.

The object linked with three similar objects. All four departed simultaneously, in a “highly synchronized, near-instantaneous manner. No sonic boom or conventional propulsion signatures were observed,” Wiggins wrote.

The radar and video on the vessel Wiggins was serving detected the objects.

“Location and time stamps are visible in the source video frames published by journalists,” he added.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.