disinfozone/The_Info_Web
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

vault backup: 2026-10-02 00:09:35

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-10-02 00:09:36 -04:00
parent cfe4dc0862
commit 8b451a66c8
No known key found for this signature in database
13 changed files with 1846 additions and 36 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

72
00 - META/CHANGELOG.md
View file

@ -1,4 +1,39 @@
- 2026-10-01T2230 · [[_manifest]]
- 2026-10-02T0009 · [[_manifest]]
- 2026-10-02T0008 · [[_REDLINKS_2026-09-21_v2]]
- 2026-10-02T0008 · [[Sean Kirkpatrick]]
- 2026-10-02T0008 · [[KONA BLUE]]
- 2026-10-02T0008 · [[Immaculate Constellation]]
- 2026-10-02T0007 · [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]]
- 2026-10-02T0003 · [[_REVIEW_U3]]
- 2026-10-01T2350 · [[_REVIEW_U2]]
- 2026-10-01T2350 · [[Richard Doty]]
- 2026-10-01T2349 · [[Area 51]]
- 2026-10-01T2349 · [[Majestic-12]]
- 2026-10-01T2349 · [[Paul Bennewitz]]
- 2026-10-01T2345 · [[_REVIEW_U1]]
- 2026-10-01T2345 · [[J. Allen Hynek]]
- 2026-10-01T2343 · [[Condon Committee]]
- 2026-10-01T2341 · [[Robertson Panel]]
- 2026-10-01T2341 · [[Project Blue Book]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[Area 51]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[Majestic-12]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[Paul Bennewitz]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[Richard Doty]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[src_Richard Doty]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[src_Majestic-12]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[src_Paul Bennewitz]]
- 2026-10-01T2332 · [[src_Area 51]]
- 2026-10-01T2330 · [[_NOTES_U3]]
- 2026-10-01T2330 · [[Sean Kirkpatrick]]
- 2026-10-01T2329 · [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]]
- 2026-10-01T2329 · [[KONA BLUE]]
- 2026-10-01T2329 · [[Immaculate Constellation]]
- 2026-10-01T2327 · [[_NOTES_U2]]
- 2026-10-01T2322 · [[_NOTES_U1]]
- 2026-10-01T2322 · [[Robertson Panel]]
- 2026-10-01T2322 · [[Project Blue Book]]
- 2026-10-01T2322 · [[J. Allen Hynek]]
- 2026-10-01T2322 · [[Condon Committee]]
- 2026-10-01T2230 · [[Valar Ventures]]
- 2026-10-01T2225 · [[Morgan Guaranty Trust]]
- 2026-10-01T2224 · [[Sullivan & Cromwell]]
@ -63,38 +98,3 @@
- 2026-10-01T2132 · [[Cambridge Analytica]]
- 2026-10-01T2129 · [[_REVIEW_P09]]
- 2026-10-01T2129 · [[William Buckley]]
- 2026-10-01T2129 · [[Edward Jay Epstein]]
- 2026-10-01T2129 · [[Francis Gary Powers]]
- 2026-10-01T2128 · [[_REVIEW_T08]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[Neocameralism]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[Dark Enlightenment]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[G. Gordon Liddy]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[Neocameralism]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[Dark Enlightenment]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[Griffin Bell]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[John N. Mitchell]]
- 2026-10-01T2127 · [[_REVIEW_P05]]
- 2026-10-01T2124 · [[_REVIEW_P02]]
- 2026-10-01T2124 · [[Laurance Rockefeller]]
- 2026-10-01T2124 · [[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]]
- 2026-10-01T2116 · [[Trilateral Commission]]
- 2026-10-01T2114 · [[Council on Foreign Relations]]
- 2026-10-01T2113 · [[Alcor Life Extension Foundation]]
- 2026-10-01T2113 · [[_REVIEW_M04]]
- 2026-10-01T2112 · [[Bridgewater Associates]]
- 2026-10-01T2111 · [[_REVIEW_M03]]
- 2026-10-01T2110 · [[_REVIEW_M01]]
- 2026-10-01T2110 · [[Credit Suisse]]
- 2026-10-01T2107 · [[Goldman Sachs]]
- 2026-10-01T2104 · [[_REVIEW_T03]]
- 2026-10-01T2104 · [[Ben Horowitz]]
- 2026-10-01T2102 · [[Scale AI]]
- 2026-10-01T2102 · [[Y Combinator]]
- 2026-10-01T2102 · [[Scale AI]]
- 2026-10-01T2102 · [[Y Combinator]]
- 2026-10-01T2042 · [[Ngo Dinh Diem]]
- 2026-10-01T2042 · [[Maxwell Taylor]]
- 2026-10-01T2040 · [[_REVIEW_P08]]
- 2026-10-01T2040 · [[_REVIEW_M02]]
- 2026-10-01T2039 · [[Philip Agee]]
- 2026-10-01T2036 · [[_REVIEW_P07]]

115
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Paul Bennewitz.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Person
- UFO
- ThunderScientific
- KirtlandAFB
- AFOSI
- Disinformation
- Dulce
- APRO
alias:
- Paul Bennewitz
- Paul F. Bennewitz
- Paul Frederick Bennewitz
- Paul Fredrick Bennewitz
- Dr. Paul Bennewitz
- Dr. Paul F. Bennewitz
summary: "Albuquerque instrument maker whose 1979 and 1980 films and radio recordings near Kirtland AFB led to AFOSI interviews, calls from two senators, and the disinformation operation Richard Doty described in 2005."
born: 1927-09-30
location: "Albuquerque, New Mexico"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Thunder Scientific]]"
role: "president of Thunder Scientific Laboratory in 1980"
fn: 2
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]]"
start: 1980-10-24
role: "civilian who reported Manzano sightings; interviewed at home October 26, 1980"
fn: 1
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Richard Doty]]"
role: "target of the disinformation operation Doty described in 2005"
fn: 4
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Paul Fredrick Bennewitz, recorded by the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]] (AFOSI) in October 1980 as a civilian born on September 30, 1927 in [[Kansas]], was the president of [[Thunder Scientific]], an [[Albuquerque]] maker of humidity equipment with contracts at [[Kirtland Air Force Base]], and lived in the Four Hills section of Albuquerque, adjacent to the northern boundary of the base's Manzano area.[^1][^2][^3] By his own account to AFOSI he had spent fifteen months by October 1980 photographing lights and recording electronic signals over Manzano and Coyote Canyon; he took the material to AFOSI and was interviewed by [[Richard Doty]]. In 2005 Doty said that AFOSI had convinced Bennewitz the signals were alien in order to protect what was happening at Kirtland, and that the effort included planted objects and helicopters near [[Dulce, New Mexico]].[^4]
### Thunder Scientific and Kirtland
The researcher [[Alejandro Rojas]] described Thunder Scientific as a humidity company with contracts with Kirtland and several other branches of the military and government contractors.[^3] [[Greg Bishop]], the author of the book [[Project Beta]], said on [[Coast to Coast AM]] in 2005 that Bennewitz was regarded as an electrical physicist whose company made humidity and temperature calibration equipment for military contractors among others, and that this gave his reports weight with the officers who heard them.[^4] An AFOSI form of November 26, 1980 lists him as "Dr. Paul F. Bennewitz, President, Thunder Scientific Laboratory, Albuquerque."[^2] The publisher [[James W. Moseley]] wrote in 2000 that Thunder Scientific stood in front of the entrance to Kirtland, supplied the base with technical instruments, and was owned by the family of Bennewitz, whom he described as a government contractor; Moseley wrote that Bennewitz's wife told him by telephone that no interview would be allowed and that Bennewitz's son ran the business.[^5]
Doty said in 2005 that the Manzano area "housed nuclear weapons, probably the largest nuclear storage area in the southwest," that Bennewitz's equipment gave him the ability to tap into sensitive communications and projects at the base, and that as the base counterintelligence officer he had to know the many classified projects at Kirtland, the [[Air Force Weapons Laboratory]], [[Sandia National Laboratories]] and [[Los Alamos]] in order to safeguard them.[^4]
### The 1980 films and the AFOSI interviews
On October 24, 1980 Bennewitz contacted Doty through Major [[Ernest E. Edwards]], commander of the 1608th Security Police Squadron, saying he had knowledge and evidence of threats against the Manzano Weapons Storage Area. The AFOSI form for file 8017D93-0/29, titled "Alleged Sightings of Unidentified Aerial Lights in Restricted Test Range" and covering August 8 to September 3, 1980, records that on October 26 Doty and [[Jerry Miller]], a GS-15 and chief scientific advisor of the [[Air Force Test and Evaluation Center]] who had been a [[Project Blue Book]] investigator assigned to [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base|Wright-Patterson]], interviewed Bennewitz at his home. He showed photographs, more than 2,600 feet of 8mm motion picture film depicting unidentified aerial objects over and around the Manzano Weapons Storage Area and the Coyote Canyon test area, and tapes of electronic recordings, from fifteen months of independent research. He had surveillance equipment pointed at Manzano to record high frequency beam pulses.[^1]
Miller told the agents the film showed some type of unidentified aerial objects but that no conclusion could be drawn on whether they threatened Manzano or Coyote Canyon, and that the recording tapes were inconclusive and could have been gathered from conventional sources. Personnel of the [[Foreign Technology Division]] at Wright-Patterson were scheduled to inspect the data. The form asks that a DCII check be made on Bennewitz, states that it is responsive to "HQ CR 44," and states that the command was briefed but did not request an investigation at that time. It is signed by Major [[Thomas A. Cseh]], commander of the Base Investigative Detachment.[^1][^6]
On November 10, 1980 Bennewitz presented film and photographs to a meeting in the 1606th Air Base Wing conference room that included Brigadier General [[William Brooksher]] (AFOSP/CC), Colonels [[Jack W. Sheppard]] (1606th Air Base Wing commander), [[Thomas Simmons]], [[Cres Baca]] (1606th Security Police Group commander) and [[Frank M. Huey]] (AFOSI District 17 commander), Lieutenant Colonel [[Joe R. Lamport]], Cseh, Dr. Lehman, director of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, and Ed Breen of that laboratory. He told them he had documented proof that he was in contact with the aliens flying the objects and asked about Air Force financial assistance. Lehman advised him to request a grant and said he would help with the paperwork. On November 17 Doty told Bennewitz that AFOSI would not become involved in the investigation of the objects and was not in a position to evaluate his information and photographs.[^2] Bishop said in 2005 that a [[NSA|National Security Agency]] employee, relaying an account from someone present, had told him that of about twenty people at such a presentation only two or three remained at the end, and that they, including an AFOSI commander he believed to be Cseh and an unidentified NSA man, thought Bennewitz had seen something he was not supposed to see; Bishop placed the presentation in the first half of 1980, earlier than the date on the AFOSI form.[^4]
### Senators Schmitt and Domenici
On November 26, 1980 Doty received a telephone call from a person who identified himself as Senator "Schmidt" of [[New Mexico]] (the form's spelling; the senator was [[Harrison Schmitt]]) asking about AFOSI's role in investigating the phenomena Bennewitz had reported. Doty said AFOSI was not investigating and referred the caller to AFOSI District 17; the caller said he would ask the Secretary of the Air Force which agency should investigate. The AFOSI form adds that Bennewitz had held a number of conversations with the senator during the preceding months about his private research and that the senator had telephoned Brooksher, because the Security Police were responsible for the security of the Manzano Storage Area.[^2] On July 30, 1981 Senator [[Pete Domenici]] was in the office of the 1606th Air Base Wing inspector general and asked to speak with Doty after Colonel Harvell, acting AFOSI commander, agreed that Doty and District 17 would meet him; Domenici left immediately to meet Bennewitz, and his aide, a Mr. Tijeros, was told that AFOSI had conducted no formal investigation of Bennewitz. Colonel Huey signed the communication.[^7]
Rojas wrote that Doty has said he lied to the two senators.[^3] Schmitt's earlier involvement in a related subject appears in the files of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]: on April 20, 1979 Schmitt and U.S. Attorney [[R. E. Thompson]] directed a conference in Albuquerque on cattle mutilations, held at the Albuquerque Public Library and attended by about 180 people, at which Schmitt said he had conferred with Attorney General [[Griffin Bell]] and that the FBI had been designated to investigate. A [[Department of Justice]] Criminal Division memorandum in the same file forwards part of Schmitt's correspondence on fifteen mutilations in Indian country and asks the FBI to investigate. The Albuquerque office reported that in May 1979 the district attorney's office for the Santa Fe area received about $50,000 in federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration funds to coordinate investigation of mutilations, and that its own inquiry into the fifteen mutilations in Indian country had been negative.[^8]
### Cattle mutilations and Dulce
At the April 1979 conference the New Mexico State Police officer [[Gabe Valdez]] of Dulce reported on the deaths of ninety cattle and six horses over three years, which he said were not the work of predators, and a Los Alamos veterinarian, Dr. [[Richard Prine]], attributed six carcasses he examined to predators.[^8] Bishop said Bennewitz met Valdez at the mutilation conference that the senator had convened and learned through him of the case of a woman called [[Myrna Hansen]] and her son, who reported two large craft over a field and a cow drawn up into one of them.[^4]
Rojas wrote that Valdez told him he was present when Doty flew Bennewitz over Dulce.[^3] Doty said that Bennewitz, who was a pilot, flew to [[Archuleta Peak]] near Dulce, photographed things there and became convinced they were an alien base; AFOSI then "fortified his thought" with a fence, Army helicopters from [[Fort Carson]], Colorado, "a couple of black helicopters" and "some things planted onto the ground," on land that he said was already a classified training area for special operations.[^4]
### The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization
In January 1953 the [[Robertson Panel]] convened for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] recommended, according to the agency historian [[Gerald K. Haines]], that private groups including the [[Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators]] in [[Los Angeles]] and the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]] in Wisconsin be monitored for subversive activities.[^9] [[William L. Moore]], who was the APRO board member in charge of special investigations in 1980, said in his paper read at the 1989 MUFON symposium that AFOSI knew Bennewitz had close ties with APRO and wanted to recruit someone in the organization to provide feedback on Bennewitz's activities and communications. According to Moore, an anonymous letter that reached APRO in July 1980 was written by Doty as "bait," and he began providing Doty with information about the Bennewitz case soon after the letter was passed to him.[^10]
The letter, reproduced in Moore and Shandera's report, tells of a Civil Air Patrol cadet's sighting near Pecos, a man from Sandia who demanded his photographs, and an OSI agent "Dody" who took them; it adds that a crashed UFO from the late 1950s was stored in the Manzano area, that Colonel Bruce Purvine had told the writer OSI took over UFO investigations when Project Blue Book closed, and that AFOSI District 17 had a special secret detachment investigating sightings and cattle mutilations.[^11]
### The Aquarius message
The text that Moore and [[Jaime Shandera]] printed as the Aquarius document is a message marked secret and dated November 17, 1980, the day Doty told Bennewitz AFOSI would not become involved, addressed from AFOSI headquarters at [[Bolling Air Force Base]] to the Kirtland district. It refers to a Kirtland request for photo imagery interpretation of October 29, 1980, cites "HQ CR 44," analyzes five items of negative and film, describes two as a "legitimate negative of unidentified aerial object" and the others as inconclusive or not classifiable, and states that the [[United States]] no longer publicly engages in UFO research but retains an interest in sightings over its installations and test ranges, that several other agencies led by [[NASA]] investigate sightings "through covert cover," one such cover being a UFO reporting center of the Coast and Geodetic Survey at Rockville, Maryland, that the policy and results of "Project Aquarius" remained classified top secret with restricted access to "MJ Twelve," and that the Bennewitz case was being monitored by "NASA/INS." It instructs the district to continue receiving assistance from named individuals including Miller and to debrief them regularly.[^12]
On December 5, 1983 the Air Force Intelligence Service told [[KOB-TV]] that AFOSI had reviewed the message and confirmed it was a hoax.[^13] Moore wrote in 1989 that the Aquarius document was a retyped version of a real AFOSI message with spurious additions, handed to him in 1981 so that he would pass it to Bennewitz, and that he understood Bennewitz was expected to wave it to the press as proof of an alien invasion, after which the document would be denounced as a counterfeit and Bennewitz discredited. The 1990 report of Moore and Shandera says Moore marked a copy so that it could be identified, gave it to Bennewitz in June 1981 with the warning that it might be a set-up, and that Bennewitz put it in his safe and never publicized it. The report describes the printed text as a reconstruction made in late 1988 by Moore from the retyped copy and his 1981 notes, with a few changes supplied by Doty.[^14]
### The Gersten copy, 1982 and 1983
Moore wrote in FOCUS in 1989 that in September 1982 there were, as far as he knew, only three copies of the Aquarius document: one that he had passed to Bennewitz for safekeeping, one in safekeeping elsewhere, and one in his briefcase on a trip to [[San Francisco]]. There he had a morning meeting with a man who turned out to be an associate of the New York researcher [[Peter Gersten]]; that afternoon his car was broken into and his briefcase stolen. Four months later a copy of the same document, with annotations Moore had pencilled on it, turned up in Gersten's hands, and Moore wrote that he had never received a satisfactory explanation of how Gersten obtained it. The 1990 report adds that the break-in occurred on September 13, 1982 and was reported to the San Francisco police, and states that the government had motives of its own in wanting to discredit Gersten, who at the time was pursuing [[Freedom of Information Act]] suits and planned to make a federal case of the [[Cash-Landrum incident]]. According to the authors Gersten began circulating the document to a few members of the UFO community in early 1983 without endorsing it as authentic; they wrote that whether the break-in was engineered remains unknown.[^15] Klass wrote that the researcher [[Robert Todd]] established in early 1983 that the teletype Doty had provided to Moore was bogus.[^16]
### Moore's account
At the 1989 MUFON symposium Moore, quoted by [[Curt Collins]], said: "I would play the disinformation game, get my hands dirty just often enough [while trying] to learn as much as possible about who was directing it and why." He said Bennewitz was convinced he was receiving alien radio transmissions and had written a home computer program to translate them into English, that the program could as easily assign "alien" translations to ordinary Morse code, and that [[J. Allen Hynek]] had also examined it.[^17] In a 2000 letter to the newsletter [[Saucer Smear]], Moore wrote that Hynek's role was providing Bennewitz a carefully crafted means of decoding the supposed alien transmissions; on a radio program in 1994 he said that Hynek "was under contract to the Air Force and I have a copy of that contract in case anybody wants to contest this."[^17] The researcher Janet Smith wrote to Saucer Smear in 2000 that Moore had told her in the early 1980s that he had "squirreled Bennewitz away in Canada for his own protection."[^18]
### Doty's account and the hospitalization
Doty described what he called a two-tier approach. AFOSI first showed intense interest in everything Bennewitz had; the National Security Agency later became involved because it was extremely interested in his equipment, which Doty said was tapping a type of communication he should not have been able to receive. AFOSI then became friends with him, which Doty called what one does in counterintelligence, began vetting him and began feeding him information. According to Doty, AFOSI did not have to say much because Bennewitz already had the idea; Bennewitz had told the agents that if he tapped into something he wanted to be told, which AFOSI would not do because it did not know who his friends were. Doty said the agents told him instead that he had tapped into something unknown and proposed to work on it together, and turned everything he gathered around so that it appeared alien in origin. He said that disinformation was a primary tactic of United States intelligence in the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s, that the most effective version gives the target enough credible information to lead him along, and that "this is an art that is taught. I didn't come up with all of this by myself, I was trained," at a counterintelligence and counterespionage school.[^4]
Doty said on Coast to Coast AM that AFOSI chose to convince Bennewitz rather than obtain a search warrant and seize his property, which "would cause a lot of publicity." Asked whether Bennewitz had needed psychiatric care, Doty said, "Yes, and I visited Paul a number of times," and that he tried, through Bennewitz's son, to tell him the earlier information was untrue, against his commander's orders.[^4] In a letter to Saucer Smear in 2000 Doty wrote that he never believed Bennewitz was in contact with extraterrestrials, and Moseley wrote that Doty told him the National Security Agency independently worked to steer Bennewitz deeper into his belief system and tapped his telephone; Klass replied that the agency does not tap the lines of resident citizens.[^5][^18] Bishop said on the same broadcast that Bennewitz spent about three months in a mental hospital around 1988, that intelligence officers wanted to learn what he knew and with whom he was speaking, and that the [[Soviet Union]] was their concern. Bishop also said the base was then tracking Soviet satellites, a point he said he drew from the testimony of a few people who worked at Kirtland.[^4]
Doty said there were four operations pertaining to UFOs; he named those against Bennewitz and [[Linda Moulton Howe]] and said there were two others against groups of people.[^4] Bishop said Bennewitz died about a week before Bishop first travelled to Albuquerque to begin interviews for his book.[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: AFOSI Form 96, Multipurpose Internal OSI Form, file 8017D93-0/29, "Kirtland AFB, NM, 8 Aug - 3 Sep 80, Alleged Sightings of Unidentified Aerial Lights in Restricted Test Range," transmittal date October 28, 1980, signed Thomas A. Cseh, Appendix E, p. 93, of William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Fund for UFO Research, 1990), http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S1-Bennewitz-AFOSI-Visit-Oct-80.pdf
[^2]: AFOSI Form 96, file 8017D93-0/29, transmittal date November 26, 1980, Appendix E, pp. 95 to 96, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S3-Bennewitz-Kirtland-Bennewitz-Meeting-Nov-80.pdf
[^3]: Alejandro Rojas, "Open letter to the U.S. Air Force regarding allegations of UFO disinformation," Open Minds, May 6, 2014, https://openminds.tv/open-letter-u-s-air-force-allegations-ufo-disinformation/ ; Rojas, HuffPost, May 13, 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exair-force-law-enforceme_b_5312650
[^4]: "Greg Bishop and Richard Doty, Coast to Coast AM with host Art Bell," transcript of the broadcast of February 27, 2005, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S5-Greg-Bishop-and-Richard-Doty-Coast-to-Coast-AM-with-host-Art-Bell-Interview-Transcript.pdf (transcript; audio not reviewed).
[^5]: James W. Moseley, "The Paul Bennewitz Case Revisited," Saucer Smear, vol. 47, June 15, 2000, http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000615.htm (printout of June 7, 2013), pp. 1 to 3.
[^6]: Same form, continuation, Appendix E, p. 94, paragraphs 2 to 7, same file.
[^7]: AFOSI Form 158, AFOSI Communication, "Dr. Paul Fredrick Bennewitz, Congressional Inquiry," July 30, 1981, AFOSI District 17/CC, signed Frank M. Huey, Appendix E, p. 97, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S4-Bennewitz-AFOSI-Domenici-July-81.pdf
[^8]: FBI Albuquerque, airtel to Director and letterhead memorandum "Cattle Mutilations," April 25, 1979, on the conference of April 20, 1979, and related Department of Justice Criminal Division memorandum and later Albuquerque report, FBI Vault, Animal Mutilation, Parts 04 and 05, https://vault.fbi.gov/Animal%20Mutilation/Animal%20Mutilation%20Part%2004/view
[^9]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90: A Die-Hard Issue," Studies in Intelligence (1997), section "The Robertson Panel, 1952-53," note 33, https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/cia-role-study-UFOs.pdf
[^10]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Weitzel Letter (July, 1980)," p. 6, quoting Moore, "UFOs and the U.S. Government, Part I," read at the MUFON Symposium, Las Vegas, July 1, 1989, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/The-MJ-12-Documents-An-Analytical-Report-Excerpts.pdf
[^11]: Anonymous letter to APRO, Appendix B, pp. 81 to 82, of Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S17-Weitzel-Letter.pdf
[^12]: Message R 171130Z NOV 80, FM HQ AFOSI Bolling AFB DC/IVOE to AFOSI Dist 17 Kirtland AFB NM/BID, info 7602 AINTELG Ft Belvoir, Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, Appendix C, p. 83, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S18-Aquarius-Document.pdf
[^13]: Susan Cooksey, Freedom of Information Manager, Air Force Intelligence Service, letter to Peter L. Clarke, KOB Television, December 5, 1983, printout of a reproduction at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/KOB-TV-Bennewitz-FOIA.pdf
[^14]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Aquarius Document (Feb. 1981)" and "The Aquarius Teletype," pp. 7 to 9, quoting Moore in FOCUS, June 30, 1989, p. 13, and September 30, 1989, p. 8.
[^15]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Aquarius Teletype," pp. 8 to 9, quoting Moore in FOCUS, June 30, 1989, p. 13.
[^16]: Philip J. Klass, Skeptics UFO Newsletter no. 44, March 1997, pp. 1 to 3, https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/docs/SUN/SUN44.pdf
[^17]: Curt Collins, "Bill Moore and UFO Disinformation Accusations," Blue Blurry Lines, April 29, 2022, https://www.blueblurrylines.com/2019/12/bill-moore-on-hynek-and-vallee.html , quoting Moore's speech at the MUFON Symposium, Las Vegas, July 1, 1989 (published in the MUFON UFO Journal, November and December 1989), Moore's letter in Saucer Smear, August 10, 2000, and Moore on Don Ecker's UFOs Tonite, June 11, 1994. The speech text itself was not obtained.
[^18]: James W. Moseley, ed., Saucer Smear, vol. 47, July 15, 2000, "Missives from the Masses" (letters of Richard Doty, Philip J. Klass and Janet Smith), http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000715.htm (printout of June 14, 2013), pp. 6 to 8.

137
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard Doty.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,137 @@
---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Person
- UFO
- AFOSI
- Counterintelligence
- Disinformation
- KirtlandAFB
- MJ12
- NewMexicoStatePolice
alias:
- Richard Doty
- Richard C. Doty
- Richard Charles Doty
- Rick Doty
- Sgt. Richard Doty
- Doty
summary: "Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent at Kirtland AFB from 1979 who interviewed Paul Bennewitz in 1980 and in 2005 said he had run disinformation operations against UFO researchers on orders."
location: "Albuquerque, New Mexico"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[U.S. Air Force]]"
start: 1968-09-17
end: 1988-09-30
role: "security police, law enforcement and special investigations; retired master sergeant"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]]"
start: 1979-05-29
role: "special agent and counterintelligence technician, Kirtland AFB detachments"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[New Mexico State Police]]"
start: 1988-12-01
role: "officer, later sergeant and explosive ordnance disposal team member; retired by February 2015"
fn: 2
- type: investigated
with: "[[Paul Bennewitz]]"
start: 1980-10-24
role: "interviewed Bennewitz at home on October 26, 1980; later described a disinformation operation against him"
fn: 4
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]"
role: "said in 2005 that the FBI investigated him in 1988 or 1989 over the MJ-12 documents"
fn: 5
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Richard Charles Doty served in the [[U.S. Air Force]] from September 17, 1968 to September 30, 1988, retiring as a master sergeant at [[Kirtland Air Force Base]], and was commissioned an officer of the [[New Mexico State Police]] on December 1, 1988.[^1][^2] From May 29, 1979 his recorded assignments were with units of the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]] (AFOSI) at Kirtland, where he was the special agent named in the October 1980 reports on [[Paul Bennewitz]].[^3][^4] In 2005 he told the radio host [[Art Bell]] that he had given Bennewitz disinformation on orders.[^5] [[Robert Hastings]] and [[Philip J. Klass]] have named him as "Falcon," the intelligence source whom [[William L. Moore]] described as the origin of material on [[Project Aquarius]] and the [[Majestic-12]] papers; Doty and Moore have both denied it.[^6][^7]
### Service record
The National Personnel Records Center released Doty's service information to the researcher [[Alejandro Rojas]] in April 2013. The record gives his place of entry as the Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station at [[Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania]], and his place of separation as Kirtland. Among his decorations are the Air Force Commendation Medal with two bronze oak leaf clusters, the Vietnam Service Medal with four service stars and the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with palm.[^1]
A chronology of service assignments prepared on March 21, 1984 lists him as a security policeman from January 10, 1970 and a law enforcement specialist from January 1, 1971 at [[McChord Air Force Base]] in Washington State, where he became noncommissioned officer in charge of security inspections in March 1973. He was a patrolman and gateguard at [[Wiesbaden]], Germany, from September 24, 1973, and at [[Lindsey Air Station]], Germany, from January 2, 1976. From December 1, 1976 he was a law enforcement flight chief with the 44th Security Police Group at [[Ellsworth Air Force Base]], [[South Dakota]]; the chronology repeats the flight chief entry as of December 5, 1977 and lists him as a law enforcement instructor there from June 19, 1978. On May 29, 1979 he was assigned as a security police investigator, counterintelligence technician, with AFOSI Detachment 1700 at Kirtland, and on February 11, 1980 as noncommissioned officer in charge of a base investigations detachment at Kirtland. That is the last entry in a chronology prepared four years later.[^3]
The release lists his military education as including an Identi-Kit training course (two weeks, April 1979), a Special Investigators Course (fourteen weeks, May 1979), a Protective Services Operations Course (three weeks, April 1980), a Counterespionage Course (six weeks, November 1983) and a Dynamics of International Terrorism course (one week, August 1984).[^3] A separate list of his organizations names AFOSI District 70 at Lindsey Air Station, an assignment that the 1984 chronology does not date.[^3] Klass wrote in 1997 that Doty was transferred to an AFOSI post in [[West Germany]] in 1985, that within two years he was dismissed from AFOSI for turning in bogus claims about his activities, and that he spent the last two years before retirement as manager of the noncommissioned officers' mess hall at Kirtland, citing his own newsletter of January 1991; Klass repeated the account in a letter to the newsletter [[Saucer Smear]] in 2000.[^7][^8] The release of Doty's service information shows his separation as a retirement as a master sergeant at Kirtland and lists a 1606 Services Squadron at Kirtland among his organizations; it records no dismissal.[^1][^3]
### Ellsworth Air Force Base and the National Enquirer letter
On February 9, 1978 the [[National Enquirer]] received at its Florida offices an anonymous letter mailed from [[Rapid City, South Dakota]], enclosing what appeared to be a carbon copy of an incident report dated November 16, 1977 from the commander of the 44th Missile Security Squadron at Ellsworth. The report described a security policeman at a missile launch site who met an individual in a glowing green metallic uniform whose weapon disintegrated his rifle and burned his hands, a security team member who shot two similarly dressed figures who then rose and left in a saucer-shaped object, and the later discovery that the missile's nuclear components were missing. The reporter [[Bob Pratt]] and colleagues spent nine days in Rapid City, were told by the base information officer, Major [[Arthur Jungwirth]], that nothing of that nature had ever happened, and found more than twenty discrepancies in names, identity numbers, occupations and physical layouts. Pratt wrote in the [[MUFON UFO Journal]] in January 1984 that he could "say positively that it never happened," and that a researcher had later been told by an AFOSI agent, whom he did not name, that the incident was real, and that he had been told the agent had since admitted it never happened.[^9]
Doty's service chronology places him at Ellsworth as a law enforcement flight chief from December 1976 and as an instructor from June 1978 until his assignment to Kirtland in May 1979.[^3] In their 1990 report for the [[Fund for UFO Research]], Moore and [[Jaime Shandera]] wrote that the Ellsworth document had been officially fabricated as part of a government counterintelligence and disinformation operation, that Doty was serving with the 44th Security Police Group at the time and was in his second year as law enforcement flight chief in December 1977, and that Doty had admitted to them he was aware of the Enquirer operation but claimed to have been only peripherally involved. They added that Doty's handwriting samples had no point in common with the longhand notations on the document, that its typeface and that of its cover letter differed from the typeface of the Weitzel letter described below, and that men from Washington, possibly from the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], had been involved in a counterintelligence and disinformation training exercise at Ellsworth in late 1977 and early 1978.[^10]
Moore asked Doty about the Ellsworth document in late 1981; according to Moore and Shandera, Doty replied that the event had never occurred, that security regulations barred further comment except to say that what little truth there was had been loosely based on a sighting by a local sheriff's deputy that had not involved a landing, and that he had not created the document.[^10] Hastings wrote in 1989 that, according to [[Bruce Maccabee]], Moore had acknowledged that Doty confessed to forging the Ellsworth document, and that Doty apparently claimed the incident had actually occurred and that he typed the report to bring it to public attention.[^6]
### Kirtland, Schmitt and Bennewitz
On April 20, 1979 Senator [[Harrison Schmitt]] of [[New Mexico]] and U.S. Attorney R. E. Thompson directed a conference in [[Albuquerque]] on cattle mutilations, attended by about 180 people, at which Schmitt said he had conferred with Attorney General [[Griffin Bell]] and that the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] had been designated to handle the matter; a New Mexico State Police officer from Dulce, [[Gabe Valdez]], reported on ninety dead cattle and six horses.[^11] Thirty-nine days later, on May 29, 1979, Doty's chronology shows his counterintelligence assignment at Kirtland.[^3] Doty said in 2005 that in "early 1979" he "was briefed in to this counter intelligence program" and given access to the history of earth's visitation by extraterrestrials.[^5]
On October 24, 1980 Bennewitz, the owner of [[Thunder Scientific]] in Albuquerque, contacted Doty through Major [[Ernest E. Edwards]], commander of the 1608th Security Police Squadron, with what an AFOSI form of October 28, 1980 records as knowledge and evidence of threats against the Manzano Weapons Storage Area. On October 26 Doty and [[Jerry Miller]], chief scientific advisor of the Air Force Test and Evaluation Center and a former [[Project Blue Book]] investigator, interviewed Bennewitz at his home. Bennewitz produced photographs, more than 2,600 feet of 8mm film and electronic recording tapes from fifteen months of independent research; the form is signed by Major [[Thomas A. Cseh]], commander of the Base Investigative Detachment.[^4]
A second AFOSI form, dated November 26, 1980, covers a meeting on November 10 in the 1606th Air Base Wing conference room attended by Brigadier General [[William Brooksher]], other officers, Dr. Lehman of the [[Air Force Weapons Laboratory]], and Bennewitz, who presented film and photographs and said he had documented proof of contact with the beings flying the objects. On November 17 Doty told Bennewitz that AFOSI would not become involved. On November 26 Doty received a telephone call from a person who identified himself as Senator "Schmidt" of New Mexico (the form's spelling) and asked about AFOSI's role; Doty said AFOSI was not investigating, and the caller said he would ask the Secretary of the Air Force which agency should. Bennewitz had spoken with the senator for months, and the senator had telephoned Brooksher about the Security Police role at Manzano.[^12] On July 30, 1981 Senator [[Pete Domenici]] asked to speak with Doty; he was in the inspector general's office, left immediately to meet Bennewitz, and his aide was told that AFOSI had conducted no formal investigation of Bennewitz, according to a communication signed by Colonel [[Frank M. Huey]].[^13]
### The Weitzel letter
In July 1980 the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]] received an anonymous letter, reproduced as Appendix B to the Moore and Shandera report, from a writer who said he was an airman of the 1550th Aircrew Training and Testing Wing at Kirtland. It described a sighting near [[Pecos, New Mexico]], on July 16, 1980 by a [[Civil Air Patrol]] cadet, [[Craig R. Weitzel]], a visit the next night by a man calling himself Mr. Huck of [[Sandia National Laboratories|Sandia Laboratories]] who demanded Weitzel's photographs, and a report to "a Mr. Dody, a special agent with OSI" who took the photographs; the writer said Dody later disavowed any knowledge of them. Its closing paragraphs said that two Sandia employees had told the writer a crashed UFO, including one that crashed near [[Roswell Incident|Roswell]] in the late 1950s, was stored in the Manzano storage area; that the writer's commander, Colonel [[Bruce Purvine]], had said OSI took over UFO investigations when Project Blue Book closed; and that AFOSI District 17 had a special secret detachment investigating sightings and cattle mutilations in the area.[^14] Moore, who was the APRO board member in charge of special investigations, told the 1989 [[MUFON]] symposium in [[Las Vegas]] that the letter was written by Doty and was "bait": AFOSI knew Bennewitz had close ties with APRO and wanted to recruit someone in the organization to report on Bennewitz. Moore said the letter was passed to him, that it was not long afterward that he came to know Doty, and that he began giving Doty information about the Bennewitz case.[^15] The 1990 report adds that Moore's cooperation with AFOSI derived from his meeting in October 1980 with the source codenamed Falcon, who designated Doty as middle-man, and that the stylistic differences between the Ellsworth documents and the Weitzel letter indicated two distinct writers.[^15]
Hastings reported that Craig Weitzel, found by the researcher [[Benton Jamison]] in 1985, said he had reported a sighting to Doty in 1980 but that the event did not resemble the one in the letter, and that, in Hastings's words, a typeface analysis by [[Brad Sparks]] showed the letter was "almost certainly" typed on the same typewriter as Doty's 1980 AFOSI complaint form, an analysis Hastings called incomplete.[^6]
### The Aquarius message
The text printed as Appendix C of the Moore and Shandera report, presented as the Aquarius document, is a one-page message marked secret, "for AFOSI only," dated November 17, 1980, from AFOSI headquarters at [[Bolling Air Force Base]] to the AFOSI district at Kirtland, analyzing five items of negative and film. It states that the policy and results of "Project Aquarius" were classified top secret with restricted access to "MJ Twelve" and that the Bennewitz case was being monitored by "NASA/INS."[^16] On December 5, 1983 the Air Force Intelligence Service told Peter L. Clarke of [[KOB-TV]] in Albuquerque that its files held only a copy of a message of unknown origin that mentioned Bennewitz, that the purported originator, AFOSI, had reviewed it and confirmed it was a hoax, and that the Intelligence Service had no record of receiving it from AFOSI.[^17]
Moore wrote in 1989 that the Aquarius document was a retyped version of a real AFOSI message with a few spurious additions, apparently created by AFOSI, and handed to him so that he would pass it to Bennewitz. In the 1990 report Moore and Shandera corrected the date of delivery to March 2, 1981, when Falcon showed him an original, and said Moore later received a retyped version at a meeting in Albuquerque with Falcon and Doty. Moore gave Bennewitz a marked copy in June 1981 and told him it might be a set-up. The text in Appendix C is, according to the report, a reconstruction: in late 1988 Moore worked from the retyped copy and his 1981 notes, then took the result to Doty, who supplied a few additional changes; Falcon took no part.[^18] Klass wrote that the term "MJ Twelve" first appeared in this teletype, which Doty provided to Moore in early 1981.[^7]
### Falcon, Condor and the Howe meeting
Linda Moulton Howe told Hastings that when Doty invited her to his office at Kirtland in early April 1983 and showed her a document, he identified himself by the code name Falcon and said Moore had given it to him. She signed an affidavit; Doty did not. Hastings wrote that the document, as Howe described it, was a "Briefing Paper for the President" containing a catalog of crashed UFO cases including one near Aztec, New Mexico, and that Doty confirmed to her the existence of a secret government group called MJ-12.[^6] According to Howe, quoted by Klass, Doty said she was being shown a "briefing paper" because the government intended to release to her several thousand feet of film of crashed discs and bodies for a [[Home Box Office]] documentary; she received no film.[^7] Doty wrote to [[Barry Greenwood]], editor of the [[Just Cause]] newsletter, on March 3, 1988 that he knew "of no secret Government investigation of UFOs" and had "never heard of MJ-12."[^7] In 2005 Doty said on the radio that Howe had been invited to Kirtland and shown a document, that he was the primary agent with two others, and that the operation was carried out on orders.[^5]
Hastings wrote that in early December 1988 a member of the production team of the television program [[UFO Cover-Up? Live]], whom he did not name, identified Doty as Falcon and the program's second source, "Condor," as [[Robert Collins]], a recently retired Air Force captain assigned to a plasma physics group at Sandia. Hastings wrote that both Doty and Collins denied involvement.[^6] Moore denied that Doty was Falcon; Klass wrote that there was good reason to believe he was.[^7]
### The FBI inquiry of 1988 and 1989
On September 15, 1988 a special agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, whose name is redacted, contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in [[Dallas]] with a possible classified document concerning Operation Majestic-12. FBI Dallas reported on October 25, 1988 that the document had been received from a person, whose name is redacted, who said an individual "at the school," whom he would not name, had given it to him as something received in the mail, and that there had been two radio talk-show appearances on "Operation Majestic-12" in the previous six weeks. The file reproduces the November 18, 1952 Eisenhower briefing document with "BOGUS" written across its pages. On November 30 OSI advised that the document was fabricated, and FBI headquarters wrote on December 2, 1988 that it was "completely bogus" and told Dallas to close the case.[^19] Doty told Bell in 2005 that the FBI had investigated him in 1988 or 1989 because it thought he had disclosed the documents, that Klass had raised the matter, and that he told the FBI and Air Force officials to take him to the [[The Pentagon|Pentagon]], where he said the documents were.[^5] In July 2000 he wrote that he "went through two Government investigations regarding the MJ-12 documents," that both had cleared him, and that he was not involved in any conspiracy with Moore to create documents; the editor of Saucer Smear added that Doty claimed to have passed two lie detector tests.[^8] The FBI file as released does not name him; he retired from the Air Force on September 30, 1988, according to the National Personnel Records Center, or October 1, according to Hastings.[^1][^6]
### New Mexico State Police
On November 30, 1988 the chief of the New Mexico State Police told Officer Richard C. Doty that he was commissioned effective December 1, 1988 as a junior patrolman at an annual salary of $19,279, assigned to [[Grants, New Mexico|Grants]].[^2] The personnel file released in 2021 under the state Inspection of Public Records Act, 321 pages, records a Hazardous Materials Safety Board Level I certificate issued in June 1989, a notice that he was not selected for the explosive ordnance disposal team in May 1991, his appointment as a team member on December 1, 1994, and his appointment as temporary commander of the unit on December 27, 1999. On April 25, 2000 the chief assigned four other officers to report to Sergeant Doty in Albuquerque on April 28 for explosive ordnance disposal support to the [[Secret Service]] during Vice President [[Al Gore]]'s visit. He was removed from the team effective July 2, 2005, per correspondence submitted by his lieutenant and himself. A benefits record dated February 9, 2015 gives December 1, 1988 as his date of hire, February 13, 2015 as the end of coverage, and "Employee retired" as the reason. The state withheld his military discharge, disciplinary records and performance appraisals. The requester's description of the file as beginning "circa August of 1988 as a Staff Sergeant" does not match the commission letter.[^2]
### Statements in 2000
In June 2000 the publisher [[James W. Moseley]] reported in Saucer Smear, after telephone interviews, that Doty told him he had visited [[Area 51]] and had been told alien technology was kept there, though his clearance was not high enough to see it, and that Doty said he told Bennewitz years afterward that he had been hoaxed.[^20] In a letter to the July 2000 issue Doty wrote that Moore "was a coded source for OSI," "was paid for his information" and "was used to provide disinformation to Ufologists"; that "two alien spacecrafts crashed in the desert of New Mexico in the summer of 1947" and the government recovered five bodies and one live alien that lived until 1952; that "we don't have any UFOs at Area 51"; and that "during my OSI days, I did perform disinformation operations against many different targets, but everything I did was sanctioned by our Government." Moore wrote in the same issue that he could confirm Doty's comments about Bennewitz and the "energy balls," one of which he had seen briefly in Bennewitz's home.[^8]
### Statements in 2005
On [[Coast to Coast AM]] on February 27, 2005 Doty, with the author [[Greg Bishop]], said he was "the counter intelligence officer for the base," that Bennewitz's equipment could tap sensitive communications at Kirtland, which housed what he called probably the largest nuclear storage area in the southwest, and that AFOSI convinced Bennewitz that what he was picking up was alien in origin. Asked by Bell whether he had dispensed disinformation, Doty answered "That is absolutely true." He said that when Bennewitz claimed an alien base lay under [[Archuleta Peak]] near [[Dulce, New Mexico]], AFOSI "fortified his thought" with a fence, Army helicopters from [[Fort Carson]] and "things planted onto the ground," and that this was easier than obtaining a search warrant and seizing Bennewitz's equipment, which would have produced publicity. He said he visited Bennewitz and Bennewitz's son against his commander's orders to say the stories were untrue, named four such operations, two of them against Bennewitz and Howe, and said: "I followed orders. Everything we did was following orders." He said that disinformation was a primary tactic of [[United States]] intelligence in the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s, that he "was trained" in it at a counterintelligence and counterespionage school, and that the [[National Security Agency]] had become involved in the Bennewitz matter because of its interest in his equipment.[^5]
On the same broadcast Doty said he was briefed in a room at the Air Force special security office on a recovery at Roswell by a colonel and a civilian, with a classified 16mm film, and that his 1979 briefing included the statement that in the early 1950s the government had placed Air Force intelligence personnel as advisers to motion picture companies, beginning with a film he named as The Day the Earth Stood Still, to condition the public for a release. He also said that he learned after leaving OSI, in a room with six or seven retired intelligence officers, that a government operation from 1977 or 1978 until 1982 had taken organs from cattle, horses, elk and deer for a biological agent prevention system, and that it had been arranged so that the public would attribute the mutilations to aliens; he said he had no official knowledge of it at the time.[^5]
On July 11, 2013 Rojas wrote to the Air Force asking whether Doty had acted under orders when, as Doty has said according to Rojas, he lied to two senators, broke into a civilian's home and distributed forged documents. AFOSI released records on Rojas's [[Freedom of Information Act]] request on August 2, 2013; Rojas wrote that its public affairs office then stopped speaking with him and that he had received no answer. Rojas wrote that Gabe Valdez of the New Mexico State Police told him he was present when Doty flew Bennewitz over Dulce, that Doty told Bishop and retired Army Colonel [[John B. Alexander]] of the break-in, and that Doty says he was demoted at one point, which the military records Rojas obtained do not show.[^21]
### Footnotes
[^1]: National Personnel Records Center, "Information Releasable Under the Freedom of Information Act" (NA Form 13164), decorations list, and cover letter of April 26, 2013 to Alejandro Rojas, request no. 2-11444310069, Richard C. Doty, pp. 2 to 4 of the 8-page release, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/Doty-Service-Records1.pdf
[^2]: New Mexico Department of Public Safety, response of March 29, 2021 to John Greenewald under the Inspection of Public Records Act and personnel file of Richard C. Doty (321 pages), including the memorandum of Chief Neil W. Curran of November 30, 1988 (Appointment and Assignment), the Hazardous Materials Safety Board letter of July 3, 1989, the explosive ordnance disposal team letters of May 10, 1991, November 30, 1994, December 27, 1999, April 25, 2000 and June 29, 2005, and the benefits record of February 9, 2015, https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/richarddoty-personnelfile.pdf
[^3]: National Personnel Records Center, "Chronology of Service Assignments" prepared March 21, 1984 (master personnel records of Doty, Richard C., page 204), "Organization, Command, Location" list, and "Military Education" entries, in the release of April 2013, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/Doty-Service-Records1.pdf, pp. 5, 6 and 8.
[^4]: AFOSI Form 96, Multipurpose Internal OSI Form, file 8017D93-0/29, "Kirtland AFB, NM, 8 Aug - 3 Sep 80, Alleged Sightings of Unidentified Aerial Lights in Restricted Test Range," transmittal date October 28, 1980, signed Thomas A. Cseh, reproduced as Appendix E, p. 93, of William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Fund for UFO Research, 1990); copy at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S1-Bennewitz-AFOSI-Visit-Oct-80.pdf
[^5]: "Greg Bishop and Richard Doty, Coast to Coast AM with host Art Bell," transcript of the broadcast of February 27, 2005, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S5-Greg-Bishop-and-Richard-Doty-Coast-to-Coast-AM-with-host-Art-Bell-Interview-Transcript.pdf (transcript; the audio was not reviewed).
[^6]: Robert Hastings, "The MJ-12 Affair: Facts, Questions, Comments," March 1, 1989, reproduced on the UFONET bulletin board and at https://sacred-texts.com/ufo/hastings.htm
[^7]: Philip J. Klass, Skeptics UFO Newsletter no. 44, March 1997, pp. 1 to 5, https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/docs/SUN/SUN44.pdf
[^8]: James W. Moseley, ed., Saucer Smear, vol. 47, July 15, 2000, "Missives from the Masses" (letters of Richard Doty, William Moore and Philip J. Klass), http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000715.htm (printout of June 14, 2013), pp. 6 to 7.
[^9]: Bob Pratt, "Ellsworth," MUFON UFO Journal, January 1984, repost at http://www.mufon.com/bob_pratt/ellsworth.html (printed June 13, 2013).
[^10]: William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Fund for UFO Research, 1990), "The Ellsworth Document (Dec. 1977)," pp. 4 to 6, excerpt at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/The-MJ-12-Documents-An-Analytical-Report-Excerpts.pdf
[^11]: FBI Albuquerque, airtel to Director and letterhead memorandum "Cattle Mutilations," April 25, 1979, on the conference of April 20, 1979, FBI Vault, Animal Mutilation, Part 04, https://vault.fbi.gov/Animal%20Mutilation/Animal%20Mutilation%20Part%2004/view
[^12]: AFOSI Form 96, file 8017D93-0/29, transmittal date November 26, 1980, Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, Appendix E, pp. 95 to 96, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S3-Bennewitz-Kirtland-Bennewitz-Meeting-Nov-80.pdf
[^13]: AFOSI Form 158, AFOSI Communication, "Dr. Paul Fredrick Bennewitz, Congressional Inquiry," July 30, 1981, AFOSI District 17/CC, signed Frank M. Huey, Appendix E, p. 97, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S4-Bennewitz-AFOSI-Domenici-July-81.pdf
[^14]: Anonymous letter to APRO, reproduced as Appendix B, pp. 81 to 82, of Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S17-Weitzel-Letter.pdf
[^15]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Weitzel Letter (July, 1980)," pp. 6 to 7, quoting Moore, "UFOs and the U.S. Government, Part I," read at the MUFON Symposium, Las Vegas, July 1, 1989, excerpt at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/The-MJ-12-Documents-An-Analytical-Report-Excerpts.pdf
[^16]: Message R 171130Z NOV 80, FM HQ AFOSI Bolling AFB DC/IVOE to AFOSI Dist 17 Kirtland AFB NM/BID, info 7602 AINTELG Ft Belvoir, "Subject Case Nr: 8017D93-126," Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, Appendix C, p. 83, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S18-Aquarius-Document.pdf
[^17]: Susan Cooksey, Freedom of Information Manager, Air Force Intelligence Service, letter to Peter L. Clarke, KOB Television, December 5, 1983 (reply to request of November 18, 1983), printout of a reproduction at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/KOB-TV-Bennewitz-FOIA.pdf
[^18]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Aquarius Document (Feb. 1981)" and "The Aquarius Teletype," pp. 7 to 9, quoting Moore in FOCUS, June 30, 1989, p. 13, and September 30, 1989, p. 8.
[^19]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01, 24 pages: SAC Dallas airtel to Director, October 25, 1988; Director to FBI Dallas, teletype, December 2, 1988; https://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012/Majestic%2012%20Part%2001%20%28Final%29/at_download/file
[^20]: James W. Moseley, "The Paul Bennewitz Case Revisited," Saucer Smear, vol. 47, June 15, 2000, http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000615.htm (printout of June 7, 2013), pp. 1 to 3.
[^21]: Alejandro Rojas, "Open letter to the U.S. Air Force regarding allegations of UFO disinformation," Open Minds, May 6, 2014 (letter sent July 11, 2013; AFOSI FOIA case 2013-03291-F), https://openminds.tv/open-letter-u-s-air-force-allegations-ufo-disinformation/ ; Rojas, "Ex-Air Force Law Enforcement Agent Says He Hoaxed Major UFO Mythologies," HuffPost, May 13, 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exair-force-law-enforceme_b_5312650

174
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/J. Allen Hynek.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Person
- Astronomer
- UFO
- UAP
- ProjectBlueBook
- RobertsonPanel
- CUFOS
- AirForceConsultant
alias:
- J. Allen Hynek
- Josef Allen Hynek
- Joseph Allen Hynek
- Allen Hynek
- Dr. Hynek
- J. A. Hynek
summary: "Astronomer who served as scientific consultant to the Air Force's UFO projects from 1948 to 1969, attended the Robertson Panel as an associate member, and in 1973 founded the Center for UFO Studies."
born: 1910
died: 1986
location: "Chicago, Illinois (born)"
relations:
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Project Blue Book]]"
role: "scientific consultant to Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book"
start: 1948
end: 1969-07-01
fn: 1
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[F. W. Dodge Company]]"
role: "evaluator under subcontract 130-7000 for the Aerial Phenomena Office"
start: 1967-07-01
end: 1968-06-30
fn: 14
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Foreign Technology Division]]"
role: "consultant, nature of work unknown"
start: 1970-04
end: 1974
fn: 21
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Ohio State University]]"
role: "instructor to professor of astronomy"
start: 1935
end: 1956
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory]]"
role: "supervisor of technical reports"
start: 1942
end: 1946
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory]]"
role: "associate director and chief of upper atmosphere studies and satellite tracking section"
start: 1956
end: 1960
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Northwestern University]]"
role: "professor and chairman of astronomy, director of Dearborn Observatory"
start: 1960
fn: 3
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Robertson Panel]]"
role: "associate member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 6
- type: founded
with: "[[Center for UFO Studies]]"
start: 1973
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Center for UFO Studies]]"
role: "scientific director"
start: 1973
end: 1986
fn: 2
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
J. Allen Hynek was an American astronomer who advised the [[U.S. Air Force]] on reports of unidentified flying objects from 1948 until 1 July 1969, a period that covered [[Project Sign]], [[Project Grudge]] and [[Project Blue Book]]. He was an associate member of the 1953 [[Robertson Panel]], testified to House committees in 1966 and 1968, and in 1973 founded the [[Center for UFO Studies]].[^1][^2]
### Education and war work
Hynek was born in [[Chicago]] in 1910, took a B.S. at the [[University of Chicago]] in 1931 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1935, and taught at [[Ohio State University]] from 1935, as professor from 1950 to 1956 and assistant dean of the Graduate School from 1950 to 1953. He was supervisor of technical reports at the [[Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory]] from 1942 to 1946 and a civilian with the [[U.S. Navy]] in 1944.[^3]
A [[The Washington Post|Washington Post]] article, undated but referring to the Battle of the Bulge as "last December," reproduced by Project 1947 from Hynek's file at the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], reported that a group of scientists "headed by Dr. Allen Hynek, astronomer loaned by Ohio State University," had disclosed the radio proximity fuze developed at [[Silver Spring, Maryland|Silver Spring]], Maryland, as "Navy Project A," and reported that Hynek said without the proximity fuze the war probably would still be on.[^4]
### Consultant to Sign, Grudge and Blue Book
Hynek was the Air Force's UFO consultant from 1948, and comments "from an astronomical point of view by Dr. Hynek predominate" in the August 1949 Grudge report. He told a House committee in 1968 that the Air Force asked him twenty years earlier to assist "in weeding out those reports arising from misidentification of planets, stars, meteors, and other celestial objects," that he found some 30 percent of the then current cases very probably had astronomical causes, and that the remaining reports "were ostensibly being explained by the consultant psychologist," explanations that reminded him of "a magician saw[ing] a woman in half."[^1][^5]
In 1952 the Air Force's [[Edward J. Ruppelt|Ruppelt]] reexamined the 1948 death of Captain [[Thomas Mantell]] with Hynek's assistance, and Hynek concluded that the object was probably not Venus.[^5]
### The Robertson Panel, January 1953
The panel memorandum lists Hynek of Ohio State among two "associate members," with [[Frederick C. Durant]]. He attended the Wednesday afternoon session, both Thursday sessions and the Friday sessions. On Thursday "the Project STORK support at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, was described by Dr. Hynek." On Friday he read "a prepared paper making certain observations and conclusions." In the discussion of a "sky patrol" he suggested amateur astronomers, noted that "if a program of watching could be an adjunct of planned astronomical programs, little cost would be involved," and later proposed that amateur astronomers "might be a potential source of enthusiastic talent 'to spread the gospel'" in the educational program.[^6]
His name appears in braces in the online edition of the memorandum, which marks the names deleted from the version printed in the Condon Report in 1968.[^7] His paper "Unusual Aerial Phenomena" appeared in the [[Journal of the Optical Society of America]] in April 1953 (received 22 December 1952); it states that several hundred reports had been studied and that "a hovering nocturnal light" does not appear readily explainable by astronomical causes, mirages, balloons or conventional aircraft. He had it read into the House record in 1968.[^8]
[[Jennie Zeidman]], his assistant from 1953 to 1956, wrote that during her first month working for Hynek he went to Washington for the Panel, called "an associate member, a second stringer, which was odd because he had been working directly with the data for about five years," and returned saying: "They're not going to have a scientific investigation. For some strange reason they voted it down. They didn't even take a decent look at the data, and they decided to discredit them."[^9]
### Project Henry and the Battelle channel
Zeidman wrote that Hynek named his 1953 consultancy "Project Henry," that a courier brought him teletype reports from [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base|Wright-Patterson]] weekly, that Hynek was paid to investigate only reports Blue Book assigned to him, that "Hynek often said he knew the best cases were withheld," and that her pay came from Ohio State although Hynek told her: "You're working for a contractor ... A contractor who doesn't want to be known." She identified the courier from a [[Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]] city directory as a Battelle employee. She described [[Project Stork]] as an effort "to ascertain the capability of the Soviet Union to engage in technological warfare" and wrote that Blue Book Special Report 14, the statistical study done at the [[Battelle Memorial Institute]], was "a product of Project Stork." She described a "Report to Stork on Blue Book Henry" of August 1953 compiling 148 flying object reports that passed through Hynek's hands between January and July 1953, with 22 percent unknowns and 10.8 percent insufficient data, and a summary of correspondence with 35 amateur astronomical societies, 19 Ground Observer Corps filter centers and 48 Civil Aeronautics Administration control towers. In summer 1953, she wrote, Blue Book's Lieutenant Bob Olsson, a sergeant and a man to whom she was not introduced questioned her in Hynek's office about the project and Hynek's attitude.[^9]
[[Jan Aldrich]]'s Project 1947, which hosts Hynek's contract papers, states that [[Project Henry]] "was funded by the Air Force through the Battelle Memorial Institute," that Ruppelt and Olsson forwarded cables "to either Project White Stork or directly to Hynek," and that Hynek had reported his survey of astronomers' opinions on UFOs "to Battelle Memorial Institute's Project White Stork and Project Blue Book." Blue Book Report No. 8 of 31 December 1952 summarized interviews by "an astronomical consultant" with 44 professional astronomers, of whom, it stated, 7 were completely indifferent, 12 mildly indifferent, 17 mildly interested and 8 very interested, and five had made sightings.[^4][^10]
### Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Northwestern
From 1956 to 1960 Hynek was chief of the upper atmosphere studies and satellite tracking section and associate director of the [[Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory]], and a visiting lecturer at [[Harvard University|Harvard]], before becoming professor and chairman of astronomy at [[Northwestern University]] and director of its [[Dearborn Observatory]] in 1960.[^3] A chronology of Blue Book hosted by the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]], drawing on the writer [[Jerome Clark]], states that after Major [[Robert J. Friend]] took over Blue Book in 1958, Hynek organized "the first of several meetings" between Blue Book staff and [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] personnel in 1959 and proposed reevaluating some older reports.[^11]
### Payments and contract channels in the 1960s
Hynek's services "for the Aerial Phenomena Office" from 1 July 1963 to 30 June 1968 were paid at $5,190.00 for fiscal 1964, $4,617.50 for 1965, $5,475.00 for 1966, $5,000.00 for 1967 and $3,040.00 for 1968, a total of $23,322.50, with expenses totaling $10,082.94. Subcontract 130-7000, dated 4 August 1967, between [[F. W. Dodge Company]], a division of [[McGraw-Hill]], and Hynek, covered 1 July 1967 to 30 June 1968 for up to 750 hours at $10 per hour, a maximum of $7,500, under prime contract F33657-67-C-1447. Its stated objectives included determining whether the phenomena "constitute a threat to the security of the United States" and "methods of exploiting the possible scientific or technical potential of these phenomena/objects," and its reports could be classified up to Secret. A cover letter from the project manager [[John J. Sweeney]] was copied to Major Quintanilla.[^12]
Hynek's telephone log for November 1967, filed with the contract papers, records calls to Lieutenant Marano at Blue Book, to witnesses in several states, and to Colonel Friend, who "asked about Blue Book and had a number of comments concerning my recent article." It records Hynek recommending, "when asked," that the Condon Committee send an investigator to [[Newfield, New York]]: "They did." It records a call "relative to a report reaching me that an investigator purporting to be from the Air Force had confiscated some photographs," of which he wrote "Got nowhere in this investigation." It also records that he sent investigators to [[Oconto, Wisconsin]], before the case was officially reported, and paid $20 toward gasoline and travel expenses, and that the case "turned out to be unequivocally Venus." The log for May 1968 records a call to Sweeney at [[Fairborn, Ohio]], "at his request regarding forthcoming visit."[^12]
In comments on [[Donald Keyhoe]]'s article in the January 1966 issue of [[True (magazine)|True magazine]], Hynek wrote as consultant that nine of the eleven cases Keyhoe cited were not in Air Force files and that "under the present operating regulations, this office is not authorized to investigate cases not officially reported through channels," a restriction he recommended be changed so that reports made to the press and to private organizations such as the National Investigations Committee could be investigated. Of Keyhoe's statement that the government had set up 46 research projects on gravity control, Hynek wrote that he did not know "of any bonafide antigravity projects."[^13]
### Michigan, March 1966, and the House Armed Services Committee
Hynek investigated reports from [[Dexter, Michigan|Dexter]] and [[Hillsdale, Michigan|Hillsdale]], [[Michigan]], of 20 and 21 March 1966, with personnel of [[Selfridge Air Force Base]] and the Blue Book office, and suggested at a press conference that burning swamp gas might account for the lights. The Air Force release recorded that pranks with flares had occurred at Hillsdale and that a photograph released to the press was a time exposure of the crescent moon and Venus.[^14] Zeidman wrote that Hynek telephoned her from Hillsdale at midnight on 26 March 1966, told her that the Air Force had told him "Say something," and that the swamp-gas episode "distressed him terribly because in effect the Air Force had forced him to compromise his scientific integrity."[^9]
On 28 March 1966 Representative [[Gerald Ford]], [[House Minority Leader]], wrote to the chairmen of the [[House Committee on Armed Services]] and the [[House Committee on Science and Astronautics]] that Hynek "dismissed all of them as the product of college student pranks or swamp gas or an impression created by the rising crescent moon and the planet Venus," and the accompanying news release described Hynek's explanation as "flippant." Ford enclosed a column by [[Roscoe Drummond]] and articles by [[Bulkley Griffin]] of the [[Griffin-Larrabee News Bureau]].[^15]
At the Armed Services Committee hearing of 5 April 1966, chaired by [[L. Mendel Rivers]], Hynek testified with Secretary of the Air Force [[Harold Brown]]. His opening statement said that "the body of data accumulated since 1948 through the Air Force investigations deserves close scrutiny by a civilian panel of physical and social scientists." Asked by Representative [[William H. Bates]] of [[Massachusetts]] the question put to Brown, whether anyone of scientific knowledge had concluded that the phenomena came from extraterrestrial sources, he answered that he knew "of no competent scientist who would say that these objects come from outer space," and to Representative [[L. N. Nedzi]] of Michigan he said "the possibility should be kept open as a possible hypothesis."[^5]
### The Condon Committee
Hynek briefed the University of Colorado's [[Condon Committee]] in its preliminary study; Hynek, [[Jacques Vallee]] and [[William Powers]] of the Dearborn Observatory are thanked in its acknowledgments for consultation "voluntarily supplied."[^16] The report records that "Prof. Hynek strongly believes that the teams should have four or more members" and recommends "giving each report what he calls the 'FBI treatment,'" meaning thorough interviewing and "an active quest in the neighborhood where the sighting occurred to try to discover additional witnesses."[^17] [[Philip J. Klass]], quoting a book by the Condon staff member [[David Saunders]], wrote that Hynek attended a secret meeting in [[Denver]] on 12 December 1967 with Saunders, [[Norman Levine]], [[Mary Lou Armstrong]] and [[James E. McDonald]], where, in Saunders's account, "Hynek wanted to create a visible group of qualified individuals who took the UFO problem seriously, so that in the event of a Congressional hearing, there would exist an organization to which the Congress could turn," and left early with a cold before McDonald raised the Low memorandum.[^18] Hynek's own log records attending a Denver meeting "unofficially, and at my own expense" on 13 December.[^12]
Zeidman wrote that within a few months of the start of the Colorado project Hynek told her he knew it had been decided that the findings would be negative, and that for years he "had understood that he was being kept out of the inner circle, that even with his high security clearances it was judged that he had no need to know what was really going on."[^9]
### The House symposium, 29 July 1968
Representative [[Donald Rumsfeld]] introduced Hynek to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics: "As his Congressman I am delighted he has been invited to appear on this panel." Hynek testified as a "private citizen and scientist and not as a representative of the Air Force." He said his earlier reticence "was based on a carefully weighed decision" because "a scientist must try to be sure of his facts" and "must not cry 'wolf' unless he is reasonably sure there is a wolf." He recalled that "the then chief scientist at the Pentagon" had asked him "just how much longer we were 'going to look at this stuff,'" and that he had replied that "we hadn't really looked at it yet" in the sense that "the FBI looks at a kidnapping, a bank robbery, or a narcotics ring." He stated that "the feeling is definitely on the increase that we should either fish or cut bait" and "my recommendation is to fish," and that he had "private information from a very large number of scientists who are interested." He recommended that Congress establish a "UFO Scientific Board of Inquiry, properly funded," and that the United States seek [[United Nations]] cooperation for an "international clearinghouse for the exchange of information," and stated that "my swamp gas record in the Michigan UFO melee should suffice to quash any such ideas" of his being a believer. Asked by Representative [[Ken Hechler|Hechler]] whether the Air Force had measured up to a thorough scientific analysis, he answered that the invitation letter "strongly stated that we would not discuss the Air Force participation in these matters, and I would like to therefore not speak to that point."[^8]
### End of the consultancy and the Center for UFO Studies
An Air Force memorandum of 20 October 1969, with the signature block of Brigadier General [[C. H. Bolender]], states that Hynek "served as a scientific consultant until 1 July 1969" and recommends "not renewing the consultant contract."[^19] On 3 March 1969 Hynek, signing as director of the Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, had written to Colonel [[George R. Weinbrenner]], commander of the [[Foreign Technology Division]] at Wright-Patterson, enclosing a "Preliminary Proposal for Subject Investigation," dated 14 March 1969, for a pilot study of reports of cars losing ignition and lights near luminous objects. The proposal cites "the potential military* and scientific value of this electrical damping phenomenon," with an asterisked note quoting an [[Associated Press]] report of 9 November 1957 that "a device capable of disrupting the operation of motor vehicles" was something the armed forces would like developed, while the chief engineer of the [[National Inventors Council]] said he knew of no research aimed at producing one. It states that Hynek had compiled "well over one hundred such reports," that a second phase "will and must" be entered into as a major effort "calling for the deployment of the best scientific facilities of the Air Force and its contractors," and that if the phenomenon is real "it is obviously in the national interest to gain an understanding of the phenomenon and its practical application before other nations, in which this phenomenon is also reported to occur, gain an advantage." It asks for "full and complete personal access by the Principal Investigator to Blue Book data of all degrees of classification," includes a consulting fee for the principal investigator, and states that the project should be "entirely apart from Project Blue Book."[^20]
Zeidman wrote in 1991 that the researcher Brian Parks had obtained, through the [[Freedom of Information Act]], Hynek's record of employment as a Foreign Technology Division consultant from 1970 to 1974, "an executive appointment, beginning in April 1970, less than six months after Blue Book's official closure," working "only a few days each year," and that it was not known whether the work related to UFOs.[^21] She wrote that in October 1973 she drove Hynek from a small building at Wright-Patterson to Columbus, that he introduced her to a man in dress uniform who "may have been a major," that he "would not tell me anything about what he was doing at Wright-Patterson," and that on 26 December 1976 in his Evanston home he said: "It's very definitely connected with intelligence somewhere."[^21]
His book [[The UFO Experience|The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry]] appeared in 1972, and in 1973 he started the Center for UFO Studies, serving as scientific director until his death in 1986 and naming [[Mark Rodeghier]] as his successor.[^2] Project 1947 states that the Center received most of the National Investigations Committee's files, that Hynek held a copy of the Blue Book microfilm, and that some reports he forwarded under his contract do not appear in the Blue Book files.[^4] Hynek appeared in a cameo in the 1977 film [[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]], on which he was a consultant, and questionnaires of the Center were available in theater lobbies.[^4][^22]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Edward U. Condon, ed., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (University of Colorado, 1968), Section V, chapter 2, "UFOs, 1947-1968," pp. 851 and 909, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm; Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, with signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraph 1, http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm.
[^2]: "About Us," Center for UFO Studies, https://cufos.org/about-us/ (history section: The UFO Experience in 1972, the Center started in 1973, scientific director until 1986, Mark Rodeghier appointed successor); Jorja Siemons, "Time Capsule: A look at J. Allen Hynek," The Daily Northwestern, 7 March 2023, https://dailynorthwestern.com/2023/03/06/lateststories/time-capsule-a-look-at-j-allen-hynek-the-nu-professor-whose-ufo-research-inspired-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind/.
[^3]: Biography and statement of J. Allen Hynek, Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, House of Representatives, 90th Congress, 2d Session, 29 July 1968, pp. 1-3, https://nicap.org/books/1968Sym/1968_UFO_Symposium.pdf.
[^4]: "A few words about the late Dr J. Allen Hynek," Project 1947, http://www.project1947.com/hynek/index.htm, reproducing a Washington Post clipping (page 1, undated) from Hynek's FBI file and describing his contracts and the Center's holdings.
[^5]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, "UFOs, 1947-1968," pp. 847, 851 and 908-910, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm.
[^6]: F. C. Durant, memorandum, "Report of Meetings of the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, January 14-18, 1953," Central Intelligence Agency, 16 February 1953, Tab B and Part I (Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, Friday) and Part II ("Instrumentation to Obtain Data," "Educational Program"), in Condon Report Appendix U, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm.
[^7]: Editors' notes in the online Condon Report, Appendix U, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm.
[^8]: J. A. Hynek, "Unusual Aerial Phenomena," Journal of the Optical Society of America 43 (April 1953), p. 311, as read into the record, and Hynek's statement and answers to questions, Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, pp. 1-16.
[^9]: Jennie Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," International UFO Reporter, March/April 1991, sections "Project Stork," "Project Henry" and "Blue Book and beyond," https://www.project1947.com/articles/jzbluebook.htm.
[^10]: "Project Henry," Project 1947, http://www.project1947.com/projecthenry/index.htm; Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 864-866.
[^11]: "Blue Book," NICAP, https://nicap.org/bios/WHO-WAS/BLUE_BOOK.htm.
[^12]: Subcontract 130-7000 and related memoranda, as hosted at http://www.project1947.com/hynek/jah_af_contract.htm.
[^13]: "Comments by Air Force Consultant, J. A. Hynek on Keyhoe's Article, January 1966 Issue of True Magazine," http://www.project1947.com/hynek/jah_dek_66true.htm.
[^14]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 898-899, quoting the Air Force press release on the Dexter and Hillsdale investigation.
[^15]: Gerald R. Ford to Representatives George P. Miller and L. Mendel Rivers, 28 March 1966, with news release, Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers, Press Secretary and Speech File, Box D9, folder "Ford Press Releases - UFO, 1966," Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0054/4525586.pdf.
[^16]: Condon, Section II, p. 21, and Appendix W, "Acknowledgments," http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm and http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-w.htm.
[^17]: Condon, Section II, "Summary of the Study," p. 24, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm.
[^18]: Philip J. Klass, "The Condon UFO Study: A Trick or a Conspiracy?" The Skeptical Inquirer 10 (Summer 1986), quoting David R. Saunders and R. Roger Harkins, UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong (Signet, 1968), https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1986/07/22165324/p42.pdf.
[^19]: Air Force action memorandum, 20 October 1969, paragraphs 1 and 5, http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm.
[^20]: J. Allen Hynek to Colonel George R. Weinbrenner, 3 March 1969, and "Preliminary Proposal for Subject Investigation," 14 March 1969, as hosted at http://www.project1947.com/hynek/jah_af_prop69.htm.
[^21]: Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," final sections.
[^22]: Siemons, "Time Capsule: A look at J. Allen Hynek," The Daily Northwestern, 7 March 2023.

149
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Sean Kirkpatrick.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,149 @@
---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Person
- UAP
- AARO
- DIA
- NRO
- Physicist
- IntelligenceOfficer
alias:
- Sean Kirkpatrick
- Sean M. Kirkpatrick
- Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick
- Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick
- Sean Michael Kirkpatrick
summary: "Physicist and intelligence officer, first director of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office from July 2022 to December 2023, who later said the Pentagon and AARO convinced Congress not to enact a review board."
location: "Columbus, Georgia (born)"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]]"
start: 2022-07-20
end: 2023-12-01
role: "first director"
fn: 2
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Kathleen Hicks]]"
start: 2022-12-23
end: 2023-12-01
role: "Deputy Secretary of Defense, to whom the AARO director reports on operational and security matters under 50 U.S.C. 3373"
fn: 5
- type: employed_by
with: "[[National Reconnaissance Office]]"
start: 2003
role: "program manager, Advanced Technologies program"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
start: 2005
role: "staff scientist, Directorate of Science and Technology"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Defense Intelligence Agency]]"
start: 2007
role: "chief technology officer in a joint CIA and DIA program office, later division chief; Defense Intelligence Officer for Scientific and Technical Intelligence 2012 to 2016"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[United States Strategic Command]]"
start: 2016
end: 2017
role: "Deputy Director of Intelligence"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[National Security Council]]"
start: 2017
role: "Director, National Security Strategy"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[United States Space Command]]"
role: "deputy director of intelligence and Director of National Intelligence representative"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]]"
role: "chief technology officer for national security programs, per his own biography"
fn: 10
- type: head_of
with: "[[Nonlinear Solutions]]"
role: "chief executive, per his own biography"
fn: 10
- type: member_of
with: "[[Elara Nova]]"
role: "partner, as listed on the firm's website"
fn: 17
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]]"
role: "AARO director whose emails and interview state that the Pentagon and AARO convinced Congress not to enact the review board"
fn: 7
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Sean M. Kirkpatrick is an American physicist and intelligence officer who was the first director of the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO) of the [[Department of Defense]], from its establishment in July 2022 until December 1, 2023.[^1][^2] A biography released by the Defense Department traces service in the [[Air Force Research Laboratory]], the [[National Reconnaissance Office]], the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], the [[National Security Council]] and two combatant commands.[^3] As director he testified to the Senate that AARO had found "no credible evidence" of extraterrestrial activity, wrote after his departure that claims of hidden recovered craft come from "a small group of interconnected believers," and told an interviewer in 2024 that AARO and the Defense Department had convinced Congress not to adopt the review board in the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]].[^4][^5][^6][^7]
### Career before AARO
The Defense Department biography, released with the announcement of AARO, states that he was born in Columbus, Georgia, "to an Army family," studied physics at the [[University of Georgia]], took a doctorate there in 1995 and is an adjunct professor at the university. It states that he held a postdoctoral position at the [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]] under an Air Force Office of Scientific Research program, a National Research Council fellowship at the [[Naval Research Laboratory]] in 1996, and in 1997 a position at the Air Force Research Laboratory building an ultrafast laser physics laboratory. In 2003 he was offered a program manager position at the National Reconnaissance Office, "and converted to CIA in 2005"; in 2007 he was assigned as chief technology officer of a joint CIA and DIA program office, "where he later became division chief as a DIA officer"; and in 2010 he became space control portfolio manager for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space and Intelligence in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A biography prepared for a conference of the [[Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association]] places the 2007 assignment "within the Advanced Systems Division."[^3][^8]
From 2012 to 2016 he was the Defense Intelligence Officer for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, the Defense Department's counterpart to the National Intelligence Manager for Science and Technology, and near the end of that period was on special assignment to the Principal Deputy [[Director of National Intelligence]] leading the intelligence community's support to the [[Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center]]. He was Deputy Director of Intelligence of [[United States Strategic Command]] from 2016 to 2017 and, in 2017, Director for National Security Strategy at the National Security Council. In August 2018 he was appointed senior intelligence advisor to the commander of Air Force Space Command and the Joint Force Space Component Command, and then deputy director of intelligence and Director of National Intelligence representative at [[United States Space Command]], the fifth organization for which the biography says he was the intelligence community lead for establishment. The Defense Department announcement of AARO described him as "most recently the chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency's Missile and Space Intelligence Center."[^2][^3][^8]
In the same years the Defense Intelligence Agency administered the contract of [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] under the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]]. Documents of the agency record that DIA awarded the contract in September 2008, that it received 26 technical reports by July 31, 2009, and that the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence recommended in 2009 against Senator [[Harry Reid]]'s request for a special access program. The biography places Kirkpatrick in a joint CIA and DIA program office from 2007, as a DIA division chief afterwards, and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2010; the released agency documents redact the names of the DIA program manager and the reviewers.[^3][^9]
### Appointment to AARO
On July 20, 2022 the Defense Department announced that Deputy Secretary of Defense [[Kathleen Hicks]], in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, had on July 15, 2022 renamed and expanded the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group as AARO under the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, [[Ronald Moultrie]], who "named Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick" as director. The released biography states that he "was asked by USD(I&S) to stand-up and lead AARO in early 2022," and the announcement stated that an AARO Executive Council led by Moultrie would provide oversight along six lines of effort: surveillance, collection and reporting; system capabilities and design; intelligence operations and analysis; mitigation and defeat; governance; and science and technology.[^2][^3] Under 50 U.S.C. 3373, as amended by the fiscal 2023 defense authorization, the AARO director is appointed by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security on administrative matters, and reports "to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence on all operational and security matters of the Office."[^5] A biography on an advisory board page states that as director he "reported to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence."[^10]
### The Loeb draft and the Senate testimony
A draft paper dated March 7, 2023, "Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," lists Kirkpatrick as "Director of All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office" and [[Avi Loeb]] as head of the [[Galileo Project]] at [[Harvard University]]. It derives constraints on the interpretation of highly maneuverable UAP from "standard physics and known forms of matter and radiation," and raises the possibility of an artificial interstellar object as "a parent craft that releases many small probes." Its acknowledgements state that the work "was supported in part by Galileo Project at Harvard University and conducted in partnership with the Department of Defense, All-domain, Anomaly Resolution Office."[^11]
On April 19, 2023 Kirkpatrick was the sole witness before the [[Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities]], presided over by [[Kirsten Gillibrand]], with Senators [[Jacky Rosen]] and [[Joni Ernst]] present. In her opening remarks Gillibrand referred to the 2017 media reports about activities "set in motion by the late long-serving Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid more than a decade ago." In his opening statement Kirkpatrick said the AARO team "of more than three dozen experts" was organized around four functional areas (operations, scientific research, integrated analysis and strategic communications), that "only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous," that "I will not close a case that I cannot defend the conclusions of," and that "AARO's mission is to turn UAP into SEP, somebody else's problem." He said: "I should also state clearly for the record that in our research AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics." He told the subcommittee that AARO was tracking "a total of 650 cases," that those showing "some sort of advanced technical signature" were "single percentages of the entire population of cases we have," that he had "indicators that some are related to foreign capabilities," and that people with alternative theories should submit their research to credible peer-reviewed journals: "That is how science works, not by blog or social media."[^4]
### The dispute with David Grusch
At the House Oversight subcommittee hearing of July 26, 2023, Representative [[Virginia Foxx]] quoted Kirkpatrick's statement of "no credible evidence" and asked [[David Grusch]] whether it was correct. Grusch, who had been sworn, answered: "It is not accurate. I believe Dr. Kirkpatrick mentioned he had about 30 individuals that have come to AARO thus far. A few of those individuals have also come to AARO that I also interviewed." After Foxx said "OK," he added: "And I know what they provided Dr. Kirkpatrick and their team." Representative [[Anna Paulina Luna]] asked whether the information Grusch had given Kirkpatrick was pertinent to national security. Grusch replied: "Yes. Him and I had a classified conversation in April 2022 before he took over AARO in July 2022 and I provided him some concerns I had."[^12]
Kirkpatrick wrote in January 2024 that "as of the time of my departure, none, let me repeat, none of the conspiracy-minded 'whistleblowers' in the public eye had elected to come to AARO to provide their 'evidence' and statement for the record despite numerous invitations."[^6]
### Statements on the Disclosure Act
On July 17, 2024, in an interview by [[Marik von Rennenkampff]] quoted by [[Douglas Dean Johnson]], Kirkpatrick said of the 2023 Disclosure Act: "We convinced Congress last year not to go down that road." He said AARO and the department had written a request for reconsideration noting that the language duplicated the historical report required by the 2022 defense authorization. He also said: "We found no evidence of any of these allegations. None. And I had access to everything there was to have access to," and that he had briefed members of Congress "with the SAPCO director and the CAPCO director from ODNI." He told Johnson by email on July 23, 2024 that the Defense Department's 33-page redline of the bill reflected "many of the objections I tried to articulate," that no one in the [[White House]], the National Security Council or Congress pressed him to soften his position, and that the department had proposed keeping an eminent domain provision under AARO's authority because "since we know nothing exists, we didn't feel it made our job harder." The review board was removed in conference and the enacted law, Public Law 118-31, carried no eminent domain provision.[^7][^13]
### The Scientific American column
On January 19, 2024 [[Scientific American]] published Kirkpatrick's column "Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter." He wrote that the story told by "conspiracists" involves hiding and attempting to reverse engineer as many as 12 craft, abandonment of the effort to private contractors, an attempted return to government control stopped by the CIA, and "all of this is without substantiating evidence." He wrote that "no record exists of any president or living DOD or intelligence community leader knowing about this alleged program"; that the narrative was "largely an outgrowth" of AATIP, "heavily influenced by a group of individuals associated with businessman and longtime ufologist [[Robert Bigelow]]"; that after the Secretary of Defense declined Reid's 2009 request for a special access program, the DIA concluded "that not only did no such material exist, but taxpayer money was being inappropriately spent on paranormal research at [[Skinwalker Ranch]] in Utah," and Reid enlisted Lieberman to ask the [[Department of Homeland Security]] for one; that AARO had located the proposal "complete with the participants"; and that in the early 2000s members of the same group took part in a study on disclosing the existence of extraterrestrials, erroneously described by them as White House sponsored, by a "futures" think tank. He described the promoters as "a small group of interconnected believers and others with possibly less than honest intentions," and wrote that his signing of AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume I, was among his last acts.[^6]
The DHS proposal he referred to is [[KONA BLUE]]. The Department of Homeland Security file, which carries declassification stamps of July 18, 2023, records a meeting in October 2011 between the DHS under secretary for science and technology and Senator Reid, then majority leader, and Senator [[Joseph Lieberman]], chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on the program's funding.[^14] AARO's report, which he signed, states that its investigators were "granted full access to all pertinent sensitive USG programs," that the originators of modern hidden-craft claims share ties to the cancelled AAWSAP and AATIP program, and that none have provided empirical evidence to AARO.[^15]
### Departure and later positions
On November 30, 2023 [[DefenseScoop]] reported that his last day in the office would be December 1, that he had a 27-year federal tenure, that his AARO team included more than 40 Defense Department personnel investigating more than 800 reports, and that in an interview with [[Politico]] he said his exit was based on having reached his personal and professional goals for AARO rather than on controversies; the deputy director [[Tim Phillips]], on assignment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, became acting director. The Defense Department spokesperson [[Sue Gough]] said that he "assembled a very talented and dedicated team."[^1]
A biography on the advisory board page of the company Expeditionary states that "Immediately following retirement, he served as the Chief Technology Officer for National Security Programs at Oakridge National Laboratory," that he is chief executive of Nonlinear Solutions, LLC, and that he serves on the Army Science Board, the Air Force S&T Roundtable at the National Academies of Science, AFCEA's Intel Committee and the National Security Space Association Board.[^10] A podcast listing of April 23, 2024 describes him as owner of Nonlinear Solutions, "an advisory group that provides strategic scientific and intelligence consulting services" to clients in the defense and intelligence communities.[^16] The website of the firm Elara Nova lists him as a partner and states that he served as the intelligence community or Defense Department lead in establishing six "new-start" organizations, including the Space Command intelligence enterprise and AARO.[^17] The [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] website states that the laboratory "is managed by UT-Battelle LLC for the US Department of Energy."[^18]
### Statements about him
In written testimony to the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]] on November 13, 2024, [[Michael Shellenberger]] wrote that the former director "has repeatedly dismissed and ridiculed the topic" and quoted [[Christopher Mellon]]'s assessment of the Historical Record Report that "this is the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading during or after decades of government service."[^19] At the same hearing [[Luis Elizondo]] said of AARO: "we established AARO for that very purpose. And, unfortunately, under its previous leadership, it failed."[^20] Matthew Ford, a journalist and host of The Good Trouble Show podcast, wrote in a statement dated November 18, 2024 and hosted on congress.gov with the hearing materials that he had "revealed that Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the former Director of AARO, had assembled a secret technical advisory group to counsel AARO," that Kirkpatrick "confirmed the existence of this committee to members of Congress but refused to disclose the members' identities," and that "multiple sources" had told him that a former head of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology had been "hand-picked" for the group; Ford did not name his sources.[^21]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Vincent, Brandi. "Pentagon's UAP investigation chief to depart Dec. 1," DefenseScoop, November 30, 2023. https://defensescoop.com/2023/11/30/pentagons-uap-investigation-chief-to-depart-dec-1/
[^2]: "DoD Announces the Establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office," July 20, 2022 (text of the Defense Department release with the establishment memoranda, as reproduced by The Black Vault). https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/dod-announces-the-establishment-of-the-all-domain-anomaly-resolution-office-july-20-2022/
[^3]: "Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick's Biography, Released by DoD," with "DoD Announces the Establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office," July 20, 2022 (as reproduced by The Black Vault). https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/dod-announces-the-establishment-of-the-all-domain-anomaly-resolution-office-july-20-2022/
[^4]: U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, "Hearing to Receive Testimony on the Mission, Activities, Oversight, and Budget of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office," April 19, 2023, stenographic transcript, pp. 2 to 3, 13 to 14. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/download/transcript-4-19-2023
[^5]: 50 U.S.C. 3373(b) (establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, appointment of the Director and reporting lines), text of the Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373
[^6]: Kirkpatrick, Sean. "Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter," Scientific American, January 19, 2024. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-what-i-learned-as-the-u-s-governments-ufo-hunter/
[^7]: Johnson, Douglas Dean. "The UAP Disclosure Act: The proposed Pentagon/AARO re-write of November 2023," July 24, 2024, quoting Kirkpatrick's interview by Marik von Rennenkampff of July 17, 2024 and his emails of July 23, 2024. https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/uap-disclosure-act-pentagon-rewrite-nov-2023/
[^8]: "Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, Deputy Director of Intelligence and DNI Representative, USSPACECOM," biography, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. https://www.afcea.org/event/sites/default/files/files/Kirkpatrick_Sean%20DR%20Bio.pdf
[^9]: Defense Intelligence Agency, packet presented to the Deputy Secretary of Defense on Senator Harry Reid's request of June 24, 2009 (talking points of November 17, 2009; memorandum of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr.), released from the DIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room; Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr., Info Memo U-10-2552/CE, in the Department of Homeland Security KONA BLUE records, pp. 55 to 56. https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/09117-Final_Packet_Presented_to_DepSecDef.pdf and https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^10]: Expeditionary, "Advisory Board: Sean Kirkpatrick," biography (self-published). https://www.expeditionary.ai/about/seankirkpatrick
[^11]: Loeb, Abraham, and Sean M. Kirkpatrick. "Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," draft version of March 7, 2023. https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/LK1.pdf
[^12]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53, transcript (questions of Reps. Foxx and Luna). https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116282/documents/HHRG-118-GO06-Transcript-20230726.pdf
[^13]: Public Law 118-31, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, December 22, 2023, Title XVIII, Subtitle C. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ31/pdf/PLAW-118publ31.pdf
[^14]: Department of Homeland Security, KONA BLUE records (56 pp.), pp. 37 to 38, 46 to 47. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^15]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I, February 2024, Section VI, pp. 34 to 35. https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-2024-0263-AARO-HISTORICAL-RECORD-REPORT-VOLUME-1-2024.PDF.
[^16]: "Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. - Nonlinear Solutions LLC - Science And Technology For Emerging National Security Threats," Progress, Potential, and Possibilities podcast, April 23, 2024. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1531799/episodes/14943834-dr-sean-kirkpatrick-ph-d-nonlinear-solutions-llc-science-and-technology-for-emerging-national-security-threats
[^17]: Elara Nova, "Sean Kirkpatrick, Partner," team biography (self-published, undated). https://elaranova.com/team-members/sean-kirkpatrick/
[^18]: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, home page footer. https://www.ornl.gov/
[^19]: Shellenberger, Michael. "The United States Department Of Defense And The Intelligence Community Are Withholding Information About Anomalous Phenomena From Congress," written testimony, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, November 13, 2024, p. 3. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-ShellenbergerM-20241113.pdf
[^20]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," joint hearing, November 13, 2024, Serial No. 118-135, transcript p. 39 (answer of Mr. Elizondo to Rep. Burlison). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm
[^21]: Ford, Matthew. "Written Statement of Matthew Ford," for the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," dated November 18, 2024 on its face (the hearing was held November 13, 2024); names of the alleged participants are redacted in the posted copy. https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/117722/witnesses/HHRG-118-GO06-Wstate-ElizondoL-20241113-SD001.pdf

110
30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Immaculate Constellation.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,110 @@
---
category: "Intelligence Operation"
tags:
- Program
- UAP
- SpecialAccessProgram
- UnacknowledgedSAP
- Whistleblower
- HouseOversight
- Allegation
alias:
- Immaculate Constellation
- IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION
- ImCon
- IMCON
summary: "Name of an alleged unacknowledged special access program for UAP imagery intelligence, first published in October 2024, described in a 12-page document in the House Oversight record and denied by the Defense Department."
start: 2024-10-08
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Michael Shellenberger]]"
reverse: true
start: 2024-10-08
role: "published the program's name in Public"
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Nancy Mace]]"
reverse: true
start: 2024-11-13
role: "entered the document in the record of the joint hearing"
fn: 7
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Matthew Brown]]"
reverse: true
start: 2025-04-29
role: "named by a forum poster, and in the video tags, as the document's author after the Weaponized episode"
fn: 9
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Jeremy Corbell]]"
reverse: true
role: "provided the document to Congress months before the hearing, according to his podcast's description of the episode"
fn: 8
- type: participant_in
with: "[[John Greenewald]]"
reverse: true
start: 2024-12-03
role: "filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the National Security Agency, answered with a refusal to confirm or deny"
fn: 11
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Immaculate Constellation is the name of an alleged unacknowledged [[Special Access Programs|special access program]] (USAP) of the [[United States]] [[Department of Defense]] whose existence was asserted in a 12-page document that Representative [[Nancy Mace]] entered in the record of a joint hearing of two subcommittees of the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Committee on Oversight and Accountability]] on November 13, 2024, at which [[Michael Shellenberger]] testified. The document states that the program collects imagery intelligence on [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena|unidentified anomalous phenomena]] (UAP) and that it was established after [[Luis Elizondo]]'s 2017 disclosure of the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]]. A Defense Department spokesperson, [[Sue Gough]], stated that the department has "no record, present or historical," of a special access program by that name.[^1][^2][^3]
### The document
The document, which the hearing record lists as "Report, Pentagon, 'Immaculate Constellation'; submitted by Rep. Mace," describes itself as "the result of a multi-year, internal investigation" into UAP, "Technologies of Unknown Origin" and "Non-Human Intelligence." It states that the investigation was provided to Congress "through the UAP whistleblower mechanisms established by the FY 23 National Defense Authorization Act, and the FY 23 National Intelligence Authorization Act"; that its author obtained the information "while pursuing their lawful duties as an employee of the Department of Defense"; and that its public version "was reviewed and approved for public release by the Department of State, Bureau of Global Public Affairs." Its introduction states that "Elements of the U.S. Executive Branch have conspired to prevent the U.S. Legislative Branch from exercising its lawful powers of governance," that the executive branch "has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight, or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades," and calls the situation a "criminal conspiracy."[^1][^4]
Section 1 states that "IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION is an Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP) established following the public disclosure of the AATIP/AAWSAP programs by Luis Elizondo in 2017," that "upon disclosure to Congress, it was determined that this USAP and its collateral information have not been lawfully reported to Congress," and that its "primary mission is collecting imagery intelligence on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) and ARV/RV (Reproduction Vehicles) utilizing tasked and untasked U.S. military-intelligence resources." It describes the program as a "parent" USAP over "child" SAPs, with collection platforms in low Earth orbit, the upper atmosphere, aviation altitudes and maritime environments, and with internal controls that detect, quarantine and transfer collected UAP incidents "before they are observed and circulated within the Military Intelligence Enterprise."[^4]
Section 2 lists imagery examples by command: a formation of about twelve metallic orbs skimming the ocean in the area of [[United States Central Command]]; an equilateral triangle hovering over intelligence vessels in the Pacific in the area of [[United States Indo-Pacific Command]]; a saucer shape emerging from a cloud bank on infrared imagery; a swept-boomerang shape that emits a sphere of light; an irregular "jellyfish" shape crossing the southern border in the area of [[United States Northern Command]]; and a "Tic-Tac" detected by a space asset in the area of [[United States Southern Command]]. Section 3 states that it draws on "over 400 defense HUMINT reports on encounters with UAPs/UFOs by USG personnel" from about 1991 to 2022, with tables of reported shapes, behaviors and biological effects. Section 4 states that "Discrepancies found throughout the internal records of AARO and DoD interactions with Congress" show "a pattern of trivialization, obfuscation, and outright denial," lists among the examples known to the author the denial of "multiple Compartmented Access Programs (CAPs) owned by a Military Intelligence Agency," the denial of joint Special Access Programs, and "the denial of the existence of IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION by DoD representatives to appropriate Congressional members and their staff," and adds that non-public documents "confirm the claims of Mr. Lue Elizondo regarding AATIP/AAWSAP's mission, activities, and findings," including letters of commendation, award nominations and archived email chains. Section 5 cites a 1978 [[National Security Agency|NSA]] report on Soviet research on parapsychology and the biological effects of UAP; Section 6 refers to signals intelligence from other countries; Section 7 states "From mouth to ear."[^4]
Section 3 gives examples drawn from the HUMINT reports. In one, flight deck personnel on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific saw "a small orange-red sphere" descend from high altitude to "approximately 100-200 yards" above the deck, match the carrier's speed for "an uncertain period," emit a light that did not illuminate the ocean or the flight deck, and then "shot into the air," after which the observers "felt as if they 'snapped out of a trance'." In another, an F-22 on an air surveillance and control mission in the Eastern Air Defense Sector met multiple metallic orbs slightly smaller than a sedan, was "intercepted and boxed in by approximately 3-6 UAPs," and "was forced out of the mission area under the escort of the UAP formation." In a third, ground personnel at an Eastern Seaboard military airfield reported a small spherical object crossing the runway and floating toward a sensitive area, with eyestrain, headaches and "a feeling of unease or dread," for 10 to 15 minutes.[^4]
### The statutes the document invokes
[[50 U.S.C. 3373b]], enacted in the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, directs the Secretary of Defense, acting through the head of the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO), to establish a secure mechanism for authorized reporting of "any activity or program by a department or agency of the Federal Government or a contractor of such a department or agency relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering, research and development, detection and tracking, developmental or operational testing, and security protections and enforcement." It provides that an authorized disclosure "shall not be subject to a nondisclosure agreement," prohibits reprisal, and requires the Secretary to report to the congressional defense and intelligence committees and congressional leadership within 72 hours of determining that a disclosure relates to a restricted access activity, special access program or compartmented access program "that has not been explicitly and clearly reported" to those committees. A companion section, 50 U.S.C. 3373(j), required the AARO director to submit a historical record report on the period from January 1, 1945, including "any program or activity that was protected by restricted access that has not been explicitly and clearly reported to Congress."[^5]
### Publication of the name
On October 8, 2024 Shellenberger's newsletter [[Public (newsletter)|Public]] published "Pentagon Is Illegally Hiding Secret UFO Program From Congress, Whistleblowers Allege." The article's free section states that existing and former officials had told members of Congress that AARO and the [[Pentagon]] had broken the law by not revealing a significant body of information about UAP, that one of them was a current or former government official acting as a UAP whistleblower who had written a report, that these individuals "have revealed the name of an active and highly secretive DOD 'Unacknowledged Special Access Program,' or USAP," and that "The source of the document told Public that the USAP is a 'strategic intelligence program' that is part of the US military's family of long-standing, highly-sensitive programs." The article states "Public is revealing its name here for the first time," and Shellenberger added that readers "are, of course, welcome to disbelieve the whistleblowers" and that he does "not claim to know what they are." The Pentagon's response is attached at the foot of the article, which is otherwise behind a paywall that was not opened for this page.[^2]
Gough told [[NewsNation]] in a statement that evening, reported by [[Ross Coulthart]]: "The Department of Defense has no record, present or historical, of any type of SAP called 'IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION.'" NewsNation reported that Shellenberger had withheld the source's role and gender and had said that the source did not share the intelligence imagery because of fear of what could happen if the source were identified.[^3]
In written testimony to the committees, Shellenberger reported further statements from sources he did not name. He wrote that after publication a source told him the program is "controlled by the White House and executed and administrated by the DOD to avoid compliance with Title 10 of the United States Code"; that a "former IC official" said, "That program is run out of SEC DEF," adding "They don't want to acknowledge it's real"; and that a source warned that printing the name could draw surveillance of the publisher under the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]]. He cited 10 U.S.C. 119 and 50 U.S.C. 3093 as the statutes requiring notice of special access programs and covert action to Congress, wrote that the [[White House]] has "a loophole for non-covert action waived programs," and noted that AARO is housed in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, which he called "troublingly close to the organizations running the alleged programs." The same testimony describes a proposed DHS program, released by the Pentagon in April 2024 and "intended to take possession of and reverse-engineer retrieved UAPs," which DHS leadership "ultimately quashed" (see [[KONA BLUE]]).[^6]
### The hearing of November 13, 2024
The joint hearing "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," held before the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation (chaired by Mace) and the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs (chaired by [[Glenn Grothman]]), heard retired Rear Admiral [[Tim Gallaudet]], Elizondo, Shellenberger and [[Michael Gold]]. At the end of her opening remarks Mace said Representative [[Tim Burchett]] had the document and would enter it, that it was "the original document from the Pentagon about Immaculate Constellation that Michael Shellenberger delivered to Congress today," and "12 pages about this unacknowledged special access program that your government says does not exist." Later she entered it into the record herself, "without objection," and recounted that Representative [[Anna Paulina Luna]] had told her that saying the name could put her "on some list. Maybe a FISA warrant."[^7]
Asked by Grothman for the evidence supporting the document, Shellenberger said the committee had it, that he had checked it and "did not find it based on existing cases; it was new cases for me," that this answered whether it was circular reporting, and that more than one additional source had confirmed the program's name. Asked by Mace whether his sources were credible, he answered: "They are current or former government officials." He added: "I did not specify that they were Defense Department employees. I did not specify the agency nor the gender." He declined to say whether any was employed by a private contractor ("I would rather not say"). Representative [[Clay Higgins]] asked about the author: Shellenberger answered that the person "is a current or former U.S. Government employee," that he knew the author, that he did not know where a non-public version of the author's report might be found or whether it was held by the Defense Department, and, when asked whether the sources were within the Department of Defense, "I will not say."[^7]
Elizondo said he had never read the article. Asked by Mace whether he had been read into Immaculate Constellation, he said he "would not be authorized to confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing or past program, especially as it relates to a special access program, either by name or trigraph." Asked by Mace whether the government had conducted secret UAP crash retrieval programs, he answered "Yes," and whether they were designed to identify and reverse engineer alien craft, he answered "Yes"; asked whether any contractors had the same, he said he would prefer to answer in closed session. Gallaudet testified that in January 2015 he received a Navy email headed "URGENT SAFETY OF FLIGHT ISSUE" with the "Go Fast" video attached, that it disappeared from his account the next day, and that he concluded the information "must have been classified within a special access program managed by an intelligence agency." He told Mace that [[Christopher Mellon]] had contacted him about 2017 satellite imagery of a UAP, that the analyst's term for it was "the button," that it was a disc-shaped object, and that he could give its location and the agency that wrote a report on it only in a closed setting. Gold, a former [[NASA]] associate administrator who testified that he was then Chief Growth Officer at [[Redwire Space]] and speaking only for himself, addressed stigma and NASA's role. Burchett asked unanimous consent to enter into the record documents "provided to us regarding legacy UAP programs and psychological operations," and thanked [[Jeremy Corbell]] for "providing these documents and access to some whistleblowers."[^7]
In his oral statement Shellenberger described a second source who "told me that they saw a roughly 13-minute long, high-definition, full-color video of a white orb UAP coming out of the ocean approximately 20 miles off the coast of Kuwait," filmed from a helicopter and found on the [[Secret Internet Protocol Router Network]]. He also relayed the account of John Greenewald that the Defense Department had denied the existence of UAP and AATIP records on multiple occasions and acknowledged them only after appeals. Questioned by Representative [[Lauren Boebert]], he said the program "covers both terrestrial and oceanic" cases and that he had other sources who were not comfortable having their information shared. Questioned by Mace about funding, he said only that its mission "is to document UAPs."[^7]
### The author
On April 29, 2025 Corbell and [[George Knapp]] released the first of three parts of an episode of their podcast [[Weaponized (podcast)|Weaponized]] titled "Immaculate Constellation - UFO Whistleblower Goes Public." The episode description states that a report on the program, "written by an unknown policy advisor, was provided to Congress by Jeremy Corbell months prior to the start of a 2024 public hearing before a House subcommittee," that the author "had been surreptitiously introduced to key House members by Corbell," that at the hearing "the origin of the report itself was grossly distorted by members," and that ImCon "was supposedly a highly secretive program that relied on artificial intelligence to secretly scour classified servers used by the U.S. military and its intelligence agencies." The video's tags include "matthew brown." A forum post at Metabunk by Kyle Ferriter of the same day wrote that the author "is named as Matthew Brown and he appears on camera."[^8][^9] The hearing transcript records Mace saying that the document Burchett held was the one "that Michael Shellenberger delivered to Congress today," and Burchett thanking Corbell for documents and access to whistleblowers.[^7]
### Responses and records
AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume I (February 2024) states that AARO "confirmed the existence of one IC CAP that was unnecessarily expanded in 2021 to include a UAP reverse-engineering mission," that the expansion occurred "despite the lack of any evidence or mission need," that the appropriate congressional committees were notified, that the program "never recovered or reverse-engineered any technology," and that it "was disestablished due to its inactivity, absence of mission need, and lack of merit." The same report states that Persons 4, 7 and 8 and Interviewees 1, 3 and 13 "investigated UAP on their own and were responsible for successfully expanding the remit of an existing IC program to include UAP exploitation language," and that AARO obtained "full access to all pertinent sensitive USG programs" through partnerships with the special access program control offices of the Defense Department, the intelligence community and the [[Department of Homeland Security]].[^10]
On December 3, 2024 Greenewald of [[The Black Vault]] asked the National Security Agency under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] for intelligence records on Immaculate Constellation. According to Greenewald's account of September 17, 2026, the agency answered on December 6, 2024 that it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of the records, citing Exemptions 1 and 3 and stating that the existence or non-existence of the records was classified under [[Executive Order 13526]]; he appealed on December 9, 2024; and the appeal authority wrote that "Another agencies' acknowledgement of the existence or non-existence of records regarding an alleged program does not require NSA to acknowledge the existence or non-existence of records about the same program." Greenewald also wrote that an [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] document released in case DF-2025-00021 calls the program a "supposed unacknowledged Special Access Program" and records the Defense Department's denial, that no primary program documentation establishing it has been publicly produced alongside the report, and that the imagery and reporting it describes have not been made available for independent examination.[^11]
Shellenberger's testimony quotes Gough on AARO's files: "AARO's files contain all available data related to each UAP case, regardless of modality or classification. I refer you to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concerning Intelligence Community databases."[^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Report submitted by Rep. Nancy Mace and entered in the record of "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, joint hearing, November 13, 2024, Serial No. 118-135, list of documents submitted for the record: "Report, Pentagon, 'Immaculate Constellation'; submitted by Rep. Mace." https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm
[^2]: Shellenberger, Michael. "Pentagon Is Illegally Hiding Secret UFO Program From Congress, Whistleblowers Allege," Public, October 8, 2024 (free section as served by the publication's post API; the paywalled remainder was not opened). https://www.public.news/p/pentagon-is-illegally-hiding-secret
[^3]: Coulthart, Ross. "Report names 'Immaculate Constellation' UAP program: Journalist," NewsNation, October 8, 2024 (copy at Yahoo News), quoting Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough's statement to NewsNation on the evening of Tuesday, October 8, 2024. https://www.yahoo.com/news/report-names-immaculate-constellation-uap-185114329.html
[^4]: "Immaculate Constellation" document, 12 pages, introduction and Sections 1 to 7, submitted in the record of the hearing of November 13, 2024 (HHRG-118-GO12-20241113-SD003; the pages are images and were read by optical character recognition). https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/117721/documents/HHRG-118-GO12-20241113-SD003.pdf
[^5]: 50 U.S.C. 3373b (unidentified anomalous phenomena reporting procedures), subsections (a)(1), (a)(4)(B) and (b), and 50 U.S.C. 3373(j) (historical record report), text of the Legal Information Institute; the cross-reference to section 1673(b) of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (50 U.S.C. 3373b(b)) appears in Section 9010(e) of S. 2226 as passed by the Senate. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373b and https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373
[^6]: Shellenberger, Michael. "The United States Department Of Defense And The Intelligence Community Are Withholding Information About Anomalous Phenomena From Congress," written testimony, hearing of November 13, 2024, pp. 1 to 7. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-ShellenbergerM-20241113.pdf
[^7]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," joint hearing, November 13, 2024, Serial No. 118-135, transcript pp. 3, 8 to 10, 11, 16 to 20, 24 to 28, 44 to 45. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm
[^8]: Corbell, Jeremy, and George Knapp. "Immaculate Constellation - UFO Whistleblower Goes Public : PART 1 : WEAPONIZED : Episode #74," YouTube, uploaded April 29, 2025, episode description and tags. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAxI-LDrDqA
[^9]: Ferriter, Kyle (Metabunk forum, post of April 29, 2025), "Matthew Brown: Immaculate Constellation Report Author/Whistleblower." https://www.metabunk.org/threads/matthew-brown-immaculate-constellation-report-author-whistleblower.14170/
[^10]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I, February 2024 (cleared March 6, 2024), Section VI, "Process for Protecting Sensitive Programs while Investigating Interviewee Claims," "Unnecessary IC Program Expansion" and "Nexus of Proponents of the USG UAP Reverse-Engineering Allegation." https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-2024-0263-AARO-HISTORICAL-RECORD-REPORT-VOLUME-1-2024.PDF.
[^11]: Greenewald, John. "Pentagon Says It Has No Record of 'Immaculate Constellation': NSA Denies Appeal and Won't Say Whether It Does," The Black Vault, September 17, 2026, reporting the NSA response of December 6, 2024 to the request of December 3, 2024, the appeal of December 9, 2024, and ODNI FOIA case DF-2025-00021 (the ODNI document itself, at archive.dni.gov, could not be retrieved). https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/pentagon-says-it-has-no-record-of-immaculate-constellation-nsa-denies-appeal-and-wont-say-whether-it-does/

157
30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/KONA BLUE.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,157 @@
---
category: "Intelligence Operation"
tags:
- Program
- UAP
- SpecialAccessProgram
- DHS
- AAWSAP
- AATIP
- HarryReid
- JosephLieberman
- BigelowAerospace
- Congress
alias:
- KONA BLUE
- Kona Blue
- KONA BLUE PSAP
- Kona Blue PSAP
- Kona Blue Prospective Special Access Program
- DHS KONA BLUE
- Advanced Technology Threat Program
summary: "Prospective special access program opened in July 2011 by the Department of Homeland Security's science directorate to continue the Defense Intelligence Agency's AAWSAP research, terminated by Deputy Secretary Jane Lute in December 2011."
start: 2011-07-11
end: 2011-12-12
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Tara O'Toole]]"
reverse: true
start: 2011-07-11
role: "under secretary for science and technology who established the prospective program"
fn: 10
- type: head_of
with: "[[Joel Wall]]"
reverse: true
role: "program manager, Science and Technology Special Programs Division"
fn: 12
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Jane Holl Lute]]"
reverse: true
start: 2011-11-21
end: 2011-12-12
role: "deputy secretary who chaired the oversight committee and ordered termination"
fn: 10
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Harry Reid]]"
reverse: true
start: 2011-10
role: "Senate majority leader who met the under secretary on funding"
fn: 8
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Joseph Lieberman]]"
reverse: true
start: 2011-10
role: "chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee who met the under secretary on funding"
fn: 8
- type: investigated
with: "[[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]]"
reverse: true
role: "reviewed the DHS file and reported on it in Historical Record Report Volume I"
fn: 7
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
KONA BLUE was the two-word designator that the Science and Technology Directorate of the [[Department of Homeland Security]] (DHS) gave in 2011 to a prospective special access program (PSAP) intended to receive and continue the research of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) contract known as the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) or [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP), which the DIA had placed with [[Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies]] (BAASS). The program was never approved as a [[Special Access Programs|special access program]]. The DHS Chief Security Officer stamped the file declassified on July 18, 2023, and a 56-page set of the records was released in 2024 by the [[Department of Defense]]'s [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO).[^1]
### The DIA contract that preceded it
Senate Majority Leader [[Harry Reid]] and Senator [[Daniel Inouye]] sponsored a 10 million dollar add to the fiscal 2008 defense supplemental appropriation, and the fiscal 2010 defense appropriation carried a 12 million dollar add. A DIA request for proposals listed twelve technical areas (lift, propulsion, control, armament, signatures reduction, materials, configuration, power generation, temporal translation, human effects, human interface and technology integration). DIA awarded the contract to BAASS, described by Lieutenant General [[Ronald Burgess]], the DIA Director, as "the only bid," headquartered in North [[Las Vegas]], Nevada. A DIA briefing paper of November 2009 gives the award date as September 2008 and the delivery date for the first reports as July 31, 2009. Burgess wrote that BAASS produced 26 technical reports by June 2009, all delivered by September 2009, and 12 more after the fiscal 2010 add.[^2][^3]
The same briefing paper records, under August 2008: "DIA learned of counterintelligence concerns with Bigelow Aerospace, the parent company of Bigelow Aerospace Advance Space Studies. These concerns do not appear to be directly related to Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Application Program (AAWSAP)." A DIA info memorandum of October 30, 2009 states that eight reviews were performed by other authors listed in a table and five by outside reviewers, "including three research staff members at [[Sandia National Laboratories]]," and that "all of the reviews were positive, some exceptionally so." The 26 titles include "Antigravity for Aerospace Applications," "Wormholes in Space Time," "Theory and Experiments of Invisibility Cloaking," "Metallic Glasses" and "Quantum Entanglement Communications."[^3]
[[Federal Election Commission]] records list [[Robert Bigelow]], president of Bigelow Companies of Las Vegas, as the source of a 5,000 dollar contribution of June 13, 2003 to the [[Searchlight Leadership Fund]], a leadership political action committee whose listed treasurer, Claude Zobell, is also treasurer of Reid's Senate campaign committee, Friends for Harry Reid; Bigelow Development Aerospace LLC of Las Vegas as the source of a 5,000 dollar contribution to the Searchlight Leadership Fund on June 30, 2004; and Bigelow as the source of two entries of 2,400 dollars each (marked for the primary and the general election) to Friends for Harry Reid on June 8, 2010.[^4]
### Reid's request of June 2009 and the Defense Department's answers
On June 24, 2009 Reid wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense [[William Lynn]] that the Senate had mandated the DIA to assess foreign advanced aerospace threats, that "several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings" had been identified, and that he required Lynn's assistance "in establishing a Restricted Special-Access-Program (SAP) with a Bigoted Access List" for portions of the program. Attachment 1 to the letter gave the sponsoring agency as undetermined (the Deputy Secretary of Defense), the program length as fiscal years 2009 to 2013, and a preliminary access list for fiscal 2010 naming Lynn, Reid, Inouye, "Robert T. Herbert (U.S. Senate)," officials of the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] and of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and, as contractor personnel, BAASS. A DIA chronology prepared for the Deputy Secretary lists "Bob Herbert, Senator Reid's personal staffer" as having made multiple telephone calls between July and October 2009 to Marcel Lettre (listed as "PDASDILA") about the status of the Defense Department's reply, and, on November 4, 2009, as relaying to a DIA official the Senator's impatience with the lack of a response to the June 24 letter.[^3][^5]
A DIA info memorandum (U-09-2660) concluded: "Based on classification levels of current and projected program deliverables, there are insufficient grounds to classify this open program, invoke alternative or compensatory control measures (ACCM), or establish a restricted SAP." It stated that DIA was unaware of any report "containing information sufficiently sensitive and vulnerable to require extra protection," and that DIA assumed Reid's reference to findings requiring extraordinary protection referred to future phases of the program. The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, [[James Clapper]], sent Lynn a memorandum recommending "against establishing a Special Access Program at this time." Talking points for a meeting of the Deputy Secretary with Reid on November 17, 2009 recorded: "The FY09 deliverables for AAWSAP are for academic research and basic scientific research."[^3]
Burgess's later info memorandum to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics states that in November 2009 he and Lynn met Reid, and that DIA "determined the reports were of limited value to DIA" and suggested the project "could be transitioned to another agency or component better suited to oversee the project." A history prepared at DHS in November 2011 dates a meeting of Burgess, Lynn and Reid to December 2009 and states that they communicated to Reid that the DIA program "could not be conducted by the Intelligence Community due to its potential growth."[^2][^6]
AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume I (February 2024) states that "Deputy Secretary Lynn declined to do so based on the recommendation of then-Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, James R. Clapper, Jr.," and that AAWSAP/AATIP "was terminated in 2012 upon the completion of its deliverables due to DIA and DoD concerns about the project."[^7]
### The DHS proposal
The history prepared at DHS by [[Joel Wall]] of the Science and Technology Special Projects Office states that in May 2008 Reid, Inouye and Senator [[Ted Stevens]] invited a DIA program manager to meet them about "exotic sciences"; that in July 2008 Reid briefed the DIA Director, Lieutenant General [[Michael Maples]]; that a contract was awarded to "Bigelow Aerospace"; that the two-year contract carried 22 million dollars and produced 38 research papers, a searchable database of more than 100,000 entries and investigative cases; that Reid had also requested that the contract effort "provide confirmation of observed physical and psychological phenomenon by government personnel"; and that in December 2010 the research data went into contractor-secured storage.[^6]
The history states that in April 2011 a presenter whose name is redacted briefed Wall, director of the Special Projects Office, and [[Steven J. Cover]], chief of the DHS Special Access Program Control Office (SAPCO), inviting DHS to expand the analysis of the compiled data and the recording of anomalies, and reiterating "Senator Reid's desire to transition the program into a special access program to enable access to data and material held by other government and industry entities." A memorandum of November 28, 2011 from Under Secretary for Science and Technology [[Tara O'Toole]] to Deputy Secretary [[Jane Holl Lute]] states that O'Toole was given the program information in May 2011 and, "based on available information and review of security requirements," authorized the Special Projects Office to establish "an unacknowledged, waived prospective special access program, which was designated KONA BLUE." O'Toole wrote that a SAP was proposed "as we have been informed that there is a body of previous work held by other entities that requires a SAP level classification to access it."[^6][^8]
A memorandum of July 11, 2011 to O'Toole, from a Special Projects Office director whose name is redacted and who would serve as program manager, asked her as original classification authority to approve KONA BLUE as a Science and Technology prospective special access program, to investigate, identify and analyze "sensitive advanced materials and technologies," and promised final approval documents for the Special Access Program Oversight Committee (SAPOC) within 90 days. A DHS memorandum of December 12, 2011 states that O'Toole established the PSAP on July 11, 2011. A table of meetings dated between June 10 and October 31, 2011 and an inventory of documents (a DIA contract book, a DIA congressional language book and "DIA Deliverables 1-38") are included in the file.[^1][^9][^10]
### The seven centers
A presentation under the heading "Advanced Technology Threat" gave the funding as 12 million dollars for fiscal 2012, 25 million for fiscal 2013 and 35 to 50 million for fiscal 2014, with later years undetermined, and called the research "a Congressional interest item." It described four research centers (Data Collection and Analysis, Advanced Technology, Consciousness, and Integration); a heading in the description of the first center reads "Institute for Discovery Center."[^11]
The proposal prepared under DHS Instruction 140-04-001 described seven centers: Data Collection, Data Analysis, Advanced Technology, Experimental, Consciousness, Medical and Education. Its justification stated that "Recovered AAV technology exists in and is accessible only within a SAP construct." The Advanced Technology Center was to "gain access to and inventory all existing caches of Advanced Aerospace Vehicle (AAV) materials and documentation within CONUS, whether residing in archive storage or under active program investigation in National Laboratories, government organizations and/or contractors," and to analyze recovered technology "in collaboration with major aerospace and electronics Companies." An Oral History Initiative was to collect information from "retired, previously highly placed government, armed services, contractor and intelligence community individuals" on the location of advanced aerospace technology and biological samples; the text states that "agency directors, members of the JCS and very senior individuals in the Executive Branch" and "certain foreign heads of state" had been exposed to the subject. The Consciousness Center was to "expand on remote viewing and remote communication" and to study communication, retrieval and "physical transport across dimensional/space-time barrier." The Data Collection Center would build on a data warehouse of 11 databases holding more than 200,000 reports. The Experimental Centers would begin with "a well-studied experimental location" researched for about 15 years, with human observers used as "biosensors" and biological samples collected for genetic, biochemical and toxicology analysis.[^9]
The Data Analysis Center section listed the feeds it would seek: a data exchange with the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]]; "historical and recent cockpit recordings and ECM recordings" from the four services; tracking records of any agency within the continental [[United States]]; "Lunar and Mars associated data" from [[NASA]]; "satellite data on unknown targets" from the [[National Reconnaissance Office]]; uncorrelated imagery from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; trajectory tracks from NORAD, Northern Command and MIT Lincoln Laboratory; radar tracks from the Federal Aviation Administration; and "all data (historical and contemporary) pertaining to interactions/sightings of advanced aerospace vehicles at missile sites, nuclear weapons storage facilities, and at Air Force bases in CONUS." It also listed activity in Canada, Mexico and the [[Caribbean]] and an assessment of attempts by "foreign countries (particularly China/Russia)" to develop breakthroughs "from recovered technology items." The Data Collection Center was to build a liaison center with state, local and tribal police, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], the Coast Guard and border surveillance under DHS, the Fish and Wildlife Service, park game wardens and the Federal Aviation Administration, and to field in-house investigators for cases with more than one eyewitness, a distance under 600 feet, physical traces, electromagnetic effects or physiological effects.[^9]
The Medical Center was to study deaths, injuries and physiological and psychological effects of "interaction with vehicles and anomalous phenomena," to maintain a rapid response team able to run 3 tesla MRI scans, blood tests and genetic tests, to monitor family members of those affected, to expand a "preliminary correlation project between known AAV associated injuries / physiological effects and ICD-9 subtypes," and to handle "unusual and unique biological specimens" at the forensic, anatomic, biochemical and genetic levels under privacy and human subjects regulations. The Education Center was to recruit and train a volunteer corps, with expenses reimbursed, to supply initial data collection within their states, and to maintain "the world's largest libraries on AAV technology and associated phenomena."[^9]
### Accommodations and performance sites
The accommodations listed were a five-building complex in Las Vegas, one building of which held a room in the last stages of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility accreditation, a two-story Las Vegas building with a room certified for top secret storage by the Defense Security Service, and "a four hundred eighty-acre research property in Utah with a fifteen year history of intensive anomalous activity" under armed guard around the clock. The owners' names are redacted. Wall's statement of objectives of November 2011 lists ongoing observations "at sites at the Bigelow Ranch in Utah, the San Juan Valley in Colorado, and Marley's Woods in Missouri," states that much of the material had been collated into a database "maintained by the former National Institute of Discovery Science, a data compilation and analysis function of the former government program," places data analysis centers in Las Vegas, Austin, Texas, and the National Capital Region, and provides for a research council of at least five independent scientists.[^12]
### Funding and the senators
A decision briefing to the oversight committee on November 21, 2011 gave the expected funding as 12 to 15 million dollars, listed a "Classified Line Item in CSO budget," and stated that the Under Secretary for Management had concurred "in the need to establish a Business/Administrative SAP to handle primarily 'unacknowledged' monies (e.g., KONA BLUE)." Wall's proposed budget was 10 million dollars, of which 2 million would support four office staff and two leased facilities and 8 million the data centers.[^8][^12]
O'Toole's memorandum of November 28, 2011 states: "in Oct 2011, Dr O'Toole met with Senator Lieberman, Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Senator Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, to discuss the program funding." The memorandum describes the work as a "Congressional interest item" and recommends that Lute approve KONA BLUE as a Science and Technology special access program.[^8] AARO later wrote that "Senators Lieberman and Reid asked that the PSAP be established with the promise of additional funding."[^7]
### The oversight committee of November 21, 2011
The SAPOC met at 7:45 a.m. on November 21, 2011 under Deputy Secretary Lute, with Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis [[Caryn Wagner]], Under Secretary for Management [[Rafael Borras]], General Counsel [[Ivan Fong]], Chief Security Officer Gregory Marshall, Cover as executive secretary, and O'Toole. The minutes state that the Deputy Secretary opened the meeting "with some sense of urgency which was the impending transfer of funds to DHS from Senators Reid and [Lieberman] to conduct the KONA BLUE program." O'Toole said the senators were prepared to provide funding in the fiscal 2012 budget, that they believed the technologies affected the security of the United States, that there was "very serious science involved," and that if only a small portion of the research gave results for DHS application "it would be worth it." Asked why the FBI had not been approached, she answered that it had no organic capability for scientific research and development. The Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis raised whether S&T had authority to conduct "collection," and the discussion turned on whether KONA BLUE was an intelligence program which the DIA no longer had the authority to conduct under [[Executive Order 12333]], or the assimilation of data supplied willingly. The Deputy Secretary tasked O'Toole and Cover with a paper of five to ten pages on how the program arrived at that point, its history at DIA and the science to be researched, and, according to the minutes, "is still not certain of what the 'It' is in the program or otherwise what exactly we are researching."[^13]
### Termination
At a progress review on December 8, 2011 attended by Lute, Fong, Wagner, Cover and an associate general counsel (O'Toole was invited and did not attend), the questions considered included whether the justifications for establishment as a SAP were adequate and whether the budget and personnel requirements were sufficient. Lute "directed that the PSAP be terminated immediately" and that accessed individuals be debriefed. The memorandum recording the decision, from Cover through O'Toole to Lute, is dated December 12, 2011.[^10] A letter of February 5, 2024 from the DHS Acting Deputy Secretary [[Kristie Canegallo]] to Deputy Secretary of Defense [[Kathleen Hicks]] gives the date of termination as February 10, 2012. A memorandum for the record of June 5, 2013 by Cover states that the proposal "did not require extraordinary security measures," that the program had been approved before any security classification guide, standard operating procedure, facility accreditation or information system plan existed, that no documentation existed to reclassify it, and that all briefed personnel would be administratively debriefed on that date.[^1][^14]
A biography of O'Toole prepared for the [[U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission]] in 2020 lists her as Executive Vice President and Senior Fellow of [[In-Q-Tel]] and states that before joining it she was Under Secretary for Science and Technology.[^15]
### Declassification and release
The file's declassification stamps read July 18, 2023, eight days before the House Oversight subcommittee hearing of July 26, 2023 at which [[David Grusch]] testified.[^16] Canegallo's letter thanks Hicks for her letter of September 28, 2023, states that all DHS documents on KONA BLUE were declassified and approved for public release, that the strike-out method retained visibility of prior classification marks, and that a search found no additional records.[^1] In a [[Scientific American]] column of January 19, 2024 the former AARO director [[Sean Kirkpatrick]] wrote that "Senator Reid then enlisted the help of then senator Joseph Lieberman to request that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set up an SAP for the same purpose," that "the administrative SAP proposal package was informed by the same individuals who had been associated with AATIP," and that AARO had located the proposal, "complete with the participants," for public release. In the same column he wrote that the DIA "concluded that not only did no such material exist, but taxpayer money was being inappropriately spent on paranormal research at [[Skinwalker Ranch]] in Utah," and that this was "well documented in open sources, particularly in records available on DIA's electronic FOIA Reading Room."[^17] The DIA packet of 2009 and the DHS file do not name Skinwalker Ranch; the DHS statement of objectives refers to "the Bigelow Ranch in Utah."[^1][^3]
### AARO's account
AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume I, states that interviewees brought KONA BLUE to its attention "who claimed that it was a sensitive DHS compartment to cover up the retrieval and exploitation of 'non-human biologics.'" It states that the proposal "would restart UAP investigations, paranormal research (including alleged 'human consciousness anomalies') and reverse-engineer any recovered off-world spacecraft that they hoped to acquire"; that a prospective special access program "was officially requested" but "eventually rejected by DHS leadership for lacking merit"; that its advocates "were convinced that the USG was hiding UAP technologies"; that "no extraterrestrial craft or bodies were ever collected" and "the SAP was never approved or stood up, and no data or material was transferred to DHS"; and that it was not reported to Congress because it was never established, although the Deputy Secretary of Defense gave a congressional notification. The report adds that modern allegations of hidden recovered craft "largely originate from the same group of individuals who have ties to the cancelled AAWSAP/AATIP program," numbering Persons 1 to 5 and several interviewees, who "have not provided any empirical evidence of their claims to AARO." The report was cleared for open publication by the Defense Department on March 6, 2024.[^7]
Section 1687 of [[National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024|Public Law 118-31]], enacted on December 22, 2023, barred defense funds for activities involving unidentified anomalous phenomena under special or restricted access limitations unless the Secretary of Defense gave the details to the congressional committees and leadership, "including for any activities described in a report released by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office in fiscal year 2024."[^18]
### Testimony on a transfer of material
Kirkpatrick's column describes a story told by "conspiracists" in which the United States hid and tried to reverse engineer recovered craft, abandoned the effort to private sector defense contractors, and later saw those contractors "want to bring the whole program back under U.S. government (USG) auspices," with the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] apparently stopping the transfer. He wrote that this was "all without substantiating evidence."[^17] At a House Oversight hearing on November 13, 2024 Representative [[Eric Burlison]] asked [[Luis Elizondo]] whether any branch of the government or defense contractors possessed such technology. Elizondo answered that a document cleared by the Defense Department's Office of Prepublication and Security Review stated that his predecessor program, AAWSAP, was trying to collect material of unknown origin, that "an aerospace contract company" had "requested to divest itself of the material" that "was collected in the 1950s," and that "that did not actually occur." Asked by Burlison whether the company was Bigelow Aerospace, he said yes. Burlison then cited the journalist [[Christopher Sharp]] as reporting a transfer among [[Lockheed Martin]], Bigelow Aerospace and the CIA that was blocked, and Elizondo replied: "it was blocked. Why it was blocked, I can only surmise." He said that former contract personnel had told him and others the account was accurate, that a memorandum from the Secretary of the Air Force would have been required to complete the transfer, and that he later sought one from Defense Secretary [[James Mattis]]. Asked who holds the material today, Elizondo said he could not discuss it in an open hearing. Representative [[Nancy Mace]] asked him whether material is given to contractors for their expertise, citing General Dynamics as an example, and what Lockheed Martin's expertise is; he answered "Aerospace, ma'am."[^19]
### Footnotes
[^1]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, KONA BLUE records released with AARO, 56-page PDF (scanned images, read by optical character recognition): letter of Acting Deputy Secretary Kristie Canegallo to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks, February 5, 2024 (p. 1); declassification stamps "Declassified by: Richard D. McComb, DHS, Chief Security Officer, Declassified on: 20230718" (pp. 2, 17, 36, 37, 39, 43, 46, 48, 50, 51); Special Access Program meeting and document tables (pp. 34 to 35). https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf (copy hosted by Fox News; PDF creation date April 15, 2024).
[^2]: Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr., Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Info Memo U-10-2552/CE to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, "Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program," undated, in the DHS KONA BLUE records, pp. 55 to 56. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^3]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Senator Harry Reid's Request to Put the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program (AAITP) under Special Access Protection," packet presented to the Deputy Secretary of Defense (memorandum of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr.; talking points for the meeting of November 17, 2009; Reid letter of June 24, 2009 with Attachment 1; DIA Info Memo U-429-09 of October 30, 2009; DIA Info Memo U-09-2660), 19 pp., released from the DIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room. https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP/09117-Final_Packet_Presented_to_DepSecDef.pdf (copy hosted by The Black Vault).
[^4]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, schedule A receipts: Searchlight Leadership Fund (C00327395), contributions of June 13, 2003 (transaction SA11A1.5791, image 24961739230) and June 30, 2004 (SA11A1.6224, image 24971331388); Friends for Harry Reid (C00204370), contributions of June 8, 2010, election types P and G (images 10020442880 and 10020442962), committee records for C00327395 and C00204370 (treasurer and designation), queried October 2, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/ and https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00327395/
[^5]: Reid, Harry, to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III, June 24, 2009, and Attachment 1, in the DHS KONA BLUE records, pp. 51 to 54. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^6]: Wall, Joel D., DHS Science and Technology Special Projects Office, "Program History and Background of Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program," November 23, 2011, in the DHS KONA BLUE records, p. 43. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^7]: Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I, February 2024 (cleared for open publication March 6, 2024), Section IV (entry on AAWSAP/AATIP) and Section VI, "KONA BLUE: A Proposed UAP Recovery and Reverse-Engineering Program" and "Nexus of Proponents of the USG UAP Reverse-Engineering Allegation." https://media.defense.gov/2024/Mar/08/2003409233/-1/-1/0/DOPSR-2024-0263-AARO-HISTORICAL-RECORD-REPORT-VOLUME-1-2024.PDF.
[^8]: O'Toole, Tara, Under Secretary for Science and Technology, memorandum to Deputy Secretary Lute, "KONA BLUE, Establishment of DHS Science & Technology Directorate SAP," November 28, 2011, in the DHS KONA BLUE records, pp. 46 to 47; Special Access Program Control Office decision briefing for the SAPOC, November 21, 2011 (pp. 39 to 42). https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^9]: DHS KONA BLUE records, Special Access Program proposal prepared under DHS Instruction 140-04-001, questions 1, 2 and 5 and center descriptions, pp. 17 to 31. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^10]: Memorandum for Deputy Secretary Lute, through Under Secretary O'Toole, from Steven J. Cover, "Termination of a DHS Science & Technology 'Prospective: Special Access Program (PSAP)'," December 12, 2011, in the DHS KONA BLUE records, pp. 48 to 49; memorandum for the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, "Establishment of a DHS Science & Technology 'Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP)'," July 11, 2011 (author's name redacted), p. 36. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^11]: DHS KONA BLUE records, "Advanced Technology Threat" presentation, slides 1 to 15 (pp. 2 to 16). https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^12]: DHS KONA BLUE records, proposal questions 7, 11 to 14 (pp. 32 to 33); SAPOC decision briefing, "KONA BLUE" purpose and status slide naming the program manager (p. 41); Wall, "Proposed S&T Directorate Statement of Objectives," November 3 and 23, 2011, with proposed budget (pp. 44 to 45). https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^13]: DHS, Memorandum for the Special Access Program Oversight Committee, "Minutes of the November 21, 2011 SAPOC Meeting," in the DHS KONA BLUE records, pp. 37 to 38. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^14]: DHS KONA BLUE records, Canegallo letter of February 5, 2024 (p. 1) and Steven J. Cover, Memorandum for the Record, "Termination of DHS S&T Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP)," June 5, 2013 (p. 50). https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf
[^15]: "Tara O'Toole, M.D., Executive Vice President and Senior Fellow, In-Q-Tel," biography, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05/O'Toole_Bio_FINAL.pdf
[^16]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency," hearing of July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53. https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116282/documents/HHRG-118-GO06-Transcript-20230726.pdf
[^17]: Kirkpatrick, Sean. "Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter," Scientific American, January 19, 2024. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-what-i-learned-as-the-u-s-governments-ufo-hunter/
[^18]: Public Law 118-31, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, December 22, 2023, Section 1687(a) (137 Stat. 621 to 622). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ31/pdf/PLAW-118publ31.pdf
[^19]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," joint hearing, November 13, 2024, Serial No. 118-135, transcript pp. 38 to 39 and 44 to 45 (questions of Reps. Burlison and Mace). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm

162
30 - PROGRAMS & PROJECTS/INTELLIGENCE_OPERATIONS/Project Blue Book.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,162 @@
---
category: "Intelligence Operation"
tags:
- Program
- USAF
- UFO
- UAP
- ATIC
- WrightPatterson
- ProjectSign
- ProjectGrudge
- Declassification
alias:
- Project Blue Book
- Blue Book
- Project Bluebook
- Project BLUE BOOK
- Project BLUEBOOK
summary: "U.S. Air Force program, run from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, that collected and evaluated unidentified flying object reports from 1952 to 1969 and was terminated on 17 December 1969 with 701 of 12,618 cases unidentified."
start: 1952-03
end: 1969-12-17
location: "Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[U.S. Air Force]]"
reverse: true
role: "sponsoring service, through the Air Technical Intelligence Center"
start: 1952-03
end: 1969-12-17
fn: 6
- type: head_of
with: "[[Edward J. Ruppelt]]"
reverse: true
role: "project chief"
start: 1951-10-27
end: 1953-09
fn: 6
- type: head_of
with: "[[Hector Quintanilla]]"
reverse: true
role: "project chief"
start: 1963-08
fn: 9
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[J. Allen Hynek]]"
reverse: true
role: "scientific consultant"
end: 1969-07-01
fn: 22
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Battelle Memorial Institute]]"
reverse: true
role: "statistical study of reports (Special Report 14, Project Stork)"
fn: 7
- type: investigated
with: "[[Condon Committee]]"
reverse: true
role: "University of Colorado study under Air Force contract"
start: 1966-10-07
end: 1968-10-31
fn: 20
- type: investigated
with: "[[Brian O'Brien]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman, Air Force Scientific Advisory Board ad hoc committee to review Blue Book"
start: 1966-02-03
end: 1966-03
fn: 17
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Project Blue Book was the name of the [[U.S. Air Force]] program for receiving, investigating and cataloging reports of unidentified flying objects, headquartered at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]], [[Ohio]]. It followed [[Project Sign]] (1947 to 1949) and [[Project Grudge]] (1949 to 1951 and after), and on 17 December 1969 the Secretary of the Air Force announced its termination. An Air Force fact sheet gives 12,618 sightings reported to the project from 1947 to 1969, of which 701 remained "Unidentified."[^1]
### Predecessors: Sign and Grudge
A letter of 23 September 1947 from Lieutenant General [[Nathan F. Twining]], commanding the [[Air Materiel Command]], to the Commanding General of the [[U.S. Army Air Forces|Army Air Forces]], addressed to the attention of Brigadier General [[George Schulgen]], gave the Command's "considered opinion" that "the phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious," that some objects were controlled "manually, automatically or remotely," and that "due consideration must be given" to the possibility that the objects were "of domestic origin" and "the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this Command," and to a foreign nation having "a form of propulsion possibly nuclear." It recommended a directive assigning a priority, security classification and code name, with the data made available to the Army, Navy, [[Atomic Energy Commission]], the JRDB, the [[Air Force Scientific Advisory Group]], the [[National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics]] and the RAND and NEPA projects. A directive of 30 December 1947 from Major General [[L. C. Craigie]], Director of Research and Development, assigned the work to the Air Materiel Command at [[Wright Field]] as Project Sign, priority 2A, security classification "restricted," to "collect, collate, evaluate and distribute to interested government agencies and contractors all information concerning sightings and phenomena in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national security."[^2] The [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] carried the work. The final Sign report, Technical Report F-TR-2274-IA of February 1949, was classified Secret and declassified twelve years later; its appendices included a memorandum by [[George Valley]] of the [[Air Force Scientific Advisory Board]] and a letter from [[James E. Lipp]] of the [[RAND Corporation]] to Brigadier General [[Donald Putt]] on the extraterrestrial hypothesis.[^3]
The University of Colorado's [[Condon Committee|Condon Report]] recorded unconfirmed reports that in July 1948 the Sign staff prepared a classified "Estimate of the Situation" for Air Force Chief of Staff General [[Hoyt Vandenberg]] asserting that the objects were interplanetary, and that Vandenberg declined to accept it and copies were destroyed. Its authors wrote that they had "not been able to verify the existence of such a report" and accepted "the more reasonable explanation that the evidence presented was then, as now, inadequate."[^3] The same chapter records that Ruppelt in 1952, with Hynek's assistance, restudied the 1948 death of Captain [[Thomas Mantell]], and that Ruppelt's later study led him to believe that Mantell chased one of the 100-foot "skyhook" balloons then secretly flown by the Navy, whose existence "was not known to most Air Force pilots."[^3]
The project was renamed Grudge on 11 February 1949. Its report of August 1949 (Technical Report No. 102-AC 49/15-100, classified Secret, declassified 1 August 1952) analyzed 244 reports received through January 1949, with comments from an astronomical viewpoint by [[J. Allen Hynek]] predominating. About 32 percent were attributed to astronomical objects, 12 percent to weather balloons, 33 percent to hoaxes, vague reports or aircraft, and 23 percent were left "Unknown." Its recommendations included that the investigation be reduced in scope and that "the Psychological Warfare Division and other governmental agencies interested in psychological warfare" be informed of the results; it stated that "there are indications that the planned release of sufficient unusual aerial objects coupled with the release of related psychological propaganda would cause a form of mass-hysteria." A press release of 27 December 1949 announced the closing of the project.[^3]
### Reactivation under Ruppelt
After the Grudge report the work was folded into ordinary intelligence activity. On 10 September 1951 a radar sighting at the [[Army Signal Corps]] center at [[Fort Monmouth]], [[New Jersey]], which the project's report attributed to an operator's miscalculation of speed, drew the attention of Major General [[C. P. Cabell]], Director of Air Force Intelligence, who ordered Grudge reactivated as an expanded project under [[Edward J. Ruppelt]]. Ruppelt headed it from 27 October 1951, and under the name Blue Book from March 1952, until he left the Air Force in September 1953; an Air Force fact sheet dates the change of name to 1953.[^4][^5][^6] In the closing months of 1951 Ruppelt arranged for the assistance of "a large well-known research organization in the Mid-West," which was to develop an interview questionnaire and make a statistical analysis of the reports; the Robertson Panel's list of evidence identifies the contract work of the [[Battelle Memorial Institute]] as Project Stork.[^4][^7]
Air Force Letter 200-5 of 29 April 1952 directed bases to telegraph reports to both the Air Technical Intelligence Center and the [[Pentagon]]. Blue Book received 1,501 reports in 1952, against 210 in 1950 and 169 in 1951, with 536 in July 1952 alone, the month of the radar and visual sightings in the [[Washington, D.C.]] area.[^4] The memorandum of the [[Robertson Panel]] of January 1953 gives the 1952 figure as 1,900 "received through channels."[^7] An Air Force fact sheet lists 303 of the 1,501 reports of 1952 as unidentified, against 42 of 509 in 1953.[^1]
### The Robertson Panel
In January 1953 the Panel, convened by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], heard Ruppelt, Hynek and [[Dewey Fournet]], who had been project officer for Blue Book at the Pentagon for fifteen months, and watched the Navy's analysis of the [[Tremonton, Utah|Tremonton]] and [[Great Falls, Montana|Great Falls]] films. It recommended a training and "debunking" program integrated with the Air Technical Intelligence Center's work and an expanded Air Technical Intelligence Center staff, and recorded Brigadier General [[William N. Garland]]'s wish to declassify reports and enlarge the unit. The Condon Report stated in 1968 that "little was done to implement" the Panel's recommendations and that the Blue Book status reports were not declassified until 9 September 1960.[^4][^7][^8]
### Staffing and direction
Captain [[Charles Hardin]] headed Blue Book from March 1954, Captain [[George T. Gregory]] from 1956, Major [[Robert J. Friend]] from 1958 and Major [[Hector Quintanilla]] from August 1963. A chronology hosted by the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]] and drawing on the writer [[Jerome Clark]] states that the Air Force decided in 1955 that the goal of Blue Book should be to reduce the number of unidentified reports to a minimum, and that a revised [[Air Force Regulation 200-2]] issued under Gregory emphasized that unexplained reports must be reduced to a minimum.[^9]
Cases classed "Unidentified" numbered 42 in 1953, 46 in 1954, 24 in 1955, 14 in 1956 and 14 in 1957, then between 10 and 19 each year to 1965. [[Gerald K. Haines]] of the Agency's history staff gave the unexplained share as 5.9 percent in 1955 and 4 percent in 1956.[^4][^10]
### Hynek, Battelle and Project Stork
J. Allen Hynek served as astronomical consultant to the Air Force from 1948, and told a congressional committee in 1968 that the Air Force asked him twenty years earlier to weed out reports arising from astronomical objects.[^8][^11]
In 1953 Hynek ran [[Project Henry]] from [[Ohio State University]], reviewing teletype reports from Wright-Patterson. His assistant [[Jennie Zeidman]], later a board member of the [[Center for UFO Studies]], wrote in 1991 that Hynek told her she was "working for a contractor" who "doesn't want to be known," that the weekly courier who delivered the reports was, as she established from a Columbus city directory, an employee of the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, and that Blue Book Special Report 14, the statistical study of the reports, was in her words "a product of" [[Project Stork]], whose mission was, as she put it, "to ascertain the capability of the Soviet Union to engage in technological warfare."[^12] The minutes of the Robertson Panel record Hynek describing "the Project STORK support at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus."[^7]
From 1967 the consultancy ran through Subcontract 130-7000 between [[F. W. Dodge Company]], a division of [[McGraw-Hill]], and Hynek, dated 4 August 1967, covering 1 July 1967 to 30 June 1968 at $10 per hour for 750 hours, a maximum of $7,500, "for use under Prime Contract Number F33657-67-C-1447." Its stated objectives were to determine whether the phenomena "constitute a threat to the security of the United States," whether they "reveal any new, unique, or revolutionary scientific or technical information or techniques," and "methods of exploiting the possible scientific or technical potential of these phenomena/objects." A schedule filed with the subcontract, hosted by [[Jan Aldrich]]'s Project 1947, tabulates Hynek's services for the "Aerial Phenomena Office" for fiscal years 1964 to 1968 at $23,322.50, with $10,082.94 in expenses.[^13]
### Regulations and reporting channels
Air Force Regulation 200-2, which succeeded Letter 200-5, was classed under "Intelligence Activities." The Condon Report quotes a paragraph of the regulation headed "Reduction of Percentage of UFO 'Unidentifieds'" that states "Air Force activities must reduce the percentage of unidentifieds to the minimum," while adding that "the elimination of all unidentifieds is improbable." Regulation 80-17 of 19 September 1960 and 80-17A of 8 November 1966 reclassed the UFO program under "Research and Development" and placed contact with the public and news media with the Secretary of the Air Force's Office of Information, to which private organizations seeking Air Force briefings or discussions on UFOs were to direct requests; base commanders could release information on a local sighting only after it had been "positively identified." The Condon Report's authors read the "reduce the percentage" paragraph as an instruction to investigate seriously and described critics of it as having "tried to read into this paragraph an exhortation that investigation is to result in common-place identifications at all costs."[^4][^14] [[JANAP 146|Joint Army Navy Air Publication 146]], "Canadian-United States Communications Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings," issued by the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], covers reports of vital importance to the security of the [[United States]] and [[Canada]] requiring "very urgent defensive and/or investigative action." Its list of reportable sightings includes "Unidentified flying objects" as item (c), and its section 208 states that unauthorized disclosure of such a report may expose a person to prosecution under Title 18 of the [[United States Code|U.S. Code]], chapter 37, while not requiring classification of the messages. The Condon Report wrote of such reports that "it would be most unwise that the military response to such circumstances be publicized, nor for that matter should the circumstances themselves be a matter of public knowledge."[^15]
### The Central Intelligence Agency and Blue Book
According to Haines, after the [[U-2 Spy Plane|U-2]] began test flights in 1955, Blue Book investigators who knew of them tried to explain the sightings to the public by natural phenomena such as ice crystals and temperature inversions, and by checking with the Agency's U-2 project staff in Washington attributed many sightings to the aircraft, "careful, however, not to reveal the true cause of the sighting to the public." Haines wrote that Agency officers on the U-2 and [[OXCART]] programs later estimated that more than half of all reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights, and that "this led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project."[^10]
The Agency's Office of Scientific Intelligence had asked in 1952, through the Deputy Director for Intelligence, for research and development on the subject through the Air Force and the Research and Development Board, and the Robertson Panel followed; the Agency's history records that any mention of Agency sponsorship of the Panel was forbidden.[^16] In 1964 [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[John McCone]] asked for an updated evaluation; the Office collected samples from the acting director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, [[Richard Hall]], and the Office's Assistant Director, [[Donald F. Chamberlain]], told McCone on 26 January 1965 that the Office still monitored Blue Book.[^10] Haines cites an article by Quintanilla, "The Investigation of UFOs," in the fall 1966 issue (volume 10, number 4, pages 95 to 110) of the Agency's journal [[Studies in Intelligence]].[^10]
### Review in 1966
An Air Force memorandum of 28 September 1965 from Major General [[E. B. LeBailly]] said 9,265 reports had been investigated by 30 June 1965, of which 663 could not be explained. The Scientific Advisory Board ad hoc committee under [[Brian O'Brien]], including [[Carl Sagan]], met on 3 February 1966 and reported that 646 of 10,147 sightings from 1947 through 1965 were listed as unidentified, that the program had "only one officer, a sergeant, and secretary," and that it should be strengthened by contracting university teams.[^17]
On 20 and 21 March 1966 reports from [[Dexter, Michigan|Dexter]] and [[Hillsdale, Michigan|Hillsdale]], [[Michigan]], led Hynek to suggest at a press conference that swamp gas might account for them. On 28 March Representative [[Gerald Ford]] wrote to the chairmen of the [[House Committee on Armed Services]] and the [[House Committee on Science and Astronautics]] that "the Air Force sent a consultant, astrophysicist Dr. J. Allen Hynek" who "dismissed all of them," and the accompanying release called Hynek's explanation "flippant." The [[House Armed Services Committee]] held a one-day hearing on 5 April 1966 under [[L. Mendel Rivers]], at which Secretary of the Air Force [[Harold Brown]] announced the O'Brien committee's report.[^18][^19]
### Colorado, the National Academy and termination
The [[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]] contracted with the University of Colorado in 1966 for the study directed by [[Edward Condon]] (see the page on the committee), and the report's Section I stated that "only so much attention to the subject should be given as the Department of Defense deems to be necessary strictly from a defense point of view" and that "the defense function could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book, but this is a question for defense specialists rather than research scientists."[^20][^21] A [[National Academy of Sciences]] panel under [[Gerald M. Clemence]] of Yale, with [[H. R. Crane]], [[David M. Dennison]], [[Wallace O. Fenn]], [[H. Keffer Hartline]], [[E. R. Hilgard]], [[Mark Kac]], [[Francis W. Reichelderfer]], [[William W. Rubey]], [[C. D. Shane]] and [[Oswald G. Villard Jr.]], concurred that "no high priority in UFO investigations is warranted by data of the past two decades."[^1]
An Air Force memorandum dated 20 October 1969, prepared by Major Espey of the Directorate of Research and Development with the signature block of Brigadier General [[C. H. Bolender]], Deputy Director of Development, and titled by the National Investigations Committee site "The Bolender Draft (Not Memo)," states that Blue Book had two officers, one noncommissioned officer and one civilian full time and that Hynek "served as a scientific consultant until 1 July 1969." Its paragraph 4 states: "There is still, however, no evidence that Project Blue Book reports have served any intelligence function. Moreover, reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system." Its paragraph 6 states that termination "would leave no official federal office to receive reports of UFOs." Paragraph 8 recommends that the records of "over 13,000 sighting cases" be transferred to an archive "to prevent charges that the Air Force is concealing facts," and paragraph 9 records that the Air University would accept them if the Secretary's Office of Information answered all inquiries, "rigidly limit the right of access to recognized, legitimate researchers" and screen researchers' notes to ensure that "confidentiality" is maintained. The introduction on the NICAP site that hosts the text states, citing [[Brad Sparks]], that the document had sixteen attachments, that [[Robert Todd]] obtained its release in January 1979 and spent years trying to get the Air Force to find and release the attachments, and that several remain unreleased.[^22]
On 17 December 1969 Secretary of the Air Force [[Robert C. Seamans Jr.]] announced termination, in a memorandum to Air Force Chief of Staff General [[John D. Ryan]] stating that continuation "cannot be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science."[^1]
### Records
The Air Force retired the Blue Book records to the Air Force archives at [[Maxwell Air Force Base]], [[Alabama]], and in 1976 turned them over to the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]].[^10] The National Archives describes the textual records, "excluding names of people involved in the sightings," as about 2 cubic feet of unarranged project and administrative files, 37 cubic feet of case files and 3 cubic feet of records of the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations|Office of Special Investigations]], available on 94 rolls of microfilm (publication T-1206). On the same page it reports that searches of Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff records and of the [[National Security Council]] indexes for MJ-12, "majestic," and unidentified flying objects "were all negative except for" a one-page memorandum for General Twining from [[Robert Cutler]], Special Assistant to the President, titled "NCS/MJ-12 Special Studies Project," dated 14 July 1954, which "refers to a briefing to take place on July 16" and "does not identify MJ-12 or the purpose of the briefing."[^23] A Department of the Navy UFO fact sheet gives the files as 61 feet of case files, 20 reels of motion pictures, 23 sound recordings and 8,360 photographs.[^1]
The Project 1947 site states that the Blue Book files lack some reports Hynek forwarded under his contract, among them the [[Slidell, Louisiana]] "car buzzing" case of 8 December 1957 and [[Captain Frost]]'s 1945 sighting, and that Hynek held a copy of the microfilm; the researcher [[Loren Gross]], quoted there, wrote that his comparison of the microfilm with files of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]], the Center for UFO Studies and the papers of [[James E. McDonald]] found "very little overlap aside from well-known incidents."[^24]
### Footnotes
[^1]: U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research information sheet and Air Force "UFO Fact Sheet" reproducing Air Force news release No. 1077-69, "Air Force to Terminate Project 'Blue Book,'" 17 December 1969, and the National Academy of Sciences panel's report (Gerald M. Clemence, chairman, "Review of the University of Colorado Report on Unidentified Flying Objects," 1969, Attachment 2, pp. 7-10), at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf; National Archives, "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," reproducing the Air Force fact sheet distributed by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in January 1985, https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos.
[^2]: Letter, Lieutenant General N. F. Twining to Commanding General, Army Air Forces, "AMC Opinion Concerning 'Flying Discs,'" 23 September 1947, Condon Report Appendix R, pp. 1379-1381, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-r.htm; directive, Major General L. C. Craigie to Commanding General, Air Materiel Command, "Flying Discs," 30 December 1947, Appendix S, pp. 1382-1383, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-s.htm.
[^3]: Edward U. Condon, ed., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (University of Colorado, 1968), Section V, chapter 2, "UFOs, 1947-1968," pp. 847-854, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm (Appendices R, S, D and T reproduce the Twining letter, the Craigie directive, the Lipp letter and the Valley memorandum).
[^4]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 856-860 and 883-886 (Fort Monmouth, Cabell, Ruppelt; Letter 200-5; Table 1; Regulations 200-2, 80-17 and 80-17A) and Table 3 (1953-1965), p. 871.
[^5]: Air Force "UFO Fact Sheet" reproduced at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf (Attachment 2, p. 10).
[^6]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, p. 856.
[^7]: F. C. Durant, memorandum on the "Report of Meetings of the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," Central Intelligence Agency, 16 February 1953, Condon Report Appendix U, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm (Part I, Thursday morning; Part II, "Tremonton, Utah, Sighting" and "Educational Program"; Tab C, "Evidence Presented," listing "Progress Reports of Project STORK (code name for Battelle Memorial Institute contract work supporting ATIC)").
[^8]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 877-878 and 909-910.
[^9]: "Blue Book," NICAP, https://nicap.org/bios/WHO-WAS/BLUE_BOOK.htm.
[^10]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90," Studies in Intelligence (1997), sections "CIA's U-2 and OXCART as UFOs" and "The 1960s," notes 4, 5, 44 to 46, 68, 69 and 80, https://sgp.fas.org/library/ciaufo.html.
[^11]: Hynek's 1968 statement, Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, House of Representatives, 90th Congress, 2d Session, 29 July 1968, p. 3, https://nicap.org/books/1968Sym/1968_UFO_Symposium.pdf.
[^12]: Jennie Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," International UFO Reporter, March/April 1991, https://www.project1947.com/articles/jzbluebook.htm.
[^13]: Subcontract 130-7000, F. W. Dodge Company (McGraw-Hill) and J. Allen Hynek, 4 August 1967, with cover letter of 7 August 1967 from John J. Sweeney, project manager, copied to Major Quintanilla, and schedule of services for the Aerial Phenomena Office, 1 July 1963 to 30 June 1968, as hosted at http://www.project1947.com/hynek/jah_af_contract.htm.
[^14]: Condon, Appendix B, "AFR 80-17," pp. 1291-1296, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-b.htm.
[^15]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 886-889.
[^16]: H. Marshall Chadwell, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, "Unidentified Flying Objects," 1952, CREST document CIA-RDP81R00560R000100020008-2, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp81r00560r000100020008-2; Haines, notes 36 and 72.
[^17]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm; Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 902-907 (LeBailly memorandum of 28 September 1965).
[^18]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 899-900 and 908-910; Gerald R. Ford to Representatives George P. Miller and L. Mendel Rivers, 28 March 1966, with news release of the same date, Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers, Press Secretary and Speech File, Box D9, folder "Ford Press Releases - UFO, 1966," Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0054/4525586.pdf.
[^19]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, p. 908 (hearing of 5 April 1966; Brown's announcement).
[^20]: Condon, Preface and Section II, "Summary of the Study," pp. v-vi and 11-12, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/preface.htm and http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm.
[^21]: Condon, Section I, "Conclusions and Recommendations," p. 6, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm.
[^22]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, routing block and signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraphs 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9, with NICAP introduction by Fran Ridge, http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm.
[^23]: National Archives, "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," sections "General Information" and "Project BLUE BOOK Reference Report," https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos.
[^24]: "A few words about the late Dr J. Allen Hynek," Project 1947, http://www.project1947.com/hynek/index.htm, quoting Loren Gross.

121
40 - EVENTS/HISTORICAL_PHENOMENA/Majestic-12.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,121 @@
---
category: "Historical Phenomenon"
tags:
- UAP
- UFO
- MajesticDocuments
- Disinformation
- Counterintelligence
- FBI
- NARA
- Roswell
alias:
- Majestic-12
- Majestic 12
- MJ-12
- MJ12
- MJ Twelve
- Majic-12
- Operation Majestic-12
- Operation Majestic 12
- Majestic Twelve
- Eisenhower Briefing Document
- Cutler-Twining memo
summary: "Documents describing a 1947 presidential committee on flying discs, received by Jaime Shandera in 1984 and reported found at the National Archives in 1985; the FBI wrote in 1988 that the briefing document was bogus."
start: 1984-12-11
location: "North Hollywood, California"
relations:
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]"
start: 1988-09-15
role: "Dallas inquiry into a copy of the Eisenhower briefing document, closed December 2, 1988; Salt Lake City field office copy sent to headquarters October 31, 1991"
fn: 3
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]]"
start: 1991-11-15
role: "FBI Intelligence Division asked the Commander, Office of Special Investigations, to ascertain the originator and classification of a copy"
fn: 19
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Majestic-12, written in the documents as MJ-12 or "Majic," is the name of a committee of twelve officials and scientists that the Eisenhower briefing document, dated November 18, 1952, says was established by a classified executive order of President [[Harry S. Truman]] on September 24, 1947 to run a research, development and intelligence operation on recovered craft.[^1] The papers reached the public through [[William L. Moore]], [[Jaime Shandera]] and [[Stanton Friedman]] in May 1987 and were the subject of [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] inquiries in 1988 and 1991 and of a reference report of the [[National Archives and Records Administration]].[^2][^3][^4]
### The Eisenhower briefing document
The document is headed "Top Secret / Majic, Eyes Only" and "Copy one of one," and is titled "Operation Majestic-12 Preliminary Briefing for President-Elect Eisenhower," with Admiral [[Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter]] as briefing officer, "MJ-1." It names as members of the group Hillenkoetter, [[Vannevar Bush]], Secretary [[James V. Forrestal]], General [[Nathan F. Twining]], General [[Hoyt S. Vandenberg]], [[Detlev Bronk]], [[Jerome Hunsaker]], [[Sidney W. Souers]], [[Gordon Gray]], [[Donald Menzel]], General [[Robert M. Montague]] and [[Lloyd V. Berkner]], and records that Forrestal's death on May 22, 1949 left a vacancy filled on August 1, 1950 by General [[Walter Bedell Smith]]. Its narrative begins with the sighting by a civilian pilot over the [[Cascade Mountains]] on June 24, 1947, describes a crash about seventy-five miles northwest of [[Roswell Army Air Base]], a secret recovery begun on July 7, 1947, the discovery of four small humanlike beings, and a weather balloon cover story.[^1]
The briefing document continues that an analytical effort organized by Twining and Bush reached a preliminary consensus on September 19, 1947 that the disc was most likely a short range reconnaissance craft; that Bronk's group proposed the term "Extra-terrestrial Biological Entities" or "EBEs"; and that "some scientists, most notably Dr. Menzel, consider it more likely that we are dealing with beings from another solar system entirely." It states that the Air Force's Project SIGN, begun in December 1947, kept liaison with Majestic-12 limited to two individuals in the Intelligence Division of Air Materiel Command; that SIGN evolved into Project GRUDGE in December 1948 and was then being conducted under the code name BLUE BOOK; that on December 6, 1950 a second object impacted in the El Indio-Guerrero area of the Texas-Mexican border and the recovered remains were taken to the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] facility at Sandia, [[New Mexico]]; and that a contingency plan, MJ-1949-04P/78, should be held ready for a public announcement.[^1]
The FBI's "Majestic 12" file reproduces the document, the Truman memorandum of September 24, 1947 to the Secretary of Defense, and a copy of the Cutler-Twining memorandum bearing a National Archives copy stamp for Record Group 341, each with the word "BOGUS" hand-lettered across it. The Truman memorandum, bearing a signature reading "Harry Truman," is addressed "Dear Secretary Forrestal" and states that the matter shall hereafter be referred to only as "Operation Majestic Twelve." The Cutler memorandum copy reads that "the President has decided that the MJ-12 SSP briefing should take place during the already scheduled White House meeting of July 16, rather than following it as previously intended."[^1] Friedman wrote in 2004 that if the Eisenhower briefing document, the Truman-Forrestal memorandum of September 24, 1947 and the Cutler-Twining memorandum were genuine, the government had recovered at least one crashed saucer and several bodies and kept it secret since 1947; he wrote that Menzel's presence on the list had bothered him, Moore and Shandera from the start, since Menzel, a Harvard astronomer, had written books and papers attacking UFO claims.[^5]
### Hillenkoetter, Berkner and the Robertson Panel
The CIA historian [[Gerald K. Haines]] wrote in 1997 that the [[Robertson Panel]], which met from January 14 to 17, 1953 and recommended that the National Security Council debunk UFO reports, included Lloyd Berkner, then a director of [[Brookhaven National Laboratory]]. Haines also wrote that in 1958 CIA officials, discussing how to answer the requests of [[Donald Keyhoe]] and [[Leon Davidson]] for the panel's full report, "worried that Keyhoe had the ear of former DCI VAdm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who served on the board of governors of NICAP" (the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]]); the officials discussed having the CIA general counsel show Hillenkoetter the report, and Hillenkoetter resigned from NICAP in 1962.[^6]
### Receipt of the film, December 1984
In their 1990 report Moore and Shandera wrote that on December 11, 1984 a brown manila envelope arrived at Shandera's residence in North Hollywood, taped across all seams, with no return address and postmarked [[Albuquerque]], New Mexico, December 8, 1984. Inside were nested envelopes, the innermost a white envelope bearing a Marriott Hotel logo, containing a black plastic canister with a roll of undeveloped 35mm Tri-X film. Developed, it yielded eight good negatives of what appeared to be a 1952 briefing document for President-elect [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], two blank frames, the same sequence of eight frames a second time, and a blank remainder. Moore and Shandera had the negatives printed in a photo laboratory owned by an associate, and wrote that they obtained assistance from the FBI and the [[Los Angeles County Sheriff]]'s Department in locating questioned-document examiners; four examiners were approached and none allowed his name to be used.[^7] Klass wrote that on March 14, 1994 the writer [[Don Berliner]] received in the mail from an anonymous source an undeveloped roll of 35mm film, which yielded photographs of pages of a "Top Secret/MAJIC/Eyes Only" special operations manual, SOM 1-01; Friedman wrote that this roll was mailed from Wisconsin rather than Albuquerque.[^5][^8]
### The Cutler-Twining memorandum, July 1985
Moore and Shandera wrote that a typewritten postcard, which its stamp indicated was mailed from [[New Zealand]] and whose fine print said it came from the "Ethiopian Tourism Commission, Box 189, Addis Ababa," was among the mail forwarded in March 1985 from Moore's post office box 189 in Dewey, Arizona, a box he had kept from about August 1979 to mid-1987. It read in part: "When doors won't open, search for windows. Add some zest to your trip to Washington; Try Reece's pieces. For a stylish look, shop Suit Land." Friedman, already in Washington, told them the reference probably meant [[Ed Reese]] of the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives, and [[Suitland]], Maryland, the location of a federal records center. Reese told Friedman that the Air Force was declassifying a large block of Intelligence Directorate files from 1946 to 1955, many originally top secret, and that declassification officers had been sent from the [[The Pentagon|Pentagon]] to handle the task.[^9] Shandera found the memorandum on July 18, 1985, after searching nearly 100 boxes; in the authors' words it was in box number 189 of Record Group 341, "immediately adjacent to file folder 4-1846." They described it as an unsigned faded-blue carbon copy on onionskin paper bearing the watermarks "Dictation Onionskin" and what appeared to be "Fox."[^9] The National Archives describes it as filed in folder T4-1846.[^4]
The memorandum, dated July 14, 1954, is addressed by [[Robert Cutler]], special assistant to the President, to General Twining and refers to an "NSC/MJ-12 Special Studies Project" and a briefing on July 16. The National Archives published a reference report listing the problems it poses. The series in which it was filed is arranged by top secret register number and the memorandum has none; no other document in the folder concerns "NSC/MJ-12"; the marking "Top Secret Restricted Information" was not used by the [[National Security Council]] until the [[Richard Nixon]] administration; the paper is "diction onionskin" without letterhead or watermark, while Cutler's other carbons in the [[Eisenhower Library]] sample carry an eagle watermark or none; the National Security Council minutes record no meeting on July 16, 1954, and a folder titled "Special Meeting July 16, 1956" held a memo calling NSC members to a civil defense exercise on that date; the Eisenhower Library wrote on July 16, 1987 that the President's appointment books show no entry for such a meeting; the NSC declassification office had no record of declassifying it; and Cutler was visiting military installations in Europe and North Africa from July 3 to 15, 1954, having left written instructions on July 3 for his subordinates [[James S. Lay]] and [[J. Patrick Cone]] on handling NSC business during his absence. The National Archives searched the indexes of the NSC files under MJ-12, majestic, unidentified flying objects, UFO, flying saucers, extraterrestrial biological entities and Aquarius, and found nothing except this memorandum. It states that it certifies reproductions as true copies and does not authenticate documents.[^4]
### The Doty teletype and the earlier use of the term
[[Philip J. Klass]] wrote in 1997 that the term "MJ Twelve" first appeared in a one-page secret teletype dated November 17, 1980 concerning UFO photographs, which [[Richard Doty]] of the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations]] gave Moore in early 1981 and which Moore showed to [[Brad Sparks]] and [[Kal Korff]] on January 17, 1982.[^2] The text printed by Moore and Shandera as the Aquarius message names "Project Aquarius," "MJ Twelve" and the Albuquerque instrument maker [[Paul Bennewitz]]; the Air Force Intelligence Service wrote on December 5, 1983 that AFOSI had reviewed a message of that description, circulated in at least three cities, and confirmed it was a hoax. The printed text is, by the authors' account, a late-1988 reconstruction by Moore with changes supplied by Doty.[^10][^11][^12] Moore wrote in 1989 that the version he was given was a retyped copy with spurious additions that he understood was meant to reach Bennewitz.[^12] Moore and Shandera wrote that in early March 1983 a telephone caller sent Moore on a cross-country trip to a motel in upstate New York, where a courier gave him nineteen minutes with eleven pages of a "Project Aquarius" briefing dated June 14, 1977, which he photographed and read into a tape recorder.[^13] Klass wrote that [[Linda Moulton Howe]] saw some of the same Aquarius papers on April 9, 1983 during a visit to Doty in Albuquerque; Hastings wrote that Howe placed the meeting in Doty's office at [[Kirtland Air Force Base]] and described the document as a "Briefing Paper for the President" that listed crashed UFO cases including one near Aztec, New Mexico; Doty denied in writing in 1988 that he knew of MJ-12.[^2][^14]
Hastings wrote in 1989 that the intelligence sources Moore called "Falcon" and "Condor" had been identified to him as Doty and the recently retired Air Force captain [[Robert Collins]]; Doty and Collins denied it, and Moore denied that Doty was Falcon.[^2][^14] Doty told [[Art Bell]] in 2005 that Moore was "recruited as an asset" by a person in the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] to provide disinformation.[^15] In a letter to the newsletter [[Saucer Smear]] in 2000 Doty wrote that Moore "was a coded source for OSI," that if Moore was the original author of the MJ-12 documents "he did it without my assistance or my knowledge," and that he "went through two Government investigations regarding the MJ-12 documents," both of which, he wrote, cleared him.[^16]
### The Schulgen memorandum
Klass wrote in 1997 that the researcher [[Robert Todd]] had compared Moore's version of a draft Air Force collection memorandum of October 1947 from the office of Brigadier General [[George F. Schulgen]], which Moore published in the July and August 1986 issue of [[International UFO Reporter]], with an authentic copy that Todd obtained from the National Archives early in 1997. According to Klass, the version Moore published added words implying that some officials regarded the objects as interplanetary and deleted words treating them as a possible Soviet aircraft; Klass wrote that the text of the transmittal letter had also been altered, and that Friedman, Good and a report by [[Bruce Maccabee]] for the Fund for UFO Research had cited the altered version.[^2]
### Later documents
Klass wrote in 2000 that SOM 1-01, purportedly printed in April 1954, directed that crashed craft be sent to "Area 51 S-4" in Nevada, a name that he wrote the Nellis range portion had not been given until several years after the manual's purported date, and that a statement denouncing SOM 1-01 as counterfeit was released on March 14, 1999, signed by Berliner and several other prominent proponents of UFO reality. The CIA's history of the U-2 program places the addition of the [[Area 51|Groom Lake]] strip, known by its map designation as Area 51, to the Nevada Test Site after April 12, 1955.[^8][^17] Klass also wrote that more than a dozen further "Majestic" documents obtained by the researcher [[Tim Cooper]] were made public by [[Robert Wood]] and his son Ryan at a conference in Connecticut, that Wood endorsed them while admitting flaws, and that the Eisenhower briefing document uses a hybrid civil and military date format, "18 November, 1952," which Klass wrote Moore used repeatedly in personal letters, and a Truman signature that Klass wrote was a pasted-on photocopy of a genuine signature from a memorandum to Vannevar Bush of October 1, 1947.[^8]
### Moore's statements
Klass wrote that on April 16, 1983, twenty months before the film arrived, Moore told Sparks in [[Berkeley]] that counterfeit government documents about crashed saucers could induce former military personnel to speak, that Sparks urged him not to, and that Friedman defended the idea; Klass wrote that [[Kevin Randle]] and [[Don Schmitt]] reported in their 1994 book that Friedman, among others, said Moore had suggested creating Roswell documents as early as 1982.[^2] Klass also wrote that [[Lee Graham]], to whom Moore showed the papers in May 1985, filed a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request with the [[Department of Energy]] on June 17, 1985 that listed the twelve names; that the December 1985 issue of [[Barry Greenwood]]'s newsletter [[Just Cause]] was the first UFO publication to discuss the group; and that Moore released the papers to the press on May 28, 1987, a day before the British writer [[Timothy Good]], who said they came from "a reliable American source who has close connections with the intelligence community," presented them at a London press conference. Moore and Good later denied that Moore was that source. The papers were covered by [[The New York Times]] and [[The Washington Post]] and featured on ABC's [[Nightline]], where [[Ted Koppel]] interviewed Friedman and Klass.[^2]
On July 1, 1989 Moore told the [[MUFON]] symposium in [[Las Vegas]] that he would "play the disinformation game, get my hands dirty just often enough" to learn who was directing it and why, and, as he restated in [[FOCUS (newsletter)|FOCUS]] that September, that the Aquarius document was a retyped version of a real AFOSI message that was apparently created by AFOSI and handed to him in 1981 with the intention that he pass it to Bennewitz.[^12][^18] The 1990 report of Moore and Shandera describes the 1984 film as arriving in an envelope with no return address.[^7]
### The FBI file, 1988 to 1991
The FBI's "Majestic 12" file, number 65-81170, opens with a Dallas airtel to the Director dated October 25, 1988. On September 15, 1988 a special agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, name redacted, contacted the Dallas office with a possible classified document concerning Operation Majestic-12, received from a person whose name is redacted who said that an individual "at the school," whom he would not name, gave it to him as something received in the mail. Dallas wrote that in the previous six weeks there had been local publicity about Operation Majestic-12, with at least two appearances on a local radio talk show, and that "it is unknown if this is all part of a publicity campaign." OSI, in a passage with its source redacted, advised that "Operation Blue Book," mentioned on page 4 of the document, did exist. Dallas wrote that the purported document was over 35 years old but that it did not know whether it had been properly declassified, asked the Bureau to discern whether it was still classified, and held its investigation in abeyance.[^3]
On December 2, 1988 the Director sent Dallas a teletype stating that OSI had advised on November 30, 1988 that the document was fabricated, that "copies of that document have been distributed to various parts of the [[United States]]," that "the document is completely bogus," and that Dallas was to close the investigation. A note adds: "This advises Dallas that the document was bogus and the case should be closed."[^3]
On October 18, 1991 an employee of a Utah entity, name redacted, found a nine-page document dated November 18, 1952 lying on the lobby floor of his workplace and delivered it that afternoon to the receptionist of the FBI's [[Salt Lake City]] field office. Salt Lake City initially dismissed the document and its markings as a hoax. On October 25, 1991 a supervisory special agent there telephoned a contact at the [[Department of Defense]], asking about "Operation Majestic-12," the Air Force's "[[Project Sign]]" and "[[Project Grudge]]." The airtel of October 31, 1991 to the Director, classified confidential, states: "Based upon DOD representations made to SSA [redacted] which, incredibly, tended to buttress a portion of the document, he discussed this matter with DAD Brandon on 10/30/91." It asks the Intelligence Division, section CI-2, to determine any Defense Department interest and carries an editorial comment that the airtel is dated on Halloween and that it "could have been worse, and dated on the first of April."[^19] On November 15, 1991 [[Harry B. Brandon III]], acting assistant director of the Intelligence Division, wrote to the commander of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at [[Bolling Air Force Base]] that the FBI had recovered what might be a classified document dated November 18, 1952 relating to "Operation Majestic 12," which "indicates that this project related to sightings/recovery of extra-terrestrial aircraft"; that "although this document may represent some type of hoax, it is our responsibility to insure that all incidents involving the mishandling of classified data receive adequate investigative attention"; and asked OSI to ascertain the originator or the current classification. The letter is marked "By Liaison" and carries a handwritten delivery endorsement.[^19] The file, which the FBI posted as a single part of 24 pages, contains no OSI reply to the 1991 request.[^19]
Doty said in 2005 that the FBI had investigated him in 1988 or 1989 because it thought he had disclosed the documents, that Klass had raised the matter, and that he offered to take the FBI to the Pentagon, where he said the documents and information on extraterrestrial visitation were kept.[^15] The FBI file as posted does not name him.[^3]
### National Archives, Air Force and General Accounting Office searches
The National Archives wrote that it had searched the records of the [[U.S. Air Force]] and the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], that the Truman and Eisenhower libraries had searched for references, and that its search of the National Security Council indexes was negative except for the Cutler memorandum.[^4] At the request of Representative [[Steven Schiff]], Republican of New Mexico, the General Accounting Office examined government records on the 1947 crash near Roswell and reported on July 28, 1995 that it had found only a July 1947 history of the 509th Bomb Group and [[Roswell Army Air Field]] and an FBI teletype of July 8, 1947, that Roswell Army Air Field administrative records from March 1945 through December 1949 and outgoing messages from October 1946 through December 1949 had been destroyed without any indication on the disposition form of who destroyed them or under what authority, and that responses from the FBI, the Department of Defense, the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and the National Security Council produced no other records on the crash. The report describes a July 1994 Air Force report concluding that the most likely source of the wreckage was a balloon-launched classified project to determine the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research.[^20] The report does not mention MJ-12.[^20]
### Footnotes
[^1]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01, 24 pages, pages reproducing the document "Briefing Document: Operation Majestic 12 Prepared for President-Elect Dwight D. Eisenhower (Eyes Only) 18 November, 1952," with "BOGUS" written across (PDF pp. 4 to 7, 15 to 21), the Truman memorandum (PDF p. 22) and the Cutler-Twining memorandum copy (PDF p. 23), https://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012/Majestic%2012%20Part%2001%20%28Final%29/at_download/file
[^2]: Philip J. Klass, Skeptics UFO Newsletter no. 44, March 1997, pp. 1 to 5, https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/docs/SUN/SUN44.pdf
[^3]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01: SAC Dallas airtel to Director, "Unsub(s); Possible Disclosure of Classified Information Regarding Operation Majestic-12; ESP-X," October 25, 1988 (PDF pp. 2 to 3); Director to FBI Dallas teletype, December 2, 1988 (PDF pp. 8 and 10), same URL.
[^4]: National Archives and Records Administration, "Project BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects," including "Majestic 12 or 'MJ-12' Reference Report," https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos (printout of June 13, 2013).
[^5]: Stanton T. Friedman, "Update on Operation Majestic 12 Documents," April 2004, posted by The Black Vault on January 17, 2024, https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/update-on-operation-majestic-12-documents/
[^6]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90: A Die-Hard Issue," Studies in Intelligence (1997), sections on the Robertson Panel and on 1958 requests by Keyhoe and Davidson, https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/cia-role-study-UFOs.pdf
[^7]: William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report (Fund for UFO Research, 1990), "The MJ-12 Documents (Dec. 1984)," pp. 3 and 29, excerpt at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/The-MJ-12-Documents-An-Analytical-Report-Excerpts.pdf
[^8]: Philip J. Klass, "The New Bogus Majestic-12 Documents," Skeptical Inquirer, May/June 2000, pp. 44 to 46, https://centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2000/05/22164853/p44.pdf
[^9]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Cutler-Twining Memorandum (Jul. 1985)," pp. 61 to 62, same excerpt.
[^10]: Message R 171130Z NOV 80, FM HQ AFOSI Bolling AFB DC/IVOE to AFOSI Dist 17 Kirtland AFB NM/BID, Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, Appendix C, p. 83, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S18-Aquarius-Document.pdf
[^11]: Susan Cooksey, Freedom of Information Manager, Air Force Intelligence Service, letter to Peter L. Clarke, KOB Television, December 5, 1983, printout of a reproduction at http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/KOB-TV-Bennewitz-FOIA.pdf
[^12]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Aquarius Document (Feb. 1981)," pp. 7 to 9, quoting Moore in FOCUS, June 30, 1989, p. 13, and September 30, 1989, p. 8.
[^13]: Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Documents, "The Carter Briefing Notes (Mar. '83)," p. 21, quoted in Klass, Skeptics UFO Newsletter no. 44, March 1997, p. 2.
[^14]: Robert Hastings, "The MJ-12 Affair: Facts, Questions, Comments," March 1, 1989, https://sacred-texts.com/ufo/hastings.htm
[^15]: "Greg Bishop and Richard Doty, Coast to Coast AM with host Art Bell," transcript of the broadcast of February 27, 2005, http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/S5-Greg-Bishop-and-Richard-Doty-Coast-to-Coast-AM-with-host-Art-Bell-Interview-Transcript.pdf (transcript; audio not reviewed).
[^16]: James W. Moseley, ed., Saucer Smear, vol. 47, July 15, 2000, "Missives from the Masses" (letter of Richard Doty), http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000715.htm (printout of June 14, 2013), pp. 6 to 7.
[^17]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (CIA History Staff, 1992; released June 25, 2013), chapter 2, p. 56, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf
[^18]: Curt Collins, "Bill Moore and UFO Disinformation Accusations," Blue Blurry Lines, April 29, 2022, https://www.blueblurrylines.com/2019/12/bill-moore-on-hynek-and-vallee.html , quoting Moore's speech at the MUFON Symposium, Las Vegas, July 1, 1989 (MUFON UFO Journal, November and December 1989). The speech text was not obtained.
[^19]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01: SAC Salt Lake City airtel to Director, "Majestic-12; ESP-X," October 31, 1991 (PDF pp. 11 to 13); Harry B. Brandon III, Acting Assistant Director, Intelligence Division, FBI, letter to Commander, Office of Special Investigations, Department of the Air Force, Bolling AFB, November 15, 1991 (PDF p. 14), same URL.
[^20]: General Accounting Office, Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico, GAO/NSIAD-95-187, July 28, 1995, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-187/pdf/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-187.pdf

171
40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Condon Committee.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
---
category: "Intelligence Scandal"
tags:
- Committee
- USAF
- UFO
- UAP
- UniversityOfColorado
- AFOSR
- CondonReport
- NICAP
- NPIC
alias:
- Condon Committee
- University of Colorado UFO Project
- Colorado Project
- Condon Report
- Condon Study
- Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects
summary: "University of Colorado study of unidentified flying objects under an Air Force Office of Scientific Research contract (1966 to 1968), directed by Edward Condon, whose report preceded the termination of Project Blue Book."
start: 1966-11-01
end: 1968-10-31
location: "University of Colorado, Boulder"
relations:
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[U.S. Air Force]]"
role: "grantee under contract F44620-67-C-0035"
start: 1966-11-01
end: 1968-10-31
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]]"
reverse: true
role: "contracting office"
start: 1966-11-01
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Edward Condon]]"
reverse: true
role: "scientific director"
start: 1966-11-01
end: 1968-10-31
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Robert Low]]"
reverse: true
role: "project coordinator"
start: 1966-11
fn: 11
- type: employed_by
with: "[[David Saunders]]"
reverse: true
role: "principal investigator (dismissed)"
end: 1968-02
fn: 11
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Norman Levine]]"
reverse: true
role: "research associate (dismissed)"
start: 1967-06
end: 1968-02
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[National Photographic Interpretation Center]]"
reverse: true
role: "informal technical liaison, not publicly acknowledged"
start: 1967-02
fn: 9
- type: investigated
with: "[[National Academy of Sciences]]"
reverse: true
role: "review panel under Gerald M. Clemence"
fn: 21
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
The Condon Committee was the University of Colorado's Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, conducted from 1966 to 1968 under a contract with the [[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]] and directed by the physicist [[Edward Condon]]. Its report, transmitted to the Secretary of the Air Force on 31 October 1968, stated that "nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge." A review by a panel of the [[National Academy of Sciences]] and the report were the stated bases for the termination of [[Project Blue Book]] on 17 December 1969.[^1][^2]
### Origin in the Air Force
In March 1966 an ad hoc committee of the [[Air Force Scientific Advisory Board]] chaired by [[Brian O'Brien]], with members [[Launor F. Carter]], [[Jesse Orlansky]], [[Richard Porter]], [[Carl Sagan]] and [[Willis H. Ware]], recommended that the Air Force contract with a few universities for investigation of selected sightings. On 31 August 1966 Colonel [[Ivan C. Atkinson]], Deputy Executive Director of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, wrote to the [[University of Colorado]] asking it to participate as grantee, with the guarantee that "the scientists involved will have complete freedom to design and develop techniques for the investigation." O'Brien, as chairman of the Advisory Committee to the [[Air Force Systems Command]] of the National Academy of Sciences-[[National Research Council]], had advised the Office on the suitability of Colorado.[^1][^3]
[[Philip J. Klass]], a senior editor of [[Aviation Week and Space Technology]] and a founding fellow of the [[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]], wrote that when the Air Force sought a prestigious institution in the spring of 1966, the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] and others declined, and that [[James E. McDonald]] of the [[University of Arizona]] "was lobbying to obtain the contract"; the dissertation of [[Paul McCarthy]] on McDonald states that McDonald "first thought he might be the principal investigator" and, when that possibility waned, volunteered his services.[^4][^5]
[[J. Thomas Ratchford]] of the Office asked Condon on 31 July 1966 to take the scientific direction of the project; Condon wrote that Ratchford was introduced by Dr. [[W. W. Kellogg]], associate director of the [[National Center for Atmospheric Research]] and at that time a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. Condon objected, mentioned the names of scientists "of considerable distinction who had already taken an active interest in UFOs," and was told that they were disqualified for having "taken sides"; he wrote that the objections "were met by counter-arguments in the form of an appeal to patriotic duty" and an emphasis on the shortness of the task, then envisioned as fifteen months.[^6] Ratchford visited [[Boulder, Colorado|Boulder]] in late July 1966 and, with the Office's executive director [[William Price]], addressed University administrators and faculty on 10 August 1966. The contract was announced on 7 October 1966.[^7] According to the Condon Report it provided $313,000 for the first fifteen months, 1 November 1966 to 31 January 1968; the CIA historian [[Gerald K. Haines]] gave $325,000 for eighteen months, and a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum of February 1967 gives $300,000.[^7][^8][^9] The report states that the contract provided that "the planning, direction and conclusions of the Colorado project were to be conducted wholly independently of the Air Force," that the Air Force was to furnish its records, and that "we were assured that the federal government would withhold no information on the subject."[^7] Brigadier General [[Edward Giller]] and Ratchford were the Air Force coordinators.[^8] The University's president, [[J. R. Smiley]], wrote in the letter of transmittal that the Air Force had followed "a policy of complete noninterference."[^10]
Klass wrote that the proposal, incorporated in the contract, promised that "the work will be conducted under conditions of strictest objectivity by investigators who, as carefully as can be determined, have no predilections or preconceived positions on the UFO question," and that [[David Saunders]], who later became a principal investigator, had himself participated in writing the proposal.[^4]
### Staff
Condon was scientific director; [[Stuart Cook]], chairman of the psychology department, and [[Franklin E. Roach]] of the [[Environmental Science Services Administration]] were principal investigators; [[Robert Low|Robert J. Low]], assistant dean of the Graduate School, was coordinator.[^3] The staff list in the report also names Saunders as principal investigator, [[William A. Scott]] as co-principal investigator, [[Norman Levine]] as research associate, [[William K. Hartmann]] of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and the journalist [[Daniel S. Gillmor]] as editor. Contributors came from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Environmental Science Services Administration, the [[Stanford Research Institute]], the University of Arizona and other institutions; the [[National Aeronautics and Space Administration]] named a liaison officer.[^11]
Condon's entry in the staff list records that he was a former director of the [[National Bureau of Standards]], associate director of research for [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]], director of research for [[Corning Glass Works]], a member of the committee named in 1941 that established the atomic bomb program, and a past president of the [[American Physical Society]]. A [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] report of 1 March 1948 had called him "one of the weakest links in our atomic security" while he directed the Bureau of Standards. The historian [[Jessica Wang]] wrote that no evidence of wrongdoing emerged from the inquiries that followed, that he left the Bureau in August 1951 for Corning, and that in October 1954 the Secretary of the Navy revoked his clearance for a classified Navy project of Corning after the [[The Washington Post|Washington Post]] reported that it had been granted, with Vice President [[Richard Nixon]] publicly taking credit.[^11][^12]
### Civilian groups and the field network
The Condon Report states that the project's preliminary study included briefings by Lieutenant Colonel [[Hector Quintanilla]], the head of Blue Book, by [[J. Allen Hynek]] and by [[Donald Keyhoe]] and [[Richard Hall]] of the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]].[^13] Klass wrote that the project's "early warning network" of several dozen persons consisted principally of that committee's field investigators, and that Levine and Saunders helped decide which reports received field investigation; Appendix I of the report lists the network's participants.[^4][^14]
Hynek and others at Northwestern's [[Dearborn Observatory]], including [[Jacques Vallee]] and [[William Powers]], are acknowledged in the report for consultation "voluntarily supplied." The same appendix thanks McDonald for information on UFO matters in [[Australia]], [[New Zealand]] and [[Tasmania]] "which he studied during a trip there which was sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research."[^15] Hynek's contract records for November 1967 show him recommending that the project send an investigator to [[Newfield, New York]], and noting "They did."[^16]
### The Low memorandum
Low's memorandum "Some Thoughts on the UFO Project," dated 9 August 1966 and addressed to [[E. James Archer]], dean of the Graduate School, and [[Thurston E. Manning]], vice-president for academic affairs, was written in preparation for the meeting of 10 August 1966 with Air Force Office of Scientific Research staff, before the University decided to accept the contract. Condon wrote in the report that a copy "was later stolen from Low's personal files and given wide distribution by persons desirous of discrediting this study," that the memorandum was "at most, preliminary 'thinking out loud' about the proposed project by an individual having no authority to make formal decisions," that one proposal in it, "to stress investigation, not of physical phenomena, but rather of the people who do the observing," ran contrary to the procedure followed, and that he was not aware of the memorandum until eighteen months after it was written.[^6]
Klass quoted the memorandum as stating that "the Duke study was done by believers who, after they finished, convinced no one. Our study would be conducted almost exclusively by non-believers who, although they couldn't possibly prove a negative result, could and probably would add an impressive body of evidence that there is no reality to the observations," and: "The trick would be, I think, to describe the project so that, to the public, it would appear a totally objective study, but to the scientific community would present the image of a group of non-believers trying their best to be objective but having an almost zero expectation of finding a saucer." Klass wrote that "trick" can mean "the art or knack of doing something skillfully," and that [[Lewis M. Branscomb]], chairman of the [[Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics]] at Boulder, told him Low had used the word in that sense.[^4]
Klass wrote that a project member "believed to have been" the project's administrative assistant [[Mary Lou Armstrong]] found the memorandum in August 1967, and that Saunders allowed Keyhoe to copy it on the day before Thanksgiving 1967 and encouraged him to show it to the National Investigations Committee's board. According to Klass, citing Saunders, McDonald and Hynek met in [[Denver]] on 12 December 1967 with Saunders, Levine and Armstrong, and Hynek left early, after which McDonald raised the memorandum.[^4] Hynek's own log of November 1967 records that he told a caller about the Volunteer Flight Officer's Network that he would attend a meeting in Denver "unofficially, and at my own expense," and that he did so on 13 December.[^16] The dissertation of McCarthy states that McDonald wrote to Condon's coordinator on 31 January 1968 quoting the memorandum, and that McDonald and NICAP's [[Gordon Lore]] and Keyhoe resolved to put it on the record at the National Academy and at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.[^5]
### Dismissal of Saunders and Levine
Both Klass and McCarthy state that Condon dismissed Saunders and Levine after McDonald's letter, Klass giving 7 February 1968 and McCarthy 8 February; McCarthy states that Condon accused them of stealing the memorandum from private files and fired them for "incompetence." Klass wrote that Armstrong resigned shortly afterward.[^4][^5] On 9 February 1968 McDonald sent the memorandum and his letter to the National Academy of Sciences, and on 11 February sent a copy to [[James Hughes]] of the [[Office of Naval Research]], the contract monitor for McDonald's atmospheric-research contracts. Klass wrote that McDonald "had covertly used these research funds for his UFO investigations and travels, with Hughes's tacit approval"; McCarthy wrote that McDonald said he forwarded the material to keep Hughes apprised "in light of the day when he would apply to the ONR for funding to do UFO work."[^4][^5] The report's staff appendix still lists Saunders as principal investigator and Levine as research associate.[^11]
### Publicity and Congress
On 30 April 1968 the National Investigations Committee held a press conference at which Klass asked Keyhoe about his own field work; the same day Representative [[J. Edward Roush]] of [[Indiana]] spoke in the House, calling the project a likely "$500,000 fiasco." The May 14, 1968 issue of the magazine [[Look]] carried [[John G. Fuller]]'s "Flying Saucer Fiasco," described by Klass as presenting the project as "a half-million dollar 'trick.'"[^4] On 29 July 1968 the [[House Committee on Science and Astronautics]] held a one-day symposium, with Roush presiding, at which Hynek, McDonald, Sagan, [[Robert L. Hall]], [[James A. Harder]] and [[Robert M. L. Baker]] testified, and at which Representative [[Donald Rumsfeld]] introduced Hynek as a constituent. Klass, relying on McCarthy, wrote that Roush allowed McDonald to select the six scientists and to use his office and telephone credit card, and that after Roush's defeat in November 1968 he was named to the committee's board of directors.[^4][^17]
McCarthy's account adds that Roush asked the National Academy, [[Frederick Seitz]] of the Academy, to examine the Look allegations, the dismissals and cases recommended by Hynek, and said he would suspend a [[Government Accounting Office]] review of the project that he had initiated until the Academy finished.[^5]
### The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Photographic Interpretation Center
Section II of the Condon Report says that "one person with whom we have dealt actually maintains that the Air Force has nothing to do with UFOs, claiming that this super-secret matter is in the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency which, he says, installed one of its own agents as scientific director of the Colorado study," and that allegations of a conspiracy "have, so far as any evidence that has come to our attention, no factual basis whatever." The report adds that where sightings involve classified missile launchings or classified radar systems "this fact is merely stated" and that these reservations affected "a negligible fraction" of the material.[^7]
A memorandum for the record of the [[National Photographic Interpretation Center]], numbered TID-50/67 and dated 23 February 1967, states that the Air Force "has let a $300,000 contract" to the University of Colorado; that on 20 February 1967 at 0915 Condon and four members of his team visited the Center, accompanied by "Dr. Richard Lowe, University of Colorado," Saunders, "Dr. William Price, Executive Director of AFRST," and Ratchford; and that the clearance level for the meeting was Secret. The Colorado project's coordinator was Robert J. Low. The memorandum records that in a discussion of ten to fifteen minutes between [[Arthur C. Lundahl]], the Center's director, and Condon it was "clearly established" that work by the Center to assist Condon "will not be identified as work accomplished by CIA," that "Dr. Condon was advised by Mr. Lundahl to make no reference to CIA in regard to this work effort," that Condon said that if he felt it necessary to obtain an official Agency comment "he would make a separate distinct entry into CIA not related to contacts he has with NPIC," and that the Center "will not prepare any written comments, will not analyze information with the intent of drawing a conclusion, nor prepare written reports." Briefings followed on photogrammetry, microdensitometry and the Center's measuring instruments, and after lunch the group left for a meeting with Giller at the [[Pentagon]]. The memorandum refers to "the second UFO project assigned TID," the Center's Technical Intelligence Division.[^9]
Haines's history for the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] states that in February 1967 Giller asked Lundahl for an informal liaison to give the Condon Committee technical advice on photographs; that Lundahl and the Deputy Director for Intelligence, [[R. Jack Smith]], approved it "as a way of 'preserving a window'" on the study; and that they wanted the Agency to keep a low profile, take no part in writing conclusions, and not formally acknowledge any work done.[^8] A second memorandum for the record, dated 8 May 1967, describes a briefing at 0900 on 5 May 1967 on an analysis of the Zanesville, Ohio, photographs, attended by Condon, "Dr. Robert Lowe," Hartmann of the University of Arizona (printed "Hartman"), "Dr. Charles Reed, National Research Council," Ratchford and Center staff. It records that Condon "stated he had for the first time a scientific analysis of a UFO that would stand up to investigation"; that further analysis would pass to University of Colorado control "but Dr. Condon indicated he wished to keep a channel open into our organization"; that he "was most appreciative of the unofficial role NPIC had played"; and that it was suggested to review all the photography held by the National Investigations Committee, which "would put Dr. Condon in a position to say that he had reviewed and analyzed all the photography in NICAP files, and was now depending on the American public to furnish him new photography."[^18] Haines wrote that the analysis debunked that sighting, that Agency officials also agreed that the committee could release the full Durant report on the [[Robertson Panel]] with minor deletions, and that the final report "did not mention CIA participation."[^8]
The acknowledgments appendix names the Air Force, NASA, the Environmental Science Services Administration, the [[U.S. Naval Observatory|Naval Observatory]], the [[Internal Revenue Service]]'s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division, the [[U.S. Forest Service|Forest Service]], the [[Federal Aviation Agency]], the [[Library of Congress]] and the [[U.S. Department of State|State Department]], and does not name the Agency or the Center.[^15] Saunders, listed as a visitor in the Center's memorandum of February 1967, was dismissed in February 1968.[^4][^9]
### Treatment of the secrecy question
In the historical section the Condon Report adopted the term "conspiracy hypothesis" for "the view that some agency of the Government either within the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, or elsewhere knows all about UFOs and is keeping the knowledge secret." Condon wrote that without denying the possibility "we decided very early in the study, that we were not likely to succeed in carrying out a form of counter-espionage against our own Government," and decided to "keep alert to any indications" that not all essential facts were being given to the project. He continued: "Although we found no such evidence, it must be conceded that there may be a supersecret government UFO laboratory hidden away somewhere of whose existence we are not aware. But I doubt it." He added that about halfway through the study a staff member of a national magazine telephoned to ask about a report that the Colorado study was a cover story for a "Top Secret" study for the Defense Department's "Martian Invasion Defense Program," and that his answer was that if it were true it would be Top Secret and he would not be at liberty to say.[^19]
The same chapter reproduces the 23 September 1947 letter of Lieutenant General [[Nathan F. Twining]], which lists among the possibilities that the objects were "of domestic origin" and "the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this Command," and comments on it: "Where secrecy is known to exist one can never be absolutely sure that he knows the complete truth."[^19]
### Conclusions of the report
Section I states that "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby," that "we have no evidence of secrecy concerning UFO reports," that "only so much attention to the subject should be given as the Department of Defense deems to be necessary strictly from a defense point of view," and that the defense function "could be performed within the framework established for intelligence and surveillance operations without the continuance of a special unit such as Project Blue Book, but this is a question for defense specialists rather than research scientists." It also recommends that teachers "refrain from giving students credit for school work based on their reading of the presently available UFO books and magazine articles."[^20]
In the report Condon wrote: "Had I known of the extent of the emotional commitment of the UFO believers and the extremes of conduct to which their faith can lead them, I certainly would never have undertaken the study."[^6]
### Review and termination
The report went to Secretary of the Air Force [[Harold Brown]] under cover of Smiley's letter of 31 October 1968. The National Academy panel, chaired by [[Gerald M. Clemence]], wrote that it was "unanimous in the opinion that this has been a very creditable effort to apply objectively the relevant techniques of science" and that "the least likely explanation of UFOs is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitations by intelligent beings." The Air Force release of 17 December 1969 says the report was released to the public in January 1969; Haines gives April 1969.[^8][^10][^21]
Hynek had told the [[House Armed Services Committee]] on 5 April 1966 that "the body of data accumulated since 1948 through the Air Force investigations deserves close scrutiny by a civilian panel of physical and social scientists."[^22] An Air Force action memorandum of 20 October 1969, with the signature block of Brigadier General [[C. H. Bolender]], cited the report and the Academy review as reasons that continuation of Blue Book "cannot be justified, either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science."[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Edward U. Condon, ed., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (University of Colorado, 1968), Preface and Letter of Transmittal (J. R. Smiley to Harold Brown, 31 October 1968, citing Contract No. F44620-67-C-0035), http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/preface.htm and http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/covrletr.htm; Section I, p. 2, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm.
[^2]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, with signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraph 2, http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm; Air Force news release No. 1077-69, 17 December 1969, in the compilation at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf.
[^3]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, members list, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm; Condon, Preface.
[^4]: Philip J. Klass, "The Condon UFO Study: A Trick or a Conspiracy?" The Skeptical Inquirer 10 (Summer 1986), pp. 328-341, https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1986/07/22165324/p42.pdf. Klass cites David R. Saunders and R. Roger Harkins, UFOs? Yes! Where the Condon Committee Went Wrong (Signet, 1968), and Paul McCarthy's thesis.
[^5]: Paul McCarthy, "Politicking and Paradigm Shifting: James E. McDonald and the UFO Case Study," Ph.D. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1975, chapter 3, "The Condon Study," pp. 140-153, https://files.ncas.org/mccarthy/chap03.html.
[^6]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, "UFOs, 1947-1968," section 7, "Initiation of the Colorado Project," pp. 912-916, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm.
[^7]: Condon, Section II, "Summary of the Study," pp. 11-12 and 20-21, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-ii.htm.
[^8]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90," Studies in Intelligence (1997), section "The 1960s: Declining CIA Involvement and Mounting Controversy," notes 75 to 80 (Lundahl memorandum for DDI, 7 February 1967; memorandum for the record, "Visit of Dr. Condon to NPIC, 20 February 1967," 23 February 1967; memorandum for the record, "UFO Briefing for Dr. Edward Condon, 5 May 1967," 8 May 1967), https://sgp.fas.org/library/ciaufo.html.
[^9]: Memorandum for the record, "Visit of Dr. Condon to NPIC, 20 February 1967," TID-50/67, 23 February 1967, Central Intelligence Agency, CREST document CIA-RDP79B00752A000300100004-1 (3 pages, declassified in part, released 2013), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b00752a000300100004-1.
[^10]: Condon, Letter of Transmittal, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/covrletr.htm; Air Force news release No. 1077-69, 17 December 1969, in the compilation at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf.
[^11]: Condon, Appendix X, "Authors and Editors, Staff of the Colorado Project," pp. 1433-1438, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-x.htm.
[^12]: Jessica Wang, "Edward Condon and the Cold War Politics of Loyalty," Physics Today 54, no. 12 (December 2001), https://physicstoday.aip.org/features/edward-condon-and-the-cold-war-politics-of-loyalty; Haines, note 75.
[^13]: Condon, Section II, p. 20.
[^14]: Condon, Appendix I, "Individuals Who Participated in the Early Warning Network," p. 1333, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-i.htm.
[^15]: Condon, Appendix W, "Acknowledgments," pp. 1428-1432, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-w.htm.
[^16]: Project 1947, "Details and Memoranda of Dr J. A. Hynek's Final USAF-sponsored UFO Investigation Contract," entries for telephone calls of 18 November 1967 and 11 November 1967, http://www.project1947.com/hynek/jah_af_contract.htm.
[^17]: Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, House of Representatives, 90th Congress, 2d Session, 29 July 1968, pp. 1-10, https://nicap.org/books/1968Sym/1968_UFO_Symposium.pdf.
[^18]: Memorandum for the record, "UFO Briefing for Dr. Edward Condon, 5 May 1967," 8 May 1967, Central Intelligence Agency, CREST document CIA-RDP79B00752A000300100003-2 (2 pages, declassified in part, released 2013), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79b00752a000300100003-2.
[^19]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 873-874, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm; Appendix R, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-r.htm.
[^20]: Condon, Section I, "Conclusions and Recommendations," pp. 2 and 6-7, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/sec-i.htm.
[^21]: "Review of the University of Colorado Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by a Panel of the National Academy of Sciences," 1969 (Gerald M. Clemence, chairman; H. R. Crane, David M. Dennison, Wallace O. Fenn, H. Keffer Hartline, E. R. Hilgard, Mark Kac, Francis W. Reichelderfer, William W. Rubey, C. D. Shane, Oswald G. Villard Jr.), Attachment 2, pp. 8-9, in the Navy UFO fact-sheet compilation at https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/dod174.pdf.
[^22]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 909-910 (Hynek's opening statement at the House Armed Services Committee hearing of 5 April 1966), http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm.

213
40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Robertson Panel.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,213 @@
---
category: "Intelligence Scandal"
tags:
- Panel
- CIA
- OfficeOfScientificIntelligence
- UFO
- UAP
- ProjectBlueBook
- Debunking
- ColdWar
alias:
- Robertson Panel
- Robertson Committee
- Robertson Report
- Durant Report
- Robertson Panel Report
- Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects
- Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects
summary: "CIA-convened panel of five scientists (January 1953) that found no threat in unidentified flying objects and recommended a training and debunking program and the watching of civilian UFO groups."
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
location: "Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
reverse: true
role: "sponsor, through the Office of Scientific Intelligence"
start: 1953-01
fn: 2
- type: founded
with: "[[H. Marshall Chadwell]]"
reverse: true
role: "assistant director for scientific intelligence who assembled the panel with Robertson"
start: 1953-01
fn: 3
- type: head_of
with: "[[H. P. Robertson]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Luis Alvarez]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Lloyd Berkner]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-16
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 10
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Samuel Goudsmit]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Thornton Page]]"
reverse: true
role: "panel member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 5
- type: participant_in
with: "[[J. Allen Hynek]]"
reverse: true
role: "associate member"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Frederick C. Durant]]"
reverse: true
role: "associate member and author of the report of meetings"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 8
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Edward J. Ruppelt]]"
reverse: true
role: "briefer, Air Technical Intelligence Center"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Philip G. Strong]]"
reverse: true
role: "Office of Scientific Intelligence staff attending the sessions"
start: 1953-01-14
end: 1953-01-17
fn: 10
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
The Robertson Panel was a group of five scientists convened by the [[Office of Scientific Intelligence]] of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] to review [[Air Technical Intelligence Center]] files on unidentified flying objects. It met in January 1953, reported that the sightings showed no direct physical threat to national security, and recommended that the national security agencies "strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired."[^1]
### Origin in the Office of Scientific Intelligence
In the summer of 1952 the Office of Scientific Intelligence and the Office of Current Intelligence formed a study group on the flying saucer reports. [[Edward Tauss]], acting chief of the Office's Weapons and Equipment Division, reported that most sightings could be easily explained, recommended continued monitoring in coordination with the Air Technical Intelligence Center, and urged that the Agency conceal its interest from the press and public, "in view of their probable alarmist tendencies" to read it as confirmation. [[Robert Amory]], the Deputy Director for Intelligence, passed the matter to the Office's Physics and Electronics Division on the concerns of the [[Director of Central Intelligence]], [[Walter Bedell Smith]], who according to a memorandum of 20 August 1952 summarized by [[Gerald K. Haines]] of the Agency's history staff wanted to know whether the Air Force investigation was sufficiently objective, thought there was "only one chance in 10,000" that the phenomenon posed a threat but that "even that chance could not be taken," and asked what use could be made of the phenomenon in psychological warfare. The study group's members searched the Soviet press, found no flying saucer reports, and concluded that the absence resulted from Soviet Government policy.[^2]
The Durant memorandum lists an "O/SI Study Group of August 1952" of [[Philip G. Strong]], a colleague named Eng and [[Frederick C. Durant]], which led to the briefing of the Director, an Air Technical Intelligence Center briefing on 21 November, consideration by the [[Intelligence Advisory Committee]] on 4 December, and a visit to the Center by Chadwell, [[H. P. Robertson]] and Durant.[^1] The Intelligence Advisory Committee, according to Haines, agreed that the Director should "enlist the services of selected scientists to review and appraise the available evidence in the light of pertinent scientific theories" and draft a National Security Council Intelligence Directive on the subject.[^2]
[[H. Marshall Chadwell]], Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, sent the Director a memorandum on unidentified flying objects that the Agency's reading-room copy catalogs under the date 9 December 1952 (Haines cites a Chadwell memorandum of 2 December). It states that on 20 August the Director had directed preparation of a National Security Council directive; that the problem was "largely a research and development problem" which the Deputy Director for Intelligence tried to start through the [[Research and Development Board]], whose chairman, Dr. Whitman, reported on about 6 November that inquiries in the Air Staff had not disclosed "undue concern" and that the matter had been referred to the [[Air Defense Command]]; and that after an Air Technical Intelligence Center briefing on 25 November "the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention." It continues: "Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and travelling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles." The memorandum states that the Office was proceeding to establish "a consulting group of sufficient competence and stature to review this matter and convince the responsible authorities in the community that immediate research and development on this subject must be undertaken." It attached a draft memorandum from the Director to the [[National Security Council]], which put the number of official reports received since 1947 at approximately 2000 and proposed a program of intelligence and research on "instant positive identification" of the objects, and a draft directive providing that the effort be coordinated with the military services, the Research and Development Board and the [[Psychological Strategy Board]].[^3]
Chadwell and Robertson put the panel together, and Chadwell wrote the Director on 9 January 1953 on consultants for the panel.[^2][^4] Strong recorded a meeting about an external research project with [[Julius A. Stratton]], provost of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], and [[Max Millikan]], director of MIT's Center for International Studies.[^2][^4]
### Membership
The panel members signed the report with these affiliations: [[Lloyd Berkner]], [[Associated Universities, Inc.]]; Robertson, chairman, [[California Institute of Technology]]; [[Samuel Goudsmit]], [[Brookhaven National Laboratories]]; [[Luis Alvarez]], [[University of California]]; and [[Thornton Page]], [[Johns Hopkins University]]. The roster lists Page's office as the Office of Research Operations. [[J. Allen Hynek]] ([[Ohio State University]], astronomy) and Frederick C. Durant ([[Arthur D. Little]], Inc., rockets and guided missiles) appear as associate members.[^5][^6]
Robertson served from 1950 to 1952 as research director of the [[Weapons Systems Evaluation Group]] in the office of the Secretary of Defense and from 1954 to 1956 as scientific advisor to the [[Supreme Allied Commander Europe|Supreme Allied Commander in Europe]]. Goudsmit had been scientific chief of the [[Operation Alsos|Alsos Mission]]. Alvarez had worked on microwave radar at the [[MIT Radiation Laboratory]] and then under [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]] at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]]. Berkner had been executive secretary of the Research and Development Board of the [[Department of Defense]], special assistant to the Secretary of State in 1949, a rear admiral in the Naval Reserve, and from 1951 to 1960 active in managing Associated Universities, Inc., the operator of Brookhaven. Page had done research at the [[Naval Ordnance Laboratory]] during the war.[^7] Durant, a past president of the [[American Rocket Society]], was on contract with the Office of Scientific Intelligence.[^8]
The interviewees were Brigadier General [[William N. Garland]], commanding general of the Air Technical Intelligence Center; Chadwell; [[Ralph L. Clark]], Deputy Assistant Director; Strong, chief of the Operations Staff; [[Stephen T. Possony]], acting chief of the Special Studies Group, Directorate of Intelligence, [[U.S. Air Force]]; Captain [[Edward J. Ruppelt]], chief of the Aerial Phenomena Branch; [[Dewey Fournet]] of the [[Ethyl Corporation]]; and Lieutenant [[R. S. Neasham]] and [[Harry Woo]] of the [[Navy Photo Interpretation Laboratory]] at [[Anacostia]].[^6]
### Sessions of January 14 to 17, 1953
The memorandum is headed "January 14-18, 1953." Its first meeting is dated "Wednesday, 14 January" and its eighth and final meeting is a Saturday afternoon, which makes the date 17 January; the attached lists and the Agency's later history also give 14 to 17 January.[^9] Present at the first meeting were Robertson, Alvarez, Page, Goudsmit, Strong, Lieutenant Colonel [[Frederick C. E. Oder]], [[David B. Stevenson]] and Durant; Berkner was absent until Friday afternoon.[^10] Strong enumerated what the Office regarded as potential dangers. The Panel saw motion pictures of sightings at [[Tremonton, Utah|Tremonton]], [[Utah]] (2 July 1952) and [[Great Falls, Montana|Great Falls]], [[Montana]] (15 August 1950), and in the afternoon Neasham and Woo presented the [[U.S. Navy]] laboratory's analysis. Ruppelt spoke for about forty minutes on Air Technical Intelligence Center methods. Hynek, Fournet, Captain [[Harry B. Smith]] and Possony attended that session.[^11]
On Thursday Ruppelt and Hynek attended both sessions. The memorandum records that "the Project STORK support at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, was described by Dr. Hynek." Oder briefed [[Project Twinkle]], the camera-watch project of the [[Air Force Meteorological Research Center]] at [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]]. At 1615 Garland joined and gave three personal opinions: more use of Air Force intelligence officers in follow-up, "vigorous effort" to declassify reports, and a larger Air Technical Intelligence Center section for the subject. On Friday Hynek read a prepared paper and Fournet gave a briefing on his fifteen months as Washington project officer; Hynek attended the Friday afternoon session. On Saturday morning Chadwell reported that he had shown the rough draft to the Director of Intelligence of the Air Force "whose reaction was favorable."[^1]
The list of evidence presented included seventy-five case histories of 1951 and 1952 selected by the Air Technical Intelligence Center as the best documented, the status and progress reports of [[Project Grudge]] and [[Project Blue Book]], the progress reports of Project Stork, described as the code name for the [[Battelle Memorial Institute]] contract work supporting the Center, reports on Project Twinkle and Project Pounce (a proposal of [[Kirtland Air Force Base]]), a draft manual on making a flying object report, charts of unexplained 1952 sightings by location and of balloon launching sites, and "Intelligence Reports Relating to U.S.S.R. Interest in U.S. Sightings."[^12]
### The Tremonton and Great Falls films
The Navy laboratory had spent about 1,000 man-hours, at Air Force request, on plots of the 1,600-frame Kodachrome film of Tremonton and concluded that the objects were not birds, balloons or aircraft but "self-luminous." The Panel rejected the conclusion for eleven stated reasons, among them the analysis of duplicate rather than original film, faulty light-intensity data and unremoved hand jitter, and judged the Tremonton objects probably birds after viewing a short film of seagulls in sunlight. It judged the Great Falls objects probably reflections from aircraft known to have been in the area. The Panel added that tests with polyethylene "pillow" balloons and with ornithologists would probably lead to "creditable explanations of value in an educational or training program."[^1]
### Findings and recommendations
Tab A, signed by the five members, states that the evidence "shows no indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical threat to national security" and that there is "no residuum of cases which indicates phenomena which are attributable to foreign artifacts capable of hostile acts" and "no evidence that the phenomena indicates a need for the revision of current scientific concepts." It states that "continued emphasis on the reporting of these phenomena does, in these perilous times, result in a threat to the orderly functioning of the protective organs of the body politic," citing "the clogging of channels of communication by irrelevant reports," "continued false alarms" and "the cultivation of a morbid national psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior." It recommends an integrated program "designed to reassure the public of the total lack of evidence of inimical forces behind the phenomenon" and to train personnel to recognize and reject false indications.[^13]
### Comments recorded in the Durant memorandum
The Panel's remarks "inappropriate for inclusion in the formal report" were recorded in Part II of Durant's memorandum of 16 February 1953 to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence.[^1]
On extraterrestrial artifacts, the memorandum records that no Panel member was "loath to accept that this earth might be visited by extraterrestrial intelligent beings of some sort, some day" but that none found evidence relating the sightings to space travelers. Fournet, who as an aeronautical engineer and Blue Book project officer had eliminated each known cause in many cases and was left with "extra-terrestrial," was not followed because his cases were "raw, unevaluated reports." Goudsmit and others held that artifacts, if they existed, would be a subject for natural science; Robertson did not concur and thought they would be "of immediate and great concern not only to the U.S. but to all countries." Page held the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere than on the earth "extremely unlikely."[^1]
On geography, an Air Technical Intelligence Center map of unexplained 1952 sightings "showed clusters in certain strategic areas such as Los Alamos," which the memorandum says might be explained by 24-hour watchful guard and awareness of security measures there; it adds that there had been no sightings near other sensitive Atomic Energy establishments, and that the Panel "could find no ready explanation for these clusters." Of two cosmic-ray counter episodes ([[Palomar Observatory|Palomar Mountain]], October 1949, and the Los Alamos "Bird Watchers Association," August 1950 to January 1951), the Panel rejected the implication that radioactive effects were correlated with the objects, Alvarez having pointed out that the recorded data of the second were instrumental effects.[^1]
On reporting channels, the Panel regarded the Air Force reporting system as having been encouraged by popular articles and public pressure, and the "mass receipt of low-grade reports" as "possibly dangerous in having a military service foster public concern." It listed related dangers: misidentification of actual enemy artifacts, overloading of emergency channels (Berkner's "noise to signal ratio" analogy) and "mass hysteria and greater vulnerability to possible enemy psychological warfare."[^1]
### The educational program
The memorandum describes a program with "two major aims: training and 'debunking.'" Training would cover pilots, radar operators, control tower operators and [[Ground Observer Corps]] personnel. The "debunking" aim "would result in reduction in public interest in 'flying saucers'" through "mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles," using case histories "which had been puzzling at first but later explained," on the model of conjuring tricks, to "reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda." The memorandum adds that "the general absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible Russian official policy."[^1]
Suggested participants were psychologists, including [[Hadley Cantril]] of [[Princeton University|Princeton]], [[Don Marquis]] of the [[University of Michigan]] and [[Leo Roston]]; "someone familiar with mass communications techniques, perhaps an advertising expert"; the radio and television host [[Arthur Godfrey]] as "possibly a valuable channel of communication"; the Navy's [[Special Devices Center]] at [[Sands Point, New York|Sands Point]], [[Long Island]], on Berkner's suggestion; the [[Jam Handy Company]], a maker of Second World War training films; and the animated cartoons of "Walt Disney, Inc.," the studio of [[Walt Disney]]. Hynek suggested amateur astronomers "to spread the gospel." The Panel proposed that the program run for "a minimum of one and one-half to two years" and recorded that some expansion of the Air Technical Intelligence Center would be required. Ruppelt "unofficially" proposed a staff of four analyst officers, four officer investigators, a briefing officer, an air defense liaison officer, a weather and balloon officer, an astronomical consultant and a group leader, which drew "generally favorable comment."[^1]
On "Unofficial Investigating Groups," the memorandum states that the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" of [[Los Angeles]] and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (Wisconsin)" "should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur," and that "the apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind." The Panel predicted that sightings would increase that summer.[^1]
[[Jennie Zeidman]], Hynek's assistant at Ohio State, wrote in 1991 that after the sessions Hynek told her: "They're not going to have a scientific investigation. For some strange reason they voted it down. They didn't even take a decent look at the data, and they decided to discredit them."[^14]
### Distribution and sponsorship
The report went to the Intelligence Advisory Committee, the Secretary of Defense, the director of the [[Federal Civil Defense Administration]] and the chairman of the [[National Security Resources Board]]. Strong and Durant briefed the [[Office of National Estimates]]. The Agency dropped its effort to draft a National Security Council directive on unidentified flying objects, and, according to Haines, "any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden." Chadwell transferred monitoring in May 1953 to the Physics and Electronics Division, whose chief, [[Todos M. Odarenko]], proposed treating the project as inactive and, in 1955, terminating it.[^2][^15]
### Contacts after the sessions
A note from Ruppelt to Hynek of 11 February 1953, among the Blue Book cables in Hynek's "Project Henry" files, states that Durant had called asking for the pencilled notes Hynek had promised him on a contact with the [[Aerial Phenomena Research Organization]]. A note of 13 July 1953 from Lieutenant [[Robert M. Olsson]] states: "we sent five of our best unsolved reports to Dr. Robinson [Dr. Robertson] on the West Coast" ([[Luke Air Force Base]], Continental Divide, [[Port Austin, Michigan|Port Austin]] and others). [[Jan Aldrich]] of Project 1947 added in a bracketed comment that Robertson was briefed on Blue Book again in 1957 at the Air Technical Intelligence Center and that Durant arranged for the Condon Committee to obtain copies of the Montana and Utah films and corresponded with Condon about official investigations in [[Norway]].[^16]
### Disclosure, 1956 to 1966
In 1956 [[The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects|Ruppelt's book]] disclosed the existence of the Panel, and civilian groups pressed for the report. The Air Force asked the Agency for permission to declassify; Strong refused to disclose Agency sponsorship. On 20 December 1957 Strong wrote to Berkner, Page, Robertson, Goudsmit and Alvarez and sent a memorandum to Major James F. Byrne of Air Force intelligence on declassification, and the Agency prepared a sanitized version that deleted references to the Agency and to psychological warfare. Berkner (20 November 1957) and Page (4 December 1957) had written to Strong, and the Agency's history states that the panel members "were also reluctant to have their association with the Agency released."[^2][^17]
On 8 March 1958 [[Donald Keyhoe]] of the [[National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena]] told [[Mike Wallace]] on [[CBS]] that the Agency sponsored the Panel, and Keyhoe and the chemical engineer [[Leon Davidson]] wrote to the Agency; Davidson also wrote to Berkner and Goudsmit. Agency officers, according to the history, worried that Keyhoe "had the ear of" Hillenkoetter, who served on the committee's board of governors, and discussed having the General Counsel, [[Lawrence R. Houston]], show him the report. Hillenkoetter resigned from the committee in 1962.[^2][^17]
On 22 September 1958 Keyhoe wrote to the Agency as the committee's director that he had been aware since January 1953 that the Agency had assembled a group of scientists to examine the evidence; that an investigator for the McClellan subcommittee on Government Operations had told him the Air Force said the report was not an Air Force document and that it proved to be the Agency's, with a classified summary sent to the investigator; and that the Air Force, which had officially denied the existence of the document, then admitted it and released a summary with no mention of the Agency. He asked for declassification and for an interview with an Agency official, and wrote that Vice Admiral [[Roscoe Hillenkoetter]], formerly director of the Agency and a board member, and all the members of the board would, if questioned, say that they disagree with the secrecy. A routing slip dated 30 September 1958 records that the Air Force's Major [[Lawrence J. Tacker]] had received a letter of the same date and would answer both along the lines that the Air Force was "the only agency qualified to speak on unidentified flying objects," and that "the remaining portions of the report are not only Secret but do not deal with unidentified flying objects"; the writer adds, "Both the above statements are true."[^18]
Haines wrote that the Air Force again asked in July 1966 for declassification of the Panel report and the Durant report, after the [[House Armed Services Committee]] hearings and "Dr. Robertson's disclosure on a CBS Reports program that CIA indeed had been involved in UFO analysis"; the Condon Report, printed in 1968, refers to Robertson as "the late Prof. H. P. Robertson."[^2][^7] On 15 August 1966 the Office of Scientific Intelligence's deputy director, [[Karl H. Weber]], wrote to the Air Force that "We are most anxious that further publicity not be given to the information that the panel was sponsored by the CIA." [[James E. McDonald]] of the [[University of Arizona]] had read the Durant report at Wright-Patterson on 6 June 1966 and was refused a second look on 30 June as it was an Agency document. The science editor of the [[Saturday Review]], [[John Lear]], criticized the sanitized version on 3 September 1966.[^2][^17]
### Publication in the Condon Report
The report was declassified in the summer of 1966 and printed as Appendix U of the [[Condon Committee]]'s Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, with some names deleted; the Condon Report states that the record is "still partially classified to the extent that the names of some of the members are deleted."[^7] The editors of the online edition restored deletions, which they marked in braces, from a copy they obtained from the [[Parascope]] site and checked against a [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]] copy. The deleted items included the names of Alvarez, Chadwell, Strong, Oder, Stevenson, Neasham, Woo, Hynek, Fournet, Smith, Possony and Garland, the words "Office of Scientific Intelligence," the "Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence," "Battelle Memorial Institute" and the Intelligence Advisory Committee, and one tab.[^1][^19] Haines wrote that in 1967 Agency officials agreed that the Condon Committee could release the full Durant report "with only minor deletions."[^2]
The Condon Report described the Panel as five scientists "who had distinguished themselves in physics research and in their contributions to military research during and after World War II," said that a group of this competence could review the subject in a week, stated that "no official steps were ever taken to put into effect the training and 'debunking' recommendations," and held that "the word debunking means to take the bunk out of a subject."[^7][^20]
### Later references
The Scientific Advisory Board committee under [[Brian O'Brien]] that reviewed Project Blue Book in 1966 gave "particular attention" to the Panel report. An Air Force action memorandum of 20 October 1969 recommending termination of Blue Book quoted the Panel's finding of no direct physical threat and added that "in spite of this finding, the Air Force continued to maintain a special reporting system."[^21][^22]
In 1975 [[William Spaulding]] of [[Ground Saucer Watch]] asked the Agency for the Panel report; a privacy coordinator, [[Gene Wilson]], replied that "at no time prior to the formation of the Robertson Panel and subsequent to the issuance of the panel's report has CIA engaged in the study of the UFO phenomena." Ground Saucer Watch sued under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] in September 1977; a search produced 355 documents of about 900 pages, of which the Agency released all but 57 on 14 December 1978, and a court dismissed the suit in May 1980. Haines wrote that the Agency's Deputy Director for Administration told Director [[Stansfield Turner]] there had been "no organized Agency effort to do research in connection with UFO phenomena nor has there been an organized effort to collect intelligence on UFOs since the 1950s."[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: F. C. Durant, memorandum to the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, "Report of Meetings of the Office of Scientific Intelligence Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, January 14-18, 1953," Central Intelligence Agency, 16 February 1953, Parts I and II, Tabs A to C, in Edward U. Condon, ed., Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (University of Colorado, 1968), Appendix U, pp. 1392-1421, full text with restored deletions at https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm. Quotations on this page not otherwise cited are from this document.
[^2]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90," Studies in Intelligence (1997), sections "Early CIA Concerns, 1947-52," "The Robertson Panel, 1952-53," "The 1950s," "The 1960s" and "The 1970s and 1980s," copy at https://sgp.fas.org/library/ciaufo.html.
[^3]: H. Marshall Chadwell, memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, through the Deputy Director for Intelligence, "Unidentified Flying Objects," with attached draft memorandum to the National Security Council and draft NSC directive, 1952, Central Intelligence Agency, CREST document CIA-RDP81R00560R000100020008-2 (5 pages; reading-room publication date 9 December 1952), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp81r00560r000100020008-2.
[^4]: Haines, text and notes 22 to 25, 30 and 36, citing Chadwell memoranda of 25 November and 2 December 1952, Chadwell to the Director, "Consultants for Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," 9 January 1953, Strong's memorandum for the record on the meeting with Stratton and Millikan, and Chadwell's letter to Stratton of 27 January 1953.
[^5]: Durant memorandum, Tab A, signatures: Berkner (Associated Universities, Inc.), Robertson (California Institute of Technology, chairman), Goudsmit (Brookhaven National Laboratories), Alvarez (University of California), Page (Johns Hopkins University).
[^6]: Durant memorandum, Tab B (members, associate members and interviewees; Tab B was omitted from the 1968 Condon printing and the online edition labels the document list as Tab B).
[^7]: Condon, Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Section V, chapter 2, "UFOs, 1947-1968," pp. 865-868, http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/s5chap02.htm.
[^8]: Durant memorandum, Tab B ("Associate Members"); Haines, notes 30 and 31, describing Durant as on contract with the Office of Scientific Intelligence and a past president of the American Rocket Society.
[^9]: Durant memorandum, Part I ("Wednesday, 14 January," "Saturday afternoon"), and Tab B and Tab C headings (January 14 to 17, 1953); Haines, text ("The panel met from 14 to 17 January 1953") and note 32 (Panel report dated 17 January 1953).
[^10]: Durant memorandum, Part I, "Wednesday Morning" and "Friday Afternoon": "Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, as Panel Member, was present at this meeting for the first time"; Saturday morning, the rough draft "had been reviewed and approved earlier by Dr. Berkner."
[^11]: Durant memorandum, Tab B ("Associate Members"), and Part I, Wednesday afternoon through Saturday.
[^12]: Durant memorandum, Tab C, "Evidence Presented."
[^13]: Durant memorandum, Tab A, "Report of the Scientific Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects," paragraphs 2 to 4.
[^14]: Jennie Zeidman, "I Remember Blue Book," International UFO Reporter (Center for UFO Studies), March/April 1991, section "Project Henry," https://www.project1947.com/articles/jzbluebook.htm.
[^15]: Haines, text and notes 34 to 39 and 80.
[^16]: "Project Henry," Project 1947, notes of 11 February 1953 (Ruppelt) and 13 July 1953 (Olsson) and the bracketed comment of Jan L. Aldrich, http://www.project1947.com/projecthenry/index.htm.
[^17]: Haines, notes 47 to 51, 72 to 74 and 79, citing Strong's letters and memorandum of 20 December 1957, Berkner's letter of 20 November 1957, Page's letter of 4 December 1957, Weber's letter of 15 August 1966, and Lear, "The Disputed CIA Document on UFOs," Saturday Review, 3 September 1966, p. 45.
[^18]: Donald E. Keyhoe, National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, to the Central Intelligence Agency, 22 September 1958, with Agency routing slips of 30 September 1958 and note of 2 October 1958, CREST document CIA-RDP80B01676R004000110004-4 (5 pages), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80b01676r004000110004-4.
[^19]: Editors' notes in the online Condon Report, Appendix U, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-u.htm ("previously deleted names" shown in braces).
[^20]: Condon, Section V, chapter 2, pp. 865 and 877-878.
[^21]: Condon, Appendix A, "Special Report of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project 'Blue Book,'" March 1966, section I, https://files.ncas.org/condon/text/appndx-a.htm.
[^22]: Air Force action memorandum, "Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO)," 20 October 1969, with signature block of Brigadier General C. H. Bolender, paragraph 4, text at http://www.nicap.org/Bolender_Memo.htm.

155
50 - CONCEPTS & TECHNOLOGY/Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,155 @@
---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Legislation
- UAP
- NDAA
- RecordsReviewBoard
- EminentDomain
- Senate
- Lobbying
alias:
- UAP Disclosure Act
- UAPDA
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023
- UAP Disclosure Act of 2023
- UAP Disclosure Act of 2024
- UAP Disclosure Act of 2025
- Schumer-Rounds UAP Disclosure Act
- Senate Amendment 797
- SA 797
summary: "Senate amendment of July 2023 by Schumer and Rounds, modeled on the JFK records law, passed with the 2024 defense bill and cut in conference to a National Archives records collection with no review board."
start: 2023-07-13
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Chuck Schumer]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-07-13
role: "prime sponsor of Senate Amendment 797"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Mike Rounds]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-07-13
role: "lead cosponsor of Senate Amendment 797"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Marco Rubio]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-07-13
role: "cosponsor of Senate Amendment 797"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Kirsten Gillibrand]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-07-13
role: "cosponsor of Senate Amendment 797"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Todd Young]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-07-13
role: "cosponsor of Senate Amendment 797"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Martin Heinrich]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-07-13
role: "cosponsor of Senate Amendment 797"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Sean Kirkpatrick]]"
reverse: true
role: "AARO director whose emails and interview state that the Pentagon and AARO convinced Congress not to enact the review board"
fn: 12
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Robert Garcia]]"
reverse: true
start: 2024
role: "filed a UAP Disclosure Act amendment to the House defense authorization bill, which he testified was blocked"
fn: 7
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Eric Burlison]]"
reverse: true
start: 2026-07-22
role: "sponsor of the House amendment to the fiscal 2027 defense bill"
fn: 24
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA) was submitted on July 13, 2023 by Senate Majority Leader [[Chuck Schumer]] and Senators [[Mike Rounds]], [[Marco Rubio]], [[Kirsten Gillibrand]], [[Todd Young]] and [[Martin Heinrich]] as Senate Amendment 797 to the fiscal 2024 [[National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024|National Defense Authorization Act]] (S. 2226), concerning records on [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena|unidentified anomalous phenomena]] (UAP). It proposed a records collection at the [[National Archives and Records Administration]], a presidentially appointed Review Board modeled on the [[Assassination Records Review Board|board]] of the 1992 [[President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act]], and federal eminent domain over recovered technology and "biological evidence of non-human intelligence" held by private parties. The Senate passed the defense bill with the text on July 27, 2023 by 86 votes to 11. The version enacted on December 22, 2023 as Public Law 118-31 kept a National Archives collection and dropped the Review Board and the eminent domain section.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
### Senate Amendment 797 as submitted
As printed in the Congressional Record of July 13, 2023, the amendment added a title establishing an "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection." It required that each record be disclosed in full not later than 25 years after its creation unless the President certified grounds for postponement. The Review Board would have nine members appointed by the President with Senate consent, to serve until not later than September 30, 2030, with power to hold hearings, administer oaths, subpoena witnesses and documents, and, through the Attorney General, subpoena private persons. Nominees were barred if they had "any previous or current involvement with any legacy program or controlling authority," defined as government, commercial, academic and private sector endeavors to collect, exploit or reverse engineer technologies of unknown origin or examine biological evidence of non-human intelligence. The Board was to create a "Controlled Disclosure Campaign Plan" for material whose release was postponed and to brief the AARO. A $20,000,000 authorization for fiscal year 2024 was attached.[^1]
The Board's nominations were to follow recommendations from the Senate and House leaders, the Secretary of Defense, the National Academy of Sciences, "The UAP Disclosure Foundation," and the American Historical Association. A search of the [[ProPublica]] Nonprofit Explorer database found no organization named "UAP Disclosure Foundation." It listed the UAP Disclosure Fund of [[San Francisco]] (EIN 99-2834592), a 501(c)(4) with an [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date of July 2025, and the Sol Foundation Inc. of Carmel, [[Indiana]] (EIN 99-3863647), a 501(c)(3) with a ruling date of August 2024. The text of S. 2226 as passed by the Senate on July 27, 2023 lists in the same position "Established nonprofit research organizations relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena." At the House Oversight hearing of November 13, 2024, retired Rear Admiral [[Tim Gallaudet]] told Representative [[Robert Garcia]] that he was "a member of the UAP Discloser [sic] Fund as an advisor and the Sol Foundation as a senior strategic advisor, which is advocating the same."[^1][^2][^5][^6][^7]
### The Senate-passed text
The Senate-passed text, Division G of S. 2226, defines "unidentified anomalous phenomena" as any object operating or judged capable of operating in outer space, the atmosphere, ocean surfaces or undersea "lacking prosaic attribution due to performance characteristics and properties not previously known to be achievable," differentiated by observables including "instantaneous acceleration absent apparent inertia," "transmedium" travel and "multispectral signature control," and defines "technologies of unknown origin" and "non-human intelligence" ("any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin"). The records covered include those held by the Executive Office of the President, the military departments, the Department of Energy "and its progenitors, the Manhattan Project," the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] "and its progenitor, the Office of Strategic Services," the [[National Reconnaissance Office]], the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], the [[National Security Agency]], [[NASA]], the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] and "any private sector person or entity formerly or currently under contract or some other agreement with the Federal Government." Section 9011 allowed the Review Board to ask the Attorney General to petition courts to release information relevant to UAP held under seal or under a grand jury's injunction of secrecy. Section 9010(a) read: "The Federal Government shall exercise eminent domain over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons or entities in the interests of the public good."[^2]
### Senate passage and the House
[[Douglas Dean Johnson]], who reported on the measure throughout 2023 and supported it, wrote that it was unveiled on July 14, 2023, and "after some modifications" was added to the defense bill as part of a list of agreed amendments "without floor debate or a separate vote." The Senate passed S. 2226 on July 27, 2023 on a roll call of 86 to 11, and then inserted the same text into H.R. 2670, the House-passed defense bill. Johnson's summary also lists a separate provision associated with Gillibrand that would bar funds in fiscal 2024 for any classified program on UAP not briefed to the appropriate committees, congressional leadership and the AARO director, and would require any person under federal contract holding material relating to UAP to make it available to the AARO director and to provide "a comprehensive list of all non-earth origin or exotic unidentified anomalous phenomena material," and an addition of 27 million dollars to the AARO budget request by the Senate Armed Services Committee. He wrote that H.R. 2670 as passed by the House contained one UAP provision, an amendment by Representative [[Tim Burchett]], and that a second amendment, by Representative [[Mike Gallagher]], was "not made in order by the House Rules Committee, apparently due to some manner of objection informally lodged by leadership of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence."[^2][^8][^9]
On December 1, 2023 [[The Hill]] reported that members of the House UAP Caucus ([[Anna Paulina Luna]], Burchett, [[Matt Gaetz]], [[Jared Moskowitz]] and [[Eric Burlison]]) held a press conference after "it was reported top leaders in both chambers were attempting to kill legislation related to the effort," and wrote that "there were reports that House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), and House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) were looking to quash the act," who "appeared to have the support of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)." Schumer said on the Senate floor on December 4, 2023: "House Republicans are also attempting to kill another commonsense, bipartisan measure passed by the Senate."[^10][^11]
### The Pentagon redline and the conference
On July 24, 2024 Johnson published a 33-page document headed "Informal views on S. 2226 Division G: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure," marked as reviewed by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD(I&S)), which states: "After conferring with NARA/ISOO the Department strongly urges consideration of the following revisions identified below." Johnson wrote that file data indicated it was transmitted to negotiators in late November 2023. The text of Section 9010 in the document reads, with struck and inserted words running together in the text layer, "The It is the sense of Congress that the Federal Government shall should exercise eminent domain appropriately over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin," adds "in the territory of the United States," and in the heading of subsection (b) substitutes the AARO for the Review Board as the recipient of such material. Under 50 U.S.C. 3373 the AARO director is appointed by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security on administrative matters, and reports to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence on operational and security matters.[^12][^13][^14]
Johnson wrote that [[Sean Kirkpatrick]], AARO's director until December 1, 2023, told [[Marik von Rennenkampff]] on July 17, 2024: "We convinced Congress last year not to go down that road." In the same interview, as quoted by Johnson, Kirkpatrick said AARO objected that the proposal duplicated the historical report Congress had assigned in 2022 and that "I talked to all of the commercial industry, and they're scratching their heads and they don't know what they're talking about." By email on July 23, 2024 Kirkpatrick told Johnson he could not confirm the authenticity of the OUSD(I&S) document but that it "does represent many of the objections I tried to articulate." He said that no one at the [[White House]], the [[National Security Council]] or in Congress asked him to soften his position, and that the eminent domain compromise was proposed because "the conspiracy frenzy was pushing this narrative of some prime contractor having this material" and "since we know nothing exists, we didn't feel it made our job harder."[^12]
The conference report on H.R. 2670 passed the Senate on December 13, 2023 by 87 votes to 13. On the floor that day Schumer and Rounds held a colloquy. Schumer said: "We have also been notified by multiple credible sources that information on UAPs has also been withheld from Congress, which if true is a violation of laws requiring full notification to the legislative branch." Rounds listed as the most significant shortcomings of the conference agreement "the rejection, first of all, of a government-wide review board composed of expert citizens, presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed," and "a requirement as a transparency measure for the government to obtain any recovered UAP material or biological remains that may have been provided to private entities in the past and thereby hidden from Congress and the American people." Schumer said: "It is really an outrage the House didn't work with us on adopting our proposal for a review board," and: "Now it means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that have blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades." He acknowledged the late [[Harry Reid]] as "a mentor, who cared about this issue a great deal."[^15][^16]
### The enacted law
The enacted law is Public Law 118-31, signed on December 22, 2023, in Title XVIII, Subtitle C, Sections 1841 to 1843. It directs the Archivist to begin the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection" within 60 days, requires each head of a government office to review and organize records within 300 days, requires records transmitted for disclosure to be open for inspection within 30 days and online within 180 days after that, and provides that no record "created by a person or entity outside the Federal Government" may be "withheld, redacted, postponed for public disclosure, or reclassified" except for names or identities. It contains no review board and no eminent domain provision.[^3]
Section 1687 of the same law, "Limitation on Use of Funds for Certain Unreported Programs," provides that none of the funds authorized by the Act "may be obligated or expended in support of any activities involving unidentified anomalous phenomena protected under any form of special access or restricted access limitations unless the Secretary of Defense has provided the details of the activity to the appropriate congressional committees and congressional leadership, including for any activities described in a report released by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office in fiscal year 2024." Its subsection (b) provides that, consistent with Defense Department Instruction 3204.01 on oversight of independent research and development, independent research and development funding relating to UAP "shall not be allowable as indirect expenses for purposes of contracts covered by such instruction, unless such material and information is made available the appropriate congressional committees and congressional leadership." Section 7343, in the intelligence authorization division, contains a parallel funding limitation keyed to the [[Director of National Intelligence]] and a parallel independent research and development clause, and Section 7341 amends the reporting requirement of the AARO so that its director, rather than the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense jointly, submits it.[^17]
### Contractors, lobbying filings and campaign receipts
Johnson wrote that he had "repeatedly stated that the gutting of the bill was due not to any lobbying campaign by powerful defense contractors, as some imagined, but to opposition from the Pentagon/AARO, the objections of which were largely adopted by several of the very senior Republican lawmakers who were among the small group of lawmakers who resolved the final contentious issues on NDAA."[^12] At the 2024 hearing Representative [[Nancy Mace]] asked [[Luis Elizondo]] which contractors receive material of unknown origin and what [[Lockheed Martin]]'s expertise is; he answered "Aerospace, ma'am."[^18]
Searches of the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database on October 1 and 2, 2026 for the terms "UAP," "UFO," "unidentified aerial," "unidentified anomalous," "AARO," "anomaly resolution," "non-human," "extraterrestrial" and "disclosure act" in the specific lobbying issues text returned filings by four groups connected with the subject. [[Declassify UAP LLC]] of Baltimore, whose registration was posted by [[Nicholas Gold]] with an effective date of July 26, 2023 (the date of the House Oversight hearing at which [[David Grusch]] testified), describes its business as "Grassroots and direct lobbying for government UAP declassification," listed the House, the Senate, NASA and the White House Office as targets, reported expenses of 30,000 dollars for the third quarter of 2023, and filed reports through the first quarter of 2026. [[A10 Associates]] LLC reported 20,000 dollars per quarter from the client [[MUFON]] for "guidance and counsel on NDAA" from the first quarter of 2022, 30,000 dollars per quarter for "NDAA, UAP" from the second quarter of 2023 through the third quarter of 2024 (the fourth quarter of 2023 report refers to "S. 2226, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024 NDAA, and UAP issues"), and 10,000 dollars for the fourth quarter of 2024; its lobbyists included [[Jessica Tocco]], who disclosed a prior position as confidential assistant to Commerce Secretary [[Carlos Gutierrez]], and Danny McNamara. [[Solve Advocacy]] LLC (lobbyist [[Kevin Wright]]) reported 10,000 dollars per quarter from [[Advena Research]], formerly the Non-Human Intelligence Research Institute, from the third quarter of 2024 through the second quarter of 2026 for a "UAP Interparliamentary Alliance" (described from the fourth quarter of 2025 as an "Emerging Technologies Interparliamentary Caucus"). A lobbying firm for [[ExoAnalytic Solutions]] mentioned "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" in its fourth quarter 2024 report. The searches returned no filing by Lockheed Martin, [[Boeing]], [[Northrop Grumman]], [[Battelle]], [[Science Applications International Corporation]], [[Leidos]] or any other defense contractor with those terms in the issue text; the issue text does not always name the subject of the lobbying.[^19]
[[Federal Election Commission]] records show that in the 2024 election cycle (2023 and 2024) the campaign committee of Representative [[Mike Turner]], [[Citizens for Turner]], received 10,000 dollars from the Lockheed Martin Employees Political Action Committee, 10,000 from the Boeing PAC, 8,500 from the Northrop Grumman PAC, 10,000 from Raytheon and RTX committees combined, 10,000 from General Dynamics, 10,000 from L3Harris, 10,000 from BAE Systems, 10,000 from Leidos, 3,500 from the Science Applications International Corporation PAC and 7,000 from Huntington Ingalls, a total of 89,000 dollars. Mike Rogers for Congress, the committee of Representative [[Mike Rogers]], received 10,000 dollars each from the political action committees of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, L3Harris, BAE Systems, Leidos and Huntington Ingalls, a total of 90,000 dollars. Of those receipts, entries dated between the Senate vote of July 27 and the signing of December 22, 2023 total 19,000 dollars for Turner and 9,000 dollars for Rogers; those dated December 12 to 15, 2023 are a 2,000 dollar entry from the Boeing PAC to Rogers (December 12), 1,000 dollars from the Boeing PAC to Turner (December 13) and 1,000 dollars from the BAE Systems PAC to Turner (December 15). The two committees reported receipts of the same companies' PACs in the 2020 and 2022 cycles.[^20]
### Reintroduction
On July 11, 2024 Rounds, "for himself and Mr. Schumer," submitted Senate Amendment 2610 to the fiscal 2025 defense bill (S. 4638) as Division I, the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2024." It retained the nine-member Review Board, the September 30, 2030 termination date and the eminent domain section, authorized 20,000,000 dollars for fiscal year 2025, and in Section 1115 repealed Subtitle C of Title XVIII of Public Law 118-31. Johnson reported that the House-passed defense bill (H.R. 8070) contained no UAP provisions.[^12][^21] At the 2024 hearing Garcia said that "earlier this year," as part of the House defense authorization bill, he had filed an amendment to include the UAP Disclosure Act, "which would create a UAP Records Review Board with exercise of eminent domain over UAP-related material," that "the amendment was blocked," and that the Senate had included the Rounds-Schumer amendment.[^7]
On July 29, 2025 Schumer, "for himself, Mr. Rounds, and Mrs. Gillibrand," submitted Senate Amendment 3111 to the fiscal 2026 defense bill (S. 2296) as the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2025." On October 9, 2025 the Senate adopted by voice vote a manager's package of 48 listed amendments that did not include Amendment 3111, and passed S. 2296 by 77 votes to 20.[^22][^23]
On July 22, 2026 Burlison announced that the House had adopted his UAP Disclosure Act as an amendment to the fiscal 2027 defense bill. His release states that it would create a permanent records collection at the National Archives, "establish an independent UAP Records Review Board," and "extend disclosure requirements to covered government contractors," and that it "would support President Trump's Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE)."[^24]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Congressional Record, Senate, July 13, 2023, p. S2953, SA 797 (Mr. Schumer for himself, Mr. Rounds, Mr. Rubio, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Young, and Mr. Heinrich) to S. 2226, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023 (the printed text uses placeholder section numbers). https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2023/07/13/169/120/CREC-2023-07-13-pt1-PgS2953.pdf
[^2]: S. 2226, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, as passed by the Senate (engrossed amendment), Division G, Sections 9001 to 9015 (Section 9003 definitions, 9007 Review Board, 9010 eminent domain, 9011 other materials, 9014 authorization of appropriations). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118s2226es/html/BILLS-118s2226es.htm
[^3]: Public Law 118-31, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, December 22, 2023, Title XVIII, Subtitle C, Sections 1841 to 1843 (137 Stat. 700 to 704 and following). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ31/pdf/PLAW-118publ31.pdf
[^4]: U.S. Senate, roll call vote 212, July 27, 2023, "On Passage of the Bill S. 2226," bill passed 86 to 11; roll call vote 343, December 13, 2023, "On the Conference Report H.R. 2670," agreed to 87 to 13. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1181/vote_118_1_00212.xml and https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1181/vote_118_1_00343.xml
[^5]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, organization records for EIN 992834592 (UAP Disclosure Fund) and EIN 993863647 (Sol Foundation Inc) and a search for "UAP Disclosure Foundation" returning no organization, queried October 2, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/992834592.json
[^6]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth," joint hearing, November 13, 2024, Serial No. 118-135, transcript pp. 35 to 36 (questions of Rep. Garcia). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm
[^7]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, joint hearing, November 13, 2024, transcript pp. 35 to 36 (statements of Rep. Garcia and Dr. Gallaudet). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm
[^8]: Johnson, Douglas Dean. "UAP-related provisions currently under consideration in Congress," September 5, 2023 (originally posted September 3, 2023). https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/email/9680ee1e-7782-4c7b-afd4-bc1751db6b14/
[^9]: U.S. Senate, roll call vote 212, July 27, 2023, bill passed 86 to 11 (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1181/vote_118_1_00212.xml); Johnson, Douglas Dean, "UAP-related provisions currently under consideration in Congress," September 5, 2023 (https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/email/9680ee1e-7782-4c7b-afd4-bc1751db6b14/).
[^10]: Mitchell, Ellen. "House lawmakers demand transparency from leaders on UAP amendment's inclusion in Defense bill," The Hill, December 1, 2023. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4337149-house-lawmakers-demand-transparency-from-leaders-on-uap-amendments-inclusion-in-defense-bill/
[^11]: "Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Republicans Attempting To Block Bipartisan Legislation On Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," Senate Democrats, December 4, 2023. https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/majority-leader-schumer-floor-remarks-on-republicans-attempting-to-block-bipartisan-legislation-on-unidentified-aerial-phenomena
[^12]: Johnson, Douglas Dean. "The UAP Disclosure Act: The proposed Pentagon/AARO re-write of November 2023," July 24, 2024, including Kirkpatrick's emails of July 23, 2024 and excerpts of his interview by Marik von Rennenkampff of July 17, 2024. https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/uap-disclosure-act-pentagon-rewrite-nov-2023/
[^13]: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, "Informal views on S. 2226 Division G: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure," 33 pp., as published by Douglas Dean Johnson (authenticity not confirmed by Kirkpatrick); text layer read for Section 9010. https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/content/files/2024/07/Pentagon-Nov-2023-proposed-revisions-to-UAPDA.pdf
[^14]: 50 U.S.C. 3373(b) (establishment, appointment and reporting lines of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office), text of the Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373
[^15]: "Majority Leader Schumer And Republican Senator Mike Rounds Floor Colloquy On Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Provisions In The NDAA And Future Legislation On UAPs," Senate Democrats, December 13, 2023 (transcript of the colloquy). https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/majority-leader-schumer-and-republican-senator-mike-rounds-floor-colloquy-on-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-provisions-in-the-ndaa-and-future-legislation-on-uaps
[^16]: U.S. Senate, roll call vote 343, December 13, 2023, conference report agreed to 87 to 13 (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1181/vote_118_1_00343.xml); Johnson, Douglas Dean, "The UAP Disclosure Act: The proposed Pentagon/AARO re-write of November 2023," July 24, 2024, on House passage of the conference report on December 14, 2023 (https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/uap-disclosure-act-pentagon-rewrite-nov-2023/).
[^17]: Public Law 118-31, December 22, 2023, Section 1687 (137 Stat. 621 to 622) and Sections 7341 and 7343 (137 Stat. 1063 to 1064). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-118publ31/pdf/PLAW-118publ31.pdf
[^18]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, joint hearing, November 13, 2024, transcript pp. 44 to 45 (questions of Rep. Mace). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm
[^19]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, API queries of October 1 and 2, 2026: filings of Declassify UAP LLC (registration effective July 26, 2023, posted July 27, 2023; Q3 2023 report, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/5f5d6f92-35dc-4e6d-b766-e524e41a3a20/print/); A10 Associates, LLC for client MUFON (Q2 2023 report, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/046a4e46-a0ba-44df-bc1e-5359eb8fe09f/print/; Q4 2023 report, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/3d566ab6-738c-4c06-8679-07004d019153/print/); Solve Advocacy LLC for client Advena Research (Q4 2024 report, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/ccbc6184-d2ea-4545-8987-dab7658eb6b1/print/); Velos for client ExoAnalytic Solutions, Inc. (Q4 2024 report, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/6c3a599a-2de9-4209-b452-29fb4c9d24b7/print/). Query form: https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?filing_specific_lobbying_issues=UAP
[^20]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, schedule A receipts (non-individual contributors) for committee C00373001 (Citizens for Turner; candidate H2OH03067) and committee C00367862 (Mike Rogers for Congress; candidate H2AL03032), two-year transaction period 2024 (re-queried October 2, 2026), and periods 2020 and 2022, contributor names containing Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, Raytheon, RTX, General Dynamics, L3Harris, BAE, Battelle, Leidos, Science Applications and Huntington Ingalls. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
[^21]: Congressional Record, Senate, July 11, 2024, pp. S4943 to S4950, SA 2610 (Mr. Rounds for himself and Mr. Schumer) to S. 4638, Division I, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2024," Sections 1114 and 1115. https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2024/07/11/170/115/CREC-2024-07-11-pt1-PgS4943.pdf and https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2024/07/11/170/115/CREC-2024-07-11-pt1-PgS4950.pdf
[^22]: Congressional Record, Senate, July 29, 2025, p. S4847 and following, SA 3111 (Mr. Schumer for himself, Mr. Rounds, and Mrs. Gillibrand) to S. 2296, "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2025." https://www.congress.gov/119/crec/2025/07/29/171/130/CREC-2025-07-29-pt1-PgS4847.pdf
[^23]: U.S. Senate Periodical Press Gallery, "Thursday, October 9, 2025," floor log (manager's package adopted by voice vote; S. 2296 passed 77 to 20). https://www.dailypress.senate.gov/thursday-october-9-2025/
[^24]: Burlison, Eric. "House Adopts Burlison Amendment Establishing UAP Disclosure Framework," press release, July 22, 2026. https://burlison.house.gov/media/press-releases/house-adopts-burlison-amendment-establishing-uap-disclosure-framework

146
60 - PLACES/MILITARY_INSTALLATIONS/Area 51.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
---
category: "Military Installation"
tags:
- MilitaryInstallation
- Nevada
- CIA
- AirForce
- U2
- OXCART
- UFO
- StateSecrets
alias:
- Area 51
- Groom Lake
- Groom Dry Lake
- Paradise Ranch
- Watertown Strip
- Watertown
- the Ranch
- operating location near Groom Lake
summary: "Classified Air Force operating location at Groom Lake, Nevada, chosen in 1955 for the CIA's U-2, confirmed in the CIA's own history in 2013, and covered from 1995 by annual presidential exemptions from waste disclosure."
start: 1955-04-12
location: "Lincoln County, Nevada"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
reverse: true
start: 1955-04-12
role: "project staff selected the Groom Lake strip for testing the U-2"
fn: 1
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Lockheed Aircraft Company]]"
reverse: true
start: 1955-07
role: "built and tested the U-2 and A-12 at the site"
fn: 1
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[EG&G]]"
reverse: true
start: 1959-09-10
role: "agreed to move its radar test facility to the site for the A-12 mockup"
fn: 13
- type: investigated
with: "[[Environmental Protection Agency]]"
reverse: true
start: 1994-12-06
end: 1995-03-10
role: "inspected the operating location under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act"
fn: 2
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Frost v. Perry]]"
role: "Resource Conservation and Recovery Act citizen suit by former workers, dismissed on state secrets grounds"
fn: 2
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Kasza v. Browner]]"
role: "citizen suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over inspection and disclosure of reports on the site"
fn: 2
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
---
Area 51 is the map designation, used in the Central Intelligence Agency's history of the U-2 and OXCART programs, of the strip at Groom Lake in [[Lincoln County, Nevada|Lincoln County]], Nevada. The government's own phrase in court and in presidential determinations is "the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake."[^1][^2] The CIA's history of the program was released in a less redacted form in 2013.[^3]
### Selection of the site, 1955
On November 26, 1954 [[Allen Dulles]] told his special assistant [[Richard Bissell]] that President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] had just approved a very secret program, and Bissell was put in charge of the aircraft that became the [[Lockheed Aircraft Company]] U-2.[^4] The [[National Security Archive]] reported that on February 21, 1955 Bissell wrote a check for $1.25 million on an Agency account and mailed it to the home of Lockheed's chief engineer [[Kelly Johnson]], ahead of a $22.5 million contract for twenty aircraft; the CIA history records that Lockheed delivered the twenty for $17,025,542 plus a profit of $1,952,055, a total of $18,977,597, and that Public Law 110 of 1949 made the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] the only government employee who can obligate federal money without vouchers.[^3][^5]
On April 12, 1955 Bissell and Colonel [[Osmund Ritland]], the senior Air Force officer on the project staff, flew over Nevada with Johnson and Lockheed's chief test pilot [[Tony LeVier]] and spotted what appeared to be an airstrip beside a salt flat known as Groom Lake, near the northeast corner of the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Proving Ground. LeVier landed on the lakebed. The strip had been used in the Second World War as an aerial gunnery range. Back in Washington Bissell discovered that Groom Lake was not part of the AEC proving ground; after consulting Dulles, Bissell and Miller asked the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] to add the Groom Lake area to its real estate holdings in Nevada. The AEC's chairman, Admiral [[Lewis Strauss]], readily agreed, and President Eisenhower also approved the addition of the strip, known by its map designation as Area 51, to the [[Nevada Test Site]]. Johnson called the site the Paradise Ranch, shortened to the Ranch; when rainwater runoff filled the lake the base acquired another unofficial name, Watertown Strip. By July 1955 Agency, Air Force and Lockheed personnel were moving in.[^1]
### The airlift and the 1955 crash
To move Lockheed employees from [[Burbank]] to Area 51 without attracting curiosity, the project staff flew essential personnel to the site on Monday mornings and back on Friday evenings. A regularly scheduled Military Air Transport Service flight on an Air Force C-54 began on October 3, 1955; James Cunningham called it "Bissell's Narrow-Gauge Airline." On November 17, 1955 a Military Air Transport Service aircraft bound for Area 51 crashed, killing all fourteen aboard, among them the CIA's project security officer [[William H. Marr]], four members of his staff, and personnel from Lockheed and [[Hycon]]; it was the greatest single loss of life in the U-2 program.[^6] In September 1960, when construction began for the OXCART program, a C-47 shuttle ferried work crews from Burbank to [[Las Vegas]] and from Las Vegas to the site.[^7]
### Security and cover stories
On April 29, 1955 Bissell signed an agreement with the Air Force and the Navy under which the CIA "assumed primary responsibility for all security" for the overhead reconnaissance project, and the CIA's [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] has since been responsible for keeping large numbers of contracts untraceable to the Agency. The Agency called its aircraft "articles" and its pilots "drivers."[^8] On May 7, 1956 the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics released an unclassified cover story that a Lockheed-developed aircraft would be flown by the Air Force Air Weather Service to study the jet stream, convective clouds, temperature and wind structures and cosmic-ray effects up to 55,000 feet.[^9] After the shooting down of [[Francis Gary Powers]] in 1960 the officials running the operation decided to keep to the standard cover story, approved by the President in 1956, that U-2 flights were weather flights staged by the [[NASA|National Aeronautics and Space Administration]], and a revised version was prepared to show [[Adana]], Turkey, as the base in order to conceal [[Pakistan]]'s role; the space agency, which had been renamed in 1958, then decided to end its support of the weather research story.[^10][^11]
### Release of the CIA history
The less redacted history released in 2013 was obtained under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] by [[Jeffrey T. Richelson]], a National Security Archive senior fellow, in response to a 2005 request. The history had been written by the Agency historians [[Gregory Pedlow]] and [[Donald Welzenbach]] and published in classified channels in 1992; a heavily redacted version of its U-2 portion had been published in 1998 by the Center for the Study of Intelligence as The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974.[^3] The 2013 release includes a map of the California and Nevada area showing the test site.[^3]
### Nuclear tests, EG&G and the radar range
The CIA vacated the Nevada site in 1957 as a result of Atomic Energy Commission nuclear testing, and in the autumn of 1956 Area 51 was about to become the training site for Air Force pilots who would fly the 29 U-2s the Air Force bought.[^11][^12] The research results of the [[Scientific Engineering Institute]] on Project RAINBOW, which sought to mask the U-2's radar image, were tested by Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier (EG&G), a firm also composed of [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] faculty members, which under an Air Force contract to evaluate radars operated a small testing facility at [[Indian Springs]], Nevada, not far from Area 51.[^12] OXCART was established as the codename for the A-12 at the end of August 1959. On September 10, 1959 EG&G agreed to move its radar test facility to the former U-2 testing site at Area 51 for radar cross section testing of the A-12 mockup, because Lockheed objected that the Indian Springs pylon could not support the full-scale mockup and that the facility was in full view of a highway. The mockup arrived by trailer truck from Burbank and was atop the pylon by November 18, 1959.[^13] A new 8,500-foot runway was completed by November 15, 1960, and the facilities were ready for the forecast delivery of the first A-12 on August 1, 1961.[^7]
EG&G Inc., which later took the name PerkinElmer, listed "EG&G Special Projects, Inc.," incorporated in Nevada, among its subsidiaries in its annual report on Form 10-K filed April 1, 1994, and again in the report filed March 22, 1996. The 1994 report describes EG&G's contracts at the Nevada Test Site for the Department of Energy's underground nuclear weapons test program, which expired on December 31, 1995.[^14][^15] On August 20, 1999 a subsidiary of [[Carlyle-EG&G Holdings Corp.]] bought certain assets and liabilities of the EG&G Technical Services business from PerkinElmer, and on August 22, 2002 [[URS Corporation]] acquired it and a second company, Lear Siegler Services, for stock valued at $47.8 million, $175.9 million in cash and the assumption of $155.6 million in debt; affiliates of TCG Holdings, L.L.C. received shares representing about 16.46 percent of URS's common stock, and Joseph E. Lipscomb, a URS director, was a vice president of EG&G Technical Services Holdings, L.L.C.[^16] The filings and the proxy statement do not mention Groom Lake.[^14][^16]
### U-2 flights and unidentified flying object reports
High-altitude testing of the U-2 produced a large increase in reports of unidentified flying objects, because commercial airliners then flew between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and military aircraft below 40,000 feet, so that air-traffic controllers began receiving reports from pilots who saw a U-2 at 60,000 feet lit by a sun that had set for the airliner. Investigators at the Air Force's [[Project Blue Book]] regularly asked the Agency's project staff in Washington to check reported sightings against U-2 flight logs, which let them eliminate most reports although "they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause." In a section titled "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK," the CIA's own history states: "U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s."[^17]
[[Gerald K. Haines]], the historian of the [[National Reconnaissance Office]], wrote in the CIA's journal in 1997 that, according to later estimates by CIA officials who worked on the U-2 and OXCART projects, over half of UFO reports from the late 1950s through the 1960s were accounted for by manned reconnaissance flights, and that "this led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project. While perhaps justified, this deception added fuel to the later conspiracy theories and the coverup controversy of the 1970s."[^18] The same article records that the [[Robertson Panel]], which met from January 14 to 17, 1953, recommended that the [[National Security Council]] debunk UFO reports and that private groups, including the Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators in [[Los Angeles]] and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Wisconsin, be monitored for subversive activities.[^18]
### Land withdrawals
The [[Bureau of Land Management]]'s Public Land Order 7131, effective April 7, 1995 and published April 10, 1995, withdrew 3,972.04 acres of public land in Lincoln County from surface entry, mining and mineral leasing until November 6, 2001 "to provide a safety and security buffer between public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management and withdrawn land under the jurisdiction of the [[Nellis Air Force Range]]." It was signed by Assistant Secretary of the Interior [[Bob Armstrong]].[^19]
Title XXX of Public Law 106-65, the Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1999 (113 Stat. 885, October 5, 1999), withdrew the Nellis Air Force Range, described as approximately 2,919,890 acres in Clark, Lincoln and Nye Counties, for use by the Secretary of the Air Force as an armament and high hazard testing area, among other purposes, and revoked Public Land Order 1662 of June 26, 1958. Section 3012(a) directed the Secretary of the Interior "as soon as practicable" to publish in the Federal Register a notice containing the legal description of the lands withdrawn; section 3015 set the termination of the Nellis withdrawal at twenty years after November 6, 2001.[^20] Section 2843 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (Public Law 116-283) extended the withdrawal. A Bureau of Land Management notice of October 18, 2021 states that "the legal land description for the Nevada Test and Training Range was not published in the Federal Register following enactment of the MLWA" and that the notice "corrects that deficiency"; it gives a termination date of November 6, 2046 and describes about 2,949,603 acres, of which 362,678 are in Clark County, 778,681 in Lincoln County and 1,808,244 in Nye County.[^21]
### Frost v. Perry and Kasza v. Browner
Helen Frost, the widow of a former worker, and others proceeding as Does, who had worked at a classified operating location near Groom Lake, brought a citizen suit under the [[Resource Conservation and Recovery Act]] against the Air Force, [[Frost v. Perry]]; Stella Kasza and Does sued the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] for failing to inspect, inventory and disclose, [[Kasza v. Browner]]. The Air Force refused nearly all discovery as privileged, and Secretary of the Air Force [[Sheila Widnall]] invoked the military and state secrets privilege over categories of information including "security sensitive environmental data," with an unclassified declaration and a classified declaration reviewed by the court in camera; the court also reviewed a classified declaration of Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General [[Thomas S. Moorman Jr.]] The district court entered summary judgment for the Air Force because the privilege barred evidence on whether hazardous waste had been generated, stored or disposed of at the location. Frost argued on appeal, among other things, that the Secretary could not have personally reviewed all the information withheld and suggested that the privilege was used to cover up environmental crimes at the location. The EPA inspected the location from December 6, 1994 to March 10, 1995, after Kasza was filed; the court ruled that the statute contained no exception for classified information but that the President could exempt a facility, and EPA then obtained a presidential exemption. The plaintiffs were represented by [[Jonathan Turley]] and [[Joan Manley]] of George Washington University; the government by lawyers of the [[Department of Justice]]; and KLAS, Inc. appeared as amicus. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|Ninth Circuit]] affirmed on January 8, 1998, remanding only attorney's fees and a sealing order, applying the privilege as defined in [[United States v. Reynolds]] (1953), and approved the "mosaic theory" under which seemingly innocuous information that is part of a classified mosaic may be withheld.[^2]
President [[Bill Clinton]] signed Presidential Determination No. 95-45 on September 29, 1995: "I hereby exempt the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada from any Federal, State, interstate or local provision respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of classified information concerning that operating location to any unauthorized person." It states that the exemption "shall be effective for the full one-year statutory period" and was published in the Federal Register on October 10, 1995.[^2][^22] The authorizing statute, 42 U.S.C. 6961(a), limits any such exemption to one year, and the Federal Register carries a renewal for each year from 1995 through 2003: Presidential Determination 96-54 of September 28, 1996 (published October 8, 1996), 97-35 of September 26, 1997 (October 8, 1997), a determination of September 25, 1998 reported in an Air Force notice of October 23, 1998, Presidential Determination 99-37 of September 20, 1999 (Air Force notice of October 26, 1999), 2000-30 of September 19, 2000 (October 5, 2000), 2001-27 of September 18, 2001 (October 4, 2001), 2002-30 of September 13, 2002 (Air Force notice of December 24, 2002) and 2003-39 of September 16, 2003 (October 21, 2003). Each text describes the location as the subject of litigation in Kasza v. Browner (D. Nev. CV-S-94-795-PMP) and Frost v. Perry (D. Nev. CV-S-94-714-PMP).[^23] The Federal Register's index returns no further document with the phrase "Groom Lake" after October 21, 2003.[^23]
### Statements by Richard Doty
[[Richard Doty]] wrote in 2000 that two alien spacecraft crashed in [[New Mexico]] in 1947 and that the government recovered bodies, and that "we don't have any UFOs at Area 51"; the publisher [[James W. Moseley]] reported that Doty told him he had visited Area 51, where he was told alien technology was kept but was not shown it because his clearance was not high enough.[^24][^25] [[Philip J. Klass]] wrote in 2000 that a manual among the [[Majestic-12]] papers, purportedly printed in April 1954, directed crashed craft to "Area 51 S-4," a name that he wrote the Nellis range portion was not given until several years after that date.[^26]
### Bob Lazar
In 1989 [[Bob Lazar]] told the Las Vegas reporter [[George Knapp]] that he had worked at a facility called S4 near Area 51, where his job was to help reverse-engineer the propulsion system of a craft "not made by human hands." On a radio program on December 20, 1989 he said he had two master's degrees, one in physics and one in electronics, had worked at [[Los Alamos]] as a technician and then as a physicist in the Polarized Proton Section, and had been hired at S-4 as a senior staff physicist; asked which school, he said he preferred not to say because he was working with it under contract.[^27][^28]
[[Tom Mahood]], in a series titled "The Lazar Flaws," collected the following. In a pre-sentence report dated July 27, 1990 for a pandering conviction, Lazar told the probation officer he held a bachelor's degree in physics and electronic technology from Pacifica University, a correspondence school, a master's in physics from MIT in 1982 and a master's in electronic technology from [[Caltech]] in 1985; the California agency that regulates vocational and correspondence schools had no listing for a Pacifica University. Lazar's attendance at [[Los Angeles Pierce College|Pierce College]] in Los Angeles was confirmed to [[Stanton Friedman]], and a Pierce instructor told Friedman Lazar took a class in the late 1970s; Friedman found no trace of Lazar at MIT. A marriage certificate of July 27, 1980 gives his occupation as electronics engineer and his highest grade as 12. A Los Alamos Monitor article of June 27, 1982 reported that the Lazars had moved to Los Alamos about a month earlier, and a bankruptcy filing of July 1986 listed his occupation for the previous six years as photo processor at his residence.[^28] An article in Skeptic in 2026 states that Lazar pleaded guilty in 1990 to a felony pandering charge in Nevada and that he has maintained that records connected to his work were altered or removed; the same article argues that a 1982 Monitor article identified him as a physicist at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility and that the CIA history's description of regular air shuttles to the site bears out part of the setting of his account.[^27] A site that defends Lazar states that no documents prove he obtained either degree and cites a friend's statement that Lazar worked at [[Fairchild Industries]] and attended Caltech.[^29]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (CIA History Staff, 1992; released in less redacted form June 25, 2013, document C00190094), chapter 2, "Developing the U-2," p. 56, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf
[^2]: Kasza v. Browner, 133 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. Jan. 8, 1998), affirming Frost v. Perry, 161 F.R.D. 434 (D. Nev. 1995) and 919 F. Supp. 1459 (D. Nev. 1996), and Kasza v. Browner, 902 F. Supp. 1240 (D. Nev. 1995), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1129437.html
[^3]: National Security Archive, "The Secret History of the U-2 and Area 51," Electronic Briefing Book No. 434, edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, August 15, 2013, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/
[^4]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 2, p. 39, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf
[^5]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 2, pp. 43 to 45, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf
[^6]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 2, p. 72, same URL.
[^7]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 6, "The U-2's Intended Successor: Project OXCART, 1956-1968," p. 284, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%206.pdf
[^8]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 2, "Security for the U-2 Project," pp. 59 to 60, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf
[^9]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 3, p. 94, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%203.pdf
[^10]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 4, the account of the Powers shootdown beginning at p. 178, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%204.pdf
[^11]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 4, p. 182, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%204.pdf ; the National Security Archive's reading notes on the 2013 release add that AEC nuclear tests caused the evacuation of Groom Lake, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/W-P%20History%20Notes%20by%20CP%20on%20redactions%20lifted%20Aug13.pdf
[^12]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 3, pp. 130 and 133 (the EG&G and Indian Springs passage, and the autumn 1956 Detachment C passage), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%203.pdf
[^13]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 6, p. 274, same URL as chapter 6 above.
[^14]: EG&G Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 2, 1994, filed April 1, 1994, list of subsidiaries and description of the Energy Measurements and Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Co. contracts, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/31791/0000031791-94-000004.txt
[^15]: EG&G Inc., Form 10-K filed March 22, 1996, list of subsidiaries and statement that the Reynolds Electrical and Engineering and Energy Measurements contracts expired December 31, 1995, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/31791/0000031791-96-000004.txt
[^16]: URS Corporation, definitive proxy statement (DEF 14A) filed December 24, 2002, sections on the EG&G acquisition, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/102379/000095014902002505/f84356ddef14a.htm
[^17]: Pedlow and Welzenbach, chapter 2, "U-2s, UFOs, and Operation BLUE BOOK," pp. 72 to 73, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB434/docs/U2%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf
[^18]: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90: A Die-Hard Issue," Studies in Intelligence (1997), https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/cia-role-study-UFOs.pdf
[^19]: Bureau of Land Management, Public Land Order 7131, "Withdrawal of Public Land to the United States Air Force; Nevada," 60 Fed. Reg. 18030 (Apr. 10, 1995), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1995-04-10/pdf/95-8756.pdf
[^20]: Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1999, title XXX of Pub. L. 106-65, 113 Stat. 885, sections 3011(b), 3012 and 3015, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-106publ65/pdf/PLAW-106publ65.pdf
[^21]: Bureau of Land Management, "Public Notice of Legal Land Description and Map Availability, Nevada Test and Training Range, Nevada," 86 Fed. Reg. 57687 (Oct. 18, 2021), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/10/18/2021-22587/public-notice-of-legal-land-description-and-map-availability-nevada-test-and-training-range-nevada
[^22]: Presidential Determination No. 95-45, "Presidential Determination on Classified Information Concerning the Air Force's Operating Location Near Groom Lake, Nevada," 60 Fed. Reg. 52823 (Oct. 10, 1995), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/1995/10/10/95-25244/presidential-determination-on-classified-information-concerning-the-air-forces-operating-location
[^23]: Federal Register documents 96-25959 (61 FR 52679), 97-26988 (62 FR 52647), 98-28349 (63 FR 56921), 99-27866 (64 FR 57633), 00-25742 (65 FR 59339), 01-25180 (66 FR 50807), 02-32334 (67 FR 78425, with Presidential Determination No. 2002-30 of September 13, 2002) and 03-26704 (68 FR 60279, Presidential Determination No. 2003-39 of September 16, 2003), found through the Federal Register API search for "Groom Lake," https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/text/2002/12/24/02-32334.txt
[^24]: James W. Moseley, ed., Saucer Smear, vol. 47, July 15, 2000, "Missives from the Masses" (letter of Richard Doty), http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000715.htm (printout of June 14, 2013), pp. 6 to 7.
[^25]: James W. Moseley, "The Paul Bennewitz Case Revisited," Saucer Smear, vol. 47, June 15, 2000, http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000615.htm (printout of June 7, 2013), p. 3.
[^26]: Philip J. Klass, "The New Bogus Majestic-12 Documents," Skeptical Inquirer, May/June 2000, pp. 44 to 46, https://centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2000/05/22164853/p44.pdf
[^27]: Emile Kinley-Gauthier, "The Strange Case of Bob Lazar," Skeptic, April 23, 2026, https://www.skeptic.com/article/the-strange-case-of-bob-lazar/
[^28]: Tom Mahood, "The Lazar Flaws: The Academic Background," https://dreamlandresort.com/area51/lazar/fl-edu.htm
[^29]: "Lazar's Education III. Missing Records," Bob Lazar Vindicated, https://boblazarvindicated.com/articles/education-records/