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---
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.

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---
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