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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Avi Loeb.md Normal file
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---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Person
- Astronomer
- Harvard
- UAP
- Author
alias:
- Abraham Loeb
- Abraham "Avi" Loeb
- Loeb, Avi
summary: "Avi Loeb is Harvard's Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and head of the Galileo Project, co-founded with Frank Laukien in 2021, and led the 2023 IM1 expedition funded by Charles Hoskinson."
location: "Cambridge, Massachusetts"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Harvard University]]"
role: "Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science, Department of Astronomy; director of the Institute for Theory and Computation, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; founding director of the Black Hole Initiative"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Galileo Project]]"
role: "co-founder with Frank Laukien and head of the project"
start: 2021-07-26
fn: 2
- type: founded
with: "[[UAP Science Advisory Council]]"
role: "formed the council in June 2026; routes communication with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence"
start: 2026-06
fn: 16
created: 2026-10-03
updated: 2026-10-03
---
[[Avi Loeb]] is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science in the Department of Astronomy at [[Harvard University]], director of the [[Institute for Theory and Computation]] at the [[Harvard-Smithsonian]] [[Center for Astrophysics]], and founding director of Harvard's [[Black Hole Initiative]].[^1] He wrote *Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth* ([[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]], 2021), which argued that [[ʻOumuamua]], the first interstellar object observed in the Solar System (discovered October 19, 2017), could be an artificial object resembling a thin light sail or communications dish.[^2] *[[Inverse]]*, citing *[[Science (journal)|Science]]*, reported that wealthy donors contacted him after the book appeared and four of them gave about 1.75 million dollars to start the [[Galileo Project]].[^3]
### Correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein
On October 14, 2015, [[Lesley Groff]], assistant to [[Jeffrey Epstein]], wrote to the Harvard mathematician [[Shing-Tung Yau]] that Epstein was coming to Harvard on October 16 and asked whether anyone else should be introduced to him. Yau answered that he would come at 2 p.m. with [[Conan Leung]] and would try to arrange other faculty at 3 p.m.[^4] At 9:15 a.m. on October 16 Yau wrote: "I shall also bring prof Avi Loeb who is chairman of astronomy in harvard at three pm." An itinerary sent to Epstein that day under the subject "Yau to bring Avi Loeb" listed, at [[Martin Nowak]]'s institute in Cambridge, a 2 p.m. meeting with Yau and Leung, at 3 p.m. "Andy Strominger to join the Yau and Conan meeting," and at 3 p.m. "Avi Loeb to join the Yau, Conan and Andy meeting."[^5] At 11:27 a.m. Yau wrote to Groff: "It turns out that Loeb cannot come." He added that [[Andrew Strominger]] would be there at 3 p.m.[^6]
On October 17, 2015, Loeb sent Yau a message titled "Exciting projects" with three attached project descriptions. The second, by his account, was "the establishment of the first research center for black holes (Black Hole Center)," and he wrote that "we currently have the technology to obtain an image of black holes within the next five years, with suitable funding." It closed: "Feel free to forward this message to Jeffrey Epstein." The message was forwarded to Epstein on October 24, 2015, with Groff copied.[^7] On October 20, Strominger wrote to Epstein that he was involved, "still in the planning stage," in "an interdisciplinary Black Hole Center with Avi Loeb, [[Peter Galison]], [[Ramesh Narayan]] and the head of the [[Event Horizon Telescope]] [[Shep Doeleman]]," which "needs a 50 million endowment," and that [[Larry Summers]] had raised 7 million dollars for his black hole information paradox group about twelve years earlier, a sum that would be spent down by January 1.[^8]
On February 16, 2016, Loeb wrote to "BHC colleagues" after meeting [[Harvard University]]'s Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences [[Mike Smith]] and Dean of Science [[Jeremy Bloxham]]. He reported that Smith said Harvard rules do not allow the word "Center" unless it is endowed, so for the time being the group should use the name "Black Hole Initiative"; that Smith objected to a 100,000 dollar rent payment to Yau in the proposal because "this will not withstand an audit"; that Smith asked him to compile a list of potential donors for Harvard's development office, to which Loeb would add "some people I know (like [[Yuri Milner]])"; and that "the minimum endowment goal should be $20M, since it will provide us with an operating budget of $1M per year." The email also refers to a proposal to "JTF" and to a visit by [[Stephen Hawking]] on April 18 and 19.[^9] On February 17, Yau wrote to Groff: "Can you ask Jeffrey whether any of his friends have interest to fund a center on black hole ?it will take twenty million dollars," and on February 19 added that a center for computational biology in which Nowak "may play a key role" "may be much more expensive." Groff replied that she would forward the request to Epstein.[^9] None of the eleven documents in which Loeb is named records a reply from Epstein or a payment from Epstein or his entities to Harvard, the Black Hole Initiative, Loeb or Yau.
On October 5, 2018, [[Robert Lawrence Kuhn]] sent Epstein the October 2018 newsletter of [[Closer To Truth]], which described filming at a fine-tuning conference in Crete with "old friends such as Avi Loeb, [[Bernard Carr]], [[Fred Adams]] and [[David Albert]]."[^10]
### Galileo Project
Loeb heads the Galileo Project, announced July 26, 2021 and co-founded with [[Frank Laukien]], chief executive of [[Bruker Corporation]]. Its funding sources, advisory boards and fellowships are set out on the project page; the gift route is a Harvard alumni giving form for a "Research Fund u/d Professor Avi Loeb," and the project's posted statement is that it receives no governmental or military funding.[^2][^11] On October 30, 2021 he named [[Christopher Mellon]] and [[Luis Elizondo]] research affiliates. On April 26, 2024 he was quoted in the announcement of a 575,000 dollar grant from the [[Richard King Mellon Foundation]]: "This significant investment will enable the Galileo Project to expand our capacity to observe unexplained aerial phenomena in our own skies."[^12]
### IM1 and the 2023 Interstellar Expedition
The [[EYOS Expeditions]] release credits a 2019 paper by Loeb and the Harvard undergraduate [[Amir Siraj]] with identifying the meteor of January 8, 2014 (CNEOS 2014-01-08, "IM1") as interstellar, and says the identification was confirmed three years later by the [[United States]] [[United States Space Command|Space Command]] to [[NASA]]. Loeb was chief scientist of the Interstellar Expedition of June 2023, which recovered 50 metallic spherules from about 2 kilometers depth near [[Manus Island]], [[Papua New Guinea]]. The release states the expedition "was funded privately by American entrepreneur [[Charles Hoskinson]]"; Loeb wrote in his diary in [[The Debrief]]: "In the case of IM1, the Interstellar Expedition received funding at 1.5 million dollars and delivered the evidence we were seeking," set against the [[Large Hadron Collider]] "funded at ten billion dollars."[^13][^14] Loeb said on the expedition that the question was "whether the meteor was natural or technological in origin."[^13] *[[New York Magazine]]* reported in 2024 that Loeb "strongly disputes the coal-ash explanation" offered by critics of the spherules' provenance, that he says the composition shows a "pattern of elements from outside the solar system," and that he told the writer that some critics "behave like terrorists."[^15]
### Government and advisory roles
Loeb told *[[The Harvard Crimson]]* in July 2026 that he had previously served on the [[President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology]] under [[Donald Trump]], that the director of the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] visited his home after taking office, and that government officials had approached him several times over the previous five years. He announced the [[UAP Science Advisory Council]] in mid-June 2026 after a representative of the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] visited him at home; he told the Crimson the [[White House]] gave him a "free hand" in choosing members, that the council has no budget, and that he did not inform Harvard's president [[Alan Garber]] before agreeing to serve. He was also quoted: "I'm supporting the prosperity of the United States and the science I'm pursuing, and I'm not doing it on behalf of a political agenda."[^16] [[Charles Alcock]], director of the Center for Astrophysics, was listed on the Galileo Project's Scientific Advisory Board.[^17] A draft paper dated March 7, 2023, "Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," listed [[Sean Kirkpatrick]] as director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and Loeb as head of the Galileo Project.[^18]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Research Team." The Galileo Project website, snapshot of December 25, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/people
[^2]: The Galileo Project. "Press Release and Press Conference Announcement," July 26, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/galileo_project-announcement_pr-7.26.21.pdf (Internet Archive copy).
[^3]: Inverse, "Galileo Project: A new hunt for alien objects in the universe," July 2021. https://www.inverse.com/science/new-project-to-hunt-for-alien-objects-in-the-universe
[^4]: EFTA00337551, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00337551.pdf; EFTA02070510, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 10, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02070510.pdf (Lesley Groff and Yau, email chain of October 14 to 16, 2015).
[^5]: EFTA00337558, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00337558.pdf (itinerary sent to Epstein, October 16, 2015); EFTA00285143, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00285143.pdf (calendar entry for the same day).
[^6]: EFTA02069885, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 10, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02069885.pdf; EFTA00337208, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00337208.pdf (Yau to Groff, October 16, 2015, 11:27 a.m., and Groff's reply at 3:38 p.m.).
[^7]: EFTA02671731, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 11, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02671731.pdf (Loeb to Yau, October 17, 2015, forwarded to Epstein with Groff copied on October 24, 2015; the forwarder's name is redacted).
[^8]: EFTA00714297, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00714297.pdf; EFTA00337280, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00337280.pdf (Strominger to Epstein, October 20, 2015).
[^9]: EFTA00328899, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 9, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00328899.pdf (Loeb to "BHC colleagues," February 16, 2016, forwarded in Yau's emails to Groff of February 17 and 19, 2016).
[^10]: EFTA02620767, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, Data Set 11, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02620767.pdf (Robert Kuhn to Epstein, October 5, 2018, with the Closer To Truth newsletter of October 2018).
[^11]: "Support Us." The Galileo Project website, 2021 to 2024 snapshots. https://web.archive.org/web/2021/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/fund-us
[^12]: "Richard King Mellon Foundation awards $575,000 to Galileo Project," April 26, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/news/richard-king-mellon-foundation-awards-575000-galileo-project
[^13]: EYOS Expeditions. "Extraterrestrial Evidence Found: Spheres From Outside Our Solar System Identified by the Interstellar Expedition." https://www.eyos-expeditions.com/?p=2240
[^14]: Loeb, Avi. "Diary of an Interstellar Voyage, Parts 28-30." *The Debrief,* June 2023. https://thedebrief.org/diary-of-an-interstellar-voyage-parts-28-30-june-25-26-2023/
[^15]: Baker, Nicholson. "How We Lost Our Minds About UFOs." *New York Magazine,* January 31, 2024. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/leslie-kean-ufo-sightings-aliens.html
[^16]: Shah, Neil H., Theresa F. Bartelme and Risha Sinha. "Inside Avi Loeb's New UAP Council, Built From His Harvard Orbit." *The Harvard Crimson,* July 11, 2026. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/7/11/avi-loeb-uap-council/. The PCAST service is as stated by the Crimson, not checked against White House records.
[^17]: "Advisory Boards." The Galileo Project website, snapshot of December 25, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/organization/advisory-boards
[^18]: Loeb, Abraham, and Sean M. Kirkpatrick. "Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," draft of March 7, 2023, as cited on the vault page for Sean Kirkpatrick; https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/LK1.pdf (draft read; its title block gives Loeb as "Head of the Galileo Project, Astronomy Department, Harvard University" and Kirkpatrick as "Director of All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office").

7
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/C.B. Scott Jones.md
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@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ relations:
start: 1998
fn: 2
created: 2026-10-02
updated: 2026-10-02
updated: 2026-10-03
---
Cecil B. "Scott" Jones (February 19, 1928, at [[Emporia, Kansas]], to January 16, 2023) was a Navy fighter pilot and intelligence officer who worked from 1985 to 1991 on the staff of Senator [[Claiborne Pell]] of [[Rhode Island]], then as president of the [[Human Potential Foundation]].[^1] His birth year is also recorded as 1924, in the register of his papers at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]].[^2]
@ -92,6 +92,10 @@ Jones left Pell's staff in March 1991 and ran the Foundation until its dissoluti
Jones presented a talk on exopolitics in [[Hawaii]] in June 2006.[^14] He founded the [[Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth]] in 1998, which received its [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling in October 1998.[^2][^15]
### Series 4 and 6 container titles
The finding aid lists Series 4 (Human Potential Foundation, with subseries for Pell, the Foundation Board, Grants and Funding, Projects and Events) and Series 6 ("Special Assistant to Senator Claiborne Pell," with Legislation, Symposium on Consciousness and Survival 1985, Soviet-American Relations, Paranormal Aide, Reports and organizations, Unidentified Flying Objects, Speeches and Subject Files subseries). Among the titles are "Uri Geller Scandal" files, "Soviet Psychotronics correspondence and memos," "National Science Foundation: [[Andrija Puharich]] reports and correspondence," "Howard J. Hoffman Government Liaison Project" and "A Model of Government Preparation for ET Contact and Cooperation" by Jones; the full title lists are on the pages for [[Human Potential Foundation]] and [[Claiborne Pell]].[^16]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Archives for the Unexplained, "Jones, C. B. Scott" (reproducing the obituary in the *Kerrville Daily Times*: born February 19, 1928, Emporia, Kansas, to Cecil Beam Jones Sr.; died January 16, 2023), https://anomalyarchives.org/collections/file/jones-c-b-scott/.
@ -109,3 +113,4 @@ Jones presented a talk on exopolitics in [[Hawaii]] in June 2006.[^14] He founde
[^13]: Jones to Gibbons, August 11, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-11-94.htm. The speaker of the "super safe black program" sentence is not named on the surviving scan; the context (the letter's next sentence begins "Apparently Woolsey believes") indicates Woolsey as the person quoted by Jones.
[^14]: Archives for the Unexplained, "Jones, C. B. Scott," as in note 1 (list of further resources, including a Hawaii presentation of June 2006).
[^15]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth (EIN 74-2888837), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/742888837.json.
[^16]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, collection COU:4004 (the C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers), ArchivesSpace resource 346, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346, container tree for Series 4 and Series 6, fetched October 3, 2026 from the vault owner's browser (titles only; no dates or box numbers in the saved tree).

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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Christopher Mellon.md
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@ -7,26 +7,110 @@ tags:
summary: "Christopher Mellon served for nearly two decades in the federal government, holding high-level positions in both the executive and legislative branches."
born: 1957-10-02
location: "Topeka, Kansas"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Office of the Secretary of Defense]]"
role: "Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and a principal on William Cohen's staff when Cohen was Secretary of Defense, as Elizondo wrote"
fn: 9
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]]"
role: "intelligence staff work for Senator William Cohen; minority staff director from February 2003 under vice chairman Jay Rockefeller; deputy staff director in Elizondo's account"
start: 2003-02
fn: 10
- type: member_of
with: "[[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]]"
start: 2017
end: 2020-11
role: "paid adviser and National Security Affairs Advisor; with Puthoff and Semivan, aligned with the organization of Tom DeLonge and Jim Semivan after Elizondo's resignation; left with Puthoff and Steve Justice"
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Sol Foundation]]"
start: 2023-11-17
role: "presenter at the first Sol symposium, Palo Alto, November 17 to 18, 2023"
fn: 14
updated: 2026-10-03
created: 2026-10-03
---
[[Christopher Mellon]] is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and a key strategist in the modern [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]] (UAP) disclosure movement. Coming from a prominent American family (Mellon banking and industrial dynasty), he has leveraged his extensive experience in intelligence and national security to bring the UAP issue to the forefront of the U.S. Congress and the public.[^1]
[[Christopher Mellon]] is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and a key strategist in the modern [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]] (UAP) disclosure movement. Coming from a prominent American family (great-grandson of the [[Gulf Oil]] founder and a descendant of Judge [[Thomas Mellon]]; see [[Mellon Family]]),[^1] he has leveraged his extensive experience in intelligence and national security to bring the UAP issue to the forefront of the U.S. Congress and the public.[^2]
### Government Career
Christopher Mellon served for nearly two decades in the federal government, holding high-level positions in both the executive and legislative branches. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence during the [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] and [[George W. Bush]] administrations, a role that gave him oversight of the entire Department of Defense intelligence apparatus and its most sensitive [[Special Access Programs]] (SAPs). Prior to this, he served for over a decade on the staff of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence|Senate Intelligence Committee]], eventually becoming the Minority Staff Director for Senator [[William S. Cohen]]. His deep understanding of the inner workings of the intelligence community and the legislative process would later prove invaluable to the UAP disclosure effort.[^1]
Christopher Mellon served for nearly two decades in the federal government, holding high-level positions in both the executive and legislative branches. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence during the [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] and [[George W. Bush]] administrations, a role that gave him oversight of the entire Department of Defense intelligence apparatus and its most sensitive [[Special Access Programs]] (SAPs). Prior to this, he spent a decade on intelligence staff work for Senator [[William S. Cohen]], whom he followed to the [[Pentagon]] when Cohen became Secretary of Defense, serving later under Secretary [[Donald Rumsfeld]], and from February 2003 he was minority staff director of the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence|Senate Intelligence Committee]] under vice chairman [[Jay Rockefeller]].[^1] [[Politico]] described him in December 2017 as "a former Democratic staff director for the [[United States Senate|Senate]] Intelligence Committee," and the September 29, 2017 offering circular of [[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] describes him as a "private equity investor, political commentator and the Chair of the Science Committee at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History," with 20 years in federal government including service as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and as "Minority Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence," who as an aide to Cohen "drafted the legislation that established the US Special Operations Command," with a B.A. in economics from [[Colby College]] and an M.A. in international affairs from [[Yale University]].[^1][^3] His deep understanding of the inner workings of the intelligence community and the legislative process would later prove invaluable to the UAP disclosure effort.[^2]
### Involvement with AATIP and Luis Elizondo
In early 2017, while serving as an unpaid consultant for the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]], Mellon was introduced to [[Luis Elizondo]] by a mutual friend from the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], [[Jim Semivan]]. Elizondo, who was then secretly running the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP), provided Mellon with a comprehensive briefing on the UAP issue. Mellon was shown incontrovertible evidence, including radar data and pilot testimony from the 2004 [[Tic Tac|Tic Tac Incident]], that demonstrated advanced, unidentified aircraft were routinely violating sensitive U.S. military airspace with impunity.[^1]
In early 2017, while serving as an unpaid consultant for the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]], Mellon was introduced to [[Luis Elizondo]] by a mutual friend from the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], [[Jim Semivan]]. Elizondo, who was then secretly running the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]] (AATIP), provided Mellon with a comprehensive briefing on the UAP issue. Mellon was shown incontrovertible evidence, including radar data and pilot testimony from the 2004 [[Tic Tac|Tic Tac Incident]], that demonstrated advanced, unidentified aircraft were routinely violating sensitive U.S. military airspace with impunity.[^2]
Mellon was profoundly disturbed by these revelations, viewing the government's failure to address the issue as a catastrophic intelligence failure reminiscent of the lead-up to [[Pearl Harbor]] or 9/11. He was outraged that information of such magnitude was not reaching senior policymakers. He and Elizondo attempted to work through the chain of command to brief Secretary of Defense [[James Mattis]], but their efforts were stonewalled by the Pentagon bureaucracy. This failure was a critical factor in Elizondo's decision to resign in protest.[^1]
Mellon was profoundly disturbed by these revelations, viewing the government's failure to address the issue as a catastrophic intelligence failure reminiscent of the lead-up to [[Pearl Harbor]] or 9/11. He was outraged that information of such magnitude was not reaching senior policymakers. He and Elizondo attempted to work through the chain of command to brief Secretary of Defense [[James Mattis]], but their efforts were stonewalled by the Pentagon bureaucracy. This failure was a critical factor in Elizondo's decision to resign in protest.[^2]
### The Legislative Strategy for Disclosure
Following Elizondo's resignation, Mellon became the primary architect of a multi-pronged strategy to force the UAP issue into the open. Recognizing that direct confrontation with the Pentagon was futile, he devised a plan to leverage Congress and the media. He personally facilitated the transfer of three declassified UAP videos - later known as "FLIR" (Tic Tac), "[[GIMBAL]]," and "[[GoFast]]" - to the New York Times, which resulted in a landmark front-page story in December 2017 that officially broke the news of AATIP's existence.[^1]
Following Elizondo's resignation, Mellon became the primary architect of a multi-pronged strategy to force the UAP issue into the open. Recognizing that direct confrontation with the Pentagon was futile, he devised a plan to leverage Congress and the media. He facilitated the transfer of Navy videos later known as "FLIR" (Tic Tac), "[[GIMBAL]]," and "[[GoFast]]" to journalists. The landmark front-page [[New York Times]] story of December 2017, which broke the news of AATIP's existence, carried two of them (FLIR1 and GIMBAL); GOFAST followed in March 2018.[^2][^4] Politico reported in 2021 that the [[Washington Headquarters Services]] declassification division approved the videos "for unlimited distribution" inside the government.[^5] The [[Department of Defense]] stated on April 27, 2020 that it had authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, which had been circulating in the public domain after "unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017."[^6] Mellon's own account, in the 2020 film *[[The Phenomenon (2020 film)|The Phenomenon]]*, is that he received the videos "in the Pentagon parking lot from a Defense Department official" and "still [has] the packaging."[^7] See [[December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report]].
Mellon then focused on a legislative approach, using his deep knowledge of Capitol Hill to engage with key staffers on the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees. He and Elizondo worked to educate lawmakers and arrange for them to be briefed directly by credible military eyewitnesses like Commander [[Dave Fravor]] and Lieutenant [[Alex Dietrich]]. Mellon's key strategic insight was to draft specific legislative language that would compel the [[Director of National Intelligence]] to produce an unclassified report on UAP. This language, which he championed through op-eds and private meetings, was eventually included in the committee report accompanying the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, signed into law in December 2020. This led to the landmark June 2021 "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena."[^1]
Mellon then focused on a legislative approach, using his deep knowledge of Capitol Hill to engage with key staffers on the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees. He and Elizondo worked to educate lawmakers and arrange for them to be briefed directly by credible military eyewitnesses like Commander [[Dave Fravor]] and Lieutenant [[Alex Dietrich]]. Mellon's key strategic insight was to draft specific legislative language that would compel the [[Director of National Intelligence]] to produce an unclassified report on UAP. This language, which he championed through op-eds and private meetings, was eventually included in the committee report accompanying the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, signed into law in December 2020. This led to the landmark June 2021 "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena."[^2]
His legislative efforts continued, culminating in the passage of even more robust UAP provisions in subsequent National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAAs). This included the creation of the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO) and, most significantly, the establishment of a secure whistleblower process, allowing individuals with knowledge of secret UAP programs to testify to Congress without fear of reprisal. This legislative work has been the single most effective driver of the modern disclosure movement.[^1]
His legislative efforts continued, culminating in the passage of even more robust UAP provisions in subsequent National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAAs). This included the creation of the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] (AARO) and, most significantly, the establishment of a secure whistleblower process, allowing individuals with knowledge of secret UAP programs to testify to Congress without fear of reprisal. This legislative work has been the single most effective driver of the modern disclosure movement.[^2]
### Mellon in Elizondo's account
Mellon's foreword, dated May 16, 2024, states that he first met Elizondo "at a closed-door Pentagon meeting early in 2017" while he was "an unpaid consultant for the Office of Naval Intelligence," that the mutual friend was Jim Semivan of the CIA, and that the meeting took place in Elizondo's Pentagon office, where Elizondo presented evidence of unidentified aircraft violating military airspace and a report on the 2004 Nimitz encounter; he wrote that he later took part in debriefings with Commander Dave Fravor and Lieutenant Alex Dietrich.[^8]
Elizondo wrote that a member of his staff announced "a former very senior-level DoD official" who "had the Office of Naval Intelligence clearances he needed," that Mellon introduced himself as a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, one step from the Secretary of Defense, and that Senator [[William Cohen]]'s closest advisor on Capitol Hill had been Mellon, whom Cohen brought to his staff when he became Secretary of Defense. He wrote that Mellon "even knew we were called AATIP"; that Semivan later told him he had told Mellon of AATIP and where to find it, and added that Mellon was an heir of the Mellon family; that Elizondo listed a series of clearances Mellon would need before a briefing and Mellon returned a week later with all of them; and that after a three-hour briefing on "legacy efforts" Mellon "admitted to us that he had zero visibility into the UAP topic" despite years of oversight of Defense Department special access programs.[^9] In a later passage Elizondo described Mellon as a former "deputy staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee" and as a founding author of the bill that created the [[United States Special Operations Command]].[^10]
He wrote that Mellon gave his name to senior officials who might reach Mattis; that after the Joint Staff declined an access designation for OPLAN Interloper and Mellon, Stratton and he concluded that Congress and the press were the only route, Mellon handed "a padded envelope filled with CDs" containing the three unclassified videos to a journalist in a parking lot inside the Beltway, having used his Pentagon contacts to obtain copies; that Mellon, Puthoff and Semivan met [[Leslie Kean]] with Elizondo for four hours after the resignation; that Mellon was "the brainchild" of a Politico story by [[Bryan Bender]]; and that Mellon, Puthoff and Semivan urged him to join To The Stars Academy.[^11] He wrote that Mellon, Stratton and he set a multiyear plan, the "Five Pillars of Engagement," that Mellon proposed having an oversight committee request an unclassified report from the Director of National Intelligence and drafted language posted online, and that "much of the wording" in Senate Report 116-233, which Senator [[Marco Rubio]] sponsored, "came directly from Chris Mellon's pen"; he gave the language as 422 words, signed with the Covid relief bill in late December 2020.[^12]
### To The Stars advisory board and Sol
The Regulation A offering circular of To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science filed with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] on August 15, 2017 names as its Advisory Board "Chris Mellon, Dr. [[Adele Gilpin]], Dr. [[Norman Kahn]], Dr. [[Colm Kelleher]], Dr. Garry Nolan, and Dr. [[Paul Rapp]]." Its biography of Mellon calls him "a private equity investor, political commentator and the Chair of the Science Committee at the [[Carnegie Museum of Natural History]]," and lists service as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and Bush administrations and as minority staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.[^13]
Mellon was among the speakers at the first [[Sol Foundation]] symposium, November 17 to 18, 2023 in [[Palo Alto, California]], listed in [[The Debrief]]'s account as "former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon," beside [[Avi Loeb]], [[Jacques Vallee]], [[Diana Walsh Pasulka]], [[Tim Gallaudet]] and [[Karl Nell]].[^14] He signed the November 12, 2024 letter to Congress urging enactment of the review-board provisions of the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]] as "Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; Former Staff Director, Department of Defense; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence," the signers including [[Garry Nolan]], [[Peter Skafish]] and Luis Elizondo; the letter states that signers joined as individuals and not for their organizations.[^15] The Sol Foundation's website, read October 3, 2026, does not list Mellon among its executive leadership or advisory board, and neither does its 2024 Form 990.[^16]
### Family
*Roll Call* described him in 2003 as "yes, of that Mellon family," 45 years old, "whose great-grandfather started the Gulf Oil Co.," and noted that Rockefeller was "the great-grandson of the man who founded [[Standard Oil]]," under the line "[[Rockefeller family|the Rockefellers]] and Mellons are taking over the Senate Select Intelligence Committee." Bryan Bender of Politico wrote in 2021 that he is "a scion of the [[Pennsylvania]] oil and banking family." Other bearers of the surname include Paul Mellon, a major in the [[Office of Strategic Services]] in Europe, his sister [[Ailsa Mellon Bruce]] and her husband the diplomat [[David K. E. Bruce]], and the publisher and donor Richard Mellon Scaife, who funded the [[Arkansas Project]] against Bill Clinton and sat on the [[Heritage Foundation]] board. No source opened states how these persons are related to Christopher Mellon or that he had dealings with them.[^1][^17]
### The placement of the December 2017 article
Per Bender (2021): in 2016 [[Tom DeLonge]] "called me up out of the blue," Mellon said, "and then through him I met Jim and Hal"; Mellon, who kept his clearance, then met Luis Elizondo at a Pentagon briefing; by fall 2017 Mellon "was also a paid adviser to DeLonge's TTSA" and acted as Elizondo's "unofficial public relations manager," who "started dangling the story to the New York Times, POLITICO and several other mainstream outlets." According to Leslie Kean's account to [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]], on October 4, 2017 Mellon had her called to a hotel bar near the Pentagon where [[Hal Puthoff]], Jim Semivan and Elizondo briefed her; the Times placement followed. Details and denials are on December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report.[^5][^18]
### Money and affiliations as recorded
TTSA: paid adviser (Bender); listed as "National Security Affairs Advisor" ([[Keith Kloor|Kloor]], 2019); the company's annual report for 2020 states he resigned from the advisory board in November 2020 (vault page for To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science).[^5][^19] The offering circular dated September 29, 2017 lists "Chris Mellon" first among six Advisory Board members and states that in June 2017 the company granted "employees and advisors" 9,000,000 options and 2,500,000 restricted shares under its stock incentive plan; the text read does not itemize grants by person. No source opened shows a payment from Mellon to TTSA, or the amount he was paid as an adviser.[^3]
[[Galileo Project]]: research affiliate from October 30, 2021, with Elizondo ([[Harvard University|Harvard]] release). On April 26, 2024 the Galileo Project announced a 575,000 dollar grant from the [[Richard King Mellon Foundation]] for a third observatory station in [[Allegheny County, Pennsylvania|Allegheny]] or [[Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania|Westmoreland County]], Pennsylvania, stating that Mellon "was instrumental in stewarding this grant."[^20][^21]
Lobbying and legislation: Lewis-Kraus wrote that the text Marco Rubio added in June 2020 to the 2021 Intelligence Authorization Act, requesting a UAP report from the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense, "drew heavily from proposals by Mellon"; Bender wrote that Mellon, "from his perch on the advisory board of DeLonge's company, ... effectively drafted the legislation later adopted by the Senate requesting the UAP report." Mellon's March 9, 2018 *[[Washington Post]]* op-ed was "The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn't the Pentagon care?"[^5][^18][^19]
### Statements beside denials
Kloor (2019) quoted Mellon on *[[Fox & Friends]]* on [[Fox News]]: "We know that UFOs exist," and wrote that Mellon did not respond to a request for comment on whether he and Elizondo do contract work for a U.S. agency; Elizondo told Kloor he was a government contractor "but it's not what you think it is." Mellon told Kloor by email in late 2018: "I did not claim the objects were alien... Merely real, intelligently controlled and not ours."[^19][^22]
### Federal Election Commission records
[[Federal Election Commission|FEC]] itemized receipts list a "Mellon, Christopher" of [[Laughlintown]], Pennsylvania (employer "[[Mellon Consulting]]" from 2008 to 2009, "[[A&E Networks]]" in 2020) with contributions of 1,000 to 2,000 dollars to [[John Murtha|Murtha for Congress]] (five entries, March 2008 to September 2009), 5,000 dollars to the [[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]] (June 23, 2008) and 2,400 dollars to [[Chuck Schumer|Friends of Schumer]] (July 16, 2010), and, on August 25 and 27, 2020, 2,800 dollars to [[Joe Biden|Biden for President]], 35,000 dollars to the [[Biden Victory Fund]] and 32,200 dollars to the [[Democratic National Committee]]. Other "Mellon, Christopher" donors in [[Greenfield Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania|Greenfield Township]], Pennsylvania and [[Conklin, New York|Conklin]], New York list [[Maines Paper & Food Service]] as employer. No record read states which of these entries belong to the former Pentagon official.[^23]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
[^1]: "Unholy Alliance?" *Roll Call,* February 12, 2003. https://rollcall.com/2003/02/12/unholy-alliance/
[^2]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
[^3]: To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science Inc. Offering Circular dated September 29, 2017 (Form 253G2, file no. 024-10728). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420417050693/v476177_253g2.htm
[^4]: Greenewald, John, Jr. "Navy Officially Releases UFO/UAP Videos, Calls Them 'Historical.'" The Black Vault, April 27, 2020. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/navy-officially-releases-ufo-uap-videos-calls-them-historical/
[^5]: Bender, Bryan. "The Hidden History of How Washington Embraced UFOs." *Politico Magazine,* May 28, 2021. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/28/ufos-secret-history-government-washington-dc-487900
[^6]: U.S. Department of Defense. "Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos," April 27, 2020. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/ (read through the Internet Archive capture, https://web.archive.org/web/2020id_/https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2165713/statement-by-the-department-of-defense-on-the-release-of-historical-navy-videos/).
[^7]: Banias, MJ. "Ex Intel Official Says He Was the Source of the Pentagon's UFO Videos." *Vice,* October 20, 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-guy-says-he-was-the-source-of-the-pentagons-ufo-videos/ (sole source for the statement, made on camera to James Fox; Vice could not verify).
[^8]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), Foreword by Christopher Mellon, dated May 16, 2024, pp. xiii to xxii. Page numbers are those of the printed index where it lists the passage; the digital copy read carries no pagination, so other pages are interpolated from index entries and may be off by one.
[^9]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 180 to 185 (Semivan at pp. 180 to 182 and 184 to 185; Mellon's visit at pp. 183 to 185).
[^10]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 222 to 224 (deputy staff director at p. 222; the special operations command bill at p. 224).
[^11]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 199 to 209 (CDs at p. 199; Kean at pp. 203 to 204; TTSA at pp. 204 to 205; Bender at p. 209; Mellon leaving TTSA at p. 220).
[^12]: Luis Elizondo, *Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs* (New York: William Morrow, 2024), pp. 222 to 230 (Five Pillars at p. 222; report proposal at p. 225; Senate Report 116-233 at p. 229; 422 words at p. 230).
[^13]: To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science Inc., Form 1-A, offering circular Part II and III, accession 0001144204-17-043466 (filed August 15, 2017), "Advisory Board." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420417043466/v473169_partiiandiii.htm
[^14]: Micah Hanks, "The Sol Foundation, Academia's New UAP Think Tank, Releases Videos of Lectures from Its Inaugural Symposium," *The Debrief*, February 12, 2024. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-academias-new-uap-think-tank-releases-videos-of-lectures-from-its-inaugural-symposium/
[^15]: Statement of Tim Gallaudet with signatory letter dated November 12, 2024, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, hearing of November 13, 2024. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-GallaudetPhDRearAdmiralUSNavyRetT-20241113-SD001.pdf
[^16]: The Sol Foundation, home page, "People" section, https://thesolfoundation.org/ , read October 3, 2026; IRS Form 990 for 2024, EIN 93-3649160, Part VII, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/933649160/202543269349300004/full
[^17]: Review of Lankford, *The Last American Aristocrat. Kirkus Reviews,* 1996; National Gallery of Art, 1999 Paul Mellon press release; *Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 5, 2014 (Scaife obituary). See the footnotes of [[Mellon Family]].
[^18]: Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. "How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously." *The New Yorker,* May 10, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously
[^19]: Kloor, Keith. "The Media Loves This UFO Expert Who Says He Worked for an Obscure Pentagon Program. Did He?" *The Intercept,* June 1, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/
[^20]: "The Galileo Project Welcomes Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo as Research Affiliates," October 30, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/mellon-elizondo_announcement_final_2.pdf (Internet Archive copy).
[^21]: "Richard King Mellon Foundation awards $575,000 to Galileo Project," April 26, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/news/richard-king-mellon-foundation-awards-575000-galileo-project
[^22]: Kloor, Keith. "UFOs Won't Go Away." *Issues in Science and Technology,* March 1, 2019. https://issues.org/ufos-wont-go-away/
[^23]: Federal Election Commission, schedule A receipts, contributor name "MELLON, CHRISTOPHER" (OpenFEC API query run October 3, 2026). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=MELLON%2C%20CHRISTOPHER

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---
category: "Business & Finance"
tags:
- Person
- Investor
- Philanthropy
- Harvard
- Cryptocurrency
alias:
- Eugene Y. Jhong
- Jhong, Eugene
summary: "Eugene Jhong holds Harvard A.B. and J.D. degrees and a Stanford master's in computer science, and is listed on the Galileo Project's Philanthropic Advisory Board."
location: "Los Altos, California"
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[Galileo Project]]"
role: "Philanthropic Advisory Board"
start: 2021
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Blake Masters]]"
role: "5,800 dollars on December 27, 2021 (two 2,900 dollar entries earmarked through WinRed) to Blake Masters for Senate, per FEC records under the name \"Jhong, Eugene\" of Los Altos"
start: 2021-12-27
fn: 3
- type: funded
with: "[[Brian Forde]]"
role: "2,700 dollars on May 10, 2018, with the memo \"0.59101569 bitcoins received, not liquidated,\" to Brian Forde for Congress, per FEC records under the name \"Jhong, Eugene\" of Los Altos"
start: 2018-05-10
fn: 3
created: 2026-10-03
updated: 2026-10-03
---
[[Eugene Jhong]] is listed first among the members of the Philanthropic Advisory Board of Harvard's [[Galileo Project]], with the credentials "Undergraduate (AB) and law degree (JD) from [[Harvard University]]" and "MS in Computer Science, [[Stanford University]]."[^1] The advisory board is described as providing "philanthropic advice to The Galileo Project." Its other listed entries are Vinny Jain, Teddy Jones, the [[Laukien Science Foundation]], Joerg Laukien, [[William A. Linton]] of [[Promega Corporation]] and the [[Usona Institute]], and Adnan Sen. The project's July 26, 2021 release states that it has "initial funding from generous donations and pledges by individuals and foundations listed on the Galileo Project website."[^1][^2]
### Patent
The [[United States Patent and Trademark Office]] granted U.S. Patent 6,259,458 B1, "Method of generating and navigating a 3-D representation of a hierarchical data structure," on July 10, 2001 to an inventor named Eugene Jhong (with co-inventor Karen E. Theisen), assignee Elastic Technology, Inc.; the application was filed January 29, 1999 and claims priority to August 6, 1997. The patent record does not tie the inventor to the Galileo Project or to [[Google]], and no source read for this page states that Jhong worked at Google.[^4]
### Federal Election Commission records
The [[Federal Election Commission|FEC]]'s itemized receipts list contributions under the name "Jhong, Eugene" of Los Altos, California; no record read states that this donor is the Galileo adviser, though the Galileo biography (Stanford master's in computer science) and the occupation fields (engineer in 2012, retired or investor later) are consistent with it. The entries: 201.20 dollars to the Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign (January 14, 2012; occupation engineer, employer self); 2,700 dollars to Brian Forde for Congress on May 10, 2018 with the memo "0.59101569 bitcoins received, not liquidated" (the itemization also carries offsetting negative entries of the same amount, which appear to be amendment reporting), and on July 14, 2018 a 2,700 dollar entry and its reversal marked "redesignation of general 2018 contribution"; 8,302.24 dollars on May 22, 2018 to the 314 Action Fund, itemized as a "non-contribution account" of 1.00 bitcoin, not liquidated; 500 dollars on March 5, 2019, 2,000 dollars on October 28, 2019 and 250 dollars on December 31, 2019 to Friends of Andrew Yang; 5,800 dollars on December 27, 2021 to Blake Masters for Senate (two 2,900 dollar entries earmarked through WinRed, with a matching 5,800 dollar WinRed conduit entry); 2,900 dollars on April 25, 2022 to Bruce Fenton for Liberty (occupation investor, employer self); and 2,900 dollars on November 3, 2022 to Gillibrand for Senate.[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Advisory Boards." The Galileo Project website, snapshot of December 25, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/organization/advisory-boards
[^2]: The Galileo Project. "Press Release and Press Conference Announcement," July 26, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/galileo_project-announcement_pr-7.26.21.pdf (Internet Archive copy).
[^3]: Federal Election Commission, schedule A receipts, contributor name "JHONG, EUGENE" (OpenFEC API query run October 3, 2026). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=JHONG%2C%20EUGENE
[^4]: Jhong, Eugene, and Karen E. Theisen. U.S. Patent 6,259,458 B1, granted July 10, 2001. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6259458B1/en (patent record; the Google Patents site is used only to display the USPTO document).

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---
category: "Business & Finance"
tags:
- Person
- Business
- Science
- Philanthropy
- Harvard
alias:
- Frank H. Laukien
- Frank Laukien, Ph.D.
- Frank Hartmut Laukien
- Laukien, Frank
summary: "Frank Laukien has been chairman, president and chief executive of Bruker Corporation since February 1991 and is its largest stockholder; he co-founded the Galileo Project with Avi Loeb in 2021."
location: "Billerica, Massachusetts"
relations:
- type: director_of
with: "[[Bruker Corporation]]"
role: "chairman, president and chief executive officer; largest stockholder (27.1 percent as of April 7, 2022)"
start: 1991-02
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Galileo Project]]"
role: "co-founder with Avi Loeb, named in Bruker's 2022 proxy statement"
start: 2021
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Independents Moving the Needle]]"
role: "1,190,000 dollars in three itemized contributions, December 5, 2023 to January 18, 2024 (FEC)"
start: 2023-12-05
end: 2024-01-18
fn: 3
created: 2026-10-03
updated: 2026-10-03
---
[[Frank Laukien]] has been chairman, president and chief executive officer of [[Bruker Corporation]] since February 1991, according to the company's 2022 proxy statement, which also calls him "our largest stockholder." He holds a B.S. in physics from the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from [[Harvard University]]; served on the Dean's Advisory Committee of the [[MIT School of Science]] until 2014 and on the Visiting Committee of the MIT Department of Chemistry; was elected a senator of [[acatech]], the German National Academy of Science and Engineering, in May 2017; co-chairs a working group of the [[American Association for Cancer Research]] on cancer evolution; and is a visiting scholar in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard. The proxy lists him as "co-founder of two start-up venture companies in therapeutics and space exploration, respectively, as well as of the non-profit [[Galileo Project]] at Harvard University."[^1]
### Bruker holdings and pay
Bruker's proxy statement filed April 22, 2022 reports that Laukien beneficially owned 40,448,233 shares, 27.1 percent of the class, as of April 7, 2022. The total includes 1,046,499 shares owned by [[Robyn Laukien]] and 492 shares owned by [[Ruta Laukien]], both described as former spouses, over which he has sole voting power; 336,607 shares held by his adult daughter and 337,087 by his adult son; and 273,430 shares held as custodian for minor children. It states that 5,000,000 shares "have been pledged by Dr. Laukien to secure a personal loan," and the related-party section describes a grandfathered pledge of 5,000,000 shares to secure a personal line of credit of up to 10 million dollars. His 2021 total compensation in the summary table was 5,594,539 dollars, including a salary of 811,581 dollars and a cash incentive of 1,615,669 dollars.[^1]
### Family transactions with Bruker
The same proxy reports that [[Dirk Laukien]] (half-brother), [[Joerg Laukien]] (brother) and Ms. Laukien-Kleiner (stepmother) co-own [[ZeroC Project GmbH]], which rents two properties in [[Faellanden]], [[Switzerland]] to [[Bruker BioSpin AG]]; Bruker paid 242,923 dollars in rent to ZeroC in 2021 for one of them. [[Isolde Laukien]] and Dirk Laukien co-own another Faellanden property rented to Bruker BioSpin AG, for which it paid 242,822 dollars in 2021 before the lease ended June 30, 2021. Dirk Laukien owns QA Group, LLC doing business as [[Quantum Analytics]], which bought 311,912 dollars of equipment from Bruker in 2021 for leasing to third parties. The proxy states that the payments equaled estimated fair market rent and that sales were in the ordinary course.[^1] Joerg Laukien and a "[[Laukien Science Foundation]]" appear on the Galileo Project's Philanthropic Advisory Board.[^2]
### Board and political contributions
The same proxy lists [[William A. Linton]], chairman, president and chief executive of [[Promega Corporation]] and founder and executive director of the [[Usona Institute]], as a Bruker director since 2000 and member of its Nominating & Governance Committee; Linton and the Laukien Science Foundation appear together on the Galileo Project's Philanthropic Advisory Board.[^1][^2]
[[Federal Election Commission]] itemized receipts list a Frank Laukien of [[North Hampton, New Hampshire|North Hampton]], New Hampshire, with employer Bruker Corporation, as donor of 500,000 dollars (December 5, 2023), 490,000 dollars (January 8, 2024) and 200,000 dollars (January 18, 2024) to [[Independents Moving the Needle]] (committee C00858381, an independent-expenditure-only committee registered November 29, 2023 with [[Jonathan Bush]] as treasurer), plus in-kind canvassing and meal expenses of 3,940 dollars and 2,186.40 dollars; 4,000 dollars to [[Nikki Haley|Nikki Haley for President]] (November 6, 2023); and, on April 3, 2024, 10,000 dollars to the [[Forward Party]]. Earlier receipts under "Laukien, Frank H." of Boston list 5,000 dollars to the [[Scott Brown|Scott Brown for U.S. Senate]] committee on July 18, 2012, 5,000 dollars each to the [[National Republican Senatorial Committee]] and Scott [[Scott Brown Victory Committee|Brown Victory Committee]] on September 20 and 28, 2012, and 5,200 dollars to the Brown Victory Committee on September 26, 2014.[^3]
In January 2024 Laukien and [[Jonathan Bush]], described as a technology entrepreneur who has worked in health care and a cousin of [[George W. Bush]], were reported as co-founders of the "[[Independents Moving the Needle]]" super PAC, which was not affiliated with the Haley campaign and was targeting roughly 200,000 independent voters in [[New Hampshire]] whom it thought could be swayed to support Haley; Laukien was described as a billionaire businessman and scientist. Laukien said of Haley: "It was very, very impressive in how issue after issue, she really had a clear understanding, a rational approach to it and an attitude of wanting to solve the many issues that we do have as a country," and that "we actually think that she could be the not only next generation leader, but perhaps a transformational leader who could work across the aisle." He also said, "I'm not a big fan of identity politics." The group hoped to deny [[Donald Trump]] a win in the New Hampshire primary of January 23, 2024.[^4]
### Galileo Project and the Laukien fellowship
The July 26, 2021 Galileo Project release states that the project "has been co-founded by [[Avi Loeb]] and Frank Laukien." The project later named its first postdoctoral appointee the "Laukien-Oumuamua fellow," [[Richard Cloete]], in May 2022.[^5][^6] *Inverse* wrote in July 2021 that the project "appears to be connected to the Laukien Science Foundation, spearheaded by billionaire Frank Laukien and William A. Linton"; the Galileo Project's own listing gives the foundation and Linton as board entries without stating who runs the foundation.[^2][^7] A [[ProPublica]] Nonprofit Explorer search for "Laukien Science Foundation" returned no organization.[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Bruker Corporation. Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 22, 2022 (accession 0001193125-22-115070). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1109354/000119312522115070/d256158ddef14a.htm
[^2]: "Advisory Boards." The Galileo Project website, snapshot of December 25, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/organization/advisory-boards
[^3]: Federal Election Commission, schedule A receipts, contributor name "LAUKIEN, FRANK" (OpenFEC API queries run October 3, 2026). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=LAUKIEN%2C%20FRANK
[^4]: "Analysis: Haley has a story to tell New Hampshire voters." *Concord Monitor,* January 20, 2024, p. A3 (continued from A1), via newspapers.com image 1032479659.
[^5]: The Galileo Project. "Press Release and Press Conference Announcement," July 26, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/galileo_project-announcement_pr-7.26.21.pdf (Internet Archive copy).
[^6]: "Laura Domine from Stanford University receives Keto-Galileo Postdoctoral Fellowship," May 12, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/news/laura-domine-stanford-university-receives-keto-galileo%C2%A0postdoctoral-fellowship
[^7]: Inverse, "Galileo Project: A new hunt for alien objects in the universe," July 2021. https://www.inverse.com/science/new-project-to-hunt-for-alien-objects-in-the-universe
[^8]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer search, "Laukien Science Foundation," run October 3, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/search.json?q=Laukien+Science+Foundation

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---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Person
- UAP
- Media
- ThielNetwork
- Podcaster
alias:
- Jesse Michels
- Jesse Michels (American Alchemy)
summary: "Investor listed as employed by Thiel Capital on a March 30, 2022 federal campaign contribution and creator of the American Alchemy YouTube channel."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Thiel Capital]]"
role: "investor, as stated by the contributor on FEC filings of 2022 and in a February 2023 podcast biography"
start: 2022-03-30
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Blake Masters]]"
role: "one contribution of 2,900 dollars earmarked through WinRed for Blake Masters for Senate, March 30, 2022"
start: 2022-03-30
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[American Alchemy]]"
role: "creator and host"
fn: 2
created: 2026-10-03
updated: 2026-10-03
---
Jesse Michels is the creator and host of American Alchemy, a long-form interview channel on [[YouTube]] and a podcast. A February 2, 2023 episode listing of the podcast [[Infinite Loops]], produced by [[O'Shaughnessy Ventures]], describes him as "an investor at [[Thiel Capital]] and the creator and host of 'American Alchemy', a Youtube channel dedicated to highlighting the most heretical thinkers and ideas of our time."[^2]
### Thiel Capital
[[Federal Election Commission]] (FEC) records list one contribution of 2,900 dollars dated March 30, 2022 from a Jesse Michels of [[Los Angeles]] ZIP code 90046 ([[California]]), giving his employer as "Thiel Capital" and his occupation as "Investor." The contribution appears twice in the federal database because it was routed through the conduit [[WinRed]] (committee C00694323): the candidate committee, [[Blake Masters]] for Senate (C00784165), reported it as "earmarked (non-directed) through WinRed" (receipt image 202204159496855525), and WinRed's own report lists it as "earmarked for Blake Masters for Senate" (image 202212159563803397).[^1] Masters, the candidate, served as chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and president of the [[Thiel Foundation]] and was co-author with [[Peter Thiel]] of Zero to One; Thiel funded a super PAC supporting his 2022 Arizona Senate campaign.[^3]
The same name appears on four smaller contributions to [[ActBlue]] (5 dollars on September 19, 2020 and September 27, 2020, both from [[Brooklyn]], 10 dollars on October 31, 2020 from [[New York City|New York]], and 10 dollars on July 22, 2024 from New York, employer "Alpha FMC," occupation "recruiter"), with employers or statuses other than Thiel Capital; no source ties these to the American Alchemy host.[^1] No FEC contribution under the name was found listing Thiel Capital other than the March 30, 2022 entry.[^1]
### American Alchemy
The Infinite Loops listing for the February 2023 episode lists topics including "the transmission theory of consciousness," "Are mushrooms aliens?" and "Nixon, psychedelics & brainwashing," and a reading list including books by [[Robert Anton Wilson]], [[Tom O'Neill]] and [[David McGowan]].[^2] The [[Sky Watcher|Skywatcher]] project's Part I video lists interviews with [[David Grusch]] and Col. [[Karl Nell]], among others.[^4]
No channel sponsor list, production company, Form D, 501(c) return or lobbying filing was located for American Alchemy; a search of EDGAR full-text for "Jesse Michels" and "American Alchemy" returned no Form D, and the Senate lobbying database holds no client of that name.[^5]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC schedule A, contributor "Michels, Jesse," sub_id 4042520221472578192 (Blake Masters for Senate, Form 3, receipt type 15E) and 4011120231685948941 (WinRed, Form 3X, receipt type 24T), both March 30, 2022; ActBlue records 4010420212002882486, 4012120212128555907, 4012120212112481546 and 4020620251156252171. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=MICHELS%2C%20JESSE ; images https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202204159496855525 and https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202212159563803397 (retrieved October 3, 2026).
[^2]: Infinite Loops podcast, "Jesse Michels, American Alchemy (EP.145)," February 2, 2023. https://www.infiniteloopspodcast.com/jesse-michels-american-alchemy-ep145/
[^3]: Vault pages [[Blake Masters]] and [[Peter Thiel]] (positions and Thiel funding of the 2022 Arizona race, each citing its own sources).
[^4]: Skywatcher, "Media." https://skywatcher.ai/media (retrieved October 3, 2026).
[^5]: SEC EDGAR full-text search "Jesse Michels," "American Alchemy," forms D, October 3, 2026; Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database client search, October 3, 2026.

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---
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
tags:
- Person
- UFO
- UAP
- Journalist
- Author
alias:
- Leslie Kean
- Kean, Leslie
summary: "Leslie Kean is an independent investigative journalist and author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (2010), and a co-author of the New York Times AATIP report of December 16, 2017."
location: "New York City"
relations:
- type: participant_in
with: "[[December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report]]"
role: "co-author with Helene Cooper and Ralph Blumenthal"
start: 2017-12-16
fn: 1
created: 2026-10-03
updated: 2026-10-03
---
[[Leslie Kean]] grew up in [[New York City]], attended the [[Spence School]] and [[Bard College]], helped found a Zen center in upstate New York, and worked as a photographer at the [[Cornell Lab of Ornithology]], before a 1990s trip to [[Myanmar|Burma]] to interview political prisoners led to investigative journalism, according to *[[The New Yorker]]*. She worked as a producer and host of "[[Flashpoints]]" at the [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] radio station [[KPFA]]. Her grandfather [[Robert Winthrop Kean]] served ten terms in [[United States Congress|Congress]] and her uncle [[Thomas Kean]] was governor of [[New Jersey]] and chaired the [[9/11 Commission]].[^1]
### Early UFO work
In 1999 a journalist friend in Paris sent Kean the report of the French group [[COMETA]], "Les OVNI et la Défense," and in 2000 she wrote a summary for the *[[Boston Globe]]* Focus section, published May 21, 2000.[^1] *The New Yorker* described her as "an independent investigative journalist and a novice U.F.O. researcher who had worked with Greer" ([[Steven Greer]]) when she watched his May 9, 2001 [[Disclosure Project]] event at the [[National Press Club]], where she "knew then that I had to walk away" because of speakers' "outrageous, grandiose claims."[^1] In 2002 [[Larry Landsman]], director of projects for the [[Syfy|Sci Fi Channel]] (now Syfy), invited her to lead a public effort to obtain government records on the [[Kecksburg incident|Kecksburg]], [[Pennsylvania]] incident of December 9, 1965. Sci Fi hired lawyers, researchers and the Washington firm [[PodestaMattoon]]; its [[Edwin S. Rothschild]] introduced her to [[John Podesta]], who agreed to support publicly her lawsuit against [[NASA]]. The case ran four years and ended in a settlement; Kean received "hundreds of largely irrelevant documents."[^1][^2] By March 2003 the effort included an online petition at signpetition.com asking [[United States Congress|Congress]] to direct the [[Government Accountability Office|General Accounting Office]] to examine Kecksburg and a plan to sue, through a law firm doing freedom-of-information work, wherever agencies short-changed requests for declassified files. Kean said of the case, "This case is so incredibly fascinating. Even now, the trail is not cold." [[Stan Gordon]] of Greensburg, then 53, was also part of the records effort, and Landsman said, "We're committed to solving this." The drive was "bankrolled by" the Sci Fi Channel, and Kean was described as a San Francisco-area freelance journalist whose writing had appeared on the opinion pages of the *[[Atlanta Journal-Constitution]]* and the news pages of the *Boston Globe*.[^3] Podesta wrote the foreword to her 2010 book *UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record* ([[Random House]] imprint), and in June 2011 invited her to make a confidential presentation at the [[Center for American Progress]], which he had founded. In August 2014 she met Podesta, then an adviser to [[Barack Obama]], in the West Wing and proposed that one person in the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]] be assigned to the subject; the proposal went nowhere.[^1]
Her later [[Huffington Post]] work drew on material from the [[Chilean government]]'s [[Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos]] (CEFAA). Her January 6, 2017 piece "Groundbreaking UFO Video Just Released by Chilean [[United States Navy|Navy]]" was analyzed on the forum [[Metabunk]] by [[Mick West]] and others, who concluded by January 11 that the object was [[Iberia]] flight IB6830 from [[Santiago]] to [[Madrid]]; Kean said of West that "if Mick were really interested in this stuff, he wouldn't debunk every single video."[^1] *[[New York Magazine]]* describes her late partner as [[Budd Hopkins]], the abduction researcher, in connection with her book *[[Surviving Death]]*.[^4]
### The December 2017 placement
Kean told [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]] that on October 4, 2017, at the behest of [[Christopher Mellon]], she was called to a confidential meeting in the bar of a hotel near the [[Pentagon]], where [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Jim Semivan]] introduced her to [[Luis Elizondo]], who had left the Pentagon the previous day. She was shown documents for three hours and told she could have the videos, with chain-of-custody documentation, "if she could place a story in the Times." She telephoned [[Ralph Blumenthal]], who wrote to executive editor [[Dean Baquet]]; the *[[New York Times]]* assigned [[Helene Cooper]], and the three published "Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program" on December 16, 2017. Kean told Lewis-Kraus: "I never would have ever imagined I could have ended up writing for the Times," and gave "all the credit to Elizondo and Mellon for coming forward." She also said she developed doubts about [[Tom DeLonge]] after his appearance on [[Joe Rogan]]'s podcast, while having "full confidence" in Elizondo.[^1] See [[December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report]].
[[Keith Kloor]] reported in *[[The Intercept]]* in 2019 that Kean "wrote in 2016 that she was 'privileged to welcome' Chris Mellon into the UFO organization to which she belonged."[^5] The Pentagon's 2019 statements that Elizondo had "no responsibilities" for [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] while in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and the dispute with [[Bryan Bender]]'s December 2017 reporting, are set out on the event page.
### After 2017
Kean has since covered the subject for the Times, sharing bylines with Blumenthal. A July 2020 article by the two referred to unclassified slides shown at congressional briefings that mentioned "off-world" vehicles and "crash retrievals" and said [[Harry Reid]] "believed that crashes of vehicles from other worlds had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades, often by aerospace companies under government contracts." The Times corrected the sentence the next day. Reid told Lewis-Kraus he had never seen proof of remnants and that he had "been told for decades that [[Lockheed Martin|Lockheed]] had some of these retrieved materials." A former Pentagon official told Lewis-Kraus that terms in Kean's slides were ones "we would never say." Kean told Lewis-Kraus she had come to believe that fragments had been "hoarded somewhere" and cited [[Jacques Vallee]], who is working with [[Stanford University|Stanford]] immunologist [[Garry Nolan]] on purported crash material.[^1] In June 2023 she and Blumenthal published the first account of the claims of [[David Grusch]] on [[The Debrief]].[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. "How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously." *The New Yorker,* May 10, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously. The date of the Reid correction and the July 2020 article are inferred from the text ("published last July") of a May 2021 piece.
[^2]: Same, on the 2002 PodestaMattoon engagement, Rothschild's introduction and Podesta's support of the lawsuit.
[^3]: Gibb, Tom. "Reality 'X-file': People in Kecksburg want to resolve what fell from the sky in 1965." *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,* March 9, 2003, p. 21, via newspapers.com image 90896474. Quotations as printed; the jump on page B-2 was not read.
[^4]: Baker, Nicholson. "How We Lost Our Minds About UFOs." *New York Magazine,* January 31, 2024. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/leslie-kean-ufo-sightings-aliens.html
[^5]: Kloor, Keith. "The Media Loves This UFO Expert Who Says He Worked for an Obscure Pentagon Program. Did He?" *The Intercept,* June 1, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/. Kloor does not name the organization or the venue of Kean's 2016 statement; his article is the only source read for it.