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summary: "Washington, D.C. nonprofit founded by Ryan Graves, recognized as a 501(c)(3) in January 2024, which collects pilot and witness reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena and filed Forms 990-EZ for 2024 and 2025."
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location: "Washington, D.C."
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relations:
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- type: founded
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with: "[[Ryan Graves]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "founder and executive director, per the organization's website and its Forms 990-EZ"
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fn: 2
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Ryan Graves]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "executive director, 30 hours per week, compensation 0 dollars on the Form 990-EZ for 2024"
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start: 2024
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fn: 3
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fn: 2
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- type: member_of
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with: "[[Christopher Mellon]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "listed on the organization's website as an advisor, October 3, 2026"
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start: 2026-10-03
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fn: 4
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- type: member_of
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with: "[[Alex Dietrich]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "listed on the organization's website as an advisor, October 3, 2026"
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start: 2026-10-03
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fn: 4
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- type: member_of
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with: "[[Garry Nolan]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "listed on the organization's website as an advisor, October 3, 2026"
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start: 2026-10-03
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fn: 4
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- type: member_of
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with: "[[Jay Stratton]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "listed on the organization's website as an advisor, October 3, 2026"
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start: 2026-10-03
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fn: 4
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created: 2026-10-02
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updated: 2026-10-02
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updated: 2026-10-03
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---
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Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA) is a nonprofit corporation in [[Washington, D.C.]] (employer identification number 92-2948733). The [[Internal Revenue Service]] data in the [[ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer]] database lists it as a 501(c)(3) public charity with an IRS ruling date of January 2024, at 1620 I Street NW, Suite 750; its Form 990-EZ for 2024 gives 1090 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 750, and its Form 990-EZ for 2025 and its website give 1620 I Street NW, Suite 900.[^1][^3][^4]
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Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA) is a nonprofit corporation in [[Washington, D.C.]] (employer identification number 92-2948733). The [[Internal Revenue Service]] data in the [[ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer]] database lists it as a 501(c)(3) public charity with an IRS ruling date of January 2024, at 1620 I Street NW, Suite 750; its Form 990-EZ for 2024 gives 1090 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 750, and its Form 990-EZ for 2025 and its website give 1620 I Street NW, Suite 900.[^1][^2][^3]
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### Stated purpose and leadership
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The organization's website describes it as "a nonprofit led by military pilots" that works in "reporting, research, policy, education," runs a confidential channel through which pilots and veterans can report "unidentified anomalous phenomena" encounters, states that public reports are de-identified, and lists a podcast hosted by [[Ryan Graves]]. It names Graves as ASA's founder and records his testimony on July 26, 2023 before the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]], at the hearing at which [[David Grusch]] and [[David Fravor]] also testified.[^2]
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The organization's website describes it as "a nonprofit led by military pilots" that works in "reporting, research, policy, education," runs a confidential channel through which pilots and veterans can report "unidentified anomalous phenomena" encounters, states that public reports are de-identified, and lists a podcast hosted by [[Ryan Graves]]. It names Graves as ASA's founder and records his testimony on July 26, 2023 before the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform|House Oversight Committee]], at the hearing at which [[David Grusch]] and [[David Fravor]] also testified.[^4]
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### Incorporation and registrations
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OpenCorporates, an aggregator that states its pages are not the primary source and that the company registry should be consulted, lists Americans for Safe Aerospace as a "Domestic Nonprofit Corporation," number N00007627058 (previous number EXTUID_4339256), status "Active In Good Standing," registered address 1620 I Street NW, Suite 900, [[Washington, D.C.]] 20006, registered agent Corporation Service Company at 1156 15th Street NW, Suite 605. The record's business classification text reads "Americans for Safe Aerospace is a charitable organization that is dedicated to aerospace safety and national security by providing public education on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and supporting pilots and other aerospace workers impacted by UAP." Its recent filings are dated March 16, 2023 ("Initial"), June 9, 2023 ("Amendment"), March 28, 2024 ("Biennial Report (2024)"), July 2, 2025 ("Good Standing") and March 19, 2026 ("Biennial Report (2026)"). The record shows ten officers, with names visible only to registered users. The incorporation date and the officers' names were not retrievable without a login, and the District of Columbia Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection's own CorpOnline entity page, which was not opened, is the primary record.[^5]
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A [[North Carolina]] foreign nonprofit corporation record, number 3088984, status "Current Active," shows an "Application for Certificate of Authority" dated July 16, 2025, a registered agent at 4030 Wake Forest Road, Suite 349, Raleigh (Registered Agents Inc.), a head office at 1620 I Street NW, Suite 900, and four officers on record, names behind a login.[^5]
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The [[ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer]] organization record for EIN 92-2948733 gives IRS subsection 501(c)(3), National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities code Q43, ruling date January 2024, tax period December 2025, income of 77,745 dollars, revenue of 75,266 dollars and assets of 28,426 dollars, with the Internal Revenue Service address given as 1620 I Street NW, Suite 750 (the state records give Suite 900).[^6]
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### Forms 990-EZ
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ASA's Form 990-EZ for calendar year 2024 (signed August 26, 2025, by Ryan Graves) reports gross receipts of 63,084 dollars, contributions, gifts and grants of 55,773 dollars, sales of inventory of 7,311 dollars (cost of goods sold 4,363), total revenue of 58,721 dollars, total expenses of 9,446 dollars (including 747 dollars to independent contractors and no salaries), and net assets of 2,895 dollars at the start and 52,170 dollars at the end of the year. The Schedule A reports that substantial contributors gave 45,000 dollars of the year's support; the contributor schedule is restricted from public release. The return states the primary exempt purpose as "To advance aerospace safety and national security through education research and nonpartisan engagement supporting pilots and aerospace professionals in reporting and analyzing UAP, disseminating safety information and partnering with scientific and government stakeholders to close domain-awareness gaps," and reports "over 200 reports" received through "a secure program for pilots and the public to report UAP sightings," with high-priority cases referred "to government channels including Senate committees and the [[Pentagon]] directly," and a membership that grew "from zero to over 8000 members." It lists Ryan Graves as executive director (30 hours per week), [[Haley Morris]] as secretary and [[Brad Crispin]] as treasurer (10 hours per week each), none compensated. It answers no to lobbying activities and to political campaign activity.[^3]
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ASA's Form 990-EZ for calendar year 2024 (signed August 26, 2025, by Ryan Graves) reports gross receipts of 63,084 dollars, contributions, gifts and grants of 55,773 dollars, sales of inventory of 7,311 dollars (cost of goods sold 4,363), total revenue of 58,721 dollars, total expenses of 9,446 dollars (including 747 dollars to independent contractors and no salaries), and net assets of 2,895 dollars at the start and 52,170 dollars at the end of the year. The Schedule A reports that substantial contributors gave 45,000 dollars of the year's support; the contributor schedule is restricted from public release. The return states the primary exempt purpose as "To advance aerospace safety and national security through education research and nonpartisan engagement supporting pilots and aerospace professionals in reporting and analyzing UAP, disseminating safety information and partnering with scientific and government stakeholders to close domain-awareness gaps," and reports "over 200 reports" received through "a secure program for pilots and the public to report UAP sightings," with high-priority cases referred "to government channels including Senate committees and the [[Pentagon]] directly," and a membership that grew "from zero to over 8000 members." It lists Ryan Graves as executive director (30 hours per week), [[Haley Morris]] as secretary and [[Brad Crispin]] as treasurer (10 hours per week each), none compensated. It answers no to lobbying activities and to political campaign activity.[^2]
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ASA's Form 990-EZ for calendar year 2025 (return dated May 18, 2026) reports gross receipts of 77,745 dollars, contributions of 74,508 dollars, total revenue of 75,266 dollars, total expenses of 92,750 dollars (salaries and other compensation 52,736 dollars, fees to independent contractors 2,372 dollars, other expenses 37,642 dollars including 18,516 dollars for travel), and net assets of 41,468 dollars at the start and 23,984 dollars at the end of the year; the beginning figure differs from the 52,170 dollars reported for the end of 2024 and the return refers to a "filed 2024 amended" statement. Program service expenses total 72,497 dollars. The return reports "over 800 reports," membership of "over 30,000," and the same three officers with no compensation. Schedule A reports substantial contributors of 37,617 dollars of the year's support.[^4] The IRS Exempt Organizations index lists a second Form 990-EZ filing for tax period 2024 in 2026 (object ID 202621399349200202), apparently the amended return.[^5]
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ASA's Form 990-EZ for calendar year 2025 (return dated May 18, 2026) reports gross receipts of 77,745 dollars, contributions of 74,508 dollars, total revenue of 75,266 dollars, total expenses of 92,750 dollars (salaries and other compensation 52,736 dollars, fees to independent contractors 2,372 dollars, other expenses 37,642 dollars including 18,516 dollars for travel), and net assets of 41,468 dollars at the start and 23,984 dollars at the end of the year; the beginning figure differs from the 52,170 dollars reported for the end of 2024 and the return refers to a "filed 2024 amended" statement. Program service expenses total 72,497 dollars. The return reports "over 800 reports," membership of "over 30,000," and the same three officers with no compensation. Schedule A reports substantial contributors of 37,617 dollars of the year's support.[^3] The IRS Exempt Organizations index lists a second Form 990-EZ filing for tax period 2024 in 2026 (object ID 202621399349200202), apparently the amended return.[^7]
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### Founder's 2023 testimony
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At the July 26, 2023 hearing of the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs of the [[House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform]], [[Ryan Graves]] testified that "more than thirty witnesses have come forward and almost 5,000 Americans have joined us in the fight for transparency at safeaerospace.org," and that "the majority of witnesses are commercial pilots at major airlines." Representative [[Anna Paulina Luna]] asked him about a 2003 sighting at [[Vandenberg Air Force Base]]; he said the information came through "one of the witnesses that have approached me at Americans for Safe Aerospace."[^8]
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The July 2023 hearing witness list names Graves as "Executive Director, Americans for Safe Aerospace," and his congressional biography describes the organization as "the first military pilot led nonprofit dedicated to UAP as a matter of national security, aerospace safety, and science."[^8][^9]
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### Advisors
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The website lists as advisors [[Alex Dietrich]] (former [[United States Navy|Navy]] fighter pilot), David Fravor (retired Navy commander), [[Michael Greene]] (former [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] F/A-18D weapons systems officer), [[Sam Fletcher]] (retired Navy commander and congressional military adviser), [[Jay Stratton]] (former director of the [[UAP Task Force]]), [[Christopher Mellon]] (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence), [[Tim Gallaudet]] (retired Navy rear admiral and former acting [[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration|NOAA]] administrator), [[Kirk McConnell]] (former congressional defense and intelligence staff member), [[Susan McCue]] (former chief of staff to Senator [[Harry Reid]]), [[Bryan Bender]] (communications executive and former [[Politico]] defense editor), [[Mike Gold]] (former [[NASA]] associate administrator), [[David Radzanowski]] (former NASA chief financial officer), [[Robin Hanson]] ([[George Mason University]]), [[Avi Loeb]] ([[Harvard University]], head of the [[Galileo Project]]), [[Garry Nolan]] ([[Stanford University]]) and [[Ravi Starzl]] ([[Carnegie Mellon University]]).[^2]
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The website lists as advisors [[Alex Dietrich]] (former [[United States Navy|Navy]] fighter pilot), [[Dave Fravor|David Fravor]] (retired Navy commander), [[Michael Greene]] (former [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] F/A-18D weapons systems officer), [[Sam Fletcher]] (retired Navy commander and congressional military adviser), [[Jay Stratton]] (former director of the [[UAP Task Force]]), [[Christopher Mellon]] (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence), [[Tim Gallaudet]] (retired Navy rear admiral and former acting [[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration|NOAA]] administrator), [[Kirk McConnell]] (former congressional defense and intelligence staff member), [[Susan McCue]] (former chief of staff to Senator [[Harry Reid]]), [[Bryan Bender]] (communications executive and former [[Politico]] defense editor), [[Mike Gold]] (former [[NASA]] associate administrator), [[David Radzanowski]] (former NASA chief financial officer), [[Robin Hanson]] ([[George Mason University]]), [[Avi Loeb]] ([[Harvard University]], head of the [[Galileo Project]]), [[Garry Nolan]] ([[Stanford University]]) and [[Ravi Starzl]] ([[Carnegie Mellon University]]).[^4]
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### Lobbying and campaign records
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A search of Senate [[Lobbying Disclosure Act]] records on October 2, 2026 returned no filing in which Americans for Safe Aerospace appears as registrant or client, and none of the 65 filings whose specific issues mention "UAP" names it. No [[Federal Election Commission|FEC]] committee under that name was located. FEC receipts under the name Ryan Graves belong to several unrelated individuals (Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington addresses and employers) and none is attributed to the founder.[^6]
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A search of Senate [[Lobbying Disclosure Act]] records on October 2, 2026 returned no filing in which Americans for Safe Aerospace appears as registrant or client, and none of the 65 filings whose specific issues mention "UAP" names it. No [[Federal Election Commission|FEC]] committee under that name was located. FEC receipts under the name Ryan Graves belong to several unrelated individuals (Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington addresses and employers) and none is attributed to the founder.[^10]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Americans For Safe Aerospace, EIN 922948733. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/922948733.json
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[^2]: Americans for Safe Aerospace, website, home page and policy pages, retrieved October 2, 2026. https://www.safeaerospace.org
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[^3]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search e-file data, Form 990-EZ, Americans for Safe Aerospace, EIN 92-2948733, tax period ended December 31, 2024, object ID 202502389349200045, in https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_09A.zip
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[^4]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search e-file data, Form 990-EZ, Americans for Safe Aerospace, tax period ended December 31, 2025, object ID 202611399349200506, in https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2026/2026_TEOS_XML_05A.zip
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[^5]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search index for 2026. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2026/index_2026.csv
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[^6]: Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database search by client and registrant name and by issue text, October 2, 2026. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Americans+for+Safe+Aerospace ; Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, committee search "safe aerospace" and schedule A contributor name "Graves, Ryan," October 2, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
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[^2]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search e-file data, Form 990-EZ, Americans for Safe Aerospace, EIN 92-2948733, tax period ended December 31, 2024, object ID 202502389349200045, in https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_09A.zip
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[^3]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search e-file data, Form 990-EZ, Americans for Safe Aerospace, tax period ended December 31, 2025, object ID 202611399349200506, in https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2026/2026_TEOS_XML_05A.zip
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[^4]: Americans for Safe Aerospace, website, home page and policy pages, retrieved October 2, 2026. https://www.safeaerospace.org
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[^5]: OpenCorporates, Americans for Safe Aerospace, District of Columbia N00007627058 and North Carolina 3088984, retrieved October 3, 2026. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_dc/N00007627058 ; https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nc/3088984
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[^6]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, EIN 922948733, retrieved October 3, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/922948733.json
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[^7]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search index for 2026. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2026/index_2026.csv
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[^8]: House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, hearing of July 26, 2023, Serial No. 118-53, statements and questioning of Ryan Graves and David Fravor. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53022/html/CHRG-118hhrg53022.htm
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[^9]: Ryan Graves, witness biography, July 26, 2023. https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116282/witnesses/HHRG-118-GO06-Bio-GravesR-20230726.pdf
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[^10]: Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database search by client and registrant name and by issue text, October 2, 2026. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Americans+for+Safe+Aerospace ; Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, committee search "safe aerospace" and schedule A contributor name "Graves, Ryan," October 2, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
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@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ The company's reports from the late 1970s are addressed from McLean and carry [[
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### Ford Aerospace and the Carlyle Buyout
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The 1995 prospectus states that the predecessor company "was a public company from 1980 until 1988, when [[Ford Aerospace]], then a wholly owned subsidiary of [[Ford Motor Company]], acquired all of the outstanding stock."[^1] In October 1990, "on behalf of certain investors, Carlyle, a private merchant banking firm, formed BDM Holdings, Inc.," and a subsidiary named New BDM, Inc., which acquired substantially all of the predecessor's assets. The investor group, led by [[Carlyle Group]] and members of management, paid about 118 million dollars in cash, adjusted by arbitration in August 1991 to a final price of about 126.5 million dollars, plus about 7 million dollars in expenses. The financing consisted of 30 million dollars in stock bought by the investors, 80.5 million dollars in senior secured borrowings, 10 million dollars from Carlyle for Series A Preferred Stock, and 13 million dollars from [[Loral Aerospace Corporation]], a subsidiary of [[Loral]], in subordinated notes due October 23, 1997. Carlyle received a financial advisory fee of about 1.6 million dollars.[^7] The Los Angeles Times of September 19, 1990 reported under the headline "Loral to Sell BDM to Carlyle Group for $130 Million," by Dean Takahashi, that [[Loral|Loral Corp.]], although its purchase of Ford Aerospace was not yet complete, said on Tuesday, September 18, that it would sell BDM International Inc., "the largest subsidiary of Ford Aerospace," to the Carlyle Group of Washington for 130 million dollars. The SEC filings above give about 118 million dollars in cash at the October 1990 closing and a final price of about 126.5 million dollars after arbitration in August 1991. The Times reported that the price was under a third of the 425 million dollars Ford Motor Company paid for BDM in 1988, and that analyst Walter Peterson of [[Ferris, Baker Watts]] said consulting firms typically sell for about 30 percent of annual revenue and that Loral was "getting a premium price." It also reported that Carlyle, with partner [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]], was one of several groups that had bid unsuccessfully for all of Ford Aerospace, and that Carlyle said it would name former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci chairman of BDM.[^8]
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The 1995 prospectus states that the predecessor company "was a public company from 1980 until 1988, when [[Ford Aerospace]], then a wholly owned subsidiary of [[Ford Motor Company]], acquired all of the outstanding stock."[^1] In October 1990, "on behalf of certain investors, Carlyle, a private merchant banking firm, formed BDM Holdings, Inc.," and a subsidiary named New BDM, Inc., which acquired substantially all of the predecessor's assets. The investor group, led by [[Carlyle Group]] and members of management, paid about 118 million dollars in cash, adjusted by arbitration in August 1991 to a final price of about 126.5 million dollars, plus about 7 million dollars in expenses. The financing consisted of 30 million dollars in stock bought by the investors, 80.5 million dollars in senior secured borrowings, 10 million dollars from Carlyle for Series A Preferred Stock, and 13 million dollars from [[Loral Aerospace Corporation]], a subsidiary of [[Loral]], in subordinated notes due October 23, 1997. Carlyle received a financial advisory fee of about 1.6 million dollars.[^7] The [[Los Angeles Times]] of September 19, 1990 reported under the headline "Loral to Sell BDM to Carlyle Group for $130 Million," by Dean Takahashi, that [[Loral|Loral Corp.]], although its purchase of Ford Aerospace was not yet complete, said on Tuesday, September 18, that it would sell BDM International Inc., "the largest subsidiary of Ford Aerospace," to the Carlyle Group of Washington for 130 million dollars. The SEC filings above give about 118 million dollars in cash at the October 1990 closing and a final price of about 126.5 million dollars after arbitration in August 1991. The Times reported that the price was under a third of the 425 million dollars Ford Motor Company paid for BDM in 1988, and that analyst Walter Peterson of [[Ferris, Baker Watts]] said consulting firms typically sell for about 30 percent of annual revenue and that Loral was "getting a premium price." It also reported that Carlyle, with partner [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation]], was one of several groups that had bid unsuccessfully for all of Ford Aerospace, and that Carlyle said it would name former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci chairman of BDM.[^8]
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The investor group of October 23, 1990 comprised The Carlyle Partners Leveraged Capital Fund I, the [[Richard King Mellon Foundation]], and two [[Equitable Capital]] partnerships. The stockholders agreement provided for seven directors designated by Carlyle, five by management and three independent directors named jointly, with the board fixed at 13. In February 1991 the company sold 1,339,217 shares at 4 dollars to employees, directors and consultants and 1,500,000 shares to Carlyle at the same price; the board of regents of the [[University of Texas System]] and the [[Permanent University Fund]] of Texas later held shares as well. In July 1993 and March 1994 the company repurchased 100,000 shares each from the Mellon foundation at 8 and 12 dollars, and on May 27, 1994 it bought 2,250,000 common and 350,000 Class B shares from the investor group at 14 dollars.[^7]
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@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ That report also discloses a sealed civil qui tam suit, first disclosed in the F
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### Intelligence Community Work
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Declassified [[Central Intelligence Agency]] records show BDM as a support contractor to several offices of the agency and its community staff. In a letter of December 2, 1983, the [[Intelligence Information Handling Committee]] of the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] thanked Earle Williams for the firm's work on an "Intelligence Community Telecommunications Issues Study" and for computer-security support to the committee's [[CIRS]] security working group.[^13] A memorandum of June 15, 1984 bound a BDM employee, [[Robert MacOnie]] (praised in the December 1983 letter for the telecommunications study), to restrictions on a draft statement of work for video-disc production, including a promise that BDM would not bid on the resulting contract.[^14] In 1985 BDM provided administrative support to a Concurrent Processing Symposium sponsored by the CIA and funded by [[DARPA]], held on July 15 to 17 at the [[West Park Hotel]], [[Tysons Corner, Virginia]], and on July 18 at CIA headquarters, with about 250 attendees from the CIA and other community agencies, the National Security Council and the Air Force; panel discussions on classified applications followed on the fourth day.[^15] On July 26, 1985 BDM's Stuart W. Bowen wrote to the CIA that BDM had presented a one-day program on how BDM operates to senior [[National Security Agency]] executives twice, most recently in June 1985, paid for by the NSA through a purchase request of about 1,000 dollars.[^16] On August 29, 1985 the CIA's Office of Training and Education replied to [[Stuart W. Bowen]] of BDM, who had proposed a one-day program for senior executives, that the agency was "not in a position to pursue that type of program," while the Office of Information Technology would review BDM briefings offered by [[Laurence Jacobs]].[^16] A February 1987 memorandum records a briefing to the CIA Comptroller on a BDM study of the Office of Communications' funding.[^17] A CIA employee was to speak on contracting at BDM in McLean on February 27, 1985 in a professional development program of the [[Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association]], on a panel with a representative of the National Security Agency.[^18]
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Declassified [[Central Intelligence Agency]] records show BDM as a support contractor to several offices of the agency and its community staff. In a letter of December 2, 1983, the [[Intelligence Information Handling Committee]] of the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] thanked Earle Williams for the firm's work on an "Intelligence Community Telecommunications Issues Study" and for computer-security support to the committee's [[CIRS]] security working group.[^13] A memorandum of June 15, 1984 bound a BDM employee, [[Robert MacOnie]] (praised in the December 1983 letter for the telecommunications study), to restrictions on a draft statement of work for video-disc production, including a promise that BDM would not bid on the resulting contract.[^14] In 1985 BDM provided administrative support to a Concurrent Processing Symposium sponsored by the CIA and funded by [[DARPA]], held on July 15 to 17 at the [[West Park Hotel]], [[Tysons Corner, Virginia]], and on July 18 at CIA headquarters, with about 250 attendees from the CIA and other community agencies, the National Security Council and the Air Force; panel discussions on classified applications followed on the fourth day.[^15] On July 26, 1985 BDM's Stuart W. Bowen wrote to the CIA that BDM had presented a one-day program on how BDM operates to senior [[National Security Agency]] executives twice, most recently in June 1985, paid for by the NSA through a purchase request of about 1,000 dollars.[^16] On August 29, 1985 the CIA's Office of Training and Education replied to [[Stuart W. Bowen]] of BDM, who had proposed a one-day program for senior executives, that the agency was "not in a position to pursue that type of program," while the Office of Information Technology would review BDM briefings offered by [[Laurence Jacobs]].[^16] A February 1987 memorandum records a briefing to the CIA Comptroller on a BDM study of the Office of Communications' funding.[^17] A CIA employee was to speak on contracting at BDM in McLean on February 27, 1985 in a professional development program of the [[Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association]], on a panel with a representative of the [[NSA|National Security Agency]].[^18]
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The [[State Department]] letter of June 27, 1985 to the director of the [[Intelligence Community Staff]] states that when the [[Office of Foreign Missions]] was established in early 1983 it had three State officers, two secretaries, one representative each from the CIA, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], the NSA, Army, [[United States Navy|Navy]], Air Force and [[Customs Service]], and five BDM employees; by June 1985 the "contract work force" was 35 BDM employees plus four consultants, which the letter ties to a "sophisticated data base management system accessible to the foreign affairs and national security communities." BDM staff were assigned to its programs: 11 employees in motor vehicle controls (registration, titling, plates, drivers' licenses and diplomats' traffic violations), six in the tax exemption card program, two in housing services, one in customs clearance, and three systems analysts full time on an accreditation data base. The sanitized letter is marked Secret.[^19]
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@ -134,6 +134,12 @@ Alexander wrote that the initial meetings of his "[[Advanced Theoretical Physics
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|
||||
The 1997 solicitation statement records that in the last week of August 1997 Philip A. Odeen and other executives decided to explore a combination; that [[Wasserstein Perella and Co.]] was engaged on September 8; that [[TRW]] signed a standstill agreement on September 29; that on October 31 TRW indicated 28.00 dollars a share, which the company's adviser said the board would not pursue; and that on November 10 TRW stated that to raise the price it required an irrevocable option and agreement to tender from Carlyle, a 35 million dollar break-up fee and a no-shop provision, together with employment arrangements for senior management. On November 12 TRW indicated 29.50 dollars. TRW's chairman [[Joseph T. Gorman]] had met Odeen on November 6. [[Bear Stearns]] gave TRW a fairness opinion on November 20, and the agreement was signed that evening. Carlyle affiliates holding 7,660,000 shares, about 25.8 percent, agreed to tender and gave an option at 29.50 dollars.[^29] TRW's offer documents estimate the funds required at about 930 million dollars; the joint press release of November 21, 1997 calls the transaction "valued at nearly $1 billion."[^29] Under the merger agreement the Carlyle monitoring and advisory arrangements ended at the effective time, and Odeen and [[Roy Woodle]], president and chief executive of Vinnell, were to sign new employment agreements.[^29] TRW's subsidiary Systems Acquisition Inc. completed the tender offer on December 24, 1997 and was merged into BDM on December 29, 1997, leaving BDM a wholly owned TRW subsidiary;[^30] BDM filed a Form 15 on December 29, 1997.[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reports and procurement decisions in public indexes
|
||||
|
||||
The Defense Technical Information Center catalog lists BDM Corporation of McLean, Virginia as author organization of volume 6 of "A Study of Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam" (ADA096430).[^32] A "Sword Paper, Strategic Country Assessment, [[El Salvador]]" (ADA196443) and an "El Salvador Psychological Operations Assessment" (ADA198959) carry text referring to Task Order 723 and Task Order 823, Low Intensity Conflict Cell Support, and to Court Prisk of BDM Management Services Corporation.[^32] BDM Federal, Inc. is named as preparer in Army Research Institute task-analysis reports including ADA314647 (January 28, 1994), ADA318677 (September 1996) and ADA328260.[^32] The DTIC directory of organizational report codes (ADA281500, July 4, 1994) lists "BDM/ABQ," BDM Corp Albuquerque, New Mexico, code 391884.[^32]
|
||||
|
||||
The General Accounting Office's online bid protest index returns decisions whose captions or snippets name BDM, among them B-177542(2) (May 23, 1973), B-195907 (February 13, 1980; a contract for operations research and systems analysis "awarded to BDM"), B-201291 (June 26, 1981), B-202707 (October 28, 1981; "THE BDM CORP"), B-211129 (August 23, 1983), B-211036.2 (April 9, 1984), B-212858 (December 23, 1983; a headnote stating that a compensation arrangement "invalidates the award to BDM"), and B-228287 (February 1, 1988; "BDM Management Services Company"). The snippets do not show the full holding of each decision.[^33]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: BDM International, Inc., Form S-1/A, filed June 26, 1995, "Corporate History," SEC accession 0000950112-95-001766, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/870763/0000950112-95-001766.txt. The 1996 Form 10-K (0000870763-97-000002) repeats the founders' names.
|
||||
|
|
@ -167,3 +173,5 @@ The 1997 solicitation statement records that in the last week of August 1997 Phi
|
|||
[^29]: BDM International, Inc., Schedule 14D-9, filed November 26, 1997 (letter to stockholders; "Background of the Offer"; Stockholders Agreement; severance and employment arrangements; press release of November 21, 1997), accession 0000950152-97-008353, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/870763/0000950152-97-008353.txt; TRW Inc., Schedule 14D-1, same date, accession 0000950152-97-008369, Item 9 (about 930 million dollars), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/870763/0000950152-97-008369.txt.
|
||||
[^30]: TRW Inc., Form 8-K, accession 0000950152-97-008891, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/100030/0000950152-97-008891.txt.
|
||||
[^31]: BDM International, Inc., Form 15-12G, filed December 29, 1997, accession 0000950152-97-008867, EDGAR filing index https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/870763/0000950152-97-008867-index.html.
|
||||
[^32]: Defense Technical Information Center, discover.dtic.mil searches of October 3, 2026 for BDM with "nonlethal," "psychological operations," "directed energy" and "low intensity conflict" (page 1 of each), results at https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA096430, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA196443.pdf, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA198959.pdf, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA314647.pdf, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA318677.pdf, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA328260.pdf and https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA281500.pdf; entries read as search snippets only, the reports themselves not opened.
|
||||
[^33]: General Accounting Office, bid protest decisions search for "BDM," gao.gov, October 3, 2026, page 1, not date-filtered; entries read as search snippets only, the decisions themselves not opened.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
99
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Galileo Project.md
Normal file
99
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Galileo Project.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Project
|
||||
- UAP
|
||||
- Astronomy
|
||||
- Harvard
|
||||
- PrivateFunding
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- The Galileo Project
|
||||
- Galileo Project at Harvard
|
||||
- Galileo Project for the Systematic Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts
|
||||
- Project Galileo (Harvard)
|
||||
summary: "The Galileo Project is a Harvard-hosted, privately funded research program announced July 26, 2021 by Avi Loeb and Frank Laukien to search for extraterrestrial technological artifacts and study unidentified aerial phenomena with its own instruments."
|
||||
location: "Cambridge, Massachusetts"
|
||||
start: 2021-07-26
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Charles Hoskinson]]"
|
||||
role: "named funder of the June 2023 Interstellar Expedition to the IM1 fireball site, for which Loeb states the funding was 1.5 million dollars"
|
||||
start: 2023-06
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Richard King Mellon Foundation]]"
|
||||
role: "575,000 dollars for a third observatory station in Pennsylvania"
|
||||
start: 2024-04-26
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Brinson Foundation]]"
|
||||
role: "Brinson Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship, three years"
|
||||
start: 2022-08-15
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Christopher Mellon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "research affiliate"
|
||||
start: 2021-10-30
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Luis Elizondo]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "research affiliate"
|
||||
start: 2021-10-30
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
created: 2026-10-03
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-03
|
||||
---
|
||||
The [[Galileo Project]] was announced on July 26, 2021 at a virtual press conference hosted by [[Mike Wall]] of [[Space.com]], with [[Faye Flam]] of [[Bloomberg Opinion]] as Q&A moderator. The press release described a "multi-institutional, international" effort "in conjunction with the [[Center for Astrophysics|Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian]]" to advance "a systematic experimental search for cross-validated evidence of potential astro-archeological artifacts or active technical equipment made by putative existing or extinct extraterrestrial technological civilizations." It stated that the project "has been co-founded by [[Avi Loeb]] and [[Frank Laukien]], and it is a transparent, non-profit, multi-institutional and international project," chaired by Avi Loeb of the Harvard astronomy department, and that it "has initial funding from generous donations and pledges by individuals and foundations listed on the Galileo Project website."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Scope and stated rules
|
||||
|
||||
The release named three lines of research: high-resolution multi-detector imaging of unidentified aerial phenomena with a network of telescopes and detector arrays; a search for objects resembling [[ʻOumuamua]], including through the [[Vera C. Rubin Observatory]]'s [[Legacy Survey of Space and Time]]; and a search for small extraterrestrial satellites. Loeb cited the June 25, 2021 report of the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] on unidentified aerial phenomena as an inspiration. The release also stated that "additional philanthropic, foundation or governmental funders are encouraged to join the Galileo Project." The project's home page stated four ground rules: it does not work with classified information or unreliable past data, analyzes data using known physics, publishes data and analysis freely, and releases no results except through accepted scientific publication.[^1][^2] The project's support page states that it is "unaffiliated with any governmental or military organizations and receive[s] no funding from these sources"; donors give through a Harvard alumni giving form to a "Research Fund u/d Professor Avi Loeb," and gifts above 50,000 dollars require additional documentation from Harvard Development.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Philanthropic Advisory Board
|
||||
|
||||
The project's website lists a Philanthropic Advisory Board "to provide philanthropic advice" with these entries as of 2022: [[Eugene Jhong]] (Harvard A.B. and J.D.; M.S. in computer science, [[Stanford University]]); [[Vinny Jain]]; [[Teddy Jones]] (entrepreneur; Harvard A.B. and J.D.; MBA, [[University of Virginia]]); the [[Laukien Science Foundation]]; [[Joerg Laukien]]; [[William A. Linton]] (founder, chair and chief executive of [[Promega Corporation]]; executive director of the [[Usona Institute]]); and [[Adnan Sen]]. The Scientific Advisory Board listed [[Roberto Abraham]], [[Charles Alcock]] (director of the Center for Astrophysics), [[Sagi Ben Ami]], [[Paul Davies]], [[Ferki Ferati]] (president of the [[Jefferson Educational Society]] of [[Erie, Pennsylvania|Erie]]), [[Mercedes Lopez-Morales]], [[Seth Shostak]], [[Rizwan Virk]], [[Stephen Wolfram]] and [[Dimitar Sasselov]].[^4] The combined advisory boards page, read October 3, 2026, lists the Philanthropic Advisory Board in this order: [[Brinson Foundation]] ("*Privately funded philanthropic organization"); [[Charles Hoskinson]] ("Technology Entrepreneur, CEO and Founder of [[IOHK]]"); Eugene Jhong; Vinny Jain; Teddy Jones; [[Eric Keto]] ("*Member, Galileo Project Research Team"); the Laukien Science Foundation; Joerg Laukien; William A. Linton; and Adnan Sen, with the page's introduction reading "The Philanthropic Advisory Board provides philanthropic advice to The Galileo Project." A separate standalone page for the board lists only Jhong, Jain, Jones, the Laukien Science Foundation and Linton. The Scientific Advisory Board on the same page lists Alcock, Ben-Ami, Davies, Ferati (Ed.D., [[University of Pittsburgh]]; MPA, [[Gannon University]]), Shostak, Virk (venture capitalist; founder of Play Labs at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]]), Wolfram and Sasselov.[^5] The project's organization page states that it was "founded in July 2021 by Dr. Avi Loeb, the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard's Astronomy Department and Dr. Frank Laukien, Visiting Scholar at Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology," and its FAQ ("Version 2, January 26, 2022") states that it "is not and will not be funded by any government, military organization, or related agencies such as the Department of Defense" and has "not partnered with any government or military/defense organization," while noting that "some project affiliates bring experience in the government sector, or with technology and aerospace companies that conduct business with the government of the United States."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Joerg Laukien is described in [[Bruker Corporation]]'s 2022 proxy statement as the brother of Frank Laukien; the same proxy lists William A. Linton as a Bruker director since 2000, serving on its Nominating & Governance Committee, and as founder and executive director of the Usona Institute.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
*[[Inverse]]*, citing *[[Science (journal)|Science]]*, reported that wealthy donors contacted Loeb after his 2021 book *Extraterrestrial* and that about 1.75 million dollars had been donated by four of them.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Named gifts and fellowships
|
||||
|
||||
[[Richard Cloete]] arrived at Harvard in May 2022 as the "Laukien-Oumuamua fellow" from the [[University of Cambridge]], and on May 12, 2022 the project announced that [[Laura Domine]] of Stanford had accepted the first "Keto-Galileo postdoctoral fellowship," to begin February 1, 2023.[^9] On August 15, 2022 it announced that [[Brinson Foundation]] had awarded a three-year "Brinson Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship."[^10] [[ProPublica]] Nonprofit Explorer lists the Brinson Foundation (EIN 68-0656415, Chicago, tax exemption October 2007) with end-of-year assets, as extracted from its Form 990-PF, of 108,336,300 dollars for 2021, 104,471,491 dollars for 2022 and 198,225,050 dollars for 2023.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 30, 2021 Loeb announced [[Christopher Mellon]] and [[Luis Elizondo]] as research affiliates, to assist in "the selection of sites where the UAP-Scope systems will be located" and in assessing societal implications; the announcement credited them with efforts "pivotal in bringing about the [[Pentagon]]'s release and confirmation" of the three [[United States Navy|Navy]] videos and with two years of lobbying behind the 2021 ODNI report.[^12] On April 26, 2024 the project announced 575,000 dollars from the [[Richard King Mellon Foundation]] for a third observatory station, in [[Allegheny County, Pennsylvania|Allegheny]] or [[Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania|Westmoreland County]], [[Pennsylvania]]; the release says Mellon "was instrumental in stewarding this grant."[^13] By August 2022 the project's first telescope system had been assembled on the roof of the [[Harvard College Observatory]].[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bruker and Laukien
|
||||
|
||||
Bruker's 2022 proxy statement says that Frank Laukien is "a 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]]," and that he is a visiting scholar in Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Interstellar Expedition, 2023
|
||||
|
||||
In June 2023 an expedition of the Galileo Project, led by Loeb as chief scientist and coordinated by [[Rob McCallum]] of [[EYOS Expeditions]], used the vessel *Silver Star* from [[Lorengau]], [[Manus Island]], [[Papua New Guinea]], to tow a sled over about 175 kilometers of seabed on June 14 to 28 along the calculated path of the January 8, 2014 fireball catalogued as CNEOS 2014-01-08 (IM1), and recovered 50 metallic spherules of 0.1 to 1 millimeter. The expedition press release states it "was funded privately by American entrepreneur [[Charles Hoskinson]]." Loeb wrote in his published diary that he spoke with "the expedition funder, Charles Hoskinson" on a jet to the site and later that "the Interstellar Expedition received funding at 1.5 million dollars."[^14][^15] *DL News* reported that Hoskinson had invested in [[Colossal Biosciences]], which is attempting to revive extinct animals, in its 60 million dollar Series A round.[^16] The project announced a memorandum of understanding with the Papua New Guinea [[Papua New Guinea University of Technology|University of Technology]] on August 21, 2023 and a paper on the spherules in *[[Chemical Geology]]* on September 23, 2024.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### UAP Science Advisory Council, 2026
|
||||
|
||||
*[[The Harvard Crimson]]* reported on July 11, 2026 that a week before the government's latest release of declassified files a representative of the [[Director of National Intelligence|Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] visited Loeb at his home with a request, and that Loeb then formed a UAP Science Advisory Council "in support of [[Donald Trump|President Trump]]'s directive on UAP transparency"; of its 18 publicly named members, 12 had ties to Harvard and four were Galileo Project research affiliates. Members include the [[Skeptic Society|Skeptic]] magazine founder [[Michael Shermer]], a Galileo affiliate, and the billionaire [[Ben Lamm]], whose company Colossal Biosciences "helps fund the [[Wyss Institute]] at Harvard." Loeb said the council has no budget and communicates through him and a parallel [[UAP Governing Board]] whose membership is not public, and that the council has asked the Pentagon to declassify 50 items without a response.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: 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).
|
||||
[^2]: "Home," The Galileo Project website, snapshot of 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/2022/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/home
|
||||
[^3]: "Support Us." The Galileo Project website, snapshots of 2021 to 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/2021/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/fund-us
|
||||
[^4]: "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
|
||||
[^5]: "Advisory Boards." The Galileo Project website, read October 3, 2026. https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/organization/advisory-boards ; standalone page https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/philanthropic-advisory-board . The /organization/affiliates page requires a login.
|
||||
[^6]: "FAQ," Version 2, January 26, 2022, and "Organization." The Galileo Project website, read October 3, 2026. https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/FAQ
|
||||
[^7]: Bruker Corporation, Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement filed April 22, 2022, pp. on director biography and "2021 Transactions with Related Persons." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1109354/000119312522115070/d256158ddef14a.htm
|
||||
[^8]: 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. The figure originates in *Science*'s coverage as cited by Inverse; the *Science* article itself was not opened.
|
||||
[^9]: "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
|
||||
[^10]: "Brinson Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship for the Galileo Project," August 15, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225170229/https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/news/brinson-prize-postdoctoral-fellowship-galileo-project
|
||||
[^11]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, organization 680656415. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/680656415.json. The underlying 990-PF PDFs could not be downloaded; grants to Harvard were not checked.
|
||||
[^12]: The Galileo Project. "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).
|
||||
[^13]: "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
|
||||
[^14]: EYOS Expeditions. "Extraterrestrial Evidence Found: Spheres From Outside Our Solar System Identified by the Interstellar Expedition." https://www.eyos-expeditions.com/?p=2240; Loeb, Avi. "Diary of an Interstellar Voyage, Part 2." *The Debrief.* https://thedebrief.org/diary-of-an-interstellar-voyage-part-2/
|
||||
[^15]: 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/
|
||||
[^16]: "Charles Hoskinson embarks on ocean expedition to search for alien technology." *DL News.* https://dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/cardano-charles-hoskinson-expedition-search-for-alien-tech/
|
||||
[^17]: "Latest News." The Galileo Project website, snapshot of 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/2025/https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/news
|
||||
[^18]: 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/
|
||||
|
|
@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ relations:
|
|||
role: "director of project development, for about three years, per Grant Cameron"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
created: 2026-10-02
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-02
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-03
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Human Potential Foundation was a nonprofit corporation that [[C. B. Scott Jones]] founded with [[Claiborne Pell]] in 1989 and ran as president until its dissolution in 1998.[^1] The [[Center for Applied Anomalous Phenomena]], which Jones founded in 1985, was absorbed into it; the Foundation managed three centers (interspecies communication, intercultural medical exchange, and thanatology and survival research) and a small press for limited runs of books; the interspecies communication center organized research on psychic communication with dolphins (project [[Neptune's Helper]]) and on human interaction with potential extraterrestrials, which produced the 1995 conference.[^1]
|
||||
|
|
@ -69,6 +69,12 @@ In August 1995 the Foundation mailed every member of Congress a packet, describe
|
|||
|
||||
The finding aid gives the dissolution as 1998; the [[Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth]], founded by Jones, received its [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling in October 1998.[^1][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Series 4 container titles in the Scott Jones papers
|
||||
|
||||
The finding aid of the [[C. B. Scott Jones]] papers at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]] lists, in Series 4 (Human Potential Foundation), subseries for [[Claiborne Pell]]; the Human Potential Foundation Board; Grants and Funding; Projects; and Events. File titles include "Articles of Exemption, Incorporation," correspondence with Mark Sandground and Richard F. Bradberry, the "Does Consciousness Survive Physical Death..." joint resolution of the 101st Congress, grant files for the John A. Hartford Foundation, Inc., "Van Dyk and Hollister - The Connemara Fund" and "When Cosmic Cultures Meet Funding," and "Grant Requests" files marked Yes, Maybe and No.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Under Projects the container tree names the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI, four files); the Center for Interspecies Communication (CISC), with files titled "UFO and Contact Research Planning," "UFO Documents," "13th Brazilian Congress Scientific Ufology," "Jackson, Wyoming Roundtable," "The Terra Papers," and correspondence files for Jill C. Tarter, John "Jack" Gibbons (two files), Kent Jeffery "re. International Roswell Initiative," Senator [[Ted Stevens]], [[Jacques Vallee]], John E. Mack, Peter A. Sturrock, Richard "Dick" Farley, Hans-Adam Liechtenstein, Henry L. Diamond (two files) and Laurance S. Rockefeller (three files); the Center for Intercultural Medical Exchange (CICME), with Qi-Gong, Chinese and Moscow Medical Academy files and a file on the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine; the Center for Thanatology and Survival Research (CTSR); and the Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth "PEACE Room," with files for the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, the Gorbachev Foundation USA and John L. Petersen of the Arlington Institute. The tree gives titles only, without dates or box numbers.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, "C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers" (COU:4004), biographical note and Series 4 scope note, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346 and https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/311786.
|
||||
|
|
@ -81,3 +87,4 @@ The finding aid gives the dissolution as 1998; the [[Peace and Emergency Action
|
|||
[^8]: William J. Clinton Presidential Library, "When Cosmic Cultures Meet - Collection Finding Aid," 2008-1575-F, https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36409.
|
||||
[^9]: Jones, questionnaire attachment to the letter of August 17, 1995 to Representative Steven Schiff, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-17-95.htm.
|
||||
[^10]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth (EIN 74-2888837), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/742888837.json.
|
||||
[^11]: 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, fetched October 3, 2026 from the vault owner's browser (titles only; no dates or box numbers in the saved tree).
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
67
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Mellon Family.md
Normal file
67
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Mellon Family.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Families & Dynasties"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Family
|
||||
- Banking
|
||||
- Philanthropy
|
||||
- Pittsburgh
|
||||
- UFO
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Mellon family
|
||||
- The Mellons
|
||||
- House of Mellon
|
||||
summary: "The Mellon family of Pittsburgh includes Andrew W. Mellon, Paul Mellon, Richard Mellon Scaife and Christopher Mellon, the Senate and Pentagon intelligence staffer who later became a UAP disclosure figure."
|
||||
location: "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Christopher Mellon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "descendant of Judge Thomas Mellon and great-grandson of the Gulf Oil founder"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Paul Mellon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "son of Andrew W. Mellon; major in the Office of Strategic Services in Europe"
|
||||
start: 1943
|
||||
end: 1945
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Galileo Project]]"
|
||||
role: "the Richard King Mellon Foundation granted 575,000 dollars on April 26, 2024 for a third observatory station in Allegheny or Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania; Christopher Mellon 'was instrumental in stewarding this grant'"
|
||||
start: 2024-04-26
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
created: 2026-10-03
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-03
|
||||
---
|
||||
The Mellon family of [[Pittsburgh]] includes the persons named below. A 2003 *Roll Call* "Heard on the Hill" item by [[Ed Henry]] on the hiring of [[Christopher Mellon]] by the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] described him as "of that Mellon family," a descendant of Judge Thomas Mellon whose "great-grandfather started the [[Gulf Oil]] Co."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Andrew W. Mellon and the second generation
|
||||
|
||||
[[Andrew W. Mellon]] was a Pittsburgh industrialist and financier, Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1931 and Ambassador to the Court of St. James's from 1931 to 1932. He founded the [[National Gallery of Art]] in 1937 and donated his art collection to the [[United States]]. His children were [[Paul Mellon]] and [[Ailsa Mellon Bruce]]; the Gallery's East Building was financed by Paul, Ailsa and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which was created in 1969 by merging Paul Mellon's Old Dominion Foundation (1941) and Ailsa's Avalon Foundation.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Paul Mellon, David K. E. Bruce and the Office of Strategic Services
|
||||
|
||||
Ailsa Mellon married [[David K. E. Bruce]]; after the marriage Bruce "became a confidant and art adviser to his father-in-law," according to a review of Nelson D. Lankford's biography *The Last American Aristocrat*. The review adds that Bruce "began a diplomatic career through his friendship with William 'Wild Bill' Donovan, the founder of the OSS (later the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]])," and served as ambassador to France and Britain and on a special mission to China.[^4] Bruce's appointments from the [[United States Department of State]]'s Office of the Historian listing were ambassador to France (1949 to 1952), under secretary of state (1952 to 1953), ambassador to Germany (1957 to 1959) and to the [[United Kingdom]] (1961 to 1969), chief of the United States Liaison Office in China (1973 to 1974) and permanent representative to [[NATO]] (1974 to 1976).[^9] Paul Mellon studied at [[Clare College, Cambridge]] (M.A. 1938), enrolled at St. John's College in Annapolis after returning to the United States in 1940, joined the [[United States Army]] six months later, received cavalry training and a commission at [[Fort Riley]], Kansas, and "subsequently served with the OSS ([[Office of Strategic Services]]) in Europe, attaining the rank of Major." In 1945 he and his wife Mary founded the [[Bollingen Foundation]], which published works including the *I Ching* and closed in 1969; the National Gallery of Art states that the Mellons' interest in the work of [[Carl Jung]] had taken them to Europe in the late 1930s.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Richard Mellon Scaife
|
||||
|
||||
[[Richard Mellon Scaife]], an heir to the Mellon banking, oil and aluminum fortunes and publisher of the *[[Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]]*, spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" of an estimated net worth of 1.4 billion dollars on conservative causes and sat on the boards of the [[Heritage Foundation]] and the [[Hoover Institution]]. He was a major underwriter of the *American Spectator* magazine's "Arkansas Project" on [[Bill Clinton]] in the 1990s. He died July 4, 2014, at 82.[^5] The Mellon heiress [[Cordelia Scaife May]] met [[John Tanton]] in 1978 and gave 50,000 dollars to start the [[Federation for American Immigration Reform]], according to [[Nicholas Kulish]] and [[Mike McIntire]] of the *[[New York Times]]*.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Christopher Mellon
|
||||
|
||||
*Roll Call* reported on February 12, 2003 that Senator [[Jay Rockefeller]] had hired Christopher Mellon as minority staff director of the Intelligence Committee, writing: "It's starting to look like [[Rockefeller family|the Rockefellers]] and Mellons are taking over the [[United States Senate|Senate]] Select Intelligence Committee." The same item said he had spent a decade on intelligence issues for Senator [[William S. Cohen]], followed Cohen to the [[Pentagon]] when Cohen became Secretary of Defense, and had until recently served under Secretary [[Donald Rumsfeld]].[^1] [[Politico]]'s [[Bryan Bender]] described Mellon in 2021 as "a scion of the [[Pennsylvania]] oil and banking family."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Christopher Mellon was a paid adviser to [[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] from 2017, per Bender, and its annual report for 2020 states he resigned from the advisory board in November 2020 (see the page on the company). On October 30, 2021 he became a research affiliate of [[Harvard University|Harvard]]'s [[Galileo Project]]. On April 26, 2024 the Galileo Project announced a grant of 575,000 dollars from the [[Richard King Mellon Foundation]] for a third instrument station in Allegheny or [[Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania|Westmoreland County]], Pennsylvania, stating that Christopher Mellon "was instrumental in stewarding this grant"; the press release quotes him: "It is exciting and deeply gratifying to see the Richard King Mellon Foundation continue to support cutting edge science here in Western Pennsylvania."[^3][^7] The foundation's EIN, as listed by [[ProPublica]]'s Nonprofit Explorer, is 25-1127705.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Henry, Ed. "Unholy Alliance?" *Roll Call,* February 12, 2003. https://rollcall.com/2003/02/12/unholy-alliance/
|
||||
[^2]: "Paul Mellon: A Legacy." National Gallery of Art press release, 1999 (Internet Archive copy). https://www.nga.gov/press/archive/mellon-legacy-1999.html
|
||||
[^3]: "Richard King Mellon Foundation awards $575,000 to Galileo Project." The Galileo Project, Harvard University, April 26, 2024. https://galileo.hsites.harvard.edu/news/richard-king-mellon-foundation-awards-575000-galileo-project (Internet Archive copy).
|
||||
[^4]: Review of Lankford, Nelson D., *The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of David K. E. Bruce, 1898-1977.* *Kirkus Reviews,* August 19, 1996. https://kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nelson-d-lankford/the-last-american-aristocrat. The review gives the Donovan friendship and the ambassadorships; the year of the marriage and any OSS posting of Bruce are not stated in a source opened for this page.
|
||||
[^5]: "Richard Mellon Scaife, 82, billionaire publisher." *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 5, 2014. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obituaries/20140705_Richard_Mellon_Scaife__82__billionaire_publisher.html
|
||||
[^6]: 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
|
||||
[^7]: The Galileo Project. "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).
|
||||
[^8]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer search, "Richard King Mellon Foundation" (listed as "Richard King Mellon Foundation Dtd 01-01-47," Ligonier, Pennsylvania). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/search.json?q=Richard+King+Mellon+Foundation
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. "David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce (1898-1977)." https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/bruce-david-kirkpatrick-este
|
||||
[^10]: Kulish, Nicholas, and Mike McIntire. "Why an Heiress Spent Her Fortune Trying to Keep Immigrants Out." *The New York Times,* August 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html (as read for the vault page on the Federation for American Immigration Reform).
|
||||
88
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Sky Watcher.md
Normal file
88
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Sky Watcher.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- UAP
|
||||
- PrivateSector
|
||||
- Psionics
|
||||
- AirDomainAwareness
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Sky Watcher
|
||||
- Skywatcher
|
||||
- SkyWatcher
|
||||
- Skywatcher.ai
|
||||
- SkywatcherHQ
|
||||
- Skywatcher Team
|
||||
- Skywatcher Technologies
|
||||
summary: "Private UAP detection group announced in January 2025 by Jake Barber, James Fowler and Alex Klokus, which reported 'dog whistle' and psionic summoning operations at Sierra Blanca, Texas, and stopped posting in December 2025."
|
||||
location: "Sierra Blanca, Texas"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[James Fowler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-founder, led the technology team; left in mid-August 2025, per NewsNation"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Alex Klokus]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-founder and financier, per NewsNation; registered the skywatcher.ai domain in his name in December 2024, per the UAP Files writer Jimmy"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: hosted
|
||||
with: "[[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]]"
|
||||
role: "NewsNation reported on April 7, 2025 that Skywatcher said it had hosted AARO representatives at its private base; no AARO statement on the visit was located"
|
||||
start: 2025-04
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[NewsNation]]"
|
||||
role: "NewsNation reporting by Ross Coulthart, January 2025 to August 2026"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-10-03
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-03
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Skywatcher (also written Sky Watcher) is a private group that described itself as an "independent initiative focused on aerial intelligence, advanced sensing, and unconventional aerospace research." It was announced in January 2025 in connection with the [[NewsNation]] special "[[Hunting UFOs: The Crash Retrieval Whistleblower]]," and NewsNation described it on April 7, 2025 as "a private group known as Skywatcher," "founded by UFO whistleblower [[Jake Barber]]."[^1][^2] Its website names [[Jacob Barber]], [[James Fowler]], [[Alex Klokus]], [[Dan Flechsenhaar]], [[Garry Nolan]], [[Joseph DiNoto]], [[Fred Baker]] and [[Don Paul Bales]] on its About page.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Formation and founders
|
||||
|
||||
NewsNation described Barber as the founder of Skywatcher and reported on January 16, 2025 that his "Skywatcher Team" had deployed "on behalf of the [[U.S. government]]" to investigate the [[2024 New Jersey drone sightings|2024 East Coast drone sightings]], and that in August 2024 the team had conducted "their own operation, with a psionic asset, to see if they could summon a UAP themselves."[^1] A later NewsNation column by [[Ross Coulthart|Coulthart]] gave the founders as "Jake Barber, James Fowler and financier Alex Klokus."[^4] The writer Jimmy of the [[UAP Files]] newsletter stated in August 2026 that the Skywatcher [[YouTube]] account was created on January 18, 2025, six days before Barber's January 24, 2025 appearance on Coulthart's "[[Reality Check (NewsNation)|Reality Check]]," and that Klokus "personally registered the skywatcher.ai domain in his name in December 2024."[^5] [[Jason Colavito]]'s blog wrote on January 19, 2025 that [[Steven Greenstreet]] had reported that Barber "launched his own UFO organization, Skywatcher, in November, and its website is owned by Alex Klokus, the co-founder of the [[SALT (conference)|SALT]] conference, where UFO figures frequently speak to tech and financial elites."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The website's FAQ states that Skywatcher "is funded through private partnerships and professional consulting engagements," and, in answer to the question whether it is "a direct extension, surrogate for, or acting as a public messaging conduit for the US Government or any element of the US Intelligence Community," answers "No. Skywatcher is an independent and private entity." It also states that it does not "currently claim possession" of recovered materials, although it is "actively engaged in the public recovery and analysis of exotic aerospace materials."[^7] It lists 20 or more experts and "400+ years of combined" experience, and describes its approach as bridging "Special Operations, Advanced Sensing, & Non-Traditional Air Defense Techniques."[^7] Its research page lists a "Skywatcher Discovery Framework," described as "our proposed model for responsible UAP engagement, civilian access to data, and long-term transparency."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officers, investors and filings
|
||||
|
||||
No Form D filing by an issuer named Skywatcher was found in a full-text search of the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] EDGAR database restricted to Form D on October 3, 2026, and a search for "Jake Barber" and "Jacob Barber" in Form D filings returned none.[^9] A search of OpenCorporates for the name returned several unrelated state registrations (including Delaware entities named Skywatcher Technologies Corporation, file number 10021279, and Skywatcher Technologies Initiative LLC, file number 4376561, with registered agents and no public officer data), none of which has been tied by any source to Barber, Fowler or Klokus.[^10] Klokus appears as a named officer, director or managing member in Form D filings of other issuers. [[Futurism, LLC]] ([[Brooklyn]], [[New York City|New York]]; Form D signed December 19, 2016; first sale November 22, 2016; total offering 6,000,652 dollars, all sold, one investor) lists [[Alexander Klokus]] and [[Dan Sutera]] as executive officers and directors and [[Johnson Bryan]] and [[Michael G. Clark]] as directors. [[Theo Rewards, Inc.]] (New York; Form D filed February 3, 2020; 300,000 dollars offered and sold) lists "Alexander Lockwood Klokus" as director, co-chief executive officer and chief financial officer and [[Ankur Jain]] as director, co-chief executive officer and secretary. [[SALT Fund I, L.P.]] ([[Palm Beach Gardens]], [[Florida]]) lists Klokus and [[Alexander Scaramucci]] as managing members of the general partner; its Form D of March 16, 2021 shows a 25,000,000 dollar offering with nothing yet sold, and an amended Form D of July 6, 2021 shows a 40,000,000 dollar offering with 34,585,000 dollars sold to 91 investors, first sale March 17, 2021. [[Kyber Capital Crypto Fund I LP]] (Form D August 24, 2022; indefinite offering, none sold) lists Klokus and "Alexander Joseph Scaramucci" as managing members of the general partner and investment manager, [[SALT Fund Management, LLC]]. [[Tomorrow Farms Inc.]] (New York) lists [[Ben Berman]] as chief executive officer, Scaramucci as treasurer and Klokus as secretary in its Form D of May 24, 2022 (8,500,000 dollars offered, 8,255,000 sold to 21 investors) and, as Tomorrow Farms, PBC, in a Form D filed April 29, 2024 (11,849,995 dollars offered, 4,765,635 sold to six investors). Further filings list Klokus and a Scaramucci together as directors of [[Microcapital, Inc.]] (East Hampton; Form D November 7, 2024; 1,535,000 dollars sold) and [[Radial Health, Inc.]] (Salt Lake City; Form D April 29, 2024; 8,499,990 dollars offered, 7,797,992 sold), and as executive officers ("Alex Klokus" and "AJ Scaramucci") of [[Shuttle Labs LLC]] (New York; Form D November 28, 2022; 25,000 dollars).[^11] The name is recorded here exactly as filed ("Alexander Scaramucci," "Alexander Joseph Scaramucci," "Scaramucci Alexander," "Alexander J Scaramucci," "AJ Scaramucci"); none of the filings gives a middle or alternate name connecting the filer to any other person of the surname, and the filings do not mention Skywatcher.[^11] Separately, a Form D of [[Solari Capital]] funds beginning December 2024 (for example Solari Capital Fund III, L.P., Form D December 19, 2024) lists "Alexander Scaramucci" as managing member of the general partner.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Federal Election Commission]] records list two contributions of 25 dollars (September 12, 2019) and 5 dollars (June 28, 2019) by an "Alex Klokus" of Brooklyn, employer and occupation "self," to [[ActBlue]], and no other contributions under that name; a separate FEC entry of June 15, 2023 lists one contribution of 250 dollars, through ActBlue to [[Yassamin Ansari]] for Congress, by "Alexander Scaramucci" of [[San Francisco]] with employer "Solari; SALT."[^12] The [[United States Senate|Senate]] [[Lobbying Disclosure Act]] database returned no filing for a client or registrant named Skywatcher or Sky Watcher on October 3, 2026, and a [[USAspending.gov]] search of contract awards to a recipient named "SKYWATCHER LLC" returned none.[^13][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Field operations
|
||||
|
||||
The Skywatcher media page lists two videos. "Skywatcher Part I: The Journey Begins" is described as including interviews with Klokus, Barber, Nolan, [[David Grusch]], Col. [[Karl Nell]] and Baker, followed by an attempt "to replicate the process firsthand." "Skywatcher Part II: Mapping the Unknown" is described as introducing Fowler, "who leads the technology team," a taxonomy of nine UAP classes, and field work with "Dr. Garry Nolan, Alex Klokus, [[Matt Pines]], and others," using "electromechanical signaling ('machine calling') and neuromeditative interaction ('psionic calling')."[^15] The nine classes on its research page include Tetra, [[Tic Tac]], jellyfish and manta ray; its Tic Tac class is described as seen "with the Manta Ray in proximity."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 7, 2025 NewsNation reported Coulthart's statement that Skywatcher used a "secret location known as 'The Range'" and an "electro-mechanical dog whistle," that "every time they use their dog whistle, it's worked 100% of the time in summoning the phenomenon," and that the group said it had hosted representatives of the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] "at its private base."[^2] Coulthart wrote in August 2026 that the base was at [[Sierra Blanca, Texas]], southeast of [[El Paso, Texas]], and that Skywatcher operated there "until July" 2025.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cessation and later reporting
|
||||
|
||||
Coulthart wrote that Skywatcher's last post on [[X (social network)|X]] was on December 25, 2025, that nothing had been posted on the website since Fowler left "in mid-August last year to follow what he described as a new opportunity in aerial intelligence," and that "multiple insiders" had told NewsNation that by its last field operation in July 2025 Skywatcher "was working with and reporting to a number of government agencies, including [[NASA]], the [[Department of Defense]] and several intelligence agencies, including the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]."[^4] He stated that a [[Federal Aviation Administration]] notice to airmen posted on November 8, 2025 closed airspace southeast of El Paso through November 7, 2026 as "national defense airspace," that it was canceled on November 14, 2025, and that he had "learned the TFR was initiated by the Defense Department's [[Joint Special Operations Command]] liaison to the FAA and imposed 'to shoot down drones.'"[^4] He added that "Sources in the Trump administration" told him the government was using "the same so-called dog-whistle" and "psionic summoners" in operations at [[White Sands Missile Range]], and that "[[White House]] sources" said [[Donald Trump]] had personally authorized it; these statements are Coulthart's, attributed to unnamed sources.[^4] Coulthart's column also describes a February 10, 2026 closure of airspace over El Paso by the Federal Aviation Administration, rescinded about seven hours later; he wrote that [[The New York Times]] reported the closure followed use by immigration officials of an antidrone laser shared by the [[Pentagon]] against what turned out to be a party balloon, and that the administration had first cited cartel drones; he called the cartel-drone explanation one that "made no sense."[^4] On August 7, 2026 NewsNation published a Coulthart question-and-answer segment titled "Skywatcher didn't disappear, it went government."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
The Defense Department's response to Barber's January 2025 claims, given by spokesperson [[Sue Gough]], was that it "has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."[^17] On February 24, 2025 NewsNation reported that the department confirmed it was investigating Barber's claims, and Coulthart said that AARO director [[Jon Kosloski]] had indicated his office was talking with whistleblowers such as Barber.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Ross Coulthart and Kellie Meyer, "Whistleblower reveals UAP retrieval program; object caught on video," NewsNation, January 2025 (full special). https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/hfr-uap-recovery-video-egg-shaped-object-exclusive/ ; see also "UAP whistleblower says UFO retrieval program exists: NewsNation exclusive," January 16, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/uap-whistleblower-ufo-retrieval-program/
|
||||
[^2]: Michael Ramsey, "Skywatcher video of 'summoned' UFOs coming soon: Ross Coulthart," NewsNation, updated April 7, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/summoned-ufos-video-ross-coulthart/
|
||||
[^3]: Skywatcher, "About." https://skywatcher.ai/about (retrieved October 3, 2026).
|
||||
[^4]: Ross Coulthart, "Is the Trump administration running a covert UFO program?," NewsNation Reality Check, published about August 2026 (retrieved October 3, 2026 showing "2 months ago"). https://www.newsnationnow.com/podcasts-newsnation/reality-check/trump-administration-covert-ufo-program/amp/
|
||||
[^5]: Jimmy, "Skywatcher: The Disclosure Team That Disappeared - I Tracked Their Helicopter," UAP Files, August 12, 2026. https://uapf.substack.com/p/skywatcher-the-disclosure-team-that . Sole source for the domain registration and YouTube creation dates cited here.
|
||||
[^6]: Jason Colavito, "In Brief: NewsNation Offers a New UFO 'Crash Retrieval' Story," January 19, 2025. https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/in-brief-newsnation-offers-a-new-ufo-crash-retrieval-story . Colavito reports Greenstreet's reporting at second hand; the original New York Post article was not located. Sole source for the passage so cited.
|
||||
[^7]: Skywatcher, home page and FAQ. https://skywatcher.ai/ (retrieved October 3, 2026).
|
||||
[^8]: Skywatcher, "Research." https://skywatcher.ai/research (retrieved October 3, 2026).
|
||||
[^9]: SEC EDGAR full-text search, phrases "Skywatcher," "Sky Watcher," "Skywatcher Technologies," "Jake Barber," forms D, October 3, 2026. https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Skywatcher%22&forms=D
|
||||
[^10]: OpenCorporates, search "skywatcher," and entity pages us_de/10021279 and us_de/4376561, retrieved October 3, 2026. https://opencorporates.com/companies?q=skywatcher
|
||||
[^11]: SEC EDGAR, Form D filings (primary_doc.xml): Futurism, LLC, CIK 0001692611, accession 0001692611-16-000001; Theo Rewards, Inc., CIK 0001801852, 0001801852-20-000001; SALT Fund I, L.P., CIK 0001850930, 0001850930-21-000001 and -000002 (D/A); Kyber Capital Crypto Fund I LP, CIK 0001935894, 0001935894-22-000003; Tomorrow Farms Inc. / Tomorrow Farms, PBC, CIK 0001930812, 0001930812-22-000001 and 0000929638-24-001654; Microcapital, Inc., CIK 0002044152, 0002044152-24-000001; Radial Health, Inc., CIK 0002021359, 0002021359-24-000001; Shuttle Labs LLC, CIK 0001955431, 0001955431-22-000002; Solari Capital Fund III, L.P., CIK 0002019181, 0002019181-24-000001. Example: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1850930/000185093021000001/primary_doc.xml (all retrieved October 3, 2026). Index search: https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Klokus%22&forms=D
|
||||
[^12]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC schedule A, contributor "Klokus, Alex," September 12, 2019 and June 28, 2019; contributor "Scaramucci, Alexander," June 15, 2023 (employer "Solari; SALT," San Francisco). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
|
||||
[^13]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, client_name searches "Skywatcher" and "Sky Watcher," October 3, 2026. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Skywatcher
|
||||
[^14]: USAspending.gov API, recipient autocomplete and spending_by_award (contract types A to D) for "SKYWATCHER LLC," October 3, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/
|
||||
[^15]: Skywatcher, "Media." https://skywatcher.ai/media (retrieved October 3, 2026).
|
||||
[^16]: Ross Coulthart and Meagan Medick, "Ross Coulthart Q&A: Skywatcher didn't disappear, it went government," NewsNation, updated August 7, 2026. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/ross-coulthart-qa-skywatcher-didnt-disappear-it-went-government/
|
||||
[^17]: "UAP whistleblower says UFO retrieval program exists: NewsNation exclusive," January 16, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/uap-whistleblower-ufo-retrieval-program/
|
||||
[^18]: Michael Ramsey, "UFO whistleblower Jake Barber's claims being investigated by Pentagon," NewsNation, updated February 24, 2025. https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/pentagon-investigates-ufo-claims/
|
||||
136
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Sol Foundation.md
Normal file
136
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Sol Foundation.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,136 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "UFO & Anomalous Phenomena"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- UFO
|
||||
- UAP
|
||||
- ThinkTank
|
||||
- Nonprofit
|
||||
- Stanford
|
||||
- SolFoundation
|
||||
- Disclosure
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Sol Foundation
|
||||
- The Sol Foundation
|
||||
- Sol Foundation for Advanced Studies
|
||||
- The Sol Foundation for Advanced Scientific and Policy Research
|
||||
- Sol Foundation for Advanced Scientific and Policy Research
|
||||
- The Sol Foundation for Advanced Scientific and Research Policy
|
||||
- Sol Foundation Initiative for UAP Research and Policy
|
||||
summary: "California public benefit corporation launched August 15, 2023 by Garry Nolan and Peter Skafish to study unidentified anomalous phenomena, with a 2024 Form 990 showing $937,625 in revenue and one $10,000 white paper grant."
|
||||
location: "California (Redwood City, Auburn and Stanford addresses of record)"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jonathan Berte]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-07-07
|
||||
role: "listed chief financial officer in a September 2023 business-registry entry; treasurer on the 2024 Form 990"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Maura Mindrila]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2024
|
||||
role: "Director of Strategy (symposium host, 2024); co-CEO on the 2024 Form 990"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[I. Charles McCullough III]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-08
|
||||
role: "named as legal counsel to the foundation"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Jennifer Preston]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chief operating officer, as listed on the foundation's website (viewed October 3, 2026; start date not given)"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Aneil Mallavarapu]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "'independent board member,' as listed on the foundation's website (viewed October 3, 2026; start date not given)"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Avi Loeb]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Natural Sciences Advisory Board, as listed on the foundation's website (viewed October 3, 2026)"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jacques Vallee]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "emeritus advisor, as listed on the foundation's website (viewed October 3, 2026)"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
created: 2026-10-03
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-03
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Sol Foundation for Advanced Scientific and Policy Research is a [[California]] nonprofit public benefit corporation that described itself on its launch date, August 15, 2023, as established "to research the philosophical, policy, and scientific implications of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena." It was led at launch by [[Garry Nolan]] of the [[Stanford University]] School of Medicine and the sociocultural anthropologist [[Peter Skafish]].[^1] Its first public sign was a set of documents that surfaced in early August 2023 under the name "Sol Foundation for Advanced Studies," among them the résumé of [[David Grusch]] filed with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Accountability]].[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Incorporation and registry entries
|
||||
|
||||
A California business-registry entry last updated September 1, 2023 lists the corporation under its present name on the basis of filings dated July 7, 2023, with three contacts: Nolan, Skafish and [[Jonathan Berte]], the last as chief financial officer.[^4] The [[California Secretary of State]] record as carried by [[OpenCorporates]] shows an entity of type "Nonprofit Corporation, CA, Public Benefit" (entity number 5810665) with an agent address of Stanford University, 269 Campus Drive, Stanford, California 94305, and a further address of 2945 Bell Road, #316, [[Auburn]], California 95603. Four current officers and one inactive officer are recorded but are not displayed without a login, and the incorporation date is likewise withheld in the public view.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Internal Revenue Service]] Exempt Organizations Business Master File lists the organization under EIN 93-3649160 as a 501(c)(3) with a ruling date of June 2024, in care of "Attn Nolan" at 5 Hermosa Road, [[Redwood City]], California 94062.[^6] The Form 990 for 2024 gives the Auburn address, a telephone number in the 408 area code, a year of formation of 2023 and California as the state of legal domicile.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The résumé that Grusch submitted to the House Committee on Oversight for its July 26, 2023 hearing lists, under "May 2023-Present," the position "Chief Operating Officer (COO), The Sol Foundation," and describes the employer as a "501c3 federally recognized non-profit," followed by the text "The premier center for research in the natural and social sciences, engineering, and the humanities, but also extends activities to advisory and policy work for the [[U.S. government]]/public outreach."[^3] The IRS ruling date on record for EIN 93-3649160 is June 2024.[^6] Nolan said in September 2023 that Grusch's title had since changed to senior founding advisor, that the earlier title "seemed the right thing at the time," and that Grusch was "a founder of the Sol Foundation."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officers and board
|
||||
|
||||
The Form 990 for the calendar year 2024 lists four people in Part VII: Garry Nolan, director, 0.00 hours a week, no compensation; Peter Skafish, secretary, 1.00 hour a week, reportable compensation $20,000 and other compensation $40,000; Jonathan Berte, treasurer, 0.00 hours, no compensation; and [[Maura Mindrila]], co-CEO, 0.00 hours, other compensation $40,000. Skafish signed the return as secretary on November 16, 2025 and is named as principal officer. The return reports three voting members of the governing body, all independent, no employees and an estimated 25 volunteers.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Press statements used other titles. Nolan was "Executive Director of the Board" and Skafish "Director of Research" in September 2023, and Skafish was "executive director" in December 2024.[^2][^8] Nolan said in 2023 that his Stanford appointment did not allow him to hold an officer role in an outside company and that he took no salary.[^2] [[Diana Walsh Pasulka]] posted on September 11, 2023 that she was joining the board, and the foundation named [[I. Charles McCullough III]], a former [[Inspector General of the Intelligence Community]], as its legal counsel.[^2] McCullough signed the November 12, 2024 letter to Congress on the review-board provisions of the [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act]] under the heading "Former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community," as did Nolan, Skafish, Pasulka and Gallaudet.[^9] McCullough is also counsel to Grusch, whom he represented in a May 2022 urgent-concern complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
Berte founded the machine-vision company [[Robovision]], which was reported in March 2023 to be assisting Stanford with artificial-intelligence applications for the study of complex diseases.[^2] Mindrila hosted the 2024 symposium as Director of Strategy.[^8] Part IV of the 2024 Form 990 answers yes to maintaining an office, employees or agents outside the [[United States]].[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Website roster
|
||||
|
||||
The foundation's website, read on October 3, 2026, lists under "Executive Leadership" Garry Nolan ("Co-Founder & Executive Director of the Board"), Peter Skafish ("Co-Founder & Executive Director"), [[Tim Gallaudet]] ("Senior Advisor"), [[Aneil Mallavarapu]] ("Independent Board Member"), [[Jennifer Preston]] ("Chief Operating Officer"), [[Matt Mason]] ("Chief Marketing Officer"), [[Lou Grossi]] ("Chief Information Officer") and [[Christian Peters]] ("Associate Director of Research"). Its "Advisory Board" lists [[Eric Davis]], [[Jeffrey J. Kripal]] and Pasulka (social sciences), Loeb and [[Beatriz Villarroel]] (natural sciences), [[Jacob Haqq-Misra]], [[Alexander Wendt]], [[Jim Semivan]], [[Kirk McConnell]] ("Senior Legislative Affairs Officer") and [[Jacques Vallee]] ("Emeritus Advisor"). The page does not list Grusch, Berte, Mindrila, McCullough or [[Karl Nell]], although Berte, Mindrila and Skafish appear on the 2024 Form 990 and Nell is the author of a Sol paper (see White papers).[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Money
|
||||
|
||||
The 2024 Form 990 (submitted November 22, 2025, prepared by [[EAJ CPA LLC]] of [[Kensington, Connecticut]]) reports total revenue of $937,625: contributions of $758,538, of which $440,776 is entered on line 1d, "related organizations," and $317,762 on line 1f, plus $179,087 of program service revenue under the heading "Symposium." Expenses were $861,680 and gross receipts are stated as $937,625. Revenue less expenses was $75,945; assets at year end were $65,945 (all cash), liabilities $170,000 (against $180,000 at the start of the year) and net assets minus $104,055 (against minus $180,000). Every prior-year column on the return is zero, which suggests that this was the first return filed.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The expense lines include $117,000 for management fees, $269,797 for conferences, conventions and meetings, $66,279 for travel, $11,618 for security and event support, $5,000 for refuse removal, and $380,591 labelled "public relations, brand development" in Schedule O, of which $14,815 is program expense and $365,776 management and general. Part IV, line 34, answers no to whether the organization was related to any tax-exempt or taxable entity, and no Schedule R is among the schedules published; the return does not say who the "related organizations" on Part VIII line 1d are. Schedule B, the schedule of contributors, contains two contributor entries, each with the name and the amount shown only as "RESTRICTED" in the public copy. The return gives the organization's name as "The Sol Foundation for Advanced Scientific and Research Policy," with "Research" and "Policy" in the reverse of the order used in the IRS master file and the California record.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Schedule I lists one grant to an individual: $10,000 as a "research grant for white paper on geopolitical implications of unidentified anomalous phenomena." Its supplemental statement says the organization grants funds to experts "in exchange for white papers," that grantees are selected by the board of directors and that the papers are published on its website. Schedule O describes the November 22 to 23, 2024 symposium at the [[Fort Mason Center]] in [[San Francisco]].[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[UAP Disclosure Fund]], a San Francisco 501(c)(4) in care of [[Yuan Fung]] (EIN 99-2834592, IRS ruling date July 2025), has Fung as its executive director on the November 12, 2024 scientists' letter to Congress that Nolan, Skafish, Pasulka, Gallaudet and others signed, and Gallaudet's House biography lists him as an advisory board member of both the Fund and the Sol Foundation.[^12][^9] The [[Sol Foundation Inc]] of [[Carmel, Indiana]] (EIN 99-3863647; 1051 Oswego Road, in care of [[Lawrence Baker]]; IRS ruling date August 2024; private non-operating foundation) is a separate entity. Its Form 990-PF for the period December 24 to December 31, 2024 (submitted November 14, 2025; prepared by [[L M Henderson & Company LLP]] of [[Indianapolis]]) reports $25,000,000 in contributions received, $17,976 in interest and dividends, $89,482 in expenses, $24,928,494 in assets, no grants paid, and three directors, Lawrence Baker, [[Patricia Baker]] and [[Charles Hertlein]], each at one hour a week and unpaid. It lists no website and a telephone number in the 513 area code. Nothing in that filing refers to unidentified anomalous phenomena, to the California corporation or to any of its officers, and no document opened for this entry links the two organizations.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
No filing under the client name Sol Foundation appears in the [[United States Senate]] lobbying disclosure database, and no contribution record under the names of Skafish, Berte or Mindrila appears in the [[Federal Election Commission]] database.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Symposia
|
||||
|
||||
The first symposium, the "Sol Foundation Initiative for UAP Research and Policy," was held November 17 to 18, 2023 in [[Palo Alto, California]], hosted by the [[Nolan Laboratory]] and the Stanford School of Medicine, by invitation only. Nolan opened it with the words "The objective here is to legitimize and professionalize." Speakers included [[Avi Loeb]], Jacques Vallee, Pasulka, the Canadian member of Parliament [[Larry Maguire]], Tim Gallaudet, Karl Nell and [[Christopher Mellon]]. Grusch joined on the second day by video from Washington and said, "We need to basically create a parallel track of research and independent discovery that aren't necessarily dependent on the U.S. government."[^15] Nell's talk is catalogued as "The Schumer Amendment & Controlled Disclosure," a reference to the Senate UAP amendment sponsored by [[Chuck Schumer]].[^16] Skafish said of the audience, "That audience was as important to me in organizing as the lineup of speakers was," and that the organizers were "very deliberately careful in evaluating the requests for invitations."[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The second symposium, November 22 to 23, 2024 at Fort Mason Center, was opened by Mindrila. Speakers named in coverage were Nell, Eric Davis, the religious-studies scholar [[Stephen Finley]], Gallaudet, the journalist [[Leslie Kean]] with [[Ryan Graves]] of [[Americans for Safe Aerospace]], the former Senate staff member Kirk McConnell and the venture investor [[Rizwan Virk]]. Virk presented four funding models for "frontier science" (research grants, awards-based prizes, an incubator and venture funds) and said he was writing a Sol white paper on the subject. Skafish said that year's meeting was convened in light of "a divisive election season and the likely failure of the UAP Disclosure Act."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### White papers
|
||||
|
||||
The foundation's website lists twelve papers (read October 3, 2026). Volume 1: No. 1, Gallaudet, "Beneath the Surface: We May Learn More about UAP by Looking in the Ocean" (March 2024); No. 2, "UAP in Crowded Skies: Atmospheric and Orbital Threat Reduction in an Age of Geopolitical Uncertainty," credited to "The Sol Foundation" (March 2024); No. 3, [[Helen McCaw]], "[[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]]: Policy Implications for the Government of the [[United Kingdom]]" (May 2024); No. 4, "Anomalous Health Threats: Health Security Considerations for UAP," credited to "The Sol Foundation" (July 2024); No. 5, [[Paul Thigpen]], "NHI, UAP, and the Catholic Faith: How Will the Church Respond" (July 2024); No. 6, Skafish, "The Prospect of Executive Branch Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Secrecy: The Harm to Congress and Potential Remedies" (November 2024). Volume 2: No. 1, Rizwan Virk, "Investment in UAP Technology and Ventures: Opportunities, Challenges, and a Way Forward" (March 2025); Nell, "The UFO Enigma: A Call for US Government Disclosure" (May 2025; its cover reads "The Policy Papers of the Sol Foundation, Volume 2, No. 2, Spring 2025"); and three papers by [[Marik von Rennenkampff]]: "Robust Evidence of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena in Pre-Satellite Era Night-Sky Images" (January 2026), "First Peer-Reviewed Scientific Analysis of Possible UAP Materials Employs State-of-the-Art Technologies" (April 2026) and "The Civilizational Risks of a UAP Technology Arms Race: Nonhuman Technology and Global Security" (August 2026). The site also lists, under April 2026, McConnell's "UAP Whistleblower Restitution Fund Would Incentivize Disclosures to Congress." The numbering printed on the site for the 2026 items does not run consecutively with the earlier series.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
Volume 1, No. 2 gives "Board Director: Dr. Garry Nolan" and "Executive Director: Dr. Peter Skafish" on its back page. Its executive summary says the foundation "commissioned" the report and that it does not present evidence for any theory of UAP. Its bibliography cites Senate Amendment 797 to S. 2226.[^18] Nell's paper argues for enactment of the review-board and eminent-domain provisions of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act "or by executive order," credits [[Mike Rounds]] and Chuck Schumer with the 2024 reintroduction, and describes its author as a retired Army colonel whose last active-duty assignment was as Army director supporting the [[UAP Task Force]] and who is chief executive of [[StarDustX Materials]], Inc., "a multimillion-dollar VC-backed startup."[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### UAP Science Advisory Council
|
||||
|
||||
In June 2026 Loeb announced that he would lead a "UAP Science Advisory Council" and, in a list he supplied to the news outlet [[DefenseScoop]] (published June 17, 2026), named twelve other members with focus areas, among them Gallaudet (oceanography), Nolan (molecular biology and materials science) and Skafish (anthropology). An official of the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] told DefenseScoop that the office, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] and the [[Department of Defense]] had established an interagency UAP Governance Board, that it "met for the first time yesterday" (June 16, 2026), and that the board is supported by outside advisory groups including the council. Loeb said the council would help the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] "resolve the UAP mystery."[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Micah Hanks, "The Sol Foundation: How a New Think Tank of Academics is Applying 'Cutting-Edge Research' to the UAP Mystery," *The Debrief*, September 12, 2023. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-how-a-new-think-tank-of-academics-is-applying-cutting-edge-research-the-uap-mystery/
|
||||
[^2]: Same article, interview passages with Nolan and Skafish; Pasulka's post of September 11, 2023 is embedded in the article.
|
||||
[^3]: "David C. Grusch" résumé, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, hearing of July 26, 2023, Experience section. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO06/20230726/116282/HHRG-118-GO06-Bio-GruschD-20230726.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: Hanks, September 12, 2023, citing a Bizapedia entry updated September 1, 2023 and filings of July 7, 2023. The Bizapedia page itself returned a bot check and was not opened.
|
||||
[^5]: OpenCorporates, "The Sol Foundation for Advanced Scientific and Policy Research," California entity 5810665, viewed October 3, 2026. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ca/5810665 (the California Secretary of State search returned a security block).
|
||||
[^6]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, EIN 933649160, IRS Business Master File extract dated September 16, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/933649160.json
|
||||
[^7]: IRS Form 990 for 2024, EIN 93-3649160, object ID 202543269349300004, submitted November 22, 2025, with Schedules A, B, I and O, as rendered at https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/933649160/202543269349300004/full
|
||||
[^8]: Chrissy Newton, "Academics, Investors, and UAP Seekers Unite at the 2024 Sol Foundation Symposium," *The Debrief*, December 20, 2024. https://thedebrief.org/academics-investors-and-uap-seekers-unite-at-the-2024-sol-foundation-symposium/
|
||||
[^9]: "Biography of the Honorable Tim Gallaudet, PhD," House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, hearing of November 13, 2024, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Bio-GallaudetPhDRearAdmiralUSNavyRetT-20241113.pdf ; and the signatory letter of November 12, 2024 in his submitted statement, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO12/20241113/117721/HHRG-118-GO12-Wstate-GallaudetPhDRearAdmiralUSNavyRetT-20241113-SD001.pdf; testimony of Gallaudet to Rep. Garcia, joint hearing of November 13, 2024, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg57440/html/CHRG-118hhrg57440.htm ("the Sol Foundation as a senior strategic advisor")
|
||||
[^10]: Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, "Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Non-Human Craft," *The Debrief*, June 5, 2023. https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/
|
||||
[^11]: The Sol Foundation, home page, "People" section (Executive Leadership and Advisory Board), https://thesolfoundation.org/ , read October 3, 2026.
|
||||
[^12]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, EIN 992834592 (UAP Disclosure Fund). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/992834592.json
|
||||
[^13]: IRS Form 990-PF for 2024, EIN 99-3863647, object ID 202533189349100938, submitted November 14, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/993863647
|
||||
[^14]: Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database query, client_name "Sol Foundation," October 3, 2026 (fifteen returns, none for this organization); FEC Schedule A queries for the named individuals, October 3, 2026.
|
||||
[^15]: 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/
|
||||
[^16]: Anomaly Archives, "Nell, Karl," listing a Sol Foundation video titled "Karl Nell on The Schumer Amendment & Controlled Disclosure." https://anomalyarchives.org/collections/file/nell-karl/
|
||||
[^17]: The Sol Foundation, "All Publications," twelve papers with authors, volume and month, https://thesolfoundation.org/all-publications/ , and paper pages under https://thesolfoundation.org/publications/ , read October 3, 2026.
|
||||
[^18]: "UAP in Crowded Skies," The White Papers of the Sol Foundation, vol. 1, no. 2, March 2024. https://thesolfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sol_WhitePaper_Vol1N2.pdf
|
||||
[^19]: Karl E. Nell, "The UFO Enigma: A Call for US Government Disclosure," The Policy Papers of the Sol Foundation, Spring 2025, Executive Summary and "About the Author." https://thesolfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/The-UFO-Enigma_Sol-Foundation.pdf
|
||||
[^20]: "New science advisory council forms to help US government 'resolve the UAP mystery,'" *DefenseScoop*, June 17, 2026. https://defensescoop.com/2026/06/17/new-science-advisory-council-forms-to-help-us-government-resolve-the-uap-mystery/
|
||||
|
|
@ -20,47 +20,33 @@ relations:
|
|||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-founder, President and interim Chief Executive Officer; majority shareholder through Gravity Holdings, LLC"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Hal Puthoff]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Vice President of Science and Technology and board member; resigned from the board February 2021 and moved to the science advisory board"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
end: 2021-02
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jim Semivan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "founder, Vice President Operations and director"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Luis Elizondo]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "Chief of Security and Special Programs; later Director of Government Programs and Services; laid off with severance December 2020"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
end: 2020-12
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Christopher Mellon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "advisory board; resigned November 2020"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
end: 2020-11
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command]]"
|
||||
role: "Cooperative Research and Development Agreement 19-15, Novel and Emerging Technology Exploitation, with the Ground Vehicle Systems Center"
|
||||
start: 2019-10-10
|
||||
end: 2024
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Tom DeLonge]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "advances, notes, lines of credit and share conversions"
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-02
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-03
|
||||
---
|
||||
[[To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science]] (TTSA) was a public benefit corporation founded by musician [[Tom DeLonge]] of the band [[Blink-182]]. The organization's goal was to investigate [[Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena]] (UAP) and other fringe scientific topics, and to educate the public about these issues through a combination of scientific research, entertainment, and publishing.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -68,61 +54,90 @@ updated: 2026-10-02
|
|||
|
||||
Tom DeLonge founded TTSA in 2017 with the goal of bringing the UAP conversation out of the shadows and into the mainstream. He assembled a team of former high-ranking government officials and scientists to lead the organization, including [[Luis Elizondo]], [[Christopher Mellon]], [[Jim Semivan]], and [[Hal Puthoff]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The company was structured with three divisions: Science, Aerospace, and Entertainment. The plan was to use the entertainment division to generate revenue that would fund the scientific and aerospace research. TTSA was instrumental in the public release of the three declassified UAP videos - "FLIR" ([[Tic Tac]]), "[[GIMBAL]]," and "GoFast" - which were posted on its [[YouTube]] page in conjunction with the 2017 [[New York Times]] article that revealed the existence of [[AATIP]].[^1]
|
||||
The company was structured with three divisions: Science, Aerospace, and Entertainment. The plan was to use the entertainment division to generate revenue that would fund the scientific and aerospace research. TTSA released three Navy videos, "FLIR" ([[Tic Tac]]), "[[GIMBAL]]," and "GoFast," on its [[YouTube]] page. The 2017 [[New York Times]] article that revealed the existence of [[AATIP]] carried two of them (FLIR1 and GIMBAL), and GOFAST followed in March 2018.[^1][^2] [[The Black Vault]] describes the videos as "subsequently released by To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, the source of where the New York Times originally received them." [[Pentagon]] spokesperson [[Christopher Sherwood]] told *[[The Intercept]]* in 2019 that the videos were released "for research purposes ... and not for general public release," and the [[Department of Defense]] stated on April 27, 2020 that it "authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos," which had been "circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017." [[Politico]] reported in 2021 that the [[Washington Headquarters Services]] declassification division had approved the videos "for unlimited distribution" inside the government before the Times placement. Mellon said in 2020 that he received the videos in the Pentagon parking lot from a Defense Department official.[^3][^4][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Role in UAP Disclosure
|
||||
|
||||
TTSA played a significant role in the early stages of the modern UAP disclosure movement. The organization provided a platform for Luis Elizondo to speak publicly about his work with AATIP after he resigned from the [[Pentagon]]. The company also produced the television show "[[Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation]]" on the [[History Channel]], which featured Elizondo and other former government officials investigating UAP cases.[^1]
|
||||
TTSA played a significant role in the early stages of the modern UAP disclosure movement. The organization provided a platform for Luis Elizondo to speak publicly about his work with [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] after he resigned from the [[Pentagon]]. The company also produced the television show "[[Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation]]" on the [[History Channel]], which featured Elizondo and other former government officials investigating UAP cases.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
While the organization was ultimately not financially successful and many of its key members, including Elizondo, Mellon, and Puthoff, eventually moved on, TTSA was instrumental in raising the public profile of the UAP issue and helping to break the long-standing stigma surrounding the topic.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Registration, offerings and proceeds
|
||||
|
||||
To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science Inc., a [[Delaware]] public benefit corporation of [[Encinitas, California]] ([[Securities and Exchange Commission|SEC]] CIK 1710274, file number 24R-00116), filed an offering statement on Form 1-A on August 15, 2017; the SEC qualified it on September 29, 2017, for the sale of Class A common stock with a minimum of 1,000,000 dollars and a maximum of 50,000,000 dollars. Its Regulation A annual reports (Form 1-K) and semiannual reports (Form 1-SA) state the following proceeds.[^2][^3]
|
||||
To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science Inc., a [[Delaware]] public benefit corporation of [[Encinitas, California]] ([[Securities and Exchange Commission|SEC]] CIK 1710274, file number 24R-00116), filed an offering statement on Form 1-A on August 15, 2017; the SEC qualified it on September 29, 2017, for the sale of Class A common stock with a minimum of 1,000,000 dollars and a maximum of 50,000,000 dollars. Its Regulation A annual reports (Form 1-K) and semiannual reports (Form 1-SA) state the following proceeds.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
First offering: approximately 1,370,000 dollars raised, with proceeds net of offering costs of approximately 1,172,000 dollars during 2018 (offering costs of about 244,000 dollars in 2017 and 199,000 dollars in 2018); 274,046 new Class A shares were issued to investors in 2018.[^3] Second offering (qualified July 12, 2019, up to 30,000,000 dollars): approximately 818,000 dollars raised by its expiry in July 2020 per the fiscal 2020 report (the fiscal 2021 report gives 161,762 shares sold at 5 dollars, 808,810 dollars gross), net proceeds of about 336,000 dollars in 2019 and 167,200 dollars in 2020.[^4] Third offering (qualified September 18, 2020, described as up to 6,000,000 shares in the 2020 report and up to 30,000,000 dollars in the 2021 report, with [[Digital Offering]], LLC as selling agent at a 7.0 percent fee plus warrants for 2.0 percent of gross proceeds): approximately 113,500 dollars raised before the company stopped marketing it on December 18, 2020.[^4] Fourth offering (qualified March 31, 2022): approximately 488,790 dollars raised before termination on November 3, 2022.[^5] The four stated figures sum to approximately 2,790,290 dollars gross (2,781,100 dollars using the 808,810 dollar figure for the second offering).
|
||||
First offering: approximately 1,370,000 dollars raised, with proceeds net of offering costs of approximately 1,172,000 dollars during 2018 (offering costs of about 244,000 dollars in 2017 and 199,000 dollars in 2018); 274,046 new Class A shares were issued to investors in 2018.[^6] Second offering (qualified July 12, 2019, up to 30,000,000 dollars): approximately 818,000 dollars raised by its expiry in July 2020 per the fiscal 2020 report (the fiscal 2021 report gives 161,762 shares sold at 5 dollars, 808,810 dollars gross), net proceeds of about 336,000 dollars in 2019 and 167,200 dollars in 2020.[^7] Third offering (qualified September 18, 2020, described as up to 6,000,000 shares in the 2020 report and up to 30,000,000 dollars in the 2021 report, with [[Digital Offering]], LLC as selling agent at a 7.0 percent fee plus warrants for 2.0 percent of gross proceeds): approximately 113,500 dollars raised before the company stopped marketing it on December 18, 2020.[^7] Fourth offering (qualified March 31, 2022): approximately 488,790 dollars raised before termination on November 3, 2022.[^8] The four stated figures sum to approximately 2,790,290 dollars gross (2,781,100 dollars using the 808,810 dollar figure for the second offering).
|
||||
|
||||
### Losses
|
||||
|
||||
The filings report a net loss from operations of 422,670 dollars for 2016; 30,665,436 dollars for 2017, of which stock-based compensation expense was 29,535,799 dollars (including 18,958,333 dollars recognized on the option grant to [[Kari DeLonge]]); 10,660,495 dollars for 2018 (stock-based compensation 9,165,417 dollars); 9,392,988 dollars for 2019; 4,071,560 dollars for 2020 (the fiscal 2020 statement of operations shows an operating loss of 3,935,621 dollars, the figure the fiscal 2021 report gives for 2020); 581,396 dollars for 2021; 1,339,512 dollars for 2022 (the fiscal 2022 statements show a net loss of 1,351,896 dollars, the figure the fiscal 2023 report gives for 2022); 143,387 dollars for 2023; 57,388 dollars for 2024; and 225,736 dollars for 2025. The report for the six months to June 30, 2026 states a net loss of 134,424 dollars against 315,829 dollars for the same period of 2025. The reports for fiscal 2021 through 2025 carry a going-concern paragraph.[^3][^4][^5]
|
||||
The filings report a net loss from operations of 422,670 dollars for 2016; 30,665,436 dollars for 2017, of which stock-based compensation expense was 29,535,799 dollars (including 18,958,333 dollars recognized on the option grant to [[Kari DeLonge]]); 10,660,495 dollars for 2018 (stock-based compensation 9,165,417 dollars); 9,392,988 dollars for 2019; 4,071,560 dollars for 2020 (the fiscal 2020 statement of operations shows an operating loss of 3,935,621 dollars, the figure the fiscal 2021 report gives for 2020); 581,396 dollars for 2021; 1,339,512 dollars for 2022 (the fiscal 2022 statements show a net loss of 1,351,896 dollars, the figure the fiscal 2023 report gives for 2022); 143,387 dollars for 2023; 57,388 dollars for 2024; and 225,736 dollars for 2025. The report for the six months to June 30, 2026 states a net loss of 134,424 dollars against 315,829 dollars for the same period of 2025. The reports for fiscal 2021 through 2025 carry a going-concern paragraph.[^6][^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founder shares and the 2019 rescission
|
||||
|
||||
In May 2017 the corporation issued 12,500,000 shares of Class A and 5,400 shares of Class B stock to [[Gravity Holdings]], LLC (controlled through the [[DeLonge Family Trust]]), [[JimSem1]], LLC (wholly owned by Jim Semivan) and Harold Puthoff "in exchange for a nominal cash payment and past and anticipated future efforts to support the company's business and objectives"; Gravity Holdings held 60,000,000 Class A shares, 85.7 percent of the class in the first annual report, after receiving 55,000,000 shares on June 1, 2017 for contributing To The Stars, Inc. In April 2019 the company executed a Rescission and Relinquishment Agreement that cancelled 58,174,203 issued shares of Class A stock and 7,359,687 awards or options; the issuances to Gravity Holdings, JimSem1 and Puthoff were reduced to 9,428,240, 786,580 and 392,620 shares, and Kari DeLonge's option (granted June 6, 2017 for 5,000,000 shares at 0.003 dollars) was reduced to 785,240 shares.[^2][^6]
|
||||
In May 2017 the corporation issued 12,500,000 shares of Class A and 5,400 shares of Class B stock to [[Gravity Holdings]], LLC (controlled through the [[DeLonge Family Trust]]), [[JimSem1]], LLC (wholly owned by Jim Semivan) and Harold Puthoff "in exchange for a nominal cash payment and past and anticipated future efforts to support the company's business and objectives"; Gravity Holdings held 60,000,000 Class A shares, 85.7 percent of the class in the first annual report, after receiving 55,000,000 shares on June 1, 2017 for contributing To The Stars, Inc. In April 2019 the company executed a Rescission and Relinquishment Agreement that cancelled 58,174,203 issued shares of Class A stock and 7,359,687 awards or options; the issuances to Gravity Holdings, JimSem1 and Puthoff were reduced to 9,428,240, 786,580 and 392,620 shares, and Kari DeLonge's option (granted June 6, 2017 for 5,000,000 shares at 0.003 dollars) was reduced to 785,240 shares.[^5][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officer and director compensation
|
||||
|
||||
The first annual report (fiscal 2017) lists cash compensation of 100,000 dollars to Kari DeLonge (Chief Content Officer, sister of Tom DeLonge), 67,962 dollars to [[Lisa Clifford]] (Secretary) and 31,584 dollars to the firm of [[Louis Tomassino]] (Chief Financial Officer) for accounting and tax services, and states that its subsidiary To The Stars, Inc. "did not compensate its executive officer and sole director, Tom DeLonge in cash" while Gravity Holdings, LLC received 60,000,000 Class A shares and DeLonge was owed 100,000 dollars in royalties for 2017; the three directors as a group received 67,500,000 Class A and 5,400 Class B shares. For fiscal 2018 the highest-paid officers were Kari DeLonge (100,256 dollars), Lisa Clifford (74,617 dollars) and [[Stephen Justice]], Chief Operations Officer (43,792 dollars). For fiscal 2019 the table lists [[J. Christopher Mizer]] (director since May 14, 2019, paid 30,000 dollars in cash and 300,000 restricted shares under an Independent Director Agreement at 5,000 dollars per month) alongside Kari DeLonge (100,000) and Lisa Clifford (45,871). Mizer is also co-founder of [[Vivaris Capital]], LLC, which held a consulting agreement from August 2019 at 10,000 dollars per month; on June 23, 2021 the company terminated it, agreed that 170,000 dollars was owed, and settled for 40,000 dollars in cash plus 108,333 shares at 1.20 dollars. Mizer was paid 30,000 dollars in director's fees in each of 2021 through 2025. Luis Elizondo, Hal Puthoff, Jim Semivan and Christopher Mellon do not appear in the compensation tables; the filings describe their roles but do not report their pay, except for the statements of work with EarthTech International below.[^2][^3][^4][^7]
|
||||
The first annual report (fiscal 2017) lists cash compensation of 100,000 dollars to Kari DeLonge (Chief Content Officer, sister of Tom DeLonge), 67,962 dollars to [[Lisa Clifford]] (Secretary) and 31,584 dollars to the firm of [[Louis Tomassino]] (Chief Financial Officer) for accounting and tax services, and states that its subsidiary To The Stars, Inc. "did not compensate its executive officer and sole director, Tom DeLonge in cash" while Gravity Holdings, LLC received 60,000,000 Class A shares and DeLonge was owed 100,000 dollars in royalties for 2017; the three directors as a group received 67,500,000 Class A and 5,400 Class B shares. For fiscal 2018 the highest-paid officers were Kari DeLonge (100,256 dollars), Lisa Clifford (74,617 dollars) and [[Stephen Justice]], Chief Operations Officer (43,792 dollars). For fiscal 2019 the table lists [[J. Christopher Mizer]] (director since May 14, 2019, paid 30,000 dollars in cash and 300,000 restricted shares under an Independent Director Agreement at 5,000 dollars per month) alongside Kari DeLonge (100,000) and Lisa Clifford (45,871). Mizer is also co-founder of [[Vivaris Capital]], LLC, which held a consulting agreement from August 2019 at 10,000 dollars per month; on June 23, 2021 the company terminated it, agreed that 170,000 dollars was owed, and settled for 40,000 dollars in cash plus 108,333 shares at 1.20 dollars. Mizer was paid 30,000 dollars in director's fees in each of 2021 through 2025. Luis Elizondo, Hal Puthoff, Jim Semivan and Christopher Mellon do not appear in the compensation tables; the filings describe their roles but do not report their pay, except for the statements of work with EarthTech International below.[^5][^6][^7][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Related-party financing by Tom DeLonge
|
||||
|
||||
[[Our Two Dogs]], Inc., owned by the DeLonge Family Trust (99 percent) and [[Chloe the Dog]], LP (1 percent), advanced 511,414 dollars in 2017, of which 463,414 dollars was reclassified as contributed capital; it also held a loan of 300,000 dollars (April 2016), raised to 600,000 dollars in August 2017 at 6 percent. On March 31, 2019 it forgave the 600,000 dollar principal and 88,123 dollars of interest (688,123 dollars, treated as contributed capital). A licensing agreement of April 26, 2017 with Tom DeLonge, [[Mr. Handsome]], LLC and [[Good In Bed Music]], [[ASCAP]], covering his name, likeness and [[Angels and Airwaves]] works, carries a minimum royalty of 100,000 dollars per year (0.5 to 15 percent of gross sales above that), recorded as cost of revenue and unpaid as of the end of 2017, 2018 and 2019 (accumulated 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000 dollars). In 2018 DeLonge extended a 495,000 dollar revolving line of credit at 8.58 percent, secured by company intellectual property (335,000 dollars outstanding at the end of 2018 and 463,837 dollars at the end of 2019); in July 2019 the company bought a set of metamaterials from DeLonge for 35,000 dollars. Total amounts owed to DeLonge were 791,123 dollars (end of 2017), 1,288,148 dollars (2018), 963,763 dollars (2019) and 727,043 dollars (2020). In June 2021 the line of credit balance (517,435 dollars plus 52,364 dollars interest) and 372,165 dollars in personal advances (including 157,244 dollars used to pay credit card balances) were converted into 784,970 shares of Class A stock, and the fiscal 2021 report states both that 607,121 dollars of 2021 advances were converted at 1.20 dollars per share and that additional advances of 392,200 dollars through December 31, 2021 were converted to 326,834 shares. In March 2026 DeLonge, then described as chief executive, lent 42,000 dollars, repaid in April 2026, and on July 7, 2026 lent 150,000 dollars at 5 percent to be repaid from 5 percent of weekly receipts.[^2][^3][^6][^4][^8]
|
||||
[[Our Two Dogs]], Inc., owned by the DeLonge Family Trust (99 percent) and [[Chloe the Dog]], LP (1 percent), advanced 511,414 dollars in 2017, of which 463,414 dollars was reclassified as contributed capital; it also held a loan of 300,000 dollars (April 2016), raised to 600,000 dollars in August 2017 at 6 percent. On March 31, 2019 it forgave the 600,000 dollar principal and 88,123 dollars of interest (688,123 dollars, treated as contributed capital). A licensing agreement of April 26, 2017 with Tom DeLonge, [[Mr. Handsome]], LLC and [[Good In Bed Music]], [[ASCAP]], covering his name, likeness and [[Angels and Airwaves]] works, carries a minimum royalty of 100,000 dollars per year (0.5 to 15 percent of gross sales above that), recorded as cost of revenue and unpaid as of the end of 2017, 2018 and 2019 (accumulated 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000 dollars). In 2018 DeLonge extended a 495,000 dollar revolving line of credit at 8.58 percent, secured by company intellectual property (335,000 dollars outstanding at the end of 2018 and 463,837 dollars at the end of 2019); in July 2019 the company bought a set of metamaterials from DeLonge for 35,000 dollars. Total amounts owed to DeLonge were 791,123 dollars (end of 2017), 1,288,148 dollars (2018), 963,763 dollars (2019) and 727,043 dollars (2020). In June 2021 the line of credit balance (517,435 dollars plus 52,364 dollars interest) and 372,165 dollars in personal advances (including 157,244 dollars used to pay credit card balances) were converted into 784,970 shares of Class A stock, and the fiscal 2021 report states both that 607,121 dollars of 2021 advances were converted at 1.20 dollars per share and that additional advances of 392,200 dollars through December 31, 2021 were converted to 326,834 shares. In March 2026 DeLonge, then described as chief executive, lent 42,000 dollars, repaid in April 2026, and on July 7, 2026 lent 150,000 dollars at 5 percent to be repaid from 5 percent of weekly receipts.[^5][^6][^9][^7][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### EarthTech International statements of work
|
||||
|
||||
In August 2018 the company entered two statements of work with [[EarthTech International]], Inc., "whose founder and president is company Director Harold E. Puthoff": one for materials analysis ("SOW-MSSA," 35,000 dollars) and one for beamed energy propulsion launch systems ("SOW-BELS," 25,000 dollars), totaling 60,000 dollars, of which 30,000 dollars was paid during 2018. The materials statement of work was described as covering "materials samples the company obtains through reliable reports of advanced aerospace vehicles of unknown origin."[^9]
|
||||
In August 2018 the company entered two statements of work with [[EarthTech International]], Inc., "whose founder and president is company Director Harold E. Puthoff": one for materials analysis ("SOW-MSSA," 35,000 dollars) and one for beamed energy propulsion launch systems ("SOW-BELS," 25,000 dollars), totaling 60,000 dollars, of which 30,000 dollars was paid during 2018. The materials statement of work was described as covering "materials samples the company obtains through reliable reports of advanced aerospace vehicles of unknown origin."[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Army Cooperative Research and Development Agreement
|
||||
|
||||
Exhibit 6.28 to the company's Form 1-A/A of August 3, 2020 is Cooperative Research and Development Agreement No. 19-15, "Novel and Emerging Technology Exploitation (NETE)," between the company and the [[U.S. Army]] [[Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center]], [[Warren, Michigan]]. It was signed on October 10, 2019 by [[Jeffrey L. Langhout]], Director of the Ground Vehicle Systems Center, and by Kari DeLonge as officer of the company. The government principal investigators are [[Ben Soave]] and Dr. [[Joseph Cannon]] (Ground Vehicle Survivability and Protection); the collaborator's principal investigator and preferred contact is Luis Elizondo, listed as "Director of Global Security and Special Programs." The term is 60 months from signature; the milestone table runs technical work from October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2023.
|
||||
|
||||
The agreement's work plan states that the collaborator "has access to advanced materiel solutions" and "contacted Government about the innovations within their hold," that "Collaborator leaders are prior Government employees," and that "the [[Office of the Secretary of Defense]] (OSD) can share historical reports of findings and origin of materiel solutions in the possession of the Collaborator." The government is to test "inertial mass reduction, mechanical/structural metamaterials, electromagnetic metamaterial wave guides, quantum physics, quantum communications, and beamed energy propulsion," with the company to supply "samples of mechanical and EM sensitive metamaterial collected, obtained, or developed as part of its Field Operations," material analysis data, and beamed energy propulsion and active camouflage hardware. Article 7.2 states that the government "will not provide any federal or other funds to the Collaborator"; the payment schedule reads "None"; the government's anticipated resources are estimated at 750,000 dollars and the collaborator's at 1,000,000 dollars "determined by business needs and funding availability." The document describes the company as incorporated in [[California]]; the SEC registrant is a Delaware corporation. Article 4.8.3 provides that the work "may cover Classified national security information" and refers to a DD Form 254.[^10]
|
||||
The agreement's work plan states that the collaborator "has access to advanced materiel solutions" and "contacted Government about the innovations within their hold," that "Collaborator leaders are prior Government employees," and that "the [[Office of the Secretary of Defense]] (OSD) can share historical reports of findings and origin of materiel solutions in the possession of the Collaborator." The government is to test "inertial mass reduction, mechanical/structural metamaterials, electromagnetic metamaterial wave guides, quantum physics, quantum communications, and beamed energy propulsion," with the company to supply "samples of mechanical and EM sensitive metamaterial collected, obtained, or developed as part of its Field Operations," material analysis data, and beamed energy propulsion and active camouflage hardware. Article 7.2 states that the government "will not provide any federal or other funds to the Collaborator"; the payment schedule reads "None"; the government's anticipated resources are estimated at 750,000 dollars and the collaborator's at 1,000,000 dollars "determined by business needs and funding availability." The document describes the company as incorporated in [[California]]; the SEC registrant is a Delaware corporation. Article 4.8.3 provides that the work "may cover Classified national security information" and refers to a DD Form 254.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Annual reports from 2021 describe the Army testing of "anomalous materials" provided by the company, slowed by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The reports for 2024 and 2025 state that, "as part of their oversight and through the CRADA," [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] was tasked with analysis of a specimen "to assess whether the specimen is of terrestrial origin and the bismuth in the specimen could act as a terahertz waveguide"; that in April 2024 ORNL "produced a summary of findings that concluded the Materials to be terrestrial in origin" and not meeting "the theoretical requirements to function as a terahertz (THz) waveguide"; that the report "did not offer a firm conclusion as to the origin and purpose of the Materials"; that Hal Puthoff and [[Eric Davis]] met the laboratory in September 2024 and published a memorandum to the company's board in February 2025 which "did not reveal any form of proof of exotic (Extraterrestrial, Ultra-terrestrial, or inter-dimensional) origin, but it did not absolutely rule it out either"; and that the CRADA ended in 2024. The reports state that the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] was "congressionally mandated" in 2022 to explore historical records of unidentified anomalous phenomena incidents.[^8]
|
||||
Annual reports from 2021 describe the Army testing of "anomalous materials" provided by the company, slowed by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The reports for 2024 and 2025 state that, "as part of their oversight and through the CRADA," [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] was tasked with analysis of a specimen "to assess whether the specimen is of terrestrial origin and the bismuth in the specimen could act as a terahertz waveguide"; that in April 2024 ORNL "produced a summary of findings that concluded the Materials to be terrestrial in origin" and not meeting "the theoretical requirements to function as a terahertz (THz) waveguide"; that the report "did not offer a firm conclusion as to the origin and purpose of the Materials"; that Hal Puthoff and [[Eric Davis]] met the laboratory in September 2024 and published a memorandum to the company's board in February 2025 which "did not reveal any form of proof of exotic (Extraterrestrial, Ultra-terrestrial, or inter-dimensional) origin, but it did not absolutely rule it out either"; and that the CRADA ended in 2024. The reports state that the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] was "congressionally mandated" in 2022 to explore historical records of unidentified anomalous phenomena incidents.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Personnel changes reported to the SEC
|
||||
|
||||
[[Colm Kelleher]] resigned from the advisory board in October 2019. The annual report for 2020 states that Christopher Mellon resigned from the advisory board in November 2020, that Stephen Justice resigned as Chief Operations Officer in December 2020, that "Luis Elizondo, the Company's Director of Government Programs & Services, was laid off with severance" in December 2020, and that Hal Puthoff resigned from the board in February 2021 and moved to the science advisory board. The report describes these changes as part of a "pivot" to entertainment operations.[^4]
|
||||
[[Colm Kelleher]] resigned from the advisory board in October 2019. The annual report for 2020 states that Christopher Mellon resigned from the advisory board in November 2020, that Stephen Justice resigned as Chief Operations Officer in December 2020, that "Luis Elizondo, the Company's Director of Government Programs & Services, was laid off with severance" in December 2020, and that Hal Puthoff resigned from the board in February 2021 and moved to the science advisory board. The report describes these changes as part of a "pivot" to entertainment operations.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Launch and the December 2017 placement
|
||||
|
||||
At a launch event in October 2017 (reported as October 11, 2017, [[Seattle]]), Tom DeLonge invited Luis Elizondo onstage; Elizondo said the group was "planning to provide never-before-released footage from real [[U.S. government]] systems." [[Gideon Lewis-Kraus]] reported that on October 4, 2017, a week before, Christopher Mellon had arranged for the journalist [[Leslie Kean]] to meet Hal Puthoff, Jim Semivan and Elizondo at a hotel bar near the Pentagon, where she was told she could have the videos with chain-of-custody documentation "if she could place a story in the Times." [[Bryan Bender]] wrote in 2021 that Mellon, "by then also a paid adviser to DeLonge's TTSA," served as Elizondo's "unofficial public relations manager" and "started dangling the story to the New York Times, POLITICO and several other mainstream outlets."[^14][^4] Bender also wrote that DeLonge, in 2016, "reached out to Christopher Mellon" and that in the same year "one of DeLonge's cold calls unearthed the name" of Elizondo.[^4] The Times and Politico published on December 16, 2017; see [[December 2017 New York Times AATIP Report]]. Politico's article of that date described the company as "a for-profit company" co-founded by DeLonge, quoted DeLonge's video calling it a "public benefit corporation," reported that its website "claims 2,142 investors, who have purchased slightly more than $2 million worth of shares" with "a minimum purchase of $200 in common stock shares," and placed Mellon at "a recent press conference for To The Stars in [[Las Vegas]]" describing a Navy pilots' sighting; Elizondo was listed as "director of global security and special programs."[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
Mellon told the Politico writer: "Tom called me up out of the blue and then through him I met Jim and Hal." DeLonge told Bender: "From day one, I figured I needed knights of the round table."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Pentagon position on Elizondo and the venture
|
||||
|
||||
In 2019 Sherwood told *The Intercept* that "Mr. Elizondo had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program while he worked in OUSDI, up until the time he resigned effective 10/4/2017." TTSA spokesperson Kari DeLonge told [[John Greenewald]] that Elizondo ran AATIP "out of the Office for the Secretary of Defense (OSD) under the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI)" after taking it over in 2010; Sherwood's office disputed this. [[Susan Gough]] of the Pentagon told Greenewald on June 13, 2019 that "DIA administered AATIP, and Elizondo was never assigned to DIA." Puthoff, a TTSA co-founder, told Greenewald that as contractor and senior adviser he "continued to attend meetings" under the program.[^3][^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Filings (EDGAR)
|
||||
|
||||
SEC EDGAR lists the registrant as CIK 0001710274, incorporated in Delaware, with business address 315 S. Coast Highway 101, Suite U38, Encinitas, California, SIC 7819; first Form 1-A filed August 15, 2017, amendments September 1 and 18, 2017, further 1-A filings February 12, 2019, June 23, 2020 and March 16, 2022, and a Form 1-SA filed September 18, 2026 under file number 24R-00116. The registrant's conformed name changed to "To The Stars Inc." on September 28, 2021. The first offering statement (file 024-10728, Form 1-A of August 15, 2017, amended September 1 and 18) was qualified on September 29, 2017, and later offerings were qualified on July 12, 2019 (024-10946), September 18, 2020 (024-11243) and March 31, 2022 (024-11831); annual Forms 1-K were filed from 2018 through April 29, 2026.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
The offering circular dated September 29, 2017 describes the company as "a public benefit corporation founded in 2017 by a former senior Intelligence Officer with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]], a distinguished research scientist from the Department of Defense, and an award-winning artist"; offers Class A common stock at 5.00 dollars a share (minimum 200,000 shares, maximum 10,000,000 shares, minimum investment 40 shares or 200 dollars, escrow agent [[Prime Trust|Prime Trust, LLC]]); lists as officers appointed May 25, 2017 Thomas DeLonge (president and chief executive), James Semivan (vice president, operations) and Harold Puthoff (vice president, science and technology), with Semivan and Puthoff also named as directors; and lists an Advisory Board of Chris Mellon, [[Adele Gilpin]], [[Norman Kahn]], Colm Kelleher, [[Garry Nolan]] and [[Paul Rapp]]. Elizondo is not named in the circular. It states that in May 2017 the company issued 12,500,000 shares of Class A and 5,400 shares of Class B common stock to Gravity Holdings, LLC, [[JimSemI|JimSemI, LLC]] and Harold Puthoff for nominal cash and past and anticipated efforts; that on June 1, 2017 Gravity Holdings (whose sole member, with [[Archive West Investments]], is the DeLonge Family Trust) contributed the shares of To The Stars, Inc. in exchange for 55,000,000 Class A shares; and that in June 2017 the company granted "employees and advisors" 9,000,000 options and 2,500,000 restricted shares under its 2017 Stock Incentive Plan.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Galileo Project
|
||||
|
||||
On October 30, 2021 [[Harvard University|Harvard]]'s [[Galileo Project]] announced Mellon and Elizondo as research affiliates, crediting them with being "pivotal in bringing about the Pentagon's release and confirmation" of the three videos.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent*. William Morrow, 2024.
|
||||
[^2]: To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science Inc., Form 1-K for fiscal 2017, filed April 30, 2018 (accession 0001144204-18-023727), including Exhibits 6.7 to 6.11. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420418023727/0001144204-18-023727.txt ; offering circular, Form 1-A/A filed September 18, 2017 (accession 0001144204-17-048316). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420417048316/0001144204-17-048316.txt
|
||||
[^3]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2018, filed April 30, 2019 (accession 0001144204-19-022341). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420419022341/0001144204-19-022341.txt
|
||||
[^4]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2020, filed April 30, 2021 (accession 0001493152-21-010202). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000149315221010202/0001493152-21-010202.txt ; Form 1-K for fiscal 2021, filed May 2, 2022 (accession 0001493152-22-011769). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000149315222011769/0001493152-22-011769.txt
|
||||
[^5]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023, liquidity sections; Form 1-SA for the six months ended June 30, 2026, filed September 18, 2026 (accession 0001493152-26-043283). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000149315226043283/0001493152-26-043283.txt
|
||||
[^6]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2019, filed June 12, 2020 (accession 0001104659-20-072815). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000110465920072815/0001104659-20-072815.txt
|
||||
[^7]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2022 (accession 0001493152-23-014729), fiscal 2023 (0001493152-24-016672), fiscal 2024 (0001641172-25-005183) and fiscal 2025 (0001493152-26-019571), compensation of directors sections. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001710274&type=1-K
|
||||
[^8]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2021, 2024 and 2025, sections headed "U.S. Army Cooperative Research and Development Agreement"; Form 1-SA for the six months ended June 30, 2026 (accession 0001493152-26-043283) for the 2026 DeLonge loans and the 1-K for fiscal 2025 for the DeLonge Promissory Note.
|
||||
[^9]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2018 Items 1 and 5 and the financial statement note on related parties; repeated in the fiscal 2019 report.
|
||||
[^10]: Exhibit 6.28, Cooperative Research and Development Agreement No. 19-15, to Form 1-A/A filed August 3, 2020 (accession 0001104659-20-089220). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000110465920089220/tm2023098d2_ex6-28.htm
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of Defense. "Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos," April 27, 2020. 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/ ; 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/; Banias, MJ. *Vice,* October 20, 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-guy-says-he-was-the-source-of-the-pentagons-ufo-videos/ (Mellon's on-camera statement; Vice could not verify).
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[^3]: 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/
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[^4]: 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
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[^5]: To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science Inc., Form 1-K for fiscal 2017, filed April 30, 2018 (accession 0001144204-18-023727), including Exhibits 6.7 to 6.11. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420418023727/0001144204-18-023727.txt ; offering circular, Form 1-A/A filed September 18, 2017 (accession 0001144204-17-048316). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420417048316/0001144204-17-048316.txt
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[^6]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2018, filed April 30, 2019 (accession 0001144204-19-022341). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000114420419022341/0001144204-19-022341.txt
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[^7]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2020, filed April 30, 2021 (accession 0001493152-21-010202). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000149315221010202/0001493152-21-010202.txt ; Form 1-K for fiscal 2021, filed May 2, 2022 (accession 0001493152-22-011769). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000149315222011769/0001493152-22-011769.txt
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[^8]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023, liquidity sections; Form 1-SA for the six months ended June 30, 2026, filed September 18, 2026 (accession 0001493152-26-043283). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000149315226043283/0001493152-26-043283.txt
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[^9]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2019, filed June 12, 2020 (accession 0001104659-20-072815). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000110465920072815/0001104659-20-072815.txt
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[^10]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2022 (accession 0001493152-23-014729), fiscal 2023 (0001493152-24-016672), fiscal 2024 (0001641172-25-005183) and fiscal 2025 (0001493152-26-019571), compensation of directors sections. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001710274&type=1-K
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[^11]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2021, 2024 and 2025, sections headed "U.S. Army Cooperative Research and Development Agreement"; Form 1-SA for the six months ended June 30, 2026 (accession 0001493152-26-043283) for the 2026 DeLonge loans and the 1-K for fiscal 2025 for the DeLonge Promissory Note.
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[^12]: Form 1-K for fiscal 2018 Items 1 and 5 and the financial statement note on related parties; repeated in the fiscal 2019 report.
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[^13]: Exhibit 6.28, Cooperative Research and Development Agreement No. 19-15, to Form 1-A/A filed August 3, 2020 (accession 0001104659-20-089220). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1710274/000110465920089220/tm2023098d2_ex6-28.htm
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[^14]: 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 October 11, 2017 date and the Seattle venue are from a secondary summary, not yet checked against TTSA's own materials. Lewis-Kraus's account of the hotel meeting derives from Kean.
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[^15]: Bender, Bryan. "The Pentagon's Secret Search for UFOs." *Politico Magazine,* December 16, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/2018id_/https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111
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[^16]: Greenewald, John, Jr. The Black Vault, June 14, 2019. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/pentagon-reinforces-mr-luis-elizondo-had-no-responsibilities-on-aatip-senator-harry-reids-2009-memo-changes-nothing
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[^17]: SEC EDGAR company page, CIK 1710274 (Atom feed and full-text search, run October 3, 2026). https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=1710274&type=1-A
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[^18]: 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 (read October 3, 2026; EDGAR submissions index https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001710274.json).
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[^19]: The Galileo Project, October 30, 2021. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/galileo/files/mellon-elizondo_announcement_final_2.pdf (Internet Archive copy).
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@ -40,10 +40,10 @@ The two accounts differ on the date. The introduction places the envelope's post
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### Defense work
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A trade-press item reproduced on the site of the Salisbury archive reports that Varo, Inc., Garland, Texas, developed the "Varotron," a device generating infrared, visible and ultraviolet radiation by passing an electron beam over a grating, described by its inventor [[Winfield W. Salisbury]] in a report at the "recent American Optical Society meeting in [[Rochester, New York|Rochester, N. Y.]]," and covered by U.S. Patent No. 2,634,372, issued to Salisbury in 1953. The item says the device "appears to have application to communications and possibly exotic weapons, similar to optical masers (lasers)." The same archive lists Salisbury's position at Varo from 1958 to 1965 as "Research and Development in Radiation Weapons for [[U.S. Air Force]]; Chief Scientist."[^3] Later Varo night vision products included the Noctron series, for which Varo, Inc. filed trademark applications on March 5, 1973 (Noctron IV, a night vision passive viewer using a multiple stage image intensifier) and May 5, 1980 (Noctron V, a second generation viewer using microchannel plate image tube technology).[^5]
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A trade-press item reproduced on the site of the Salisbury archive reports that Varo, Inc., Garland, Texas, developed the "Varotron," a device generating infrared, visible and ultraviolet radiation by passing an electron beam over a grating, described by its inventor [[Winfield W. Salisbury]] in a report at the "recent American Optical Society meeting in [[Rochester, New York|Rochester, N. Y.]]," and covered by U.S. Patent No. 2,634,372, issued to Salisbury in 1953. The item says the device "appears to have application to communications and possibly exotic weapons, similar to optical masers (lasers)." The same archive lists Salisbury's position at Varo from 1958 to 1965 as "Research and Development in Radiation Weapons for [[U.S. Air Force]]; Chief Scientist."[^3] Later Varo night vision products included the Noctron series, for which Varo, Inc. filed trademark applications on March 5, 1973 (Noctron IV, a night vision passive viewer using a multiple stage image intensifier) and May 5, 1980 (Noctron V, a second generation viewer using microchannel plate image tube technology), serial numbers 72450566 and 73260816. The full list of Varo Inc. marks also includes AMP-CHAMP (filed March 6, 1963, portable engine generators), SAR and IBR (March 17, 1964, silicon avalanche rectifiers and integrated bridge rectifiers), "V" (June 11, 1969, silicon diodes, semiconductors, integrated circuits, electric motors, power supplies and transformers), "V VARO" (March 5, 1973, research services in electricity, electronics, optics, electrooptics, electromechanics and microwave), "V VARO" and "VARO" (May 24, 1982, image converters, image intensifiers, ultraviolet detectors, reticles and electro-optical test apparatus), NITE-EYE (May 31, 1985, a passive low level light viewer and magnifier) and NIGHTHAWK (April 3, 1989, a battery-operated rifle sight system).[^5]
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[^1]: Unsigned "Introduction" to the Annotated Edition, in M. K. Jessup, The Case for the UFO, Varo Edition, transcribed by the Quantum Future Group, 2003, pp. 7 to 9, https://archive.org/details/THECASEFORTHEUFOVaroEditionM.K.Jessup (djvu text, reread 2026-10-03).
|
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[^2]: Gray Barker, preface dated July 1973, same volume, pp. 2 to 6.
|
||||
[^3]: "Winfield W. Salisbury at Varo, Garland, Texas, 1958-1965," Salisbury archive page with reproduced trade-press item (publication and date of the item not shown on the page), https://mail.smecc.org/salisbury_at_varo.htm
|
||||
[^4]: Naval Research Reviews, vol. 9, no. 1 (January 1956), "New Chief of Naval Research," p. 22, https://www.onr.navy.mil/media/document/naval-research-reviews-vol-9-no-1-january-1956
|
||||
[^5]: Varo Inc. trademark filings, Justia Trademarks owner listing, https://trademark.justia.com/owners/varo-inc-79620 (the page returns 403 to command-line fetches; filing dates and descriptions taken from a search summary of the listing, not independently opened).
|
||||
[^5]: Varo Inc. trademark filings, Justia Trademarks owner listing, https://trademark.justia.com/owners/varo-inc-79620 (the page returns 403 to command-line fetches; the full list of eleven marks, all shown as owned by Varo Inc., was saved from the vault owner's browser on October 3, 2026 and read from that file).
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Reference in a new issue