107 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
107 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
---
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aliases:
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- Naval Intelligence
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- ONI
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category: "U.S. Government"
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tags:
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- Organization
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- Intelligence
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- NavalIntelligence
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- USNavy
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- USGovernment
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summary: "United States Navy intelligence office created by a general order of March 23, 1882, without an act of Congress, which later housed the UAP Task Force."
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start: 1882-03-23
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location: "Washington, D.C."
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created: 2026-09-24
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updated: 2026-10-08
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relations:
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Theodorus B. M. Mason]]"
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reverse: true
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start: 1882-06-15
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end: 1885-04-02
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fn: 1
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Karl Baarslag]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "wartime officer"
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fn: 2
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Morse Allen]]"
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reverse: true
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role: "wartime service in naval intelligence"
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fn: 3
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Letitia Long]]"
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reverse: true
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start: 1988
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end: 1994
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role: "staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence, research and development programs"
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fn: 7
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Letitia Long]]"
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reverse: true
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start: 2000
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end: 2003
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role: "Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence"
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fn: 7
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- type: contractor_to
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with: "[[Christopher Mellon]]"
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reverse: true
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start: 2017
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role: "unpaid consultant"
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fn: 11
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---
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The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is the intelligence office of the [[United States Navy]]. It was created on March 23, 1882, by General Order No. 292 of the [[Department of the Navy|Navy Department]], signed by Secretary of the Navy [[William H. Hunt]]: "An 'Office of Naval Intelligence' is hereby established in the Bureau of Navigation for the purpose of collecting and recording such naval information as may be useful to the department in the time of war, as well as in peace." The order combined the department library with the new office under the chief of the [[Bureau of Navigation]] and directed "commanding and all other officers" to "avail themselves of all opportunities which may arise to collect and forward to the 'Office of Intelligence' professional matter likely to serve the object in view."[^1]
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The office's own 1920 history groups it with the [[Naval War College]] and the naval apprentice system as institutions created "by general order of the Navy Department, with no legislative action by Congress and no appropriation to make them effective."[^1]
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### Directors, 1882 to 1898
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Lieutenant [[Theodorus B. M. Mason]] "reported for duty June 15, 1882, and until his death, on October 15, 1899, was its leading spirit." The 1920 history lists the Directors of Naval Intelligence as follows:[^1]
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- Theodorus B. M. Mason, June 15, 1882, to April 2, 1885
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- [[Raymond P. Rodgers]], April 2, 1885, to July 22, 1889
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- [[Charles H. Davis]], September 16, 1889, to August 31, 1892
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- [[French E. Chadwick]], September 2, 1892, to June 20, 1893
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- [[Frederic Singer]], June 30, 1893, to April 4, 1896
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- [[Richard Wainwright]], April 4, 1896, to November 15, 1897
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- [[Richardson Clover]], November 15, 1897, to May 1, 1898
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- [[John R. Bartlett]], from May 1898
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### Organization and the First World War
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In 1920 Rear Admiral [[Albert P. Niblack]], then Director of Naval Intelligence, described the office as "simplicity itself in that it consists of four sections: Section A, administrative; Section B, intelligence (or manufacturing department); Section C, compiling (or manufacturing department); Section D, historical section (or by-products)." At the beginning of the [[World War I|First World War]] it had 18 civil service clerks and messengers. "When the armistice came there were 306 reservists in the Office of Naval Intelligence additional to the 18 civil service clerks and messengers serving at the beginning of the war, or a total of 324. This force will be reduced on July 1, 1920, to 18 of the statutory roll and 24 former reservists, or a total of 42."[^1]
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### The Second World War and After
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During [[World War II]] the office employed [[Karl Baarslag]], who afterward "worked as a professional anti-communist researcher for Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]], the [[American Legion]], and the [[Church League of America]]" and transferred many of his research files to the [[Wackenhut Corporation]].[^2] [[Morse Allen]], who had set up the [[Civil Service Commission]]'s first security files on communists in the late 1930s, served in wartime naval intelligence "pursuing leftists in New York" before landing with the Marines on [[Okinawa]]; he later joined the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] and in late 1950 was made head of [[Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke|BLUEBIRD]].[^3] In the summer of 1952 "a Naval Intelligence man" traveled to [[Frankfurt]] with [[Samuel Thompson]] and [[G. Richard Wendt|Wendt]] to join the ARTICHOKE team led by Allen and his superior [[Paul Gaynor]].[^4]
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[[Hal Puthoff]] wrote that the two CIA officers who visited him at [[Stanford Research Institute]] in 1972 "knew of my previous background as a Naval Intelligence Officer and then civilian employee at the [[National Security Agency]]."[^5] When the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] sought to fund a unified Defense Department remote viewing effort in 1978, the commander of the Naval Intelligence Command replied on September 14 that it was "unable at this time to pledge a specific level of funding support." Rear Admiral S. Shapiro, commander of the Naval Intelligence Command, sat on the Grill Flame oversight committee formed on November 28, 1978.[^6]
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[[Letitia Long]] joined the staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence in 1988 to manage its research and development programs. From 1994 to 1996 she was "on rotational assignment from ONI to the Defense Intelligence Agency" as director of the Military Intelligence Staff, and in that capacity signed, in March 1995, the DIA transmittal of its [[Stargate Project|Star Gate]] review to the CIA. She was Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence from 2000 to 2003 and later director of the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]].[^7][^8]
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[[Peter Zokosky]] claimed to have served in ONI in submarines during the Second World War; the claim is recorded by [[Cheri Seymour]] alone.[^9] [[Marion Pettie]] told the *[[Washington City Paper]]* in 1996 that he had studied intelligence agencies since the 1930s, following the line from ONI through the [[Office of Strategic Services]] to the CIA.[^10]
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### Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
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In early 2017, while an unpaid consultant to ONI, [[Christopher Mellon]] was introduced by [[Jim Semivan]] to [[Luis Elizondo]], who was then running the [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program]].[^11] The [[UAP Task Force]] was approved by the Deputy Secretary of Defense on August 4, 2020, and the Department of the Navy was assigned to lead it under the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.[^12] The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence described it in June 2020 as the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force "at the Office of Naval Intelligence."[^13] The task force charter of September 1, 2020 was issued by the [[Naval Intelligence Activity]], and provides that leadership "will be designated by the Director of the Naval Intelligence Activity."[^14] A July 2020 briefing slide from the task force's director gives the office as the Office of the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence and the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare.[^15] In Elizondo's account, the task force succeeded AATIP under the leadership of [[Jay Stratton]].[^11]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Niblack, A. P., Rear Admiral, USN, Director of Naval Intelligence. *The Office of Naval Intelligence: Its History and Aims.* Division of Operations, Navy Department. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920, pp. 1-2 and table of directors. Naval History and Heritage Command Online Reading Room, retrieved via the Wayback Machine snapshot of December 8, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20251208161849/https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/h/history-and-aims-of-the-office-of-naval-intelligence.html
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[^2]: Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, finding aid to the Church League of America Collection of the Research Files of Counterattack, the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag, TAM 148. https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/tam_148/
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[^3]: Marks, John D. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.* Times Books, 1979, chapter 2.
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[^4]: Marks, John D. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.* Times Books, 1979, chapter 3.
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[^5]: Puthoff, H. E. "CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute," *Journal of Scientific Exploration,* vol. 10, no. 1, 1996, pp. 63-76.
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[^6]: Commander, Naval Intelligence Command, to Defense Intelligence Agency, September 14, 1978, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200410025-8; US Army Intelligence and Security Command, "INSCOM Project Grill Flame: Progress Report #1," February 21, 1979, with enclosures, CIA-RDP96-00788R001100070001-3.
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[^7]: "Letitia A. Long," National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. https://www.nga.mil/about/Letitia_Long.html
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[^8]: Defense Intelligence Agency, transmittal memorandum signed Letitia A. Long, Director, DMI Staff, faxed March 15, 1995, CIA-RDP96-00791R000300010002-3.
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[^9]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
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[^10]: Dean, Eddie. "Finders' Keeper." *Washington City Paper,* May 24, 1996. https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/287890/finders-keeper/
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[^11]: Elizondo, Luis. *Imminent.* William Morrow, 2024.
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[^12]: Department of Defense, "Establishment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force," press release, August 14, 2020. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/
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[^13]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, "Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021," S. Rept. 116-233, June 17, 2020, cover and pp. 11 to 12. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-116srpt233/pdf/CRPT-116srpt233.pdf
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[^14]: Naval Intelligence Activity, "Charter for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force," Ser NW20S0068, September 1, 2020, in the Department of the Navy final response in FOIA case DON-2021-003140, April 22, 2025. https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/navy/DON-2021-003140.pdf
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[^15]: Naval Intelligence Activity, "Interagency Task Force" briefing slide, July 2020, header block, in the message chain released by The Black Vault. https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/ufos/USSCReferredRedacted.pdf
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