New Documents Detail Slow, Multi-Agency Vetting of “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon”

Newly released Department of Defense records reveal the prolonged and often frustrating prepublication review process for the 2021 book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insider’s Account of the Secret Government UFO Program by James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher, and George Knapp. The documents, obtained by The Black Vault under FOIA case 22-F-0035, detail how the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) took more than a year to complete its review, despite what appears to be no substantive objections from the reviewing agencies.

The records show the manuscript, originally submitted in March 2020, was routed to multiple agencies including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), U.S. Air Force, and Department of Homeland Security. All three cleared the manuscript, though DIA required some amendments before public release. On May 11, 2021, DOPSR issued its final determination: CLEARED AS AMENDED. The changes were largely to address privacy concerns involving personally identifiable information and protected health information, as well as the names of certain government employees.

For Lacatski, who served as a key figure in the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), the delays were a source of growing frustration. Email exchanges show repeated inquiries about the status of the review, with him noting at one point that the process had reached “the fourteen month point” and suggesting that holding up publication “may very well be one person” delaying the work. In another message, he urged DOPSR to give the lagging office “a firm deadline” or assume no further comments would be provided.

Kelly McHale, the DOPSR security review specialist assigned to the case, repeatedly cited slow responses from reviewing components, pandemic-related telework restrictions, and the complexity of coordinating input from multiple agencies as factors in the delay. “We never intend for reviews to take this long,” McHale wrote, assuring Lacatski that she was “keeping the pressure on”.

The delays not only impacted the authors’ timeline but also forced consideration of alternative publication strategies. In one April 2021 email, Lacatski proposed adding a statement to the book’s copyright page indicating that the manuscript was under DOPSR review, so the work could be sent to the editor without waiting for final clearance.

In a post-release interview on Coast to Coast AM, co-author Colm Kelleher outlined what DOPSR required before publication: “they made us take out some fairly specific references to various offices and also some of the security-related verbiage,” and they insisted that “any active military people or people who are still working in the government service had their names changed.” He said “all of the names that are in the book are actually pseudonyms for all active-duty service people,” noting that “one of the four Tic Tac pilots from the famous Tic Tac incident back in 2004” was discovered to still be active duty and was therefore given a pseudonym. Kelleher added that DOPSR “sent the book out to four separate agencies for review,” and the process “did take… about 14 months,” which he believed was “because of the COVID.” When asked if the review was fair, he said officials “left in a lot of the details,” including Appendix One’s “full summary of over 100 separate reports… delivered to the Defense Intelligence Agency,” adding, “we expected to have some of that removed but none of it was removed.”

The DOPSR process, designed to protect classified and sensitive information, often draws criticism from current and former government employees. The Skinwalkers at the Pentagon case highlights how these reviews can extend well beyond initial projections, even for manuscripts that ultimately face minimal redactions.

While the FOIA release contains no revelations about the classified and/or sensitive content removed from the book, it provides a detailed view of the bureaucratic hurdles faced by authors with government ties. The prolonged review, combined with the authors’ public comments about omitted material, underscores the tension between national security vetting and timely public disclosure.

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Document Archive

FOIA Case 22-F-0035 Release Package [108 Pages, 3.6MB]

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