Many of the files are broken into different parts, for easier downloading.  Simply click on the “File #1” links to download each file segment.

Document Archive

Adamski, George – [286 Pages, 193.5MB] – George Adamski (17 April 1891 – 23 April 1965) was a Polish American citizen who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he claimed to have photographed spaceships from other planets, met with friendly Nordic alien Space Brothers, and to have taken flights with them to the Moon and other planets. He was the first, and most famous, of the so-called contactees of the 1950s. Adamski called himself a “philosopher, teacher, student and saucer researcher”, although most investigators concluded his claims were an elaborate hoax, and that Adamski himself was a con artist. Adamski authored three books describing his meetings with Nordic aliens and his travels with them aboard their spaceships: Flying Saucers Have Landed (co-written with Desmond Leslie) in 1953, Inside the Space Ships in 1955, and Flying Saucers Farewell in 1961. The first two books were both bestsellers; by 1960 they had sold a combined 200,000 copies.

The Aetherius Society – [48 Pages, 44MB] – The Aetherius Society is a new religious movement founded by George King in the mid-1950s as the result of what King claimed were contacts with extraterrestrial intelligences, to whom he referred as “Cosmic Masters”. The main goal of the believer is to cooperate with these Cosmic Masters to help humanity solve its current Earthly problems and advance into the New Age.

Aho, Wayne – [114 Pages, 80MB] – Wayne Sulo Aho (24 August 1916 – 16 January 2006) was an American contactee who claimed contact with extraterrestrial beings. He was one of the more obscure members of the 1950s wave of contactees who followed George Adamski. Aho and fellow 1957 contactee Reinhold O. Schmidt went on the lecture circuit together in California, and their double-header lectures continued until Schmidt was arrested for and convicted of grand theft. Aho’s presentations tended to emphasize his military service in World War II, and spent very little time on “spiritual revelations” he had received from the Space Brothers, either directly or through later sessions with a spirit medium. Aho tended to refer to himself as “Major W. S. Aho,” inviting confusion with Major Donald E. Keyhoe, a UFO researcher and writer who thought UFOs were real, but held contactees in low regard. Aho soon fell under the spell of another one-time Adamski follower, Otis T. Carr. Carr claimed to have built a full-size flying saucer operating on authentic Adamskian or Teslarian “magnetic” principles, and after a suitable amount of money had been collected from gullible elderly attendees at the lectures of Aho and Carr, they announced the Carr saucer, piloted by Carr and Aho, would take off from a fairground in front of thousands of witnesses and fly to the moon, returning with incontrovertible proof of the trip. Criminal charges against both Aho and Carr resulted from the inevitable public fiasco, but Aho was judged to be an innocent dupe.

Angelucci, Orfeo – [2 Pages, 1MB] – Records Destroyed in 2009 – Orfeo Matthew Angelucci (Orville Angelucci) (June 25, 1912 – July 24, 1993) was one of the most unusual of the mid-1950s so-called “contactees” who claimed to be in contact with extraterrestrials. Beginning in summer 1952, according to Angelucci in his book The Secret of the Saucers (1955), he began to encounter flying saucers and their friendly human-appearing pilots during his drives home from the aircraft plant. These superhuman space people were handsome, often transparent and highly spiritual. Eventually Angelucci was taken in an unmanned saucer to earth orbit, where he saw a giant “mother ship” drift past a porthole. He also described having experienced a “missing time” episode and eventually remembered living for a week in the body of “space brother” Neptune, in a more evolved society on “the largest asteroid”, the remains of a destroyed planet, while his usual body wandered around the aircraft plant in a daze. In his later book, The Son of the Sun, Angelucci related an account that he claimed had been told to him by a medical doctor calling himself Adam, whose experiences were similar to his own. He also published several pamphlets on space-brotherly themes, such as “Million Year Prophecy” (1959), “Concrete Evidence” (1959) and “Again We Exist” (1960).

Animal & Cattle Mutilations – This is a direct link to FBI files related to animal and cattle mutilations.

Ballard, Edna – [769 Pages, 50MB] – Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard, also known as Lotus Ray King (June 25, 1886 – February 10, 1971), was an American occultist who co-founded the Saint Germain Foundation and served a co-leader of the I AM Movement with her husband, Guy Ballard. In 1944, Ballard and her son, Donald Ballard, were charged with mail fraud and their court case would eventually be ruled by the US Supreme Court as United States v. Ballard. Ballard’s work with the I AM Movement is considered a predecessor to the current new age movement.

Ballard, Guy – Release #1 – [768 Pages, 400MB]  Ballard, Guy – Release #2 – [251 Pages, 9MB] – Guy Warren Ballard (July 28, 1878 – December 29, 1939) was an American mining engineer who became, with his wife, Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard, the founder of the “I AM” Activity. Ballard was born in Newton, Kansas and married his wife in Chicago in 1916. Ballard served in the U.S. Army in World War I, and then became a mining engineer. Both Edna and Guy studied Theosophy and the occult extensively.

Bell, Art (Arthur) – Arthur William Bell III (June 17, 1945 – April 13, 2018) was an American broadcaster and author. He was the founder and the original host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM, which is syndicated on hundreds of radio stations in the United States and Canada. He also created and hosted its companion show Dreamland. Coast to Coast still airs nightly.

Bethurum, Truman – [17 Pages, 10MB] – Truman Bethurum (August 21, 1898 – May 21, 1969) was one of the well known 1950s UFO or alien “contactees”- individuals who claimed to have spoken with people from other inhabited planets and entered or ridden in their spacecraft. Bethurum was born in Gavilin, California, and in the early 1950s worked as a truck driver and a mechanic on a desert road-building crew. He later became a self-proclaimed spiritual advisor. In 1953, Bethurum first published magazine and newspaper (Redondo Beach Daily Breeze, September 25, 1953) accounts of being contacted on eleven separate occasions beginning in July, 1952 by the humanoid crew of a landed space ship in the Mojave Desert, and repeatedly conversing with its beautiful and voluptuous female captain, Aura Rhanes. The saucer and its crew, who spoke colloquial English, came from the unknown planet Clarion, which was allegedly on the other side of our Sun and thus could not be seen from the Earth. Bethurum’s 1954 book, Aboard a Flying Saucer, gave many details of his suffering at the hands of skeptics and a great deal of information about Captain Rhanes, Clarion and its people.

The Borderland Sciences Research Associates aka Borderland Sciences Research Foundation – [35 Pages, 22.3MB] – According to their website, which is still around today: “Borderland Sciences Research Foundation is a California non-profit (C0254263) research and education organization, founded in 1951 by Meade Layne for the purpose of studying parapsychology and extended consciousness. It has since expanded in scope to traverse as broad a path of the grand terrain of the borderland as may be uncovered by human perceptions (and perhaps even further).”

Browne. Sylvia – [ 52 Pages, 32MB ] This FBI File consists of the investigation into Browne for embezzlement and bank fraud. It was determined that Brown falsified financial records to obtain more than $1,000,000 in loans, and according to the FBI, lived an “extravagent lifestyle.”  FBI file #29A-SF-9888 – [ 139 Pages, 116.8MB ] – While reading the above file, I noticed a reference to FBI File #29A-SF-9888 which is the investigation involving Sylvia Browne and her loan partner. This is the first (of multiple) releases of the declassified files.  FBI file #29A-SF-9888 – Release #2 – [102 Pages, 68.6MB] – Here is the second release of the above FBI file.  FBI file #29A-SF-9888 – Release #3 – [10 Pages, 1.8MB] – Here is the third release of the above FBI file.

Bushman, Boyd – (FOIA Response Letter) [ 37 Pages, 19.9MB ]  Bushman, Boyd FBI Release #2 [ 14 Pages, 2.2MB ] In 2014, a video surfaced with Boyd Bushman, a retired Lockheed Martin Senior Scientist, with alleged photos of aliens. The video had a description that stated, “Shortly before Boyd Bushman passed away on August 7, 2014, he was video recorded candidly speaking about his personal experiences with Area 51, UFOs, aliens and anti-gravity ideas. Boyd was a retired Senior Scientist for Lockheed Martin. His career spanned over forty years, was awarded many patents, and included work with defense contractors Hughes Aircraft, General Dynamics, Texas Instruments, and Lockheed Martin.” Although the video is highly disputed, and the “alien” appears to be an exact prop that can be purchased at Walmart, I went after the FBI file of Mr. Bushman. This is what I found.

Carr, Otis T. – [64 Pages, 5.3MB] – Otis T. Carr (December 7, 1904 – September 20, 1982) first emerged into the 1950s flying saucer scene in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1955 when he founded OTC Enterprises, a company that was supposed to advance and apply technology originally suggested by Nikola Tesla. Carr patented a flying saucer, and asserted he was working on a full-size version that could fly to the Moon and return in less than a day, using two counter-rotating metal plates, spinning electromagnets and large capacitors, which when spinning charged and powered by a battery, which became “activated by the energy of space.” Carr’s scheme resembles slightly earlier proposals by John R. R. Searl and Thomas Townsend Brown. Carr also claimed to have invented “The Gravity Electric Generator”, “The Utron Electric battery”, “The Carrotto Gravity Motor”, and “The Photon Gun”.

Condon, Edward Uhler [ File #1 (312MB) | File #2 (0.1MB) | File #3 (0.1MB) | File #4 (177MB) ]- [ 1,777 Pages ] – Edward Uhler Condon (March 2, 1902 – March 26, 1974) was a distinguished American nuclear physicist, a pioneer in quantum mechanics, and a participant in the development of radar and nuclear weapons during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. The Franck–Condon principle and the Slater–Condon rules are named after him.  Condon became widely known in 1968 as principal author of the Condon Report, an official review funded by the United States Air Force that concluded that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have prosaic explanations. The lunar crater Condon is named for him.  Please note: The FBI stated there MAY be additional records pertaining to Condon. I requested the remaining material, and if any exists, will post it when available. Press the “subscribe” button for this page to be notified when it’s updated.

Cooper, Milton William “Bill” FBI Release #1  [333 Pages, 164MB]  Cooper, Milton William “Bill” FBI Release #2  [21 Pages, 13.4MB] Cooper, Milton William “Bill” FBI Release #3 – Night Vision Goggle Investigation [101 Pages, 13.4MB]  Cooper, Milton William “Bill” FBI Release #4  – Despite being a different release from the above, it appears to be duplicate to “Release #3”, but it is archived here for reference 0 [101 Pages, 13.5MB] – Milton William “Bill” Cooper (May 6, 1943 – November 6, 2001) was an American conspiracy theorist, radio broadcaster, and author best known for his 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse, in which he warned of multiple global conspiracies, some involving extraterrestrial aliens. Cooper also described HIV/AIDS as a man-made disease used to target blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals, and that a cure was made before it was implemented. He has been described as a “militia theoretician”.  As Cooper moved away from the UFOlogy community and toward the militia and anti-government subculture in the late 1990s, he became convinced that he was being personally targeted by President Bill Clinton and the Internal Revenue Service. In July 1998 he was charged with tax evasion; an arrest warrant was issued, but Cooper eluded repeated attempts to serve it. In 2000, he was named a “major fugitive” by the United States Marshals Service.  On November 5, 2001, Apache County sheriff’s deputies attempted to arrest Cooper at his Eagar, Arizona home on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and endangerment stemming from disputes with local residents. After an exchange of gunfire during which Cooper shot one of the deputies in the head, Cooper was fatally shot. Federal authorities reported that Cooper had spent years evading execution of the 1998 arrest warrant, and according to a spokesman for the Marshals Service, he vowed that “he would not be taken alive”.

Edwards, Frank – FBI Release #1 –  [21 Pages, 4MB] Edwards, Frank – NARA Release #1 –  [21 Pages, 23.7MB] – Sadly, the electronic files sent to me from NARA are fairly low resolution, which may cause some issues with reading.  I am trying to get more readable copies… but until then… these are the only available.Frank Allyn Edwards (August 4, 1908 – June 23, 1967) was an American writer and broadcaster, and one of the pioneers in radio. He hosted a radio show broadcast across the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. Late in his life, he became additionally well known for a series of popular books about UFOs and other paranormal phenomena.

Extra-Sensory Perception – [40 Pages, 10MB] – ESP is considered a perception of information about events beyond what may be discerned through the five physical senses or deduced from past experience or knowledge. This release consists of cross references to ESP found in FBI files from 1957 to 1960. Several of the documents concern William Foos, a proponent of ESP. Others concern claims that ESP could be used in espionage investigations. The FBI found no scientific support for this or other claims and did not pursue the matters raised in these references.

Finders Cult – FBI Release #1 – [373 Pages, 196MB]  Finders Cult – FBI Release #2 – [280 Pages, 120MB] – A bizarre and rarely heard about cult that allegedly deals with white slave traffic, sexual exploitation of children, and satanic rituals. It also found its way into many “Pizzagate” conspiracy theories. Not much is known, but here is a pile of hundreds of documents released on the “cult.”

Fortean Society – [169 Pages, 152.5MB] – The Fortean Society was started in the United States in 1931 during a meeting held in the New York flat of Charles Hoy Fort in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first president was Theodore Dreiser, an old friend of Charles Fort, who had helped to get his work published. Founding members of The Fortean Society included Tiffany Thayer (see file below), Booth Tarkington, Ben Hecht, Alexander Woollcott (and many of NYC’s literati such as Dorothy Parker), and Baltimore writer H. L. Mencken. Other members included Vincent Gaddis, Ivan T. Sanderson, A. Merritt, Frank Lloyd Wright and Buckminster Fuller. The first 6 issues of the Fortean Society’s newsletter “Doubt” were each edited by a different member, starting with Theodore Dreiser. Tiffany Thayer thereafter took over editorship of subsequent issues. Thayer began to assert extreme control over the society, largely filling the newsletter with articles written by himself, and excommunicating the entire San Francisco chapter, reportedly their most active, after disagreements over the society’s direction, and forbidding them to use the name Fortean. During World War II, for example, Thayer used every issue of “Doubt” to espouse his politics. Particularly, he frequently expressed opposition to Civil Defense, going to such lengths as encouraging readers to turn on their lights in defiance to air raid sirens. In contrast to the spirit of Charles Fort, he not only dismissed flying saucers as nonsense, but also dismissed the atomic bomb as a hoax.

Friedman, Stanton – FBI Release #1 – [63 Pages, 34.3MB]  Friedman, Stanton – FBI Release #2 – [9 Pages, 1MB] – Stanton Terry Friedman (July 29, 1934 – May 13, 2019) was a nuclear physicist and professional ufologist who resided in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He was an early civilian investigator of the Roswell UFO incident. He worked on research and development projects for several large companies.

Friend, Robert – [4 Pages, 2.5MB] – Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jones Friend (1920–2019) was a Tuskegee airman in WW2 and led the USAF’s Project Blue Book from 1958 to 1963. He also served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. He had a 28 year military career. Note: All files on Friend were either lost or destroyed.

The Galileo Project – [9 Pages, 8MB] – The Galileo Project at Harvard University represents a pioneering scientific initiative aimed at systematically studying unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and interstellar objects visiting our solar system. Launched in July 2021 by Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, the project is named after the renowned astronomer Galileo Galilei and seeks to bring the rigor of empirical science to understanding these mysterious phenomena. Utilizing a network of telescopes, cameras, and computer algorithms, the project intends to capture high-resolution images and data of UAPs to analyze their properties and origins scientifically. Distinct from speculative theories or anecdotal reports, the Galileo Project aspires to answer questions about these phenomena through a transparent and verifiable scientific process, contributing potentially groundbreaking insights into astrophysics and extraterrestrial technologies.

Heaven’s Gate Cult – [382 Pages, 283MB] Heaven’s Gate was an American UFO religious Millenarian group based in San Diego, California, founded in the early 1970s and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985). On March 26, 1997, police discovered the bodies of 39 members of the group who had committed mass suicide in order to reach what they believed was an alien space craft following Comet Hale–Bopp.

Hottel, Guy – [2 Pages] Guy Hottel was a special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. The information concerning Mr. Hottel is in regard to a March 22, 1950 memo he sent to the FBI Director concerning flying saucers.  This has been one of the FBI’s most downloaded document from their website, once they finally added it to the archive.

Hynek, J. Allen – [24 Pages, 1.42MB] – Dr. Josef Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 – April 27, 1986) was a United States astronomer, professor, and ufologist. He is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. Hynek acted as scientific adviser to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three consecutive names: Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book. For decades afterwards, he conducted his own independent UFO research, developing the Close Encounter classification system, and is widely considered the father of the concept of scientific analysis of both reports and, especially, trace evidence purportedly left by UFOs.

Keyhoe, Donald – [13 Pages, 6MB] – Donald Edward Keyhoe (June 20, 1897 – November 29, 1988) was an American Marine Corps naval aviator, writer of many aviation articles and stories in a variety of leading publications, and manager of the promotional tours of aviation pioneers, especially of Charles Lindbergh. In the 1950s he became well known as a UFO researcher, arguing that the U.S. government should conduct research in UFO matters, and should release all its UFO files. Jerome Clark writes that “Keyhoe was widely regarded as the leader in the field” of ufology in the 1950s and early to mid-1960s.

Klass, Phil (FBI Release) – [187 Pages, 99.7MB]  Klass, Phil (FBI Release #2 October, 2015) – [10 Pages, 0.9MB]  Klass, Phil (NCIS Release) – [14 Pages, 1MB]  Klass, Phil (AFOSI Release) – [14 Pages, 1MB]  Klass, Phil (CIA Release by way of FBI) – [5 Pages, 0.8MB]Philip Julian Klass (November 8, 1919 – August 9, 2005) was an American engineer, journalist, and UFO researcher, known for his skepticism regarding UFOs. In the ufological and skeptical communities, Klass tends to inspire strongly polarized appraisals. He has been called the “Sherlock Holmes of UFOlogy”. Klass demonstrated “the crusader’s zeal for what seems ‘right,’ regardless of whether it brings popular acclaim,” a trait he claimed his father instilled in him. “I’ve found,” said Klass, “that roughly 97, 98 percent of the people who report seeing UFOs are fundamentally intelligent, honest people who have seen something – usually at night, in darkness – that is unfamiliar, that they cannot explain.” The rest, he said, were frauds.With his work as Editor of Aviation Week magazine, Klass found himself in the middle of an investigation for publishing classified information. As chronicled in Wikipedia: For ten years, Klass worked for General Electric as an engineer in aviation electronics. Dissatisfied with his job, in 1952 he moved to Washington, DC, and joined Aviation Week, which later became Aviation Week & Space Technology.[7] He was a senior editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology for thirty-four years. Always striving to stay on the cutting edge, Klass published an “Exclusive Report on Counter Measures” in the November 18th and 25th, 1957, editions of Aviation Week. This report was referred to the FBI for the “unauthorized disclosure of information classified ‘Secret'”. An investigation into the disclosure was dropped when the US Air Force told the FBI that the disclosed information could not be declassified for purposes of prosecution.

Kurtz, Paul – [7 Pages, 0.6MB] – Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was a prominent American scientific skeptic and secular humanist. He has been called “the father of secular humanism”. He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vassar, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for Social Research. Kurtz founded the publishing house Prometheus Books in 1969. He was also the founder and past chairman of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry. He was editor in chief of Free Inquiry magazine, a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism. Kurtz published over 800 articles or reviews and authored and edited over 50 books. Many of his books have been translated into over 60 languages.

LaPaz, Dr. Lincoln – [  File #1 |  File #2 ] [  NSA Request Response for Records ] [  FBI Release – May 19, 2017 ] – Lincoln LaPaz was an American astronomer from the University of New Mexico and a pioneer in the study of meteors.  In ufology, LaPaz’s name is often associated with UFO investigations on behalf of the military during the late 1940s and early 1950s. These include the so-called Roswell UFO incident of 1947, the N.M. green fireballs, that began in late 1948 and continued through the 1950s, and the search for near-Earth orbiting satellites in 1954 along with fellow N.M. astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. However, only LaPaz’s association with the green fireball investigations for the Air Force is thoroughly documented and an undeniable historical fact. (Note: Additional pages of material on Dr. Lincoln LaPaz were released by the FBI, and a DESTROYED file number was referenced that may have contained additional pages on the man – but no one will ever know what those pages contained.)

Long John Nebel aka John Zimmerman – [8 Pages, 1.9 MB] – Long John Nebel (born John Zimmerman; June 11, 1911 – April 10, 1978) was an influential New York City talk radio show host. From the mid-1950s until his death in 1978, Nebel was a hugely popular all-night radio host, with millions of regular listeners and what Donald Bain described as “a fanatically loyal following” to his syndicated program, which dealt mainly with anomalous phenomena, UFOs, and other offbeat topics.

Mack, Dr. John E. – FBI Release #1 – [49 Pages, 12.9MB]  Mack, Dr. John E.  [4 Pages, 0.8MB] – I went after additional records other than the above release, and they said the potential records pertaining to Dr. Mack were destroyed on June 18, 2014.John Edward Mack M.D. (October 4, 1929 – September 27, 2004) was an American psychiatrist, parapsychologist, writer, and professor at Harvard Medical School. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, a leading researcher and writer on alien abduction experiences, and a campaigner for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

McDonald, Dr. James E. – [113 Pages, 64.81 MB] – James Edward McDonald (May 7, 1920 – June 13, 1971) was an American physicist. He is best known for his research regarding UFOs. McDonald was senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics and professor in the Department of Meteorology, University of Arizona, Tucson. McDonald campaigned in support of expanding UFO studies during the mid and late 1960s, arguing that UFOs represented an important unsolved mystery which had not been adequately studied by science. He was one of the more prominent figures of his time who argued in favor of the extraterrestrial hypothesis as a plausible, but not completely proved, model of UFO phenomena. McDonald interviewed over 500 UFO witnesses, uncovered many important government UFO documents, and gave important presentations of UFO evidence. He testified before Congress during the UFO hearings of 1968. McDonald also gave a famous talk called “Science in Default” to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It was a summary of the current UFO evidence and a critique of the 1969 Condon Report UFO study. See Also: Hemogeneous Nucleation of Vapor Condensation, 1962, Dr. James McDonald Reports

Merchant, Madeline Gwynn – FBI Release #1 – [14 Pages, 1.4MB] Merchant, Madeline Gwynn – FBI Release #2 – [14 Pages, 1.1MB] Merchant, Madeline Gwynn – NARA Release #1 – [16 Pages, 1.1MB] – Madeline Gwynne Merchant was a resident from New Mexico who wrote numerous letters regarding UFOs and her theories to multiple agencies.  The FBI did have a file on her… and what is interesting to note that in one memo to the Director of the FBI (written in 1949), it states, “This matter is considered top secret by Intelligence Officers of both the Army and the Air Forces.”

National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena – [ File #1 | File #2 | File #3 ] The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, NICAP, was founded in the 1950s to research reports of UFO phenomenon. Between 1957 and 1969, NICAP and its members periodically communicated with the FBI. This release consists of this correspondence.

Newton, Silas – [78 Pages, 2.5MB]  Silas Newton (1887-1972) was a wealthy oil producer and con-man who claimed that he had a gadget that could detect minerals and oil. He was cited as an authority in Frank Scully’s book Behind the Flying Saucers, a work that claimed to report on several UFO crashes in the area of New Mexico. In 1950, Newton said that a flying saucer crashed on land he leased in the Mojave Desert; however, he revised his claim in 1952, saying he never saw a flying saucer but had only repeated comments he heard from others. These files detail the FBI’s investigations into Newton’s fraudulent activities between 1951 and 1970.

Page, Dr. Thornton Leigh – [4 Pages, 1.2MB] – Thornton Leigh Page was an American professor of astronomy at the University of Chicago and at Wesleyan University. He became embroiled in the controversy over unidentified flying objects (UFOs) after serving briefly on the Robertson Panel, a Central Intelligence Agency–sponsored committee of scientists assembled in Washington, D.C. from 14–18 January 1953 to study the available evidence on UFOs. According to the FBI, records relating to Dr. Page were destroyed.

Palmer, Raymond – FBI Release – [35 Pages, 29.5MB] Palmer, Raymond – NARA Release (FOIA Case 57555) – [33 Pages, 1.5MB] – Raymond Arthur Palmer (August 1, 1910 – August 15, 1977) was an American editor of Amazing Stories from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to publish and edit Fate Magazine, and eventually many other magazines and books through his own publishing houses, including Amherst Press and Palmer Publications. In addition to magazines such as Mystic, Search, and ‘Flying Saucers,” he published numerous spirtualist books, including Oahspe: A New Bible, as well as several books related to flying saucers, including “The Coming of the Saucers,” co-written by Palmer with Kenneth Arnold. Palmer was also a prolific author of science fiction and fantasy stories, many of which were published under pseudonyms.  (Note: I have requested the files possibly at the National Archives, as noted in the FBI’s letter. I will post those when/if they are released.)

Project Blue Book – [ File #1 ] – Project Blue Book Originally Project Blue Book was the Air Force name for a project that investigated UFO reports between 1947 and 1969. In 1989, an organization calling itself “The New Project Blue Book” contacted the FBI. This file consists of correspondence concerning this organization.

PSI TECH – [4 Pages, 2MB] – PSI TECH was founded in 1989 by a 4 star General and an DIA intelligence officer who ushered a top secret information collection technology currently known as TRV (Technical Remote Viewing) out of the Pentagon and into the private sector. Our first client was the Defense Department, gathering intelligence for the Gulf War. The original data acquisition protocols were developed by researchers at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) under Pentagon contract and deployed by a special Intelligence unit stationed at Fort Meade. At one time most of these officers in the military unit worked for PSI TECH as employees or contractors. Fast forward to present time – PSI TECH now operates a research and consulting firm specializing in intelligence collection for individual, corporate, and government clients who are looking to solve problems outside of what conventional information can provide. We spent over a decade refining the protocols for the financial markets and focusing on how to determine optimum outcomes of event based targets. PSI TECH employs skilled analysts who corroborate the data and compile it into actionable strategies for a variety of client problem solving and information needs.

Roswell – On July 8, 1947, the FBI Dallas Field Office sent a teletype regarding a “flying disc” that resembled a high altitude weather balloon found near Roswell, New Mexico.

Schmidt, Reinhold – [4 Pages, 1MB] – Reinhold Schmidt (1897–1974) was a 1957 UFO “contactee” in an era that began with George Adamski in 1953. He was born and grew up in Nebraska, where he worked for most of his adult life as a reputable grain buyer and dealer. He became a contactee after telling of his experience on November 5, 1957 detailed in his book Edge of Tomorrow, when while driving through a rural area near Kearney, Nebraska, he noticed a large, cigar-shaped object resting in a field. He was soon escorted inside the space ship, which turned out to be crewed by completely human-looking space aliens, four male and two female, who apparently spoke perfect German and claimed to be from the planet Saturn. “The Saturnians” also claimed to be interested in the recently launched Russian sputniks, and the satellite-launching plans of the US.

Stringfield, Leonard – [23 Pages, 12MB] – Leonard Stringfield (1920–1994) was an American ufologist who took particular interest in crashed flying saucer stories. He died in 1994. Stringfield was director of Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO), and published a monthly newsletter, ORBIT. In 1957 he became public relations adviser for the civilian UFO group, National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), under the direction of Donald Keyhoe, a friend since 1953. From 1967 to 1969, Stringfield served as an “Early Warning Coordinator” for the Condon Committee. During the 1970s, he wrote a number of books about alleged recoveries of alien spaceships and alien bodies.

Spontaneous Human Combustion – [114 Pages, 66.3MB] – Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is a term encompassing reported cases of the combustion of a living (or very recently deceased) human body without an apparent external source of ignition. In addition to reported cases, examples of SHC appear in literature, and both types have been observed to share common characteristics regarding circumstances and remains of the victim.

Thayer, Tiffany Ellsworth – [166 Pages, 152.5MB] – Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer (March 1, 1902 – August 23, 1959) was an American actor, author and founder of the Fortean Society.

UFO Document FBI Collection [1,600 Pages] – Unexplained Flying Objects (UFOs) In 1947, a rash of sightings of unexplained flying objects (UFOs) swept America. Although the newly formed U.S. Air Force was the primary investigator of these sightings, the FBI received many reports and worked for a time with the Air Force to investigate these matters. This release details the FBI’s role in investigating such reports between 1947 and 1954.

Williamson, George Hunt – [706 Pages, 60MB] – George Hunt Williamson (December 9, 1926 – January 1986), aka Michael d’Obrenovic and Brother Philip, was an American flying saucer contactee, channel, and metaphysical author who came to prominence in the 1950s.

Majestic-12 / MJ-12

The following FBI files were requested, which are the alleged members of MJ-12 and even the FBI’s file on MJ-12 itself.

Although some of these files may have nothing to do with UFOs or MJ-12, these are the alleged members and are archived here.

Majestic 12 –  In 1988, two FBI offices received similar versions of a memo titled “Operation Majestic-12…” claiming to be highly classified government document. The memo appeared to be a briefing for newly-elected President Eisenhower on a secret committee created to exploit a recovery of an extra-terrestrial aircraft and cover-up this work from public examination. An Air Force investigation determined the document to be a fake.

Berkner, Lloyd – [ 135 Pages, 10.43 MB ]  Berkner, Lloyd, Release #2 – [ 12 Pages, 2.4 MB ] – Lloyd Viel Berkner (February 1, 1905, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – June 4, 1967, in Washington, D.C.) was an American physicist and engineer. He was one of the inventors of the measuring device that since has become standard at ionospheric stations because it measures the height and electron density of the ionosphere. The data obtained in the worldwide net of such instruments  were important for the developing theory of short wave radio propagation to which Berkner himself gave important contributions.Additional information was found at the FBI, that originated at the CIA.  The FBI forwarded these records to the CIA for review, and declassification, and the CIA information me that all material on Berkner is classified.  Berkner, Lloyd CIA Documents Denial Letter – [ 2 Pages, 0.5 MB ]

Bronk, Detlev – [ 248 Pages, 7.18 MB ] – Detlev Wulf Bronk (August 13, 1897 – November 17, 1975) was a prominent American scientist, educator, and administrator. He is credited with establishing biophysics as a recognized discipline. Bronk served as President of Johns Hopkins University from 1949 to 1953 and as President of the The Rockefeller University from 1953 to 1968. Bronk also held the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences between 1950 and 1962. Please note: According to the FBI, more pages exist on Bronk and are being sent to another government agency for release. Will post when available.

Bush, Vannevar – [ 241 Pages, 78.1 MB ] – Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, whose most important contribution was as head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during World War II, through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He is also known in engineering for his work on analog computers, for founding Raytheon, and for the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer with a structure analogous to that of the World Wide Web.  Bush was also an alleged member of the Majestic-12 (MJ-12) group.  Please note: As admitted by the FBI, an entire file on Bush was destroyed. According to the FBI: “One record (161-BS-1452) which may be responsive to your FOIA request was destroyed in April of 1998.”

Forrestal, James – [290 Pages, 32.66MB] – James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers. In 1954, the world’s first supercarrier was named USS Forrestal in his honor, as is the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy. He is also the namesake of the Forrestal Lecture Series at the United States Naval Academy, which brings prominent military and civilian leaders to speak to the Brigade of Midshipmen, and of the James Forrestal Campus of Princeton University in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.

Gray, Gordon – FBI Release #1 – [349 Pages, 88.8MB]  Gray, Gordon – FBI Release #2 – [23 Pages, 2.5MB]  Gray, Gordon – FBI Release #3 – [44 Pages, 4.2MB]  Gray, Gordon (State Department Release) – [3 Pages, 1.1MB] Gordon Gray (May 30, 1909 – November 26, 1982) was an official in the government of the United States during the administrations of Harry Truman (1945–53) and Dwight Eisenhower (1953–61) associated with defense and national security.

Hillenkoetter, Adm Roscoe Henry – [ 32 Pages, 20.70MB ] – Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter (May 8, 1897 – June 18, 1982) was the third director of the post-World War II United States Central Intelligence Group (CIG), the third Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency created by the National Security Act of 1947. He served as DCI and director of the CIG and the CIA from May 1, 1947 to October 7, 1950 and after his retirement from the United States Navy was a member of the board of governors of National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) from 1957 to 1962.

Hunsaker, Jerome – [ 3 Pages, 0.9MB ] – Jerome Clarke Hunsaker (August 26, 1886 – September 10, 1984) was an American airman born in Creston, Iowa, and educated at the Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.According to the FBI, Hunsaker’s file was destroyed September 24, 2004

Menzel, Donald – [ 209 Pages, 24.10MB ] – Donald Howard Menzel (April 11, 1901 – December 14, 1976) was one of the first theoretical astronomers and astrophysicists in the US. He discovered the physical properties of the solar chromosphere, the chemistry of stars, the atmosphere of Mars, and the nature of gaseous nebulae.

Montague, Robert M. – [ 2 Pages, 0.3MB ] – Robert Miller Montague (August 7, 1899 – February 20, 1958) was a Lieutenant General in the United States Army. He achieved prominence as the deputy commander of Fort Bliss, Texas and commander of the Sandia Missile Base in New Mexico during the start of modern ufology and head of the U.S. Caribbean Command.  The FBI claims that they could not find a file on Montague.

Souers, Sidney Adm. – [ 691 Pages, 47.53MB ] – Sidney William Souers (March 30, 1892 – January 14, 1973) was an American admiral and intelligence expert. ear Admiral Souers was appointed as the first Director of Central Intelligence on January 23, 1946 by President Harry S. Truman. Prior to this, as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, Souers had been one of the architects of the system that came into being with the President’s directive. He had written the intelligence chapter of the Eberstadt Report, which advocated a unified intelligence system. Toward the end of 1945, when the competing plans for a national intelligence system were deadlocked, Souers’ views had come to the attention of the President, and he seems to have played a role in breaking the impasse.

Twining, General Nathan – [23 Pages, 15.43MB] – Nathan Farragut Twining, (October 11, 1897 – March 29, 1982) was a United States Air Force General, born in Monroe, Wisconsin. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force from 1953 until 1957. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1957 to 1960 he was the first member of the Air Force to serve in that role.

Vandenberg, Hoyt – [ 98 Pages, 6.12MB ] – Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg (January 24, 1899 – April 2, 1954) was a U.S. Air Force general, its second Chief of Staff, and second Director of Central Intelligence. During World War II, Vandenberg was the commanding general of the Ninth Air Force, a tactical air force in England and in France, supporting the Army, from August 1944 until V-E Day. Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast of California is named for General Vandenberg. In 1946, he was briefly the U.S. Chief of Military Intelligence. He was the nephew of Arthur H. Vandenberg, a former U.S. Senator from Michigan.

Other Alleged MJ-12 Members

 The Aviary

No Records Exist

The following FBI Files were requested, but according to the FBI, they found no records.

Marjorie Fish

Budd Hopkins

W.C. Levengood

Dr. Jesse Marcel, Jr.

Donald Keyhoe

Zecharia Sitchin

Leonard Stringfield

The post FBI Files: The Paranormal Collection first appeared on The Black Vault.

I’m going to — in a moment, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Kosloski to provide opening remarks, then we will go to Q&A. I will be moderating and calling on you. Because Dr. Kosloski is — this is his first time with you all, we would appreciate it if you would identify yourself by name and outlet when you ask your question. Please keep it to one question and one follow up. And as we — if we have more time, I will circle back. We have about 30 minutes. All right, Dr. Kosloski.

DR. JON KOSLOSKI: Thanks, Sue. Good morning. I’m Dr. Jon Kosloski, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office or AARO. It’s a pleasure to be here today to introduce myself and to provide an update of the work of our office. As you know, I assumed the AARO directorship in August following more than two decades at the National Security Agency where I did advanced research in the areas of optics, computing and crypto mathematics.

By nature, I’m drawn to tough scientific problems, which is what brought me to AARO and the UAP mission. Unidentified objects in any domain pose potential threats to safety and security. Reports of unidentified anomalous phenomenon, particularly near national security sites, must be treated seriously and investigated with scientific rigor by the U.S. government.

Since becoming director, I’ve been extremely pleased by AARO’s team and the framework they’ve established for rigorous analysis of UAP reports. AARO has taken meaningful steps to improve data collection and retention, bolster sensor development, effectively triage UAP reports, and reduce the stigma of reporting a UAP event.

In the coming year, AARO will prioritize building partnerships, promoting increased transparency and scaling up the work of the office.

This week, the department delivered its Fiscal Year 2024 consolidated annual report on UAP and had the opportunity to brief congressional staff on the report’s findings.

As of today, over 1,600 UAP reports, 757 of which — I’m sorry, AARO has received over 1,600 UAP reports, over 757 of which came to AARO during the period covered by the report. AARO has successfully resolved hundreds of cases in its holdings to commonplace objects such as balloons, birds, drones, satellites and aircraft.

Meanwhile, over 900 reports lack sufficient data for — scientific data for analysis and are retained in our active archive. These cases may be reopened and resolved, should additional information emerge to support analysis. I want to emphasize that although only a very small percentage of reports to AARO are potentially anomalous, these are the cases that require significant time, resources and a focused scientific inquiry by AARO and its partners.

It is also important to underscore that to date, AARO has discovered no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology. None of the cases resolved by AARO have pointed to advanced capabilities or breakthrough technologies. It is also worth noting that AARO continues to see a geographic bias of UAP reports near U.S. military assets and sensors.

However, this bias has been mitigated somewhat by an increase in commercial pilot reporting in the continental United States. AARO is working closely with the services to implement existing reporting guidance while expanding UAP reporting to more of the interagency. Meanwhile, AARO continues to review the U.S. historical record relating to UAP and will release a second volume of its congressionally directed Historical Record Report.

We welcome any former or current government civilian, contractor or military service member with relevant information to reach out to us at www.AARO.mil. For every UAP report, operational or historical, AARO will follow the science and data wherever they lead. And we are committed to sharing as much information as possible at the unclassified level to inform the public of our activities and findings. With that, I’ll take your questions.

STAFF: Brandi?

Q: Thanks. Thank you so much for doing this. I’m Brandi Vincent with Defense Scoop. One question on the report and then a follow-up. It noted that the next step for Gremlin, the Gremlin capability, is conducting a 90-day pattern of life collection at a national security site. Where is that going to be? How did you pick that location? And what ultimately are you guys trying to accomplish with that?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So it’s currently deployed. We’d rather not say exactly where it is because we want it to be an unbiased test and don’t want to invite folks to come and do flyovers and test against the system. We chose that specific location because of the environment. We expect there to be a lot of variety in the types of things that we’re going to see. And there had been UAP reports in that general area.

And we’re trying to build a baseline. So, right now, we have this geographic bias where we are getting reports near the national security sites. But we also have a bias from pilots and other security personnel. So we want to have a better understanding of what normal looks like near those national security sites. And then eventually we’ll be expanding our baseline investigations to other areas in the U.S. to look at what normal looks like away from national security sites.

Q: And then, after the hearing on the Hill yesterday, lawmakers were saying that they are really keen to meet in a SCIF with AARO officials, other DOD officials, whistleblowers and members of Congress. Is that something you’ve been approached about, have done or are open to doing?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So we’re absolutely open to meeting with everybody. We’ve been meeting with a variety of folks, from whistleblowers through staffers. And we encourage anybody with direct information to come to us, go to our secure reporting mechanism on the website. And when we get that, we’ll reach out to them, schedule a meeting in the SCIF.

And Congress has enabled us to receive all sensitive information regardless of classification or NDAs they may have signed. And we receive that information. And we follow-up on every tip that they provide us.

Q: Thank you.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes.

STAFF: Oren

Q: Two questions. One, I was wondering if you could talk about whether any analysis or data of reports you have received has led you to the foreign adversary conclusion, specifically the UASs — 18 reports of UASs spotted near nuclear facilities? And then I was wondering if you could just talk about the — the — the effort to increase engagement with foreign partners for a better —a broader array of sensors, data analysis information.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Sure. So, firstly, no, we have not been able to correlate any UAP activity to adversarial collection activities or advanced technologies. I also want to make it clear that UAP covers a lot of potential activity by its very nature. The definition is in the name, right? So it’s unidentified and it’s anomalous. Once we know that it’s a UAV or a UAS of some nature, we then hand that responsibility off to one of our partners.

So Langley being a great example. It was known to be UAV activity, so we were there in a supporting role, but it was not our responsibility to address that. So those investigations are conducted by somebody else. And we’re focusing on the truly anomalous where we don’t understand the activity. And then for the foreign engagement, we’re working on increasing our foreign engagement.

We recognize that UAP is not just going to be a domestic issue. The office has focused primarily on U.S. government. And we’re going to be growing to public reporting soon in 2025. And we’re going to be growing our international partnerships hopefully also in 2025. So starting with the group that we have the most familiar — familiarity with and then growing that from there.

Q: Are there any specific countries you can name in terms of who you aim to work with?

DR. KOSLOSKI: We are going to be starting with the traditional allies of the DOD and the IC. And I’ll leave it at that for now until we have those partnerships well established and then we’ll probably come out with more information. Yes.

STAFF: Yes. Nick?

Q: Nick Schifrin, PBS NewsHour. Thanks very much for doing this. This may be basic and silly, but I just want to read you a quotation from the hearing yesterday and have you respond to it. This is Luis Elizondo, former DOD official. “Let me be clear. UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government or any other government are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. The U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies as are some of our adversaries.”

Can you just give us a sense of your perspective on that quotation?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Break that down, so there’s a lot in that quotation. Firstly, absolutely agree. UAP are real. We — as I said, we’ve received 1,600 cases. A large number of those are unresolved, which means we don’t know exactly what they are. Until we know what they are or who they belong to, we can’t attribute intent and understand exactly what the purpose of that phenomenon is. So we’re not comfortable —we at AARO, are not comfortable saying at this time whether or not the UAP are there to collect information or not.

In regards to whether or not AARO, U.S. government or any other government has UAP. We have not found any evidence of that at this time.

Q: …but the bottom line conclusion remains what you said at the top — There is no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity.

DR. KOSLOSKI: We have not found any, no. There are definitely anomalies. We have not been able to draw the link to extraterrestrial.

STAFF: Phil.

Q: Just to follow up on that.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes.

Q: You know, a lot of people read that or saw — just that hearing. You know, when you said there was no breakthrough technologies. I mean the person seems to be suggesting that, you know, at a minimum these are breakthrough technologies. What leads you to assume that the ones that —the UAP cases that you can’t resolve are not potentially breakthrough technologies? Or is it that you just haven’t been able to conclusively decide either way?

DR. KOSLOSKI: That’s exactly right. So we don’t fully understand the phenomenon enough to say whether or not it’s a breakthrough technology or not. So it’s a very small percentage of our overall cases that after the initial analysis still have the anomalous characteristics that one could attribute breakthrough technologies to. It’s less than 3.5% of our cases. And we’re still studying those with our IC and S&T partners, trying to understand what technologies could be used to provide those characteristics.

But we don’t understand them well enough to say whether it’s a breakthrough technology, a misunderstanding of the sensor performance or something else.

Q: And a skeptic might say that, you know, if you — just because you can’t explain it isn’t a reason to assume that it’s not a breakthrough technology or I mean by the definition of breakthrough technology would be something that you don’t have — if you don’t have it, you can’t explain, right?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Agree 100%. So, we’re not ruling it out. We’re open to that as an explanation for it. But we’re just not attributing breakthrough technology as the explanation to it. We’re — an open mind works both ways. So if we don’t understand what it is, we can’t say that it is or is not a breakthrough technology. So we’re just trying to keep an open mind.

Q: Got it. It’s not a catch 22.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Right.

Q: (inaudible) OK.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes. It — we accept that the explanation could be a misunderstanding of ours in interpreting the data or it could be a breakthrough technology. Until we understand, we don’t know.

Q: Thank you. Brad Dress, for The Hill. Have you found anything that might be a breakthrough technology? I know you’re saying you don’t know if there are breakthroughs yet, but something that might be a breakthrough technology near the military sites, some of those sightings you’ve seen near the military sites, have you found anything that might be that? Or are they all just been drones and UAS?

DR. KOSLOSKI: It’s definitely not all just drones and UAS. So we have several particularly interesting cases. We’re working on within the office, working with our partners to downgrade several of those cases, so we can talk about them publicly. But there are interesting cases that I, with my physics and engineering background and time in the IC, I do not understand. And I don’t know anybody else who understands them either.

Q: But those near military sites and facilities?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Until we get the information approved for release, I’d rather not say where those sightings were, but definitely interesting sightings.

Q: OK. Thank you. Tanya Nori with NewsNation. Can you please speak to AARO’s involvement in investigating incidents of drone or UAP, UAV incursions at the U.S. southern border with Mexico?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So we — I’m not that familiar with any specific investigations that we have — that AARO has supported for UAP or sorry, UAS, UAV activity near the southern border. We have had several UAP cases that have been brought to us that were near the border that we’ve investigated. I believe that we have resolved the cases that have been brought to us. And we’re working on downgrading those so that we can share those.

Q: And do you — can you speak to the procedures that are in place for Border Patrol agents to report UFO sightings? And how are those reports handled and investigated by the Pentagon overall and by AARO specifically?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So at this time, I don’t believe we have a formal mechanism for Border Patrol to report to AARO. Right now, the only formal mechanism is through the DOD. And we’re working on expanding that across the government through the interagency and for public reporting. We expect that formally to be in place hopefully in 2025. Right now, we’re getting those cases more through partnerships that those folks have with DOD or counterintelligence members.

STAFF: Luis?

Q: Hi. Luis Martinez with ABC News. Thank you for doing this and welcome.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Thank you for coming.

Q: Yes. I would like to follow-up on that earlier question about incidents you cannot explain based on your, you know, broad experience. A couple of follow-ups on that, please. Were these all within the last year? Were these all at the same location? Were you looking at video evidence? Or what are the metrics that you’re looking at that you cannot explain?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Great question. So of the cases that I’m thinking of, there’s a variety of them. The cases that are top of my mind are spread out over the last year and a half. I’m sure that there’s some other anomalous ones a little further back. But the ones that I’m particularly most interested in are the last year and a half. There is some video footage for a few of the cases, not all of the cases.

So it’s not just eyewitnesses. But in each of the cases I’m particularly interested in, there were multiple eyewitnesses. And there is additional data to go with them. It remains to be seen whether or not that additional data is going to be sufficient for us to either resolve the case, understand whether it’s a UAV, bird or balloon, or say something substantive about the nature of the unknown phenomenon.

So we’re still trying to understand whether or not there’s more data available. Because we get the data that comes in from the witnesses. But we also go through a bunch of other sources. Whether or not we can enrich the data that was brought to us and then build a better case. Still digging into it.

Q: What are some of the characteristics or are there — is there a trend among these things? And are they extended period incidents or are they very, very quick?

DR. KOSLOSKI: In each of these cases, they were not extended. The cases that I’m thinking of, there was no commonality across the different cases, different morphologies, so orbs, cylinders, triangles. In one of the cases, it has been happening over an extended period of time. And it is possible that there’s multiple things happening. There could be some UAV activity in the environment that’s getting confused or conflated with the UAP activity, so we’re trying to tease that out right now.

Q: Just to clarify, earlier, you said Langley was UAVs. This — who — the Langley incidents would not be among what you’re describing?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Correct.

Q: OK.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Correct.

STAFF: Konstantin?

Q: Thanks. Konstantin Toropin with Military.com. So one of the sort of key criticisms, I think, around this issue from the hearing yesterday was government transparency, lack of government transparency. I mean, can you sort of speak to that critique and whether you feel that AARO is being overly secretive? If you guys are working on being more transparent, sort of address this criticism from the Hill that you guys are emblematic of a government that overtly classifies everything and?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes, yes, it’s an understandable concern. And I’m going to make a comment. My wife would like me to share more about the UAP incidents too, but I’ll — I guess it’s on the record now, so.

(Laughter)

The fundamental issue is that AARO receives cases from our partners. And in most cases, to date, because we’ve been working through the services, those partners are providing data that is gathered from sensitive platforms. And we need to make sure that we are protecting sensitive sources and methods not introducing vulnerabilities to their operations.

So even though that there’s nothing inherently classified about the existence of a UAP, we have to protect that information. When AARO receives those interesting cases, the cases that we’re just briefly talking about, we try to identify if the UAP information can be isolated from the sensitive — usually it’s metadata that identifies characteristics of the platform.

And we work to downgrade that material as much as we can. But we can’t do it unilaterally. It has to be in partnership with the folks that brought that information. That is a very deliberate process, as you can imagine, to make sure that we’re not releasing sensitive information. So we have taken significant steps to speed that up. We’ve hired a number of declassification experts.

We’re going to be hosting a declassification workshop, so we can make sure we’re implementing best practices from across the DOD and the IC. All of that takes more time than I think the public would like for it to take, but AARO is working on it. We recognize that the types of cases that I was just talking about are, from my perspective, true anomalies.

And we’re going to need significant scientific rigor to address those. And yes, the U.S. government has a lot of nice scientists, little bias there, but we’re going to need the help of academia and the public to address some of these so we need to build that more transparent partnership.

Q: And just to follow-up sort of on the flip side, you know, is there any — as you look at cases to release for example, you talked about how at least one of the interesting ones is sort of ongoing. Is there a world where you hold back release out of fear of drawing more reports, you know, sort of drawing attention to a location and getting copycats or you know what have you sort of muddying the data?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes, so that concern has been raised to us. Because bad data in gets bad analysis out. However, no data in gets no analysis out. And so, being an NSA guy, I’m a firm believer in big data is going to lead to better conclusions. And I would rather have to filter out some of those copycat cases but have more substantive data. If we’re looking for a needle in a haystack, I’d rather have multiple haystacks to go digging through rather than just one.

Q: Thank you.

STAFF: Brandi.

Q: Just one quick follow up.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes.

Q: I’m sorry if I’ve missed it before, but what is AARO or your definition for breakthrough technology?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So lots of people, lots of organizations have different definitions. And the definition, the working definition that we’ve been using informally inside of our office, and we are working on more formal definitions for the different domains for space, the air domain and the undersea domain. But the general definition is beyond state of the art today and beyond where we think that we could get in the next couple years.

So we keep an eye on the capabilities of ourselves, our partners and everyone else at the academic and the very technical level. And then if it’s beyond that, then we would say that’s a breakthrough technology.

STAFF: Phil.

Q: Just a quick follow-up on your answer to Konstantin.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes.

Q: So, if you need to — I mean, I guess a lot of Americans have this view of the government as kind of all-knowing and being able to ascertain, you know, everything, particularly when they think of NSA and other agencies.

DR. KOSLOSKI: If only.

Q: And so, I guess if you could help us explain to readers, you know, what is it about these phenomena that — that, you know, reach the limits of government of the understanding of the professionals in the government and why it would be necessary to bring in academics? That’d be helpful for us.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Great question. So following on Brandi’s question, if it’s a breakthrough technology by its very nature, we don’t know how it would be done, right? If we knew how to do it, we’d be doing it already and it wouldn’t be a breakthrough technology. And so, usually those breakthroughs are coming from the academics. Historically, either in science or engineering, the breakthroughs come from academia and then they go into industry and then they come into government.

The government’s employing a lot of scientists like myself and others who understand a fair amount about the science. But being able to extend that to something that we could not have imagined when we were in school or when we were in training is a very difficult process. And so we’re going to have to pull in those folks that they spend all day every day just thinking of what is the next possible thing that you could do if you were just to tweak the equations a little bit this way or change the material a little bit that way.

And the government, because of our day jobs we don’t get to spend all day every day doing that as much as I would like to.

STAFF: Nick?

Q: Just two small clarification, so the — what you called interesting cases at the beginning and then Luis asked you more specific spread out over the last year and a half. Just to be clear, those are cases that we don’t know about, right? Meaning, we have not read about these cases that you’re speaking about?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Correct, correct.

Q: You said to Luis, one of the cases has been happening over extended period of time. I think Konstantin said ongoing. Just to be clear, that is ongoing or you just —or was it just happening over extended period of time? And you’re not saying whether it’s extended or not?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Extended period of time. It may be ongoing. But we don’t know if the current activity is just drone activity in the environment. And so, we’re trying to follow-up on that. We had put more energy into it earlier on, something flared up and now we’re checking on it.

Q: OK.

Q: Ellie, CBS. Just a follow-up on the interesting cases. Are the interesting cases that you’re talking about the 21 cases that merit further analysis or are they part of the active archive?

DR. KOSLOSKI: They’re part of the 21, yes, that merit. So the active archive, just so that we’re clear, those are cases where we don’t have enough scientific data to continue the analysis. We’re always looking for more. And then when we do, we’ll pull those into the merit more analysis. Yes.

STAFF: Luis

Q: Last year’s report in the time frame had 281 new, I believe incidents. Now you have 485. What do we owe this really large increase to?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So I just —the new incidents I think to be clear, this — it had 757.

Q: In your report here, you talk about a total of 757, you know, in the period of the reporting period.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes.

Q: Of which 485 were from this year and then the remainder were from previous.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Oh, yes. Yes.

Q: But then, in last year’s report, which was from — and I’m looking at my notes here —

DR. KOSLOSKI: Why the ramp up in reporting?

Q: Yes, I mean an additional 200, I mean in the same reporting period?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes. Engagement.

Q: Right.

DR. KOSLOSKI: So we’re — we have the GENADMIN out. We’re engaged with the services. We’re engaging more with the services, helping them understand what qualifies as a UAP, how to report it. And we’re getting more reports of the anomalous activity. It’s not that there’s —we don’t believe that there’s necessarily more anomalous activity.

It’s just, we’re getting greater, greater reporting. And we expect as we continue that engagement with the services, but also across the IC and the rest of the government to the question earlier, we’re going to see that reporting go up as well. We’re going to follow that with education campaigns, so that for example, the FAA is providing us reports now as well.

So we’re getting reports from the pilots. Some of the reports from the pilots are Starlink flares, so light glinting off of satellites at just the right time of the evening. It looks interesting and potentially anomalous. But we can model that and we can show pilots what that anomaly looks like, so that that doesn’t get reported to us necessarily.

So we’re going to follow up the engagement campaigns with education campaigns so that as we’re increasing the number of accounts that come to us, we’re not just getting more of the noise and trying to keep it focused on the interesting.

STAFF: Oren.

Q: Just a very quick question on the active archive, do you have an instance or instances where you have gotten more information for an event in the active archive and have pulled it out or is that?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Thank you for asking. We do, yes.

(Laughter)

Yes, we do. So it actually was the instance that I’m most familiar with was a Starlink instance. So we had several folks over the period, I think, it was multiple months, where we’re seeing interesting activity in the sky. And we found that when we — because we’re continuously looking back at that active archive and looking for correlations across those incidents, but also new incidents coming in.

We found some of those correlations in time, the direction that they were looking, and the location. And we were able to assess that they were all in those cases looking at Starlink flares. Yes.

STAFF: (inaudible)

Q: How many people work in your office?

DR. KOSLOSKI: We have several dozen folks working in the office, but the power of the office isn’t the number of people who work in it, it’s our partnerships across the IC and the DOD. And hopefully, in the near future academia as well.

STAFF: Luis.

Q: In the historical report from earlier this year, there was mentioned that in the 1950s and 60s as pilots started, commercial pilots started flying, they saw reflections as well off of what were like U-2 aircraft at that time. So this new Starlink seems to be very reminiscent of that. That’s—

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes, very reminiscent. Yes.

Q: So you’re seeing an uptick in that, that might be again, a historical parallel, right?

DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes. And we do see some trends in the morphologies that are reported. So for a while, we were seeing a lot more balloons. And then pilots started understanding what some of the space trash looked like. And now we’re seeing as the mega satellite constellations are increasing, Starlink and there’s others that are going up, we’re seeing an increase in those lights in the sky that look very unusual as those satellites are deploying. And we expect that that trend will also go down eventually. Yes.

STAFF: Ellie?

Q: I have to ask a broadcast specific question, but do you anticipate releasing any video related to any of the cases that were ruled out or that are still unexplained?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So we’re going to be — we have some resolved cases that are of public interest that have been talked about publicly that will be releasing on the 19th. I think those are going to come with videos? Yes. And then, as we downgrade information, the hope is that we will be able to release as much of that content as we can to the public so that we can get help in resolving them. Yes.

STAFF: Mosheh?

Q: Thanks for doing this. Mosheh Gaines with NBC. You said earlier that there wasn’t evidence that the UAP activity was linked to foreign adversaries. But I’m wondering, have you seen any kind of suggestion that foreign adversaries have been trying to capitalize off of this with disinformation or anything else?

DR. KOSLOSKI: We have not. But I am concerned that somebody could use the potential stigma to and take advantage of that. If there is a stigma associated with reporting UAP, then that’s an opportunity for the adversary to maybe conduct collection operations and not have folks report on it. But we haven’t seen evidence of that yet.

STAFF: We’ve got time for one more question. Anybody have one? (inaudible)

Q: So can you speak to any historic incidents like the Phoenix Lights incident in the 1990s, which many who claimed to have been a witness to the event feel the government has never taken seriously?

DR. KOSLOSKI: So, we take those incidents very seriously. And we’re going to be releasing some analysis in the upcoming Volume II Historical Report in the next few months, where we were able to resolve a number of historic cases. There are quite a few cases of public interest where we have resource limitations, either we can’t get enough technical data from — back.

In the case of the Phoenix, there’s lots of video. And we can — we’re still working on that. I was actually having a conversation with somebody earlier this morning about additional data we can get for the Phoenix case. But in a lot of the historic cases, we’re going looking for film. And the film has been recycled or destroyed because it’s too expensive to retain.

And so we’re going to museums. And all of that takes a lot of manpower. At the same time, we’re trying to resolve these other interesting cases that are coming in continuously, these 1,600 cases that we have. So we’re trying to balance those. But the historical report that’s coming out will have some of those that you had asked about.

STAFF: All right, folks. Thank you very much.

DR. KOSLOSKI: Thank you very much.

Q: Thank you.

The post Transcript: Dr. Jon Kosloski, Director, AARO, Media Roundtable on the FY24 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP – November 14, 2024 first appeared on The Black Vault.

On March 26, 1962, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, a significant UFO sighting was reported. The observation involved one witness.

Key Details:

• Location: Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
• Date and Time: March 26, 1962.
• Duration: The observation lasted approximately 5 to 8 seconds.
• Number of Objects: One object was observed.

Description of the Object: The object was initially seen as a small delta-shaped wing resembling a fighter aircraft. As it approached, it was described as less of a delta shape and more of a dart-shaped missile-like appearance, changing shape and showing no visible means of propulsion. The object exhibited fast movement, estimated at approximately Mach 2.

Witness Accounts:

• The pilot reported the object first appearing at the 8 o’clock position and exhibiting bright flashes. As it approached 3 o’clock position, the shape shifted from a delta wing to a dart target appearance.
• The object traveled from the three to five o’clock positions, with the pilot noting the shape change and a significant speed.

Conclusion: The Project Blue Book record card indicates that the data was insufficient for a definitive evaluation. The phenomenon was marked as “unidentified” due to the lack of concrete data and the unusual characteristics of the sighting that did not match any known aircraft or meteorological phenomenon.

This summary is based on the official case files from Project Blue Book, available for download below.

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Project Blue Book: Ramstein Air Force Base UFO Encounter, March 26, 1962 (Unidentified) [4 Pages, 0.8MB]

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The post Project Blue Book: Ramstein Air Force Base UFO Encounter, March 26, 1962 (Unidentified) first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the DoD/IG report, the Air Force has designated UAP as a “Special Interest Item,” requiring aircrews to document and report UAP observations within 24 hours of mission completion using the Marauder system. The Army also utilizes Marauder for similar purposes, due to the lack of DoD-wide UAP-specific processes.

The Marauder system is an advanced mission reporting tool used by the Air Force, Space Force, and select Joint Force partners. Integrated into the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), Marauder facilitates the secure drafting, quality control, approval, and publication of mission reports. Although not mentioned in the DoD/IGs report, it seems likely that the Space Force, and select Joint Force partners, would also use the Marauder system for UAP reporting.

Marauder’s capabilities include:

• Drafting detailed mission reports (MISREPs)
• Quality control and approval pipelines to ensure report accuracy
• Global access to published reports
• Export functionality for in-depth analysis

The system supports multiple domains—air, space, and ground. The air domain, Marauder’s most utilized, handles reports for missions flown under the Air Tasking Order. The space domain focuses on tracking satellites and space assets, while the ground domain deals with ground operations and intelligence collection.

Marauder employs a structured workflow, assigning users specific roles such as Viewer, Drafter, Reviewer, and Approver, each with distinct privileges. Reports progress from draft through quality control to approval and publication, ensuring reliability and precision.

One of Marauder’s unique features is its handling of Agile Combat Employment Reports (ACEREPs), which streamline reporting in high-tempo, resource-constrained environments by bypassing traditional quality control and approval steps.

The document obtained also highlights ongoing updates to Marauder, reflecting the system’s continuous evolution to meet the dynamic needs of military operations. This is facilitated by initiatives like Kessel Run, which revolutionizes software development and delivery for the Air Force.

The Marauder system exemplifies the modern military’s reliance on advanced technology for mission reporting and intelligence gathering. Its critical role in UAP reporting and various military operations underscores its importance in maintaining national security and operational efficiency.

Additional FOIA requests have been filed to uncover, specifically, how Marauder catalogs UAP related events within this sytem. That information, if or when it is released, will be published on The Black Vault.

###

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Marauder Mission Reporting User Guide, Version 2.43, Updated February 2024 [17 Pages, 2.5MB]

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The post Marauder System’s Role in UAP Reporting and Military Operations first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Black Vault attempted to get a CIA document that has been shrouded in secrecy for decades further declassified. Although no redactions were lifted in the process, it revealed that even more information by the CIA is withheld on a UFO case that suggests a technology beyond known human capability at the time.

Originally disclosed in 1978, the “Information Report” originally classified “Confidential” has a subject header of “Unusual Flying Object Sightings and Attendant Scientific Activity”. It had multiple, but relatively minimal, redactions when the single page was originally released. In January 2020, The Black Vault filed a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) case, seeking to uncover more details and get those redactions lifted.

The document, identified as REPORT NO. 00-B-93674, details an intriguing account from a source in Hungary, who in the winter of 1955 received a letter mentioning the mysterious “flying saucers”. These objects, described as “very fast speeding flyers,” were estimated to be traveling at a speed of “12,000 kilometers per hour,” or in excess of 7,400 miles per hour.

Although the MDR was unsuccessful getting any previous redactions lifted, the case did reveal that there was more information than previously known. It brought to light the existence of two additional pages, and those were redacted in full. The deletions were made on the basis of Sections 3.3(h)(2) and 6.2(d) of Executive Order 13526. Section 3.3(h)(2) of Executive Order 13526 establishes procedures for the automatic declassification of information that is more than 25 years old, unless it falls under specific exemptions outlined in the order. Section 6.2(d) concerns the protection of information that, if disclosed, could reasonably be expected to cause identifiable or describable damage to national security or foreign relations. It allows for the continued classification of such information to prevent harm to the national security interests of the United States.

The revelation of these additional pages adds a new layer of mystery to the case. It raises questions about what further information might be contained within and why it is deemed so sensitive that it warrants complete redaction.

To put the reported speed of the flying objects into perspective, it is worth noting that the fastest aircraft in the world in November 1955 was the North American F-100C Super Sabre, which set a record on August 20, 1955, of 1,323 kilometers per hour, or 822.1 miles per hour.

The speed of 12,000 kilometers per hour (7,400+ miles per hour) mentioned in the CIA record far exceeds that, suggesting that the flying objects were of an extraordinary nature for the time they were seen. However, maybe they were not aircraft at all.

The CIA document did mention “rockets”, but it is unclear if the parenthetical was an attempt at an alternate translation by a CIA analyst, or if the word was truly relayed by the CIA’s source. However, to address the possibility these objects were, in fact, rockets; historical context is needed.

In 1955, the race for supremacy in rocket technology was in full swing, with both the United States and the Soviet Union pushing the boundaries of what was possible. While the exact speeds of rockets at that time are not well-documented, it is known that the era was marked by significant advancements in rocket propulsion and aerodynamics. The V-2 rocket, developed by Germany during World War II and later used by both the US and the USSR for research, could reach speeds of up to 5,760 km/hr or 3,580 MPH. However, it was the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and the early space race that truly pushed rocket speeds to new heights. By the end of the 1950s, rockets were capable of reaching speeds that far exceeded those of any aircraft, laying the groundwork for the exploration of space and the eventual moon landing. While the reported speed of 12,000 kilometers per hour (approximately 7,456 miles per hour) for the unidentified flying objects in the CIA document was extraordinary for its time, it foreshadowed the incredible velocities that rockets would achieve in the years to come.

But is there a connection? The Redstone rocket, believed to be one of the faster rockets around the same time, still fell thousands of miles per hour short of the speed mentioned in the CIA document.

Was the source and information available in the report wrong or grossly exaggerated? If so, why is there a need for such excessive secrecy nearly 70 years after the event?

The MDR case was completed and the document released in January 2022, though was never posted on The Black Vault. It is one example of, literally, hundreds and hundreds of FOIA releases that have yet to be put online by The Black Vault simply due to a backlog and lack of time.

Since two years have no elapsed, a new MDR was filed by The Black Vault on March 12, 2024. Those results will be posted, when available.

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CIA Document Talks About “Flying Saucers” Traveling 7,400+MPH in 1955; More Information Discovered Yet Withheld By Agency [4 Pages, 1.2MB]

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The post CIA Document Talks About “Flying Saucers” Traveling 7,400+MPH in 1955; More Information Discovered Yet Withheld By Agency first appeared on The Black Vault.

The following is an official DoD transcript of the private/invite-only press briefing held with Acting AARO Director Tim Phillips on March 6, 2024. This was an invite-only briefing, and in-person, and multiple news outlets that cover this topic were either denied to listen-in, or not invited all together.

With the publishing of this transcript, we now get an idea about who was invited and who was there. But, contrary to past briefings where various people were invited to, at the very least, listen in, why was that not the case here?

—

STAFF:  Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming. We are here today to hear from Mr. Tim Phillips, who is the Acting Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, on the first volume of the historical record report that was directed by the Congress in the fiscal year ’23 NDAA.

Now, I will do — I will be moderating and calling on you, so please raise your hand. Remember that this is Mr. Phillips’ first engagement with — with any of you, so he does not know you. So when I call on you, I ask you to please identify, at least the first time, identify your name and the outlet that you are with.

Initially, you get one question and one follow up. There’s only about seven of you here, so we should have plenty of time to circle back around again on additional questions, all right?

With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Phillips.

ACTING DIRECTOR TIMOTHY A. PHILLIPS:  Well, thank you very much. And good afternoon. It’s a privilege to be here today, discuss the findings of AARO’s Historical Record Report Volume one, which reviews the history of the United States government pertaining to unidentified anomalous phenomena.

Our report is the result of dozens of interviews, archival research, and rigorous fact checking across the government and industry. The goal of this report is not to prove or disprove any particular beliefs. AARO approached its research with objectivity, rigor, without any preconceptions about what we would find. Only a commitment to following the facts wherever they would lead.

Here are some of our findings. AARO has found no verifiable evidence that any UAP sighting has represented extraterrestrial activity. AARO has found no verifiable evidence that the U.S. government or private industry has ever had access to extraterrestrial technology. AARO has found no indications that any information was illegally or inappropriately withheld from Congress. AARO assesses that alleged hidden UAP programs either do not exist or were misidentified authentic national security programs unrelated to extraterrestrial technology exploitation.

We assess that claims of such hidden programs are largely the result of circular reporting in which a small group of individuals have repeated inaccurate claims they have heard from others over a period of several decades. I wish to emphasize that we believe most of the individuals repeated these claims to do so without malice or any effort to mislead the public.

Many have sincerely misinterpreted real events or mistaken sensitive U.S. programs for which they were not cleared as having been related to UAP or extraterrestrial exploitation. In completing this report, AARO faced no impediments to receiving UAP-related information at any level of classification. There’s a few things that we did discover. Several authentic current or former programs that were never acquired UAP technology that were all properly reported to Congress. A piece of material alleged to be from a crashed extraterrestrial craft that was analyzed and confirmed to be man-made with no unusual properties.

An authentic program unrelated to UAP that was unnecessarily amended to include reverse engineering and UAP language. The amended program never received any actual UAP information or material. A prospective program called Kona Blue that was proposed to protect research related to extraterrestrial technology. The prospective program was never formally approved by leadership and never possessed any material or information. AARO assesses that the majority of historical UAP sightings result from the misidentification of ordinary objects or phenomena. Some are likely the misidentification of new or experimental technologies.

We are grateful to the dozens of people who provided AARO with information, leads, and shared their personal accounts. We continue to welcome any former or current government employee or contractor who believes they have information relevant to our historical review to contact us at aaro.mil. I want to emphasize that AARO’s historical work is not over. The department will submit an historical record report, Volume II. It will incorporate any relevant information acquired since 1 November 2023.

AARO is pursuing existing leads and should we find anything that updates our current findings, we will share the information promptly with Congress and provide as much detail to the American public as possible. As we have said many times before, we will follow the evidence where it leads, wherever it leads. With that, I’m happy to take your questions.

STAFF:  Brandi?

Q:  Thanks, Sue. Hi, I’m Brandi Vincent with DefenseScoop. Nice to meet you and thanks for doing this. I have one question and one follow up.

So to start, have you noticed a ramp-up more recently that your team assesses is related to the latest boom in U.S. and others experimentation with emerging and next generation technologies? Specifically, there’s also been multiple reports on multi-domain — AARO — and shapeshifting craft. Have you resolved any of those reports? And what emerging tech field would those be aligned with?

MR. PHILLIPS:  Okay, there’s a compound question there. We — we do see an increase in resolved cases where we identified UAS technology. So we’re starting to see more UASs out there being reported through operational channels. The fact that we know they’re exists and we can adjust our sensors to detect them and identify them more rapidly. We’re seeing an increase and that’s single-digit increases.

In the last month, we closed about 122 cases that was reported to AARO. 68% of those cases we assess to be some form of what I call aero garbage, balloons, trash that’s up there in the atmosphere at — that are advanced sensors, we’re able to detect. And then since it was unknown, it was reported to us as a UAP. And we had to research the cases. As far as other advanced technologies, there’s been some cases, but we can’t discuss that here.

Q:  Because of operational security?

MR. PHILLIPS:  Yes.

Q:  And then my follow up is the report notes that on top of hoaxes and forgeries, mis- and disinformation is more prevalent and easier to generate and disseminate than ever before. In the process of this sort of assessment, did AARO see any indications that one or more than one foreign adversaries were trying to sow distrust in the American public online on the UAP topic? If so, who and how much of that is a concern for you right now, particularly in an election year?

MR. PHILLIPS:  OK. I’m an Intel officer, I can’t comment on, you know, politics or election year. What we’re trying to do is increase domain awareness. We just can’t afford to have an unidentified object, a UAP, operating in proximity to our operational forces, our military forces, or our critical infrastructure. The world is too dangerous of a place to have that happen. And our job is to detect it, identify it, and then help the department deal with it, you know, through the appropriate, you know, means. But —

Q:  So foreign adversaries?

MR. PHILLIPS:  I’m not going to comment on that at this forum today.

Q:  Thank you.

STAFF:  Dan?

Q:  Hi, Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post. Thanks for your time today. The report pretty early in calls out a sort of pop culture being a challenge for you all on this topic. Sort of the zeitgeist, I guess, kind of — this sort of maybe just being a fun topic for a lot of people, so, you know, on and on we go. How much did it come into play as you all are thinking of policies for this, informing the American public about this, and how much do you hope this report might get after that issue?

MR. PHILLIPS:  We’re hoping that the more transparent, the more that we can declassify and post to our site is going to demystify this topic. We did see a change in the culture as we looked back, all the way back to 1945, and we actually went all the way back to the 1930s. And we saw the UFO, the UAP mythology change, and it reflected the public’s current understanding of what that unknown was.

So early on, you see them talking about moon men. When we got to the moon, we didn’t find anybody. Then we talked about Martians. We have a lot better understanding of the planets in our solar system. So we saw that change. The CIA had a really, really great assessment in the early ’60s.

The fact that we were operating the U-2 was a guarded secret. It flew at 60,000 feet where most of the aviation at that time was around 20,000. So people were seeing glints. They were seeing something operating. And a lot that we saw, they attributed the U-2 as to be the basis of a lot of, back then, UFO cases being reported in the press by the public. And we kind of see that trend.

So when we started to see developmental stealth aircraft, we started seeing people seeing unusual aircraft shapes and that was attributed by them, probably based off the popular culture, and the movies, and the books in the UFO mythology, that — that’s what I’m seeing. You know, I saw it on TV, it must be true.

I can actually relate a story that occurred to me when I was on active duty. We were operating in the Chocolate Mountains, by — it’s out by Yuma, the big range out there, and we visually detected an aircraft. We could hear it, then we saw it. And none of us knew what it was. It was a shape none of us ever seen. There happened to be an improved I-Hawk anti-aircraft battery there. It has an optical tracker. So it’s not in visual, especially in the daylight. And it locked it up on the camera. And then later on, we were asked if we had seen and tracked anything that was unusual.

What we found much later, after it became public, that was one of the early F-117 fighter aircraft flying around on the range that we had detected with an optical system. And it was really interesting, the stealth worked because the radar didn’t pick it up. But to us, we didn’t know what that — what that was. And we just assumed the U.S. government owned it and was developed it. What we saw with many of the interviewees, the people Congress referred to us, many of them made testimony on the Hill, they came in and talked to us, they had sincere beliefs in what they observed.

And in some cases, they were lawfully present at a location in a time when a sensitive technology was being developed or tested. They witnessed something, they didn’t understand what it was, they reported it to us. And we were able to go back to the program owners and to the range and ask, by the way, what were you flying during this week? By God, I would have thought it would have been a UAP myself when I actually saw the picture of it.

So these are rational people making observations and just relating to what they know. And that’s where that popular culture comes in. I think the way that we’re going to be able to communicate with the American people, the fact that if we’re doing an investigation — I was actually asked this on the Hill yesterday, you’re investigating a UAP incident and you discover it’s an extraterrestrial. Are you going to classify that? And the answer is no. If we go to our classification guide, we don’t classify something because it’s not from this world. That’s not our job, OK?

Now, how we communicate that with the public and the administration wants to communicate that, that’s why I have experts who do strat-comm for us. But the fact that we don’t understand something, it’s not necessarily classified. I hope that answers your question.

Q:  Thank you.

STAFF:  Oren?

Q:  Oren Liebermann from CNN. I just want to follow up on one of the answers you told Brandi. You said 122 cases were closed last month. What is the total number of cases you’ve received? And can you give us a sense of the rate that you are receiving cases and closing cases at this point?

MR. PHILLIPS:  I would say that it’s over 1,200 cases that have been reported to us. So we worked with the Joint Staff. And we have an operating reporting requirement to the services and combatant commands. If they have a UAP incident, and that’s defined in the GENADMIN message, what that is, they report back through operational channels to us.

So we’ve had about 1,200 cases that we’ve looked at. We approximately receive anywhere between 90 and a 100-110 a month*1 from the operating forces. And you’ll see in our reporting, there’s a real bias to the Department of Defense because they’re out there flying. They tend to have the advanced sensors. And if you’re clearing a range before you go hot, if you’re looking for something, you might find it. We’re starting to see an increase in civil aviation sightings, you know, from — through the FAA and through NASA. We’re starting to get few or more cases in, and you’ll see that reflected in our heat map on our website. You’ll see, with the bright red, that tends to reflect where DOD is operating, where they have those detections.

I would say that we — we probably, on average, around 100 cases a month*1 we are clearing. And the ones that we can declassify, we’ll publish to our website or we’ll report back through official channels to the services and the organizations that reported those contacts.

Q:  Just a quick follow up. Can you give us an update on the — the submission, the creation of a submission process for UAP reports? It was originally opened up for service members and — and government employees, but there was an effort to try to open it up wider than that, and eventually get a reporting process for the public, which was supposed to be in the works.

MR. PHILLIPS:  That was a Phase 3 we’re still in. We had the first phase, which was the secure reporting portal for those that had knowledge of the U.S. government — or working on advanced UAP technology that was not revealed to Congress. We’re into, I would call, a Phase 2 right now, where we’re trying to work out the command and control, the mechanisms on how other government entities can report UAP incidents to us.

We’ve received a number of reports from Department of Homeland Security and their aircraft reporting to us that we follow up on. So we’re working within the government. And we’re looking at how can we do it at scale, what is the appropriate way in the future to be able to communicate with the public these incidents.

So it’s — it’s on our, you know, our tasking. We just haven’t got to it yet. And AARO’s been around for about 18 months. And we just achieved initial operating capability, I would say, in October*2 of last year is when we actually were able to bring the staff on and start develop some of the sensors and the capabilities, the flyaway kits, so we could respond quickly when there’s a UAP incident.

STAFF:  Todd.

Q:  Sir, I think AARO, all-domain is included in the name. To what extent are there anomalous phenomenon that are not in the air, but somewhere else?

MR. PHILLIPS:  You’re absolutely correct because the vast majority of the reporting tends to be in the atmosphere because that’s where we’re operating. We’ve received one report in the maritime domain. And we’ve received no reports in space. However, we do have working groups in space and in the maritime. And what we’re trying to do is define what is a UAP incident and how that will be reported.

So there’s some policy issues we need to work out. For example, there’s a UAP in space, we’ve detected something we don’t understand. A lot of times as orbits, you know, decay, they enter the atmosphere. Now, we’ve got a track management issue. So who’s going to take it from the space domain into the atmosphere? And then if it continues and go into the ocean, now, we have three different domains that we have to work with on how we maintain that (inaudible) and who is responsible for the reporting and then investigation of that act?

I would love to tell you, we’d be more mature in space. I was amazed at the ability of the community of interest to be able to understand their domain. And what we found is, the more data that any domain has, the deeper understanding of these unknown phenomena that exist. So when we did talk to our partners who work in the space domain, they had very few things that they didn’t understand in space.

STAFF:  OK. Jeff.

Q:  Jeff Schogol, Task and Purpose. Did you find any evidence that adversaries like Russia or China had made breakthroughs in technologies, or in hypersonics, and this was being reported as UAPs? Or that they were surrounding American ships and planes with balloons, drones, other common technology to observe U.S. military operations?

MR. PHILLIPS:  I can discuss that AARO assisted in helping identify the high-altitude balloon that came from China.*3 We were involved in that case, but I can’t speak on any of the rest of that question.

Q:  About whether you found any evidence that the Russians, Chinese, etcetera?

MR. PHILLIPS:  Yes.

Q:  And follow up question.  There are people who sincerely believe that the government has alien bodies, alien crafts, you know, that — that they have communicated with — with extraterrestrials. What can you tell them to try to bring some sort of resolution to this?

MR. PHILLIPS:  I can tell them that AARO, as designed by Congress, had unprecedented access to classified programs. Nobody blocked where we could go or the questions we asked. Nobody in the government influenced the findings in the report. As a career Intel officer, I am just amazed at the access we had to some of our nation’s most sensitive programs.

Nobody said no. There — there was a challenge because some of these allegations that we received, passed to us by Congress or we had in our interviews. People were commenting on things they saw or they heard second-hand from 20, 30 years ago. And as we would go back and try to do an investigation, most of the individuals with first-hand knowledge are now retired.

And I’ll tell you what we did. If we received a claim, that was the beginning of the investigation. Now, we’re going to look up for — and we’re going to try to find other collaborating evidence to support that claim. And in many cases, what we saw was circular reporting. We saw a small group of people who knew each other, who all cited their observations as the purpose for their beliefs or for their observations.

There was one program that was repeated, Kona Blue. It’s in the report. And that was reported as that’s where they hide the bodies. That wasn’t true. We worked very, very closely with our DHS partners and that just was not true.

Wherever there was a claim, as I had said, you know, previously, it could be an IC agency, it could be another department, it could be in a dusty archive, in DOD. We had access to it. NARA was wonderful as far as giving us access for all the SAPs and CAPs programs out there.*4 There is an archive. And a lot of this is not digitized. It’s a lot of, you know, old school library work where you’re going through boxes and boxes, or microfiche trying to explore.

But the claim was the first step, if we just went — we followed every lead we could find to run these to ground. And we had a, you know, two approaches. We had career law enforcement officers who are on our staff. They’re DOD law enforcement people who are know how to conduct investigations. And then we have IC officials that follow analytical tradecraft standards who have conducted field interrogations. Very proficient. And we did everything we could to examine these claims. And we found no actual UFO materials in any allegation or incident that was reported to us that we — or that was given to us by Congress.

STAFF:  OK. Luis.

Q:  Hi. Thank you so much for doing this. I’m Luis Martinez with ABC News. And I just have a ton of questions, so if you could bear with me.

STAFF:  You get one and a follow up and then we —

Q:  Yes, let me just —

STAFF:  — we still have somebody that hasn’t had their question.

Q:  Yes. I’ll try to get the first one in. When you talk about it in the report, the numbered persons and the numbered individuals that were interviewed, there have been two high-profile individuals over the last couple of years, Luis Elizondo and David Grusch. Were they interviewed for this? I know probably for privacy, you can’t tell us, but can you tell us whether they were a part for the overall look at this?

MR. PHILLIPS:  As a practice, we do not disclose who came in and spoke to us. The individuals are free to share that with you, but I’m not going to talk about who we interviewed. But anybody with knowledge of UAPs or the government covert attempt to reverse engineer or to exploit these materials, we would love to talk to them. So, aaro.mil, you go online. I’d give my phone numbers, but I’ve been told I can’t do that, but contact us. We want to talk to you. And I will tell you, you know, I’m a guy from Tucson, Arizona, and we treat people — we are government civil servants. We treat the citizens that come in with respect. We listen to their stories.

And if we can prove what they’re telling us, we’ll do everything we can to do so. You know, we don’t have barriers. We aren’t biased. We’ll let the evidence take us where it takes us.

Q:  So that will be my follow up. You kind of touched on this earlier in giving us the process of how wide of a scope this was. Is it safe to characterize this as the most comprehensive U.S. government effort yet to look at this? And how can you — can you explain how you were able to do that in such a short time span? And can you give us an idea of how many people were employed to do this? Or were you relying on these agencies, for example, the CIA, to come up with their own determinations, then you would review their work?

MR. PHILLIPS:  All of the above. So I don’t think there’s ever been a government organization with the authorities and with the amount of funding that we receive from Congress. As the acting director, I work for the Deputy Director of Defense.*5 There’s actually been — there’s — trying to get information, we’ve actually had to solicit her personal assistance to open a door. I don’t believe any previous government attempt to research UFOs, UAPs has ever had that type of top cover.

And I will tell you that Congress members and staffers all throughout the government, they took a personal interest in it. They empowered what we did. And I am sincere when I say, and I’ve only been there since 1 October, but nobody got in our way and said no. And when we had people were slow to agree, the door was eventually opened.

STAFF:  Lee.

Q:  Lee Hudson, Politico. So what has your initial response been from Capitol Hill from lawmakers and staff? And are you hoping that this report, once it’s made public, will quell conspiracy theories?

MR. PHILLIPS:  I think the more the government can disclose and declassified the public, they can make calculated, you know, educated decisions. They’ll look at the evidence and they’ll decide. You know, we’re not here to change anybody’s beliefs. But we’ve got an amazing team that Dr. Kirkpatrick put together, just dedicated professionals from a wide spectrum of careers from scientists, you know, to agents. We just have amazing, dedicated, skilled staff that’s working hard every day.

I got to send people home at night because they’re so excited about this mission. And we just closed on an advertisement in USAJOBS. And I was told, we had over a thousand people applied. It’s going to be hard to get through that. But there’s a lot of interest, a lot of talent. And the LNOs being offered to us. So we have unsolicited — we’ve had other government agencies, military services, who’ve come to us and have put one of their officers on our staff.

And having that LNO really, really assists us as we navigate DHS*6 or NASA. It’s nice to have somebody who understands the terrain. So I can just say we’ve got great people and they’re doing wonderful work.

STAFF:  Okay. Luis, we’ve gone to everybody else. We can go back to you now.

Q:  How many people do you actually have on staff right now that were able to work in all of this? And how many were specifically dedicated to this review? And then I have a follow up.

MR. PHILLIPS:  This review was primarily, it was the — our operational directorate that was actually making the contacts, arranging for the interviews, they were involved. But then I had our analytical team who was actually looking at the statements, putting the stories together, the act of writing, by Dr. Kirkpatrick. Just probably a good 100 days of tech editing and legal review. I’ve never had so many help from so many experts on the DOD staff that help us get it right. I would say, we have the staff. And I’m a —

Q:  (Inaudible) tell us how much you (inaudible)?

MR. PHILLIPS:  I don’t want to say that here. Enough to get the job done. But half of our office is almost dedicated to doing the research and then drafting and finalizing the report. In a way, I’m really happy to get this behind us because look, I want to support the warfighter. I want to go after the cases that we received this week. That’s where I want to be. I want to have my officers out in the field, you know, talking to witnesses, trying to gather and preserve evidence, trying to work with the services and the other departments in the government on how to preserve data when there is an incident, helping to write force protection standards so I can capture this in real-time.

Doing it forensically after the fact is difficult. You know, as a marine and as an Intel officer, I want to be ahead of my opponent. And I want to capture it in real-time. And we’re working with some crazy — some amazing — I don’t want to say crazy, but amazing partners across the spectrum. I’m going to be in London next week. I’m going to be talking at a geospatial conference. And we have other people with capabilities and interests that I’m all with. I want to partner. I want to use your data and your sensors, your reporting networks to help us understand this phenomena.

Q:  So are there any — like, when you listed all the programs in the report, like, you know, the Dragon Lady and all this, and the B-2, are there any in that list that were declassified specifically for this report?

MR. PHILLIPS:  Some of the programs we worked with the department to be declassified. And hopefully, you’ll see some of that soon.

Q:  So some of these are included in this report and we’re learning for the first time? Or that’s like —

MR. PHILLIPS:  I think Kona Blue is in the unclass here. And you’ll actually see the release — the press release on that from another department, but yes.

Q:  That’s the first time it’s ever been disclosed publicly, I guess?

MR. PHILLIPS:  Yes. Well, it wasn’t declassified until we were able to work with DHS.

STAFF:  Brandi?

Q:  Just one quick follow up. And thank you again for doing this. You mentioned that you all met initial operating capability, IOC, in October.*2 When are you slated for full operational capability? And what are the things that still need to be accomplished to meet that?

MR. PHILLIPS:  Sure. We’re working with some of the government labs such as the Department of Energy labs. And we have a great partner with Georgia Tech. And what we’re doing is developing a deployable configurable sensor suite that we can put in Pelican cases.  And we’re this — we’re going to go be able to deploy it to the field to do a long-term collect.

Since the UAP target, the signature, is not clearly defined. We really have to do hyperspectral, you know, surveillance to try to capture these incidents. So we are going to declare a mission capability IOC for our GREMLIN system. That’s the name of the deployable surveillance system that we’ve been developing for the last year.*7

We’re currently at a very large range in Texas. We’ve been out there going against some known UAS targets, but some unknown targets, picking up a lot of bats and birds. We’re learning a lot about solar flaring. We’re really starting to understand what’s in orbit around our planet and how we can eliminate those as anomalous objects. So we’re going to do that and then we’re going to go to the department and say, we are ready to deploy our system in response to a national security site or a critical infrastructure with a UAP problem. We want to help solve (inaudible).

STAFF:  We’ve got time for one more question. Dan?

Q:  Thank you. Actually, I’d love to follow up for whatever detail you can provide on that deployable system. That’s fascinating. What was the vision there? And particularly, deploying it in response to something, what do you hope to learn with those deployments?

MR. PHILLIPS:  Well, if we have a national security site and there are objects being reported, okay, that within restricted airspace or within a maritime range, or in the proximity of one of our spaceships, we need to understand what that is. And so that’s why we’re developing sensor capability that we can deploy in reaction to reports.

Ideally, what we could do is actually have a minimum force protection level, have a spec. And then as we outfit these locations and these capabilities, we already have specified what type of sensors they need to be able to capture this in real-time, and then how that information would be relayed back to us and our mission partners.  We could analyze it and help them mediate whatever that particular incident is.

Q:  Can you speak to the size of that certain thing —

STAFF:  OK. Dan, yes, —

Q:  — (inaudible) a suit case or a platform or truck —

STAFF:  — Dan, we’re going to cut it off here. Thank you all very much. All right. Thanks very much, guys, for coming out.

[*1 Eds. note: The number of cases ARRO receives and resolves widely varies from month to month.]

[*2 Eds. note:  AARO achieved IOC in July 2023.]

[*3 Eds. note:  While AARO supported interagency cooperation during the February 2023 People’s Republic of China high-altitude balloon incident, that case centered on an ‘identified’ object and was not within AARO’s purview.  AARO did provide advice and support regarding the three initially unknown objects that were discovered and tracked shortly after the PRC balloon incident.]

[*4 Eds. note:  NARA assisted with archival research.  Research into SAPs and CAPs was done through the appropriate SAPCO or CAPCO offices.]

[*5 Eds. note:  The AARO director reports to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.]

[*6 Eds. note:  AARO enjoys a close working relationship with DHS, but does not have a DHS liaison working within the office.] 

[*7 Eds. note:  While GREMLIN is approaching IOC, AARO is also in the early stages of developing a smaller suite of deployable sensors for rapid response to a UAP incident.]

The post Private Press Briefing Transcript with Acting AARO Director Tim Phillips on the Historical Record Report Volume 1 from March 6, 2024 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Each holds the caption “Flying Saucer, June 4, 1964” within NARA’s holdings, and are part of Record Group 255: Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

They are archived here for reference purposes.

These are known to be Paul Villa’s UFO photographs from 1964 and are part of a larger narrative where he claimed contact with extraterrestrial beings. He reported that these beings communicated with him telepathically since childhood and provided insights into their advanced technology and peaceful mission. He claimed to have been guided to a location near Peralta, New Mexico, where he photographed a flying saucer, allegedly interacting with his environment in ways that demonstrated their technological capabilities, such as levitating his truck.

How these photographs wound up in the Goddard Space Flight Center records collection is unknown.

Additional articles (credited to their respective authors) are below.

NOTE: The Black Vault has done no investigation on the below photos beyond what you see here. There is no position held and they are not pushed is either irrefutable proof of a “flying saucer” or a definitive hoax. They are here for archival and research purposes.

A .zip file is available [165MB] is available of all photos below, with the high resolution .tif versions. Each image is over 25MB per photo.

Photo Archive

Additional Information

UFO International – October 1965 – by Gabriel Green
Additional credit to UFOEvidence.org for archiving this article.

June 16, 1963-near Albuquerque, N.M. – Apolinar (Paul)A. Villa, Jr., 49 (born Sept. 24, 1916), a mechanic of 601 Niagara N.E.; Albuquerque, New Mexico, had a unique privilege having prearranged meetings with Space People for the specific purpose of taking pictures of their craft.

Apparently, contacts of one kind or another with space people are not new to Mr. Villa. He says that he has been taught telepathy by extraterrestrial intelligence since he was five years old. Although he did not complete the tenth grade of school, he seems to have a good knowledge on such subjects as mathematics, electricity, physics, and mechanics, and has an unusual “gift” for detecting defects in engines, generators, etc.

Villa says that prior to photographing his first series of saucers in 1963, he had seen about five Flying Saucers in the previous five years, and he had talked with a spaceman previously. He said that his first picture-taking contact was his second in-person meeting with extraterrestrial beings. The first was in 1953 while he was working for the Department of Water and Power in Los Angeles. While on the job one day in Long Beach, he had a strong urge to go down to the beach, a feeling he did not understand. There he met a man about 7 feet tall. At first Villa was a afraid and wanted to run away. But the man called him by name, and told him many personal things about himself. “Villa realized that he was communicating with a very superior intelligence, and he then became aware that this being was a spaceman. “He knew everything I had in my mind and told me many things that had happened in my life,” Villa says. ” He then told me to look out beyond the reef. I saw a metallic looking disc-shaped object that seemed to be floating on the water. Then the spaceman asked me if I would I like to go aboard the craft and look around, and I went with him.” He said the saucer occupants were entirely humanoid in appearance, although better looking in general than Earth people, as they were definitely more refined in the face and the body. Also they had an advanced knowledge of science, as evidenced by their craft, and by their talk with him.” They told Villa that the whole galaxy to which our Earth belongs is a grain of sand on a huge beach, in relation to the unfathomable number of inhabited galaxies in the entire Universe. Because of their technological advancement, their spaceships can penetrate the Earth’s radar detection system, so that they are picked up on our radar screens only when they choose to call attention to their presence in our skies. It seems that their craft are constantly active over our surface, and that they plan more sightings and landings in order to increase public awareness of their existence. They said they were here on a friendly mission to help our people; that they have bases on our moon; that Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars is hollow and is artificially constructed; and that their is a Superior Intelligence that governs the Universe and everything in it.

For his first series of pictures, Mr. Villa says his space contacts told him, telepathically, to drive his pick-up truck on June 16, (1963), to the meeting place, alone. There he saw a landed Flying saucer which he estimated to be about 70 feet in diameter. There were nine people aboard the ship: four men and five women. They disembarked through a hermetically sealed door. These beings, he says, ranged in height from seven to nine feet and were well proportioned. Some were blond; some were red-headed; (like polished copper); and some had black hair. They told him they came from the galaxy of Coma Berenices, many light years distance. They were able to speak many languages, as well as to communicate telepathically. Villa was told the craft operated as a Mothership for its nine remotely-controlled monitoring disks which were 14 inches in diameter, and were controlled from instrument panels in the Mothership. They could pick-up pictures and sounds from any area from which they were directed, and then could then relay them to TV panels aboard the Mother Craft. They permitted Villa to take photo’s of their ship which posed and hovered close to the surface between 2 and 4P.M. while he took various shots of the craft framed by the trees in the foreground. He used a Japanese-made Rokuoh-Sha camera with an f4.6, 75mm lens loaded with 120 Kodak film. Two of the photo’s show the ship in a vertical position, on its side, to indicate that the Space People have created an artificial gravity within the craft, and thus are completely comfortable no matter what position the ship is in, relative to a planet’s surface.. Incidentally, in photo #7…???, the vents in the hull, thought by some to be port holes, are not windows, but are openings directly concerned with the propulsion of the ship. Villa says they told him that the vents are opened only within a planets atmosphere—never in outer space.
(UFO International Oct,1965 Gabriel Green)

II

Another contact… for his second set of pictures, Villa was telepathically guided, to another area near Bernalillo, New Mexico—about 15 miles north of Albuquerque. This was on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1965. The ship seen in photo’s #1,2 and 3, projected a ray which caused a small brush fire. The smoke from the fire is visible(more clearly in color)in the trees just below the craft, and just above and to the left of the tailgate of Villa’s truck.

(Note: I have the photo’s..Dex)

In one photo they singed a tree top—by use of a ray directed from the ship. These things were done to demonstrate some of their capabilities. The ship landed and Villa judged it to be 300 feet in diameter. It had telescopic, tripod landing gear, which are protruding from the bottom of the craft in photo’s ???(Note: I don’t have…Dex). The three crewman had light brown hair and tan skin. They appeared to be about 5’8″ or 5’9″ tall. Villa talked with them for nearly two hours about personal as well as general matters. They told him that our Astronauts, Edward White and James McDivitt, on their now-famous GT-4 flight, were really seeing a spaceship when they reported sighting the Pegasus-like object. They also said our Government won’t release the Mariner-4 photo’s because they show pumping stations for the canal systems on Mars. They added, that by 1966, 17 nations will have the Atomic Bomb. Villa says they conversed both in Spanish(his native language)and in English. On their advice, the Contactee says, he stopped smoking so as to enhance his ability to receive telepathic communications.

The post “Flying Saucer” Photos Found In National Archives Collection for Goddard Space Flight Center first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG), led by Inspector General Robert P. Storch, has released an unclassified summary of a previously classified report titled “Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).” This disclosure follows a full version of the classified report issued on August 15, 2023.

Inspector General Storch remarked, “Given the significant public interest in how the DoD is addressing UAPs, we are releasing this unclassified summary to be as transparent as possible with the American people about our oversight work on this important issue.”

The unclassified summary reveals that the DoD lacks a comprehensive and coordinated strategy for addressing UAPs. It is found that different components within the DoD have developed varied processes for the collection, analysis, and identification of UAP incidents. This lack of uniformity and integration poses potential risks to national security and military forces. The summary states, “the DoD’s lack of a comprehensive, coordinated approach to address UAP may pose a threat to military forces and national security.”

One significant concern highlighted in the summary is the absence of an overarching UAP policy within the DoD. This gap means that there is no assurance of identifying and mitigating potential national security and flight safety threats posed by UAPs. The DoD OIG emphasizes the need for a unified policy, as the current state lacks “assurance that national security and flight safety threats to the United States from UAP have been identified and mitigated.”

To address these shortcomings, the DoD OIG has proposed 11 total recommendations to various defense bodies, including the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and the Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. These recommendations focus on establishing a coherent policy integrating roles, responsibilities, and coordination procedures relating to UAP into the existing framework of intelligence, counterintelligence, and force protection policies.

The summary serves as a call to action for the DoD to formulate a consistent approach to UAP incidents, encompassing aspects of intelligence gathering, analysis, and policy formulation. The need for a unified response is critical in ensuring the security and safety of military operations and national interests in the face of unidentified aerial phenomena.

The unclassified summary of the report, now accessible to the public, is obviously a trimmed down version of the classified report issued last August. The Black Vault, since August 2023, has had an open case for the review and release of the report. Updates on that will be posted, when available.

Document Archive

Unclassified Summary of Report No. DODIG-2023-109, “Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,” August 15, 2023 [16 Pages, 2.5MB]

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The post IG’s Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Finally Released first appeared on The Black Vault.

The report from June of 2021 on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) introduced a new term to many: Range Fouler. According to the footnote:

Beyond this footnote, not much is found. The Black Vault did uncover a U.S. Marine Corps Order, listed as MCIEAST-MCB CAMLEJO 3570.1B, which offers little more on “Range Foulers” – but seems to indicate a broader definition than the UAP report:

Not much else is found defining “range foulers” or explaining what they are, however, in January of 2022, The Black Vault filed a FOIA request to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) for reports from the K-NET database that had the phrase “range fouler”, and one report came up. However, due to national security reasons, the records were withheld in full and denied under FOIA exemption (b)(1).

Beyond the NCIS denial, the U.S. Navy has begun releasing “Range Fouler Debrief Forms” which are archived below.

These reports are heavily redacted, and are done so due to the UAP Security Classification Guide (SCG).

This guide is what sets forth the security levels (if any) when detailing the UAP issue. It has resulted in immense secrecy, and one that will be a hurdle in future attempts to extract UAP related information. This is all indicated by this, which appears on the released Range Fouler Debrief forms:

As of September of 2022, The U.S. Navy told The Black Vault that they will be adding ALL “Range Fouler” reports to their online reading room, while processing FOIA Case DON-NAVY-2022-012146 filed by The Black in August 2022. However, an open appeal is pending due to some circumstances that have become an ongoing issue with the U.S. Navy and FOIA. Updates will be posted when available.

Document Archive

U.S. Navy Range Fouler Releases

FOIA Release Letter, September 6, 2022

Range Fouler Reports, 2019 [27 Pages, 3.34MB]

Range Fouler Reports, 2020 [66 Pages, 8.74MB]

In January of 2023, the U.S. Navy dumped another batch of Range Fouler reports out. These are found here, but many dates are redacted making it difficult to figure out the timeframe of reports within the release.

Range Fouler Reports, Unknown timeframe (Includes November 2004 “Tic Tac Incident”, Released January 2023 [90 Pages, 8.0MB]

Range Fouler Reports, Unknown timeframe, Released December 2023 [110 Pages, 24MB] – Despite the file name the U.S. Navy chose for this release “(202306)” indicating a June 2023 release, it does not appear these were released to anyone in June. The original request The Black Vault filed in November of 2020 was denied with a “no records.” A new request was filed in July of 2022, both cases referencing the original NY Times article where Ryan Graves first was interviewed.

The FOIA cases asked for UFO/UAP related events in or around the USS Roosevelt, though part of the wording may have been construed as ALL cases, with an emphasis on the Roosevelt. No message has been returned to clarify, but given the number of cases, it likes is not specific to the Roosevelt.

These new Range Fouler reports appear to have been2m in feet added to the Navy’s FOIA online reading room shortly before I got my FOIA release letter. I have tried to call the Navy to verify when they were released. Until then, here is the entire batch.

U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS)

In 2022, NCIS has new investigations regarding “Range Foulers”.

That said, they found 8 closed investigative files.

They denied releasing those files as they are ALL classified and exempt.

On September 26, 2022, the day the above letter was received, The Black Vault attempted to verify with NCIS the number of pages / photos / videos that were being withheld. Their response later in the day stated:

“Our office cannot confirm the number of pages/photos/videos contained within a classified investigation.”
— NCIS FOIA Team

Prior to the above NCIS denial, The Black Vault had filed a request on January 3, 2022, for all “Range Fouler” reports. At that time, searching their investigative database through January 3, 2022, they had only found 1 investigative file, which was also denied, in full:

The post Range Fouler Debrief Forms and Reports first appeared on The Black Vault.

These newly released reports, which are accompanied only by visuals inside the PDF files, are available below:

Atmospheric Wake Case Resolution

These reports were submitted after three different missions in the Middle East, and the Mediterranean Sea in 2022 and 2023. The reports were filed due to the potential hazard posed to the mission and because the videos depict a potentially anomalous propulsion signature.

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Southeast Asia Triangles Case Resolution

Six triangular objects in a formation were originally flagged as potentially anomalous and potentially posing a risk to navigation.

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Western United States Case Resolution

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The post AARO Releases Three “Case Resolution” Reports Identifying UAP/UFO Cases first appeared on The Black Vault.

During the stated period, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) registered a total of 291 UAP reports. Out of these, 274 were from the aforementioned period, while 17 were from earlier reporting periods that had not been previously submitted. The report outlined:

“Most reports still reflect a bias towards restricted military airspace, a result of reporting from military personnel and sensors present in such areas. This bias has been lessened by reporting from commercial pilots showing a more diverse geographic distribution of UAP sightings across the United States.”

While the AARO has not received any evidence linking UAP sightings to health concerns, several reports do highlight potential safety concerns for military aviation. Specifically, some UAPs reportedly displayed concerning performance characteristics, including high-speed travel and unusual maneuverability. Nevertheless, the report assures:

“While the mere presence of UAP in the airspace represents a potential hazard to flight safety, none of these reports suggest the UAP maneuvered to an unsafe proximity to civil or military aircraft, positioned themselves in flight paths, or otherwise posed a direct threat to the flight safety of the observing aircraft.”

Furthermore, although none of the UAP sightings have been directly linked to foreign activities, investigations into these cases remain ongoing. The AARO emphasizes its dedication to improving domain awareness and understanding of UAPs, stating their belief that as data quality improves, “the unidentified and purported anomalous nature of most UAP will likely resolve to ordinary phenomena.”

###

Document Archive

Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena October 2023 [16 Pages, 1.5MB]

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Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder on the Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) – October 18, 2023

Yesterday the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence delivered to Congress the Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) as required by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022, as amended by the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023.

Analyzing and understanding the potential threats posed by UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies, and the Department thanks the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and other contributing departments and agencies for their collaborative efforts to produce this report.

The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount. We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one.

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is leading DOD’s efforts, in coordination with ODNI and other government agencies, to document, analyze, and when possible, resolve UAP reports using a rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach. This year’s UAP report covers UAP reports from Aug. 31, 2022, to April 30, 2023, as well as any UAP report from previous time periods that were not included in an earlier report.  AARO received a total of 291 UAP reports in this time period, consisting of 274 that occurred during this period and another 17 that occurred from 2019-2022 but had not been included in previous annual reports.  This brought the total cases that AARO has been reviewing to over 800 as of April 30, 2023.

The post DoD’s AARO Office Releases October 2023 UAP / UFO Report first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Lonnie Zamora incident was an alleged UFO close encounter. It occurred on Friday, April 24, 1964, at about 5:50 p.m., on the outskirts of Socorro, New Mexico. Several primary witnesses emerged to report their version of the event, which included the craft’s approach, conspicuous flame, and alleged physical evidence left behind immediately afterward. Lonnie Zamora, a Socorro police officer who was on duty at the time, claimed to have come closest to the object and provided the most prolonged and comprehensive account. Some physical trace evidence left behind—burned vegetation and soil, ground landing impressions, and metal scrapings on a broken rock in one of the impressions—was subsequently observed and analyzed by investigators for the military, law enforcement, and civilian UFO groups. The event and its body of evidence is sometimes deemed one of the best documented and most perplexing UFO reports.

It was immediately investigated by the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and FBI, and received considerable coverage in the mass media. It was one of the cases that helped persuade astronomer J. Allen Hynek, one of the primary investigators for the Air Force, that some UFO reports represented an intriguing mystery. After extensive investigation, the Air Force’s Project Blue Book was unable to come up with a conventional explanation and listed the case as an “unknown”.

Document Archive

FBI Files

FBI Files on the Socorro UFO Landing, April 24, 1964 [31 Pages, 3MB]

USAF / Project Blue Book Files

USAF Files on the Socorro UFO Landing, April 24, 1964 [168 Pages, 50MB]

USAF Official Photographs on the Socorro UFO Landing, April 24, 1964 [168 Pages, 4MB]

The post Official Files on the Socorro UFO Landing, April 24, 1964 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The United States Forest Service (USFS) manages and protects 154 national forests and 20 grasslands in 43 states and Puerto Rico. The agency’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.

In November of 2016, I requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) all records pertaining to the UFO phenomena, including those reports submitted or witnessed by USFS personnel.

I received a packet of documents on February 7, 2017, which can be seen below.

You will notice photographs at the top of the release. I did confirm with the USFS via email, that these were the highest resolution photos available, sadly.

Another release came in

Document Archive

 U.S. Forest Service UFO Files, released February 2017 [20 Pages, 3.8MB]

 U.S. Forest Service, Washington Office, released February 2023 [3 Pages, 0.5MB]

The post U.S. Forest Service UFO Files and UFO Photographs first appeared on The Black Vault.

A 1955 memo has recently been further declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), chronicling a unique event: the sighting of a “saucer-like” craft by a former U.S. Senator while in Russia during the height of the Cold War. The declassified top-secret memo, written by Herbert Scoville Jr., then-Assistant Director, Scientific Intelligence for the CIA, provides a fascinating account of former Senator Richard B. Russell‘s encounter with unknown objects seen by multiple witnesses.

The document was released after The Black Vault filed a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) case on January 6, 2020. The case took just over two years to review and declassify the two page memorandum, and despite the memo being released prior in redacted form in 1978, the memo has now been released, in full.

The memo is a record of an interview conducted with Senator Russell by Dr. Francis Clauser, a consultant with the Office of Scientific Intelligence, and Scoville himself, which took place on October 27, 1955. Russell’s observations are detailed and reveal a scenario that appears to remain unexplained after the Senator’s return to the United States.

“On an hour and one-half out of Baku,” the document states, “the subject [Russell] suddenly noticed a greenish-yellow ball rising rapidly.” Russell was quick to alert the rest of his party, exclaiming that he had just witnessed a “flying saucer.” Despite initial skepticism, the entire group soon became convinced after observing a second similar object ascending rapidly into the sky.

The two objects were initially spotted at considerable altitude, with no reference points to estimate their size or distance accurately. The objects gave the impression of “whirling” and followed a single trajectory without any visible breaks in their flight pattern. Strangely, no lights were associated with the objects – only a “yellowish glow.”

A crucial factor to consider is the testimony that the sighting took place while the party was traveling by train – a mode of transportation explicitly requested by Senator Russell. The document notes, “This tends to refute the theory that the train trip was arranged in order to stage the operation for Senator Russell’s benefit.”

In addition to his UFO sighting, Senator Russell also made a noteworthy observation during a motor trip between Moscow and Borodino. He reported seeing multiple caserns (military barracks) with personnel and radar installations, one with a “big egg beater object” around 20 feet away.

This incident was previously revealed within a October 15, 1955, “Current Intelligence Bulletin” released by the CIA, along with other files within Project Blue Book. Further information can be found on the Enigma Labs website.

Scoville concludes in the memo that Senator Russell’s testimony does not support the theory that the Russians have developed saucer-like or unconventional aircraft. He suggests the objects could have been “the exhausts of normal jet aircraft in a steep climb.” Yet, the nature of the sighting leaves open the possibility of more unusual explanations.

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EDIT 7/11/23 – 8:00am: Additional context with previously released documents has been added to the article.

Document Archive

Top Secret CIA Memo Reveals Senator’s “Saucer-Like Craft” Sighting in 1955 [4 Pages, 0.5MB]

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The post Declassified Top Secret CIA Memo Reveals Senator’s “Saucer-Like” Craft Sighting in 1955 first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to Corbell and Knapp, as published on their “Weaponized” podcast website:

“Investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp obtained and are revealing for the first time, exclusive footage of a UFO hovering over an active United States military base. This event is considered a ‘mass UFO sighting’ – with significant and diverse documentation in the form of videos, photos and recorded direct eyewitness testimony by active military personnel. The audio/visual content presented here was collected within hours after the UAP encounter.”

Additional information where they revealed the information is found on their podcast available on YouTube here.

Immediately, The Black Vault filed a FOIA request to seek out information relating to the video footage, and the events on the night of April 20, 2021, the night of the “UAP” encounter.

The FOIA response came on July 6, 2023. You can find all of the videos, photographs and documents below.

Video Archive

Document Archive

(FOIA release letter at the bottom of this page)

Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One (MAWTS-1) [48 Pages, 5.72MB]

Tactical Training and Exercise Control Group (TTECG) [7 Pages, 1.6MB]

 Ranges [81 Pages, 17.6MB]

Photograph Archive

Download all 128 photographs released [161MB]

Gallery

FOIA Release Letter

The post The “Mojave Triangle UAP” – The FOIA’d Documents, Photos and Video first appeared on The Black Vault.

If you are looking for the video of the David Grusch aka “UFO Whistleblower” interview, the embedded video from NewsNation has been removed, along with the transcript. However, you can watch the video still on NewsNation’s website.

An explanation on why the content here was removed is explained in the tweet below:

A COPYRIGHT CLAIM and TAKEDOWN NOTICE!? Yeah – and it's unbelievably ridiculous and BOGUS.

When the "UFO Whistleblower" interview was published by @NewsNation (owned by Nexstar Media, Inc.) online, it had a window within that video that encouraged viewers to "SHARE" it. See… pic.twitter.com/k9avMpkuTo

— John Greenewald, Jr. (@blackvaultcom) June 15, 2023

The post David Grusch, The “UFO Whistleblower” first appeared on The Black Vault.

(It was followed by a media teleconference, which is archived here, with a transcript, as well.)

The transcript was created by The Black Vault with the help/assistance of AI. Then, manually, the names were matched up with the speakers, and a rough pass over the transcript was done, but it is far from perfect. However, the intent is to have some kind of a guide to the meeting that can be searched. For any corrections, feel free to CONTACT with changes.

Transcript

Dan Evans  00:13

Hello, good morning and welcome. My name is Dan Evans and is the designated federal official for NASA’s unidentified anomalous phenomena independent study team. I’d like to call this meeting to order and introduce the panelists. In the back row we have Nadia Drake, Paula Bontempi, Federica Bianco, David Grinspoon, Karlin Toner, Josh Semeter and Jennifer Buss. When in the front row, we have Walter Scott Warren Randolph, Reggie Brothers, Shelly Wright. Scott Kelly, Anamaria Berea, Mike Gold, and David Spergel, who serves as chair of the team. I have a few opening remarks. But to begin, I’d like to start with the following. First, I’d like to pay tribute to the life of retired Air Force Master Sergeant Sam Satow, who’s been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery today. Following his active duty service, Sam served as the intelligence collection manager for the National Intelligence manager for aviation, where he played a critical role in UAP analysis. All of us at NASA offer our condolences to Sam’s family, friends and colleagues. Second, I’d like to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to our distinguished panel of experts for their unwavering commitment and dedication. it’s disheartening to note that several of them have been subjected to online abuse due to their decision to participate on this panel. And NASA security team is actively addressing this issue. We at NASA, acutely aware of the considerable public interest in UAP. However, it’s critical to understand any form of harassment towards our panelists only serves to detract from the scientific process, which requires an environment of respect and openness. Now, every member of our team is a recognized authority in their respective field, and they have our unequivocal support. NASA stands in solidarity with them, advocating for a respectful discourse that fits their expertise, and the significance of their work. Thanks. Now, in recent years, the subject of unidentified aerial phenomena nowadays turned on identifying anomalous phenomena, or UAPs has captured the attention of the public, the scientific community and the government alike. And it’s now our collective responsibility to investigate these occurrences with the rigorous scientific scrutiny that they deserve. NASA Administrator, Senator Bill Nelson believes that understanding UAPs is vital for several reasons, which is why he directed this study. First and foremost, it provides an opportunity for us to expand our understanding of the world around us, is an organization dedicated to exploring the unknown, this work is in our DNA. Secondly, this study aims to enhance situational awareness. The presence of UAPs raises concerns about the safety of our skies. And it’s this nation’s obligation to determine whether these phenomena pose any potential risks to airspace safety. By understanding the nature of UAPs, we can ensure that our skies remain a safe space for all. In order to achieve these goals, it is crucial that we employ a scientific lens for our UAP work. It’s precisely this rigorous, evidence based approach that allows one to separate fact from fiction. This team is comprised of experts from various disciplines, which allows them to approach this work from multiple perspective. And we have greatly benefited from that collective expertise. Now, why do we value a scientific approach? It’s because science is built on evidence. It thrives on scrutiny, it demands reproduce, reproduce, reproduce reproducibility report that you feel I can sorry, and above all, objectivity when we approach UAPs. From a scientific perspective, we do not come in with an agenda, we come in needing a roadmap. Indeed, the primary objective of this incredible team of experts is not to go back and look at grainy footage of UAPs but rather to give us a roadmap to guide us for future analysis. This is the very scientific method that NASA holds true to its heart. Scientific research is intended to be publicly available and transparent. And NASA prides itself on making its data and images available to the public to learn and explore on their own. By holding public meetings like this one, we aim for open and honest dialogue with the public We recognize that public interest in UAPs is high, and that the demand for answers is strong. conversations like this one, are the first step to reducing the stigma surrounding UAP reporting. Moreover, transparency is essential for fostering trust between NASA, the public, and the scientific community. In order to do things right, we must work together, pooling our resources, our knowledge, and our expertise. And by maintaining open channels of communication, we can facilitate collaboration, encourage the exchange of ideas, and ensure that our work is as robust as possible. Not only that, but our commitment to openness is in itself. A reflection of NASA’s commitment to scientific integrity is an organization dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. It is NASA’s responsibility to be honest and forthright and to follow the science. And by being transparent in our work, we uphold our dedication to scientific excellence. The meeting today represents the first deliberative actions that the team has taken. And so it’s important to keep in mind that these still have several months of work ahead of them. Their final report will be released this summer, and we will publish it on our website. NASA believes that the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena represents an exciting step forward in our quest to uncover the mysteries of the world around us. By embracing a scientific lens, we ensure that our work is rigorous and reliable. And by valuing transparency and openness, we can foster trust and collaboration with the public. Simply put, this is why we do what we do. Now, before I introduce Nicky, there are a few administrative matters to attend to. Firstly, the identified anomalous phenomena independent study team that’s been established in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act known as facut. Its parent committee is the Earth Science Advisory Committees. As such, this group does not report to the government. It reports to the Science Advisory Committee will debate the recommendations on formally transmit this team’s report to the government. Next, our deliberative committee meetings such as this one are open to the public. And also after this panel was convened the National Defense Authorization Act, known as the NDAA change the A in UAP to be anomalous. Accordingly, this pals remit was expanded to encompass not just aerial UAP however, the majority of ERP sightings to date have been in the aerial domain. So it’s fair to say that this panel’s focus is on the aerial aspects of anomalous. Now in compliance with a fact of fact a federal statute former minutes have been taken throughout the meeting today. And these meetings and these minutes are for the public record, and hence, all presentations and discussions and comments by the committee members should be considered to be on the record. Each member of this UAP study team has been appointed because of their specific subject matter expertise as individuals, and hence each member is subject to federal ethics laws. This category of appointment is called special government employees or SGS. For our non government members, and our two federal employees serve as regular government employees known as IGS. To the panel, all members on this committee should remember to recuse themselves if a topic comes up in which you have a potential conflict of interest between your financial interests, including those of your employer, and matters that we’re discussing. And then finally, panel. If you have any ethics questions, please see me separately and if needed, I’ll put you in contact with a NASA ethics attorney. Thanks for bearing with me. I’d now like to turn to the amazing Dr. Nikki Fox, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Over to you, Nicky.

Nicola “Nicky” Fox  08:59

Thank you, Dan. And thank you to all the members of NASA’s UAP independent study team. Your selfless dedication to the pursuit of knowledge is just so commendable. And I want to thank you, the audience for tuning in today to watch our first deliberative meeting of NASA’s independent study team on evaluating and categorizing on identified anomalous phenomena. Before I begin, though, I really do want to double down on Dan’s words, that it is really disheartening to hear of the harassment that our panelists have faced online, all because they’re studying this topic. NASA stands behind our panelists and we do not tolerate abuse. Harassment only leads to further stigmatization of the UAP field, significantly hindering the scientific progress and discouraging others to study this important subject matter. Your harassment also obstructs the public’s right to knowledge. Our panelists are leading experts in the science terrific aeronautics and data analytics communities. We are very lucky to have them on board to share their invaluable insights to inform NASA on what possible data could be collected in the future, and how it can be collected. To help us better understand the nature of UAP. The UAP independent study was commissioned to create a roadmap on how to use the tools of science to evaluate and categorize the nature of UAPs going forward. This roadmap of course, will help the federal government obtain usable data to explain the nature of future UAPs. transparency, openness and scientific integrity are Pinnacle to NASA’s mission. They’re at the forefront of this public meeting, and have been throughout the team seven months on this study. As Dan noted, this is a working meeting and so the public will have the incredible opportunity to witness the process of science in action. At NASA, we lead the world in exploration and are committed to rigorous scientific inquiry. The nature of science is to better understand the unknown. And to do that our scientists need data. Right now there is very limited number of high quality observations and data curation of UAP. The existing data available from eyewitness reports are often muddled and cannot provide conclusive evidence that supports UAP recognition and analysis. Additionally, an object’s background can complicate the data further and render it unusable due to conventional objects that can mimic or overshadow the phenomena completely, such as commercial aircraft, military equipment, the weather, and ionospheric phenomena like auroras. This lack of high quality data make it impossible to draw scientific conclusions on the nature of UAP. Now, this team has used unclassified data from civilian government entities, commercial data, and data from other sources to inform their recommendations. And as Dan noted, they will be published in a public report that comes out this summer. I want to emphasize that there is really great benefit to studying unclassified data rather than classified data for this study. First, I’m identified anomalous phenomena sightings themselves are not classified. It’s often the sensor platform that is classified and you can kind of think of it, if a fighter jet took a picture of the Statue of Liberty, then that image would be classified not because of the subject in the picture, but because of the sensors on the plane. Second, unclassified data that make it possible for our team to communicate openly, to advance our understanding of UAP not only with each other, but across the scientific community and to the public. This ensures a clear and transparent pipeline of information that can be built upon through the general through generations to expand our understanding. This study relies on open data, everything we use at NASA is open, and anyone can look at these records. So I invite you to visit our Open Data portal@data.nasa.gov, to comb through our 10s of 1000s of datasets that are free and fully accessible to the public. Additionally, please check out data.gov/open/data for a great overview of where you can find the archives for our science and mission data sites. I am very, very much looking forward to hearing the deliberations put forth today from our distinguished panel of experts. Thank you so much for being here.

David Spergel  13:45

Before you go, just want to open up to questions. Let me start with a question on this up on the NASA data. I think one of the important things that we’ll be looking at with other datasets and events as the data is not very well calibrated. Can you say just a little bit about how NASA goes through calibrating some of its earth science data?

Nicola “Nicky” Fox  14:06

Oh yes, we very very rigorous Earth’s I mean, all of our datasets not just Earth Science go through extremely rigorous calibration. We don’t release anything until it’s really perfect. I mean, we have quick look data that is marked as quick look data. So you know you can use it to get preliminary findings but wait for the the really nicely cleaned up data. So a lot of rigorous protocol in putting out our data to make sure it is perfect.

David Spergel  14:38

Do we have any other questions from the panel?

Nicola “Nicky” Fox  14:43

All right, thank you so much.

David Spergel  14:59

Hi I’m David Spergel. I’m the chair of the panel. And when I look at our chart, we have a lengthy charge. But the high level summary of it is how can NASA contribute to understanding the nature of UAPs. And our role here is not to resolve the nature of these events, but rather to give NASA guidance to provide a roadmap of how it can contribute to this in this area. After my opening remarks, we’ll hear from Sean Kirkpatrick from the A R O. And it’s the ARL that’s charged with leaving the whole of government UAP effort. And they’ve already issued some preliminary reports on some of the events. NASA’s role is to use its unique capabilities. And its role as a civilian agency, interacting with the scientific community in an open and transparent manner. And, you know, as Dr. Fox emphasize the Defense Intelligence Agency data on UAP are often classified primarily because of how the data is collected, not because what’s in the data. For camera on an F 35 took a picture of a bird. It’s classified. If a spy satellite takes an image of a balloon. And we’ve had in the news, some balloons recently, that date is classified. And that’s because of a desire to not reveal our technical capabilities to other nations. NASA, on the other hand, operates in a mode where it’s collecting data in the open. And the NASA data is available on websites and is well characterized. And because of NASA being the civilian agency studying air and space, it has a special role to play. And I see our charge primarily as helping identify for NASA ways it could play that role, and contribute to understanding. We’ve gone through a preliminary data collection stage. And to summarize some of the things that we’ve learned. The current data collection efforts regarding UAPs are unsystematic and fragmented across various agencies, often using instruments uncalibrated for scientific data collection. And if I think about the data that people have out there, it’s in many ways what we’d like to think of as citizen science. But again, it is uncalibrated data, poorly characterized, not well curated. And we face looking through this data, a significant background. A background of many of these events are commercial aircraft, civilian American military, drones, weather and research balloons, military equipment, ionospheric phenomenon, we need to characterize how, what the date when the date is taken, when it sees events like this first. The current existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence about the nature and origin of every UAP event. They’re often and uninformative due to lack of quality control, and data curation. To understand UAP, better, targeted data collection, thorough data curation, and robust analyses are needed. Such an approach will help to discern unexplained UAP sightings. But even then there’s no guarantee that all sightings will be explained. Another challenge in this area is what we call stigma, there’s a real stigma among people reporting events. And despite NASA’s extensive efforts to reduce the stigma, the origin of the UAP is remain unclear. And we feel many events remain unreported. commercial pilots, for example, are very reluctant to report anomalies. And one of our goals and having NASA play a role is to remove stigma, and get high quality data. In fact, if I were to summarize, in one line, what I feel we’ve learned, it’s we need high quality data. And this is not some as a research scientist whose work has been primarily focused in cosmology. I would say the lesson of my career has been you want to address important questions. You need high quality data with well calibrated instruments. So the let me now introduce the agenda. We’re going to hear from a number of experts who will be presenting out to lunch. We’ll then break at 12, for lunch from 12 to 1230. At 1230, we’ll resume. And we’ll have presentations by members of the panel on some preliminary ideas for discussion. And that will be a period of time for some open discussion by the panel. We will then have a q&a session based on questions that have been sent in, in advance to the website. And we’ve curated those questions and group them together. And we’ll be going through a lot of those questions. And then we’ll summarize. And then over the subsequent couple months, we’ll work on putting together the report. And as Dan said, we’re aiming to make a public report available, we hope by the end of July. So now let me turn this over to Sean Kirkpatrick

Dan Evans  20:55

will do a couple of q&a. q&a for me. Okay, from the panel.

David Spergel  20:59

Any any questions on how thoughts? Yes, would get the mic?

Paula Bontempi  21:12

Yeah, so one of the things I think Dr. Fox said was looking at the release of data very important for our study, when it’s high quality. And you have also commented that data are not always perfect, when we’re doing certain studies, I wonder if you could shed some light on the, you know, the difference between the application of certain data to certain scientific challenges.

David Spergel  21:44

So, you know, when you look at your camera, your cameras often designed to take an image in the daytime, and might not be optimized for nighttime imaging. Or if you take something that astronomers are very familiar with, is we design our telescopes to work at night. And if the sun is not even if you’re, you know, you would never take the Hubble telescope and pointed at the sun, this would destroy its detectors. Not only that, if the telescope is pointing there, and the sun is over there, even though you’re not looking at the sun, reflections off of the optics will produce what we call ghosting. And that kind of ghosting gets, produces some very strange images. And this, you know, one of the many things we need to worry about when we see unusual things taken from a camera is, even if you’re pointing the camera, there was the sun over there. Those kinds of anomalies degrade the quality of the data. And that’s why it’s very important to work with well characterized instruments, and to be, you know, using them in ways in which you, you understand what, what’s going on. So I think if you look at, you know, data taken from the James Webb Telescope, or from the Hubble or these things, and these are, you know, telescopes looking out in space, you’ll see some really, you know, at first funny phenomenon, when a telescope points at a star that’s bright, it saturates the detector, and puts bleeding down the detector. And you’ll see phenomenon like, if there’s a bright star, off to the side of the dark that many wonder looking at, you get this effects where light bounces off of dust in your telescope, and produces a sort of diffuse image that has some really strange properties. So you know, when you see something unusual, the first thing you have to do is understand how that data was taken. And I think this is one of the challenges when faces when you have data taken by uncalibrated instruments years ago, it’s very hard to know what’s taken. It’s very hard to draw conclusions. I think that’s one of the challenges with archival data. And I think having dedicated well calibrated instruments, I think will be important here as in any other area to understand what’s going on.

Mike Gold  24:39

So, David, anomalies are so often the engine of discovery, maybe you can say a quick word about high risk, high reward research in your field of cosmology and how you see that impacting the UAP study as well.

David Spergel  24:53

So an area that comes to mind is on fast radio bursts. And shore prize was just announced yesterday was awarded to the discovery of Fast radio bursts. And these are these bursting signals that go off all over in space. And it’s an interesting story, because some of the bursts were real, and are fascinating. And some of the bursts, there was a series of bursts observed by this observatory in Australia. And they had really strange structure. And people couldn’t figure out what was going on. And then they start to notice a lot of them bunched together around lunchtime. And what had happened was, the people at the observatory would heat up their lunch in the microwave, and something they would do is they would open the door of the microwave oven before the microwave stopped. This is bad for your microwave oven. It wears it out. But not only that, it produces a burst of radio signal that was picked up by these sensitive detectors. So this, I think it’s an interesting lesson. Some events end up being something unusual and conventional. But some events with these FRPs turn out to be these powerful explosions, which are taking place at cosmological distances. They’re nature’s still not fully understood. I think they’re one of the really most fascinating objects, we have these bursts going out all over space. They’re interesting probes, because they’re kind of waiting up space between here and there. And they’re a subject of a reactive research. And if one looks at the history of these FRBs, at first, they were discovered, not believed and can finally confirmed, and they were discovered by instruments that were very sensitive, but not optimized for this. And now what we’re doing is we’re optimizing instruments and optimizing software to look for these events. And it’s often these surprises that turn out to be most interesting. And you know, there are phenomenon, like sprites, which you can think of as upward going lightning, which were seen by commercial pilots, and somewhat not believed, right, but they were very strange. And, and it was really only when we were able to take very high speed imaging data, data taken often from places like Space Station, that were able to see that and learn about these fascinating ionospheric phenomenon. So it’s surprises are really interesting. I mean, I think this is one of the fascinating things about the UAP phenomenon, if it’s something that’s anomalous, that makes it interesting and worthy of study. Other questions? Great. So now, let me turn it over to Sean.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  28:30

Thank you, David. And it’s a pleasure to be back. Good morning, everyone. I want to start by thanking NASA for convening today’s UAP independent study public meeting, and inviting me to continue to participate. NASA has been an invaluable partner to our team at AARO as we work to better understand and respond to unidentified anomalous phenomena. We applaud NASA for commissioning its independent study team and for exploring what data and tools could be leveraged to shed greater light on UAP. Though NASA and AARO are taking on very different aspects of the UAP problem set, our efforts are very much complementary. We both are committed to the scientific method to a data driven approach, and the highest standards of scientific research integrity. While NASA is evaluating unclassified data sources for its study, AARO’s dataset includes classified material, with a focus on national security areas. However, all of this data collectively, is critical to understanding the nature and origin of UAP. NASA brings unique capabilities, world class scientists, and a wealth of academic and research linkages. NASA also has access to Earth sensing satellites, radiological sensors, tools for gravitational wave geomagnetic wave detection and means for analyzing open source clutter and crowd sourced data that may assist both AARO  and NASA in their UAP efforts. We are very grateful for the partnership and welcome the opportunity to join with NASA to share our collective findings with the public, as the US government moves towards greater transparency on this issue. Last month, I testified before members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on emerging threats and capabilities, and shared some of the progress made since AARO’s establishment in July 2022. I discussed AARO’s scientific and analytical approaches. its efforts to improve UAP data collection, standardize our reporting processes, leverage our partnerships and meticulously review the US government’s UAP related historical records. As I told the subcommittee, then, the resolution of all UAP cases cannot be accomplished by DOD and the intelligence community alone. eras ultimate success will require partnerships with the interagency industry, academia, the scientific community, and the public, which all bring their own resources, ideas and expertise to the UAP challenge. We believe robust collaboration, and peer review, across a broad range of partners will promote greater objectivity and transparency in the study of UAP. Of course, NASA’s UAP independent study team was convened very much in that spirit. I also emphasize to Congress that the only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous. The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO and in our holdings demonstrate mundane characteristics of readily explainable sources. While a large number of cases and AARO’s holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases, very much along the lines of what David was just speaking about. Without sufficient data, we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution. Meanwhile, for the few objects that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytical rigor. This includes physical testing and employing modeling and simulation to validate our analyses and the underlying theories, and then peer reviewing those results before reaching any conclusions. AARO has shared these cases with the appropriately cleared and asset team members in order to discuss and help recommend potential scientific areas of study that NASA may want to take lead on. I’ll underscore here as I did before Congress that AARO’s work will take time, if we are committed to doing it right. AARO is committed to the highest standards of scientific research integrity. As we know, our partners at NASA are as well. Thanks again to NASA for hosting this public forum for UAP discussion and information exchange. And I’d like to turn to a brief presentation that includes some recently declassified footage and trends for discussion. Next slide, please. So some of you probably saw a version of this at the open hearing last month. This is an overall review of all the analytic trends of all the cases that we have to date. While the numbers may have changed a little bit. The overall trends remain the same. Most of what we are seeing reported by aircraft are at the altitudes where we fly aircraft, that should not be a surprise. You will note however, that I have no space reports and I have no maritime reports. That is notable even though we are looking across all of those domains. On the upper right, we have UAP morphologies, the vast majority of what has been reported and what we have data on little less than half now our orbs round spheres. And in the bottom right, you will see in the really the heat map of the areas where we get most of our reporting. This is very much a collection biased map. This is where our sensors are our military and our IC and some of the FAA data in the middle with is what we call our typical UAP characteristics for the vast majority of the cases that we see. One way of looking at that is a they will call it a target package. This is the thing we are out hunting for in most cases. Next slide please. This was an example of one that I showed at the hearing recently. This is a spherical or metallic in the Middle East 2022 by an MQ nine, I will come back to the sensor question that David raised here in a moment. This is a typical example of the thing that we see most of we see these all over the world. And we see these in and making very interesting apparent maneuvers. This one in particular, however, I would point out, demonstrated knowing enigmatic technical capabilities, and was no threat to airborne safety. While we are still looking at it, I don’t have any more data other than that. And so being able to come to some conclusion is going to take time, until we can get better resolved data on similar objects that we can then do a larger analysis on. Next slide, please. I’m gonna let this play through. This is a newly released video, you’ll notice there are two dots moving back and forth, there is a plane at the bottom that’s moving across the screen. And now there are three dots moving back and forth. The moving back and forth, is from the sensor and the platform that’s collecting it. This is a a p3 on a training mission in the western United States. They picked these up and they tried to intercept and was unable to intercept them. Apart from that motion, and you’ll see a little bit of defocusing from the sensor itself. There is no other oddity about this, except for the fact that they couldn’t catch them. The reason they couldn’t catch them is because after further analysis, it was shown that those objects were actually much farther away from the p3 than they thought. And in fact, when we went even deeper looked at air traffic control data, we were able to match those two aircraft on a major flight corridor heading into a major airport for landing. This is the kind of thing that can spoof and or provide misperception of both very highly trained pilots, as well as sensors. Right, and this was reported as an odd grouping of three UAP. That is not to say that the pilots didn’t know what they were looking at, or they, they knew what they were looking at, but they weren’t really sure. But it also is meant to say that when they’re not sure they’re reporting it now. And that’s what they’re supposed to be doing. And then we have to go look at it. Next slide, please. That brings us to really what is AARO doing in the science and technical realm. So this is one of those areas that I want to expound a little bit more on than we did in the last hearings. AARO has a robust scientific plan that we are required to then provide to Congress here pretty soon.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  38:16

One of the first things that we’re doing is looking across all the existing sensor data against that typical UAP target that I gave you up at the very first slide that goes beyond DOD and icy sensors that’s commercial, that’s civil, that’s and with partnership with NASA, when NASA centers, and NOAA sensors, understanding if any of these Earth sensing satellites, any of these airborne platforms, any of these ground radars, whether it’s FAA or other can actually see these things. Given what we’ve got so far is going to be an important first step to understanding what sensors are going to be relevant. From there, we will we are augmenting with dedicated sensors that we’ve purpose built, designed to detect, track and characterize those particular objects. And we will be been putting those out in very select areas for surveillance purposes. Partnerships with academia exploring the signatures to match to our data. So understanding if a thing is moving and if it is doing certain anomalous activities, what are the signatures we would expect to see? How do we pull on that? And then from there, how do I tune my collection architecture to go after statistical analytic techniques? We’re working with a couple of universities on how do I do broader base statistical analysis on unclassified and classified data so that I can apply those analytics to our holdings and then AI and ML analytic techniques for searching out through the data. What are this what are the objects were the targets that we’re going after? We have partnerships with both DOD and Doa labs to explore our current state of the art fundamental physics of UAP observations, both current and historical. In other words, if I have objects, those few that are doing some things that are anomalous, what is our current understanding of maneuverability? Speed? Signature management, propulsion? What are those underlying signatures that we would expect to see? And how do I then pull on that? Our interagency and allied partnership shifts for calibration of our capabilities. This is exactly what David was pointing out. The vast majority of what we have reported to us are DoD sensors. DOD sensors are not scientific sensors. They are not intelligence community sensors. Believe it or not, intelligence community sensors are very close to scientific sensors, they are calibrated, they are high precision, they are everything you’d ever want to know about a thing. DOD sensors have one purpose they are to identify an object that is known and put a weapon on it. That is what they’re for. Right, predominantly. So understanding how do you calibrate those against these known objects? How do I fly an F 35, against a weather balloon at different speeds in different altitudes and different sun conditions and different lighting conditions and heating conditions. Those are all important measurements that need to be done. And we are on the in process of doing that right now. That table on the right is a very simplified version of our entire test matrix, which you would not be able to fit on three of these slides against all of our sensors across all of those phenomenologies. That will be useful in order to then train our operators, pilots and sensors against the known objects. And then finally, our pattern of life analysis. This is essentially baselining. What is normal, I have all these hotspot areas, but we only have hotspot areas, because that’s when the reports come in from the operators that are operating at that time. They don’t operate all the time. So to have a 24/7 collection monitoring campaign, in some of these areas for three months at a time is going to be necessary in order to measure out what is normal, then I’ll know what is not normal, right when we have additional things that come through those spaces. And that includes space and maritime. Next slide, please. Which brings me to some of my recommendations for the panel. And their consideration and deliberation. of some of these we’re going to be exploring with our new NASA embed. I’m happy to be welcoming on for your pretty soon who’s going to help us in our scientific plan. Crowd crowdsourcing unclassified open source data, this is where you know some of the public can be helpful. You know, imagery from a iPhone is generally not helpful unless you are right up on whatever it is you’re looking at. However, some of the ancillary data that your iPhone provides from location to speed to other phenomenologies and more than one of those can be very helpful. Large scale ground based scientific instrumentation evaluating how can I use some of these other instruments for detection? The FRB example was was perfect, right. You have a bunch of large scales, instruments that were not designed for that yet they pick them up because there was a microwave? Well, we have a a surrogate target package of what we think these things are, at least from a what we’ve got reported to us that was in the front slide. Understanding how can I evaluate that against all of these other instruments? And do any of them have a chance of picking anything up that would be helpful in tipping and cueing us to get other sensors on target? I think leading that evaluation of the scientific ground based sensors would be useful. Also the same thing for the earth sciences satellites as we mentioned before. Intentional vise coincidental collection. So looking at how can I provide a tip and cue to both the ground and space based scientific and academic sensor community to put additional sensors on a object when it is reported? I’m currently doing that With AARO, the Joint Staff the commands for when they get tip in queue. Right? So a pilot says something, they see something they reported in, and we’re going to turn on a whole bunch of new collection to go after, I should be able to hand that same tip in queue to the scientific and academic community. So looking at how that works would be helpful. peer reviewing advanced capabilities, the parameterization and the publication of that that have not yet been engineered, we understand a lot of fundamental physics. It is the scientific community’s responsibility to explore and document those fundamentals in peer reviewed scientific journals to match to data so that we can weed out all kinds of different hypotheses. Right? That’s how science works, we need to make sure that we are doing that. I think leading that conversation would be very helpful from NASA’s perspective, archived scientific data. So we have a whole bunch of calibrated large scale scientific data from all these different instrumentations around the world. Taking a look at how can you apply some maybe some AI ml tools to search through that data for anomalous signatures that may correlate to things that we’ve got reporting on? That would be an interesting study, distributions of sightings, I think this is a low hanging fruit one, right. So if we take a look at all of the distributions of sightings that are outside of my national security areas that I’ve got classified reporting for, and they generate the similar distribution map as we’ve gotten, and we put those two pieces together, and now I have a holistic picture. And then, of course, our foreign partnerships, building a robust scientific community of interest review, data, capabilities, conduct analysis, expanding upon, you know, our military and intelligence collaborations across the world, into the scientific and academic world. And with that, those were my thoughts. We’ve talked about some of these in the past, it would be interesting to hear if there’s any further questions or deliberations on any of those points. And I’m happy to take any questions that you all have.

David Spergel  47:21

Great. Thank you, Dr. Kirkpatrick. And I also want to you take this opportunity to thank you in the ARL, for your openness in providing this committee with insight and information about what you’ve learned so far, how we could work together, I think this is very much an area where it’s going to be essential that NASA be your partner and be a good partner for a row. And I think you’re really want to thank you for your role with this committee, and helping to start to build that partnership. In my pleasure. And let’s register. Sure, thanks for the question.

Reggie Brothers  48:00

We talked a little more data already. Let’s talk about sensors for some time. So you mentioned that you were labs academia. Do you see a need to go beyond what you mentioned earlier? That is the type of sensor that we have right now, which are based on national security threats? And so phenomenologies and frequency range of these kinds of things. You see reasonable and beyond that? Yep, absolutely. What what are some challenges and see their materials?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  48:26

So can we go back to the front slide to the first slide where the target characterization is. So we’ve we’ve purpose built a couple of, of sensors to do search, across that note, down one, there you go, that’s great. To go down some of those characteristics to see if we can find them correlated to pilot reporting. Some of those are, initially this is going to be I’m gonna say this is a bootstrap method, right? We’re doing a broad spectrum search across very few indicators that we can point to, that will allow enable us to get a little bit more data or find that narrow those sensors and go from there. So we aren’t just relying on the DOD and icy sensors that exist today. Because frankly, they don’t point to where we want them to point. Right. I mean, I’ll be frank with with everyone. We we can point the largest collection apparatus in the entire globe at any point we want. You just have to tell me where I want to point it. The second piece of that is a lot of what we have is, is around the continental United States. Most people including the government, don’t like it when I point our entire collection apparatus to your backyard. Right, it’s not allowed. We have some laws about that. And we’ve got to figure out how to do this only in the areas that that I can get high confidence, there’s going to be something there. And high confidence, I’m not going to break any laws doing it. Right. So there’s a, there’s a trade there. So some of these ground base point detectors are going to be necessary for that to point up to point out to search, coupled with, we’re evaluating a number of sensor opportunities across different organizations, academia, industry, whatnot, that that already exist or are being built for similar purposes, or maybe other purposes that I might be able to recalibrate for this, and see if those will have a chance of of seeing that target. Right. So that’s where the modeling and sim comes in, can I can I take that target, put it into your sensor, and have a chance of seeing it? If I can, then I might want to use it.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  51:04

Or you go,

Nadia Drake  51:08

Thanks, Shawn, I have the questions you probably don’t want, which are about numbers, unless I missed them. During your presentation, you had said that only a very small percentage of your cases display signatures that could be anomalous, and then follow that up with a few objects that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics. What numbers are we talking about? How big is your database? How many years? Was it collected over? And are those observations made? And then by few, what do you mean,

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  51:37

right? Now? That’s a great question. So this chart, as I mentioned, we’ve updated with our current data holdings. At the time of my open hearing, we were at 650. Cases ish, we are now over 800. We are putting together our annual report, which will be due August one to the hill. And in it and there will be an unclassified version, as there always has been, we will have those updated numbers at that time, we roughly get I mean, you can do the math, you know, it depends anywhere from from 50 to 100 ish new reports a month. Now, the reason we had such a big jump recently is because I got FAA data integrated. And finally, and so we ended up with like 100 and some odd new cases. So there’s, there’s reason why it’s going to fluctuate the numbers that I would say, so we’re gonna we’re gonna try to do a little more of fidelity on some of the analytics when we report out. But the numbers I would say that we see are possible, you really anomalous are less than single digit percentages of those, that total database, so maybe two to five ish percent.

Jen Buss  53:21

All right. I’ll stand up because on the other end of the room, Thanks, Shawn, for your presentation, and for the some of the video footage that we saw. While we’re all good scientists on this panel, I think that I look at it with an untrained eye of looking at that video. And so I see three spots moving. And everything else in the background looks like it’s stable. Can you talk a little bit more about either the sensor platform or what we’re seeing that stable in the background? Because they’ve been identified as airplanes? And there’s clear description of from other data sources that came in to help clarify that. But when I look at this, what are all of the white spots in the background that we’re seeing that

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  54:03

are stable? So those are these that’s a star background? Pretty sure that star background now, so you’re looking at those planes were roughly 30 to 40 ish miles away, if I remember correctly, and when you see that smaller plane that comes in at the bottom. That one was much, much closer. It was like maybe six to 10 miles away. Right? And so the jitter in the sensor is what you’re looking at.

Jen Buss  54:46

Right Okay, so the three spots because they look like they’re moving at about the same rate. They are right and if they were flying together, but they’re not is what I’m hearing.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  54:58

They’re in the center They’re in a flight line. Right? So they’re equally spaced in a flight line and the sensor is jittering. Thank you. Yes. Appreciate that. Yes. Wait, wait. He’s been Walter has been waiting, patiently waiting. Okay, if

Walter Scott  55:14

you go to your first slide, if you don’t mind, not the title slide, but the trends, trends. Yeah. It’s the previous slide. There you go. Thank you. So I want to make sure I understand the slide it says typically reported characteristics. And there are a bunch of things here, like for example, size, altitude speed, if it’s being observed from a single sensor, use the example of like the airplanes that were coming in. And if you don’t know how far away they are, how do you assess the size? Right? How do you assess the speed? This is what people would report but it isn’t necessarily what is the real size of the object? Or the speed or the the rest of it? Do I understand that correctly?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  55:57

Partially. So yeah, this is not all single sensor observations. Some of these are very much multi sensor observations. And this is parameterised to cover the range of things for any given parameter range of what’s possible and what is then observed.

Walter Scott  56:18

Okay, and then on the next slide, the one where you’ve got the order is the meatball moving across the spray that one. So was there any look at sensor artifact data processing artifact? In the first thing that whenever I say anything that’s anomalous, I look at how was the data collected?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  56:45

Yeah. So yes, these are these are. So this is an EO sensor on MQ nine. And we understand that very, very well. Was that is that is a real object. Absolutely. And

Anamaria Berea  57:08

mentioned that partnership, Jamia, you also use AI ml techniques, or existing datasets? Or possibly some of them open source? Can you explain a little bit more what kind of AI ml techniques you’re using? Are these about anomaly detection, missing anything related to processing or using anything related to?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  57:33

So we’re looking at a number of different capabilities that span I think, a lot of what you’ve just said, so we’ve got we haven’t applied it yet. We are researching how we’re going to apply it. So natural language processing for the reports from the pilots, absolutely. Target recognition. So I can train a model to look for that thing. And go back through all of our holdings and go hatch, give me how many of these you have, right? And then try to figure out what those are. So I have not put anything out there yet, or have not looked at anything yet for active targeting in real time. Because I don’t know exactly what I would train it to go look for. I just know what we have. So I want to get more confidence on what we have before I go and do that. Except for balloons. We’re trying to get rid of balloons as quickly as possible.

Mike Gold  58:39

So Shawn, I just wanted to begin by thanking you for your service to this nation, this committee, you don’t exactly have the easiest job in Washington.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  58:45

No, I do not appreciate it. I’m glad to recognize that.

Mike Gold  58:49

We certainly do. I also want to commend you noting the international partnerships. Spain just signed the Artemis accords yesterday, increasing the membership to 25. I think that’s a global partnership that you could leverage. Only 170 more countries to go NASA. Everyone signed up. I just have two questions, one, relative to what Nadia was asking you about the number of anomalous phenomena. What makes it anomalous in your view, what is the phenomenology when you’re pulling those cases out? And saying this is truly unexplained? And then my second question would be relative to the stigma, how damaging is that in your view? And what in particular Do you think NASA can do to help remedy the situation?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  59:35

As a great question, so I’m going to take the second one first, because I know we’re getting short on time. The stigma has improved significantly over the years since the Navy first took this on, some years ago. It is not gone and in fact, I would argue the stigma exists inside the leadership of all of our our buildings. Right, wherever that is. My team and I have also been subjected to lots of harassment, especially coming out of my last hearing. Because people don’t understand the scientific method and why, why we have to do the things we have to do. Right. And because we can’t just come out and say, you know, the greatest, the greatest thing that could happen to me is I could come out and say, Hey, I know where all these things are. Here you go. Alright, but I don’t, right. And it’s gonna take us time to research all that. When people want answers now, and so they are, they’re actually feeding the stigma by by exhibiting that kind of behavior to all of us. Right? That is, that is a bad thing. Where can NASA help I made that recommendation on NASA should lead the scientific discourse, we need to elevate this conversation. We need to have this conversation in an open environment like this, where we aren’t going to get harassed. Because this is a hard problem. It is a hard target problem, we need to understand what is the things that are in all of our domains, Ace are air under sea? And how do we make sense of that? Your first question on what makes it anomalous to me, we actually developed some definitions on all of these things. We gave it both to the White House into Congress, I think we’ve gotten some of that into law now. But essentially anomalous is anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the sensor. Right, so is doing something weird, whether that’s maneuvering against the wind at Mach two with no apparent propulsion, or it’s going into the water, which we have, we have shown is not the case, that is actually a sensor anomaly that we’ve now figured out, and we’re going to be publishing all that. You know, those kinds of things, make anomalous signature. We’ll call it signature management. But it’s things that are not readily understandable in the context of, hey, I’ve got a thing that’s out in the light, it should reflect a certain amount of light. If it doesn’t reflect that amount of light, something weird.

David Spergel  1:02:37

We have time for one last question.

Shelley Wright  1:02:41

Recommended for in partnership with NASA. I’m curious, especially given your math, have you up AARO partnered with international agencies? And there’s other ways for reporting to your?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  1:02:55

So that’s, that’s great question. I’m gonna expound on that just a little bit. So I have just held our first five eyes forum on this subject. Last week, I think it was earlier this week, I don’t know Dan, was there. And we have, you know, we’ve we’ve entered into discussions with our partners on data sharing, how do they do reporting? What kind of analysis can they help us with? What kind of calibration can they help us with? What can we help them with, and we’re establishing all of that right now. And they’re gonna end up, you know, sending their information and data to us to feed into the process that we’ve laid out for how we’re going to do all this. Beyond that, I have not had either the time or the bandwidth to do and that’s why I would look to NASA to expand the scientific and and, and academic relationships that they have across all of our allies and partners, on how can we bring them into the fold? That’s where I think there’s a lot of benefit to NASA taking lead on that.

David Spergel  1:04:10

Thank you. One, just clarification for people who don’t know, what are the five eyes?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  1:04:15

Oh, I’m sorry. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the five eyes, those are the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. So those are the five partners.

David Spergel  1:04:29

Terrific. So thank you

David Spergel  1:04:39

so our next presentation is from Mike free on from the FAA. Talking about the FAA is rolling what’s learned

Mike Freie  1:04:54

would like to thank the panel for the opportunity to come and give an overview of the FAA and some data points are Around the FAA VHS mission, the date of the FAA provides to provide the frame you know, what are the surveillance systems that that we can bring to bear are there there’s data around those sensors as well as to frame the limitations of those, you know, Shawn talked about some of the data points that that are used and being integrated. So hopefully this will give you an overview of the FAS mission, as well as as well as those data points. Next slide please. So the the FAS mission is is quite large and complex. By by a factor of two we operate more commercial aircraft than any other country. I think we’re second only to Australia in total airspace, but largely because Australia has a very large oceanic volume that they’re responsible for for managing. So it is a very complex, very large National Airspace System. We have over 14,000 controllers 520 air traffic control towers, which are located at the highest density of airports, and I’ll refer to those as towers and subsequent slides. We have 147 terminal radar approach controls or tray cones, and those are manned control facilities at the high and medium density airports around the nation, as well as 21 air traffic control centers, which are which managed the control of air traffic in the enroute environment. There’s 19,000 over 19,000 airports 5000 Over 5000 of those are associated public airports with the remaining 14,000 Plus private airports. Next slide please. So the FAA is mission is primarily around safe and efficient control of manned aircraft that has been her our historical mission and remains our primary mission. Certainly, as we talked about a new entrance with UAS is and advanced Air Mobility and some of those things, there will be an evolution of the FAS mission to include safe operation of the NASS with those those new entrants, but the architecture and design of the NASS is is geared around safe and efficient control of aircraft, unmanned aircraft. The certainly the the commercial aspect to commercial flights are a primary focus of the agency, we certainly support general aviation and flights as well. But again, our mission is around manned aircraft and safe and efficient operation of those. The by the numbers, over 16 million flights, nearly 5400 flights at peak at given the peak time of any given day. 45,000 daily flights 25 million GA flight hours per year, very large, very complex operation that that we’re responsible for managing, we certainly provide a significant contribution to to that for that service to the nation in the form of product toward a GDP. Next slide. So as we get into the discussion of surveillance services, I want to provide a little bit of framework around the categorization of our surveillance services. And we primarily break those into two, two bodies. The cooperative surveillance, which is defined by an A sensor, that’s avionics equipment on board, the aircraft that works in conjunction with ground based sensors, the noncooperative surveillance is independent this is basically the classic radar RF energy is transmitted out, reflects off the target and we receive a signal and from that return, we can determine where that there that aircraft is. Typically, these cooperative and noncooperative sensors are co located together, one cooperative mounted on top of the noncooperative radar. So for the purpose from a data perspective, I think in this panel in a study, I think that the Coopera sensors, those are neither unknown or anomalous. So for the purposes of this, this briefing of the rest of this briefing, I’m going to focus on the non cooperative aspect. Next slide, please. So, the, again, from the standpoint of the mission of the FAA around again, is primarily around manned aircraft. And I think that sort of serves as an important framework for the data points and the type of data that we can bring to bear for this panel. So we break our systems and the design of the systems into different types of systems. So we have short range radars, which are typically located at the high and medium density airports. And those operate from a range they have a detection range of between 40 and 60 miles and an altitude detection capability of about 24,000 feet. The long range radar systems have a detection range of two to 250 nautical miles with altitude detection up to 100,000 feet. So that provides the basic the framework for for those, I will mention the automatic dependent surveillance broadcast or ATSB, not only from the context that that does serve as a primary data source and a preferred data source for the management of the Airspace System. But it is a cooperative system. And for the purposes of the next slides as I get into the discussion of the coverage and the type of detection for those non cooperative targets, it is not considered as part of those. And also surface surveillance is also something that we provide but again, for the purpose of the study, I only include those for just a completeness perspective. The one final point on as I talk about manned aircraft and primary mission for the drones and balloons and things of that nature, their basic premise is to operate and not to interfere bases that they are not to interfere with manned operations. And that’s that’s a fundamental aspect as we talk to the data and what we can and can detect with respect to those non manned non manned systems. Next slide please. Realize that this is an eye chart because I would want it to provide just a graphical or pictorial depiction of where our sensors are located. The green, blue and pink balloons if you will, represent our short range radars, those are located at at airports, those are where those are sited, the the two reddish balloons to have letters in them a four and a C. Those represent our long range radars, the Arthur fours and Carcer systems that are used in the context of both from an air traffic control perspective as well as for a national defense and homeland security mission. And the the perimeter, the Arthur fours are located around the perimeter of the country equally spaced and the carceral systems are located on the interior of the US. I will point out that this only depicts the CONUS there are systems at ATC both short range and Long Range Systems, Hawaii, Alaska and Caribbean. Those are not depicted here. I don’t think they were necessary for the the purpose of understanding that surveillance. And I will also point out that both for this slide and the subsequent coverage slide we do not talk to any classified DoD or DJ systems than an operation. Next slide please.

Federica Bianco  1:13:09

So what it is, what can the FAA detect and surveil what can get me not this slide gives you a by altitude slice of what it is that we can detect. So if you look at the square that’s labeled 1000 foot AGL that depicts by sensor for an aircraft that is 1000 feet in altitude, what is the range at which we can detect that aircraft and so on as you get higher in altitude or further higher and altitude, you can detect it at further range and that’s basically a phenomena of the curvature of the earth and the line of sight aspect of these these radar systems. So, pretty good coverage across the US at 10,000 feet and above. This is a mathematical model based of a pure line of sight, as well as some geographical screening as you can see in the western part of the US there are there is screening due to the mountains and those sensors need to take a little bit of time and talk about the the nature of the targets these line of sight models represent an input of a target that is one square meter to think of a sphere of one meter in diameter. That’s the assumption that goes into these models. So if you think about that, in the context of other forms or aircraft, a fourth generation F 15 or F 18 is in the product proximity of about one square meter, perhaps a little bit larger. A large airliner is perhaps 100 square meters. A small UAS is perhaps one or point 01 square meter. So the range of these detections are there are the size and the ability to check these targets from an F 15. A large airliner, 100 times larger in size, a drone 100 times smaller in size. So the detection of an A surveillance capability really largely depends in part to the target that we’re talking about and the ability to surveil that target. Next line. So I do include this ADB ADSB coverage lie detector to give a context of from a cooperative perspective, there is very good coverage across the US to without 1500 feet above ground level. So this provide a context of what when we look at the data and start getting a discussion of what it is we can detect this will certainly for those cooperative aircraft that have ADSP, we can certainly detect those to a pretty pretty low altitude across across the US. All right, a couple of data points, I think, I know Shawn certainly talked about some of the data points and I can provide a little bit of insight. From an FA perspective. drones and drones are pretty significant challenge. As 880,000 registered drones in the US a small drones I should say, part one of seven drones. Many 10s of 1000 of those are operate operated on a daily basis for by commercial operators. It’s not clear how many private drone operators are taking their their drone up for a quick flight. But as I said earlier, those are regulated by the regulated to operate below 400 feet and altitude. So again, it’s the drone aspect is for those small drones in particular, as well as all of our classes of drones. There are regulatory restrictions to where they can and cannot fly basically avoiding and not interfering with manned aircraft operations. second data point we talked about balloons, the weather service, we know 190 or 92. Weather Stations are released balloons twice a day. It’s 6am and 00 100, Zulu and 1200. Zulu, typically two hour duration they fly up to 100,000 feet where the the envelope bursts and then the payload descends back back to Earth. So certainly 100 At least 184 balloon flights daily in the NASS you know not to consider universities and hobbyist balloons that may be launched, but those are typically small, small in size. And finally, Sean did talk about UAPs and FAA data, a couple of data points that we do report there is a process by which air traffic controllers can report UAP sightings or, or events. Historically, those have been in the range of about three to five reports per month that have been reported. We did see an uptick of reports in August of 22. That went up to about eight to 10 Perhaps due to start like Starlink launches. And finally the with the Chinese weather, or the Chinese balloon incidents in February, we did see a significant uptick and uptick and there’s like 68 UAP reports that that started in February. And we’ve seen a large number, you know, subsequent to them to that. I think that’s all I had any questions?

David Spergel  1:18:39

You want to take quick? It’s easy. You can choose the questioners it’s easy.

Walter Scott  1:18:44

Alright. So two questions. Two questions about the radar data coverage. First one is do you retain any of the data? Or is it just cycled over as

Federica Bianco  1:18:57

there is a retention and long term retention of data? I can’t recall exactly how long we retain that is certainly a requirement from a retention from, like legal perspective. Exactly. But I do know there is some periodicity in a measured and determined months

Walter Scott  1:19:16

retained in terms of like the raw radar or is some processed form of data that’s retained. I believe

Federica Bianco  1:19:23

it’s a process form of data that is what was displayed on the whether it’s an Indian route, ie RAM system or the star system.

Walter Scott  1:19:31

And then the other question is for the radars, are they operated in any sort of a tasked mode or are they constant search

Federica Bianco  1:19:40

the current systems in our inventory, just their their fixed face and they just rotate at either 12 RPM or five RPM depending on whether it’s an enroute or terminal surveillance? Thanks. All right. Next question. As

Warren Randolph  1:19:55

you mentioned, three to five reports from month

Federica Bianco  1:20:00

per month, that is three to five reports per month for all the controllers and all of us. So there’s a process by which if they see something and they want to report that they can go with to report that to the, the Den we call it but report, Hey, I saw something I don’t know what it was sets three to five per month across the entire 14,000 controllers per month. So, you know, 45,000 operations, any given day, 30 months, 30 days, however many days in a month, you know, it’s a very small percentage.

Federica Bianco  1:20:38

Can you describe actually about this? How do you do you encourage to report? Do you feel like the stigma on UAPs is impairing the reporting? Bias?

Federica Bianco  1:20:50

I’m not aware of all answer it this way. The the process by which UAP is reported is part of the air traffic controller order. So basically, the aircraft controllers are allowed that says, you know, if you see something, here’s a process by which the procedure by which you would report it. Other than that, I’m not aware of any any specific stigma or, or limitations and really brought brought in a good position to, you know, to speak to that other than there is that process, and that is the process that we use to and is what represents those numbers I talked to?

Federica Bianco  1:21:27

And if I may have had a question prior to this one, how do you, beside the sites where you deploy, you saw the map and has some very good coverage on the coastal areas, there were some areas of lack of coverage.

Federica Bianco  1:21:38

So if we went if you go back, go back one slide from what’s presented here, the what you’ll see is in the eastern half of the US, there’s a lot better coverage. But that’s because there’s a lot more population in the east, and therefore a lot more airports. And these systems are historically cited at the airport in support of those those airport operations to the west, obviously, oops, see less and less dense and fewer systems. Now the that’s from an ASR, the short range radar perspective, the long range radars are pretty much equally spaced to provide in order to provide the maximum coverage from a Homeland Defense and Security perspective as well as with a higher altitude flights the enroute crews phase of air traffic control.

Warren Randolph  1:22:33

More, Mike, first, thank you in the FAA, for coming to share this information with us. Second, I can you speak to a little bit of the filtering techniques that we use. So with respect to AI, no alternative question about the raw data and process, but can you just talk a little bit about, we actually

Federica Bianco  1:22:49

aren’t trying to detect everything? You know, that’s actually a very good question and a very good point with respect to what we can and cannot see. So there are, you know, the closer to the ground, you point a radar certainly can get lower elevations, but you also start to see the effects of trees and other ground based clutter, as we call it, that starts to interfere. So we have great ability to detect a lot of things but but from an FAA mission perspective, our desire is to find that sweet spot of seeing everything to as low and altitude as we can to maximize our mission around safe operations of manned aircraft, and how to pull that thread just a little bit further. You know, there’s also limitation with respect to biologicals or insects and dust and things of this this flavor that most aircraft fly above a certain speed. So we typically will have filtering settings on our systems to get rid of the stuff that really is leaves or insects or things of that nature. So that we provide as clean a display for the controllers. So there are specific settings that we can can adjust. And it’s been learned over many years to perfect those, what we call optimization of those kinds of filters to get rid of what is not a manned aircraft, not an aircraft, and provide as clean a display for the controllers as we can. Yes.

Reggie Brothers  1:24:20

Thank you, thanks for the presentation. Would it be a farm what would you say more would be possible to to collect the raw data? But to say that because if it would be possible to do some calibration after the fact that Shawn was mentioning, for example, you might be to capture the phenomenology. Is it possible?

Federica Bianco  1:24:39

Well, when you say raw data, I think you’d have we’d have to talk a little bit about what is meant. So you know what, from a technical perspective, pure, we’ll be we’ll call Inq data is huge, huge, you know, gigabyte, very, very, very large volumes of data. That would probably be cost prohibitive. We certainly don’t do that today. The there are, again, we do record data, but it is effectively the data that is has been through some form of these processes in these filter rings. We do that today. But it certainly within the time and money, we could certainly collect that data and I think it would, but it would be, we’d have to look at the challenge of, of how we would go about modifying the systems or introducing new ways to collect that that raw data as you as you described, certainly, it’s feasible. It’s possible. But it’s not without technical challenge. Yes,

Reggie Brothers  1:25:35

184 balloon flights daily, are those characters, or they just you just know, they do that, and then they end up with it.

Federica Bianco  1:25:41

So under the balloon, I’ll call it part 101. The regulations for balloons, there’s very specific requirements. So for National Weather Service, before they release those, they’ll contact a local air traffic facility, they’re gonna say, here’s what time I’m going to release it. And when they release it, they have tracking. And they provide that tracking to the air traffic control facility. Throughout the flight of that particular balloon, there are commercial balloons that are also launched. But those most for the most part, as I understand that have, they actually transmit their GPS position in support of where they’re flying so as to ensure they’re not interfering with with air traffic, and to ensure that air traffic controllers are aware of where those those balloons are operating? Yes, ma’am.

Shelley Wright  1:26:28

So, we’ve talked about recording the three to five, from air traffic control, but what about from the noncooperative surveillance that they’ve been anomalies from the sensors themselves? And if so, what is the process for that?

Federica Bianco  1:26:43

I say the FAA mission is not around anomalies with the noncooperative sensors themselves. So as we build an air traffic control picture, we have both the noncooperative systems which detects the target, we have a cooperative system that also detects a target, and we will tend to merge those those targets together. And so when our controllers display, they’ll know is this a nonprofit only, or merged or combined target. So they they know, you know, basically, an increased level of confidence that on what it is they’re seeing is, in fact, a real aircraft. So we don’t make any real distinction between a non cooperative and a cooperative, other than how they get combined and put on a controllers display. So I don’t know if that answered your. So so like a GA flight that doesn’t notice flying visual flight rules, those will just be picked up by the FAA, even if they don’t, if they’re not equipped with with a court with a cooperative avionics, those would just be picked up by the non cooperative system, that if they happen to surveil where that aircraft is fine, and so that certainly will be put on the controllers display. And they will be able to provide awareness. In fact, there’s a flight following procedure by which GA pilots can ask for, hey, I’m not, I’m not squawking. I don’t have a corporate system. But please help me and just through via the radio, I’m going to go on from here to here and in providing awareness, situational awareness, if the controller has the bandwidth to to provide that data,

David Spergel  1:28:24

when most questions.

Mike Gold  1:28:26

So I’m not a scientist, I’m a recovering attorney. And I love process. And few questions there. If I’m a pilot, where do I find that process for reporting UAPs? Where’s that articulated or captured? Second, when you mentioned that you’re reporting these incidents? Who are you reporting it to? And are those incidents pulling on the thread that registered? Are they being archived anywhere?

Federica Bianco  1:28:47

I believe they are archived, they reported to the domestic network event Network is an NFA organization or function? I don’t I can’t speak to whether for whether they would be say part of what Shawn would would include as part of his database, I presume so. So I think that was answered the second question, was the first question again, I’m sorry,

Mike Gold  1:29:12

where does the reporting process live? If I’m a pilot, I see a new IP where do I go to find

Federica Bianco  1:29:17

that? I don’t know the answer to that question. I said, I’m familiar with the reporting process from a controller perspective and the order that’s that use to define how controllers do their job? I am not I don’t know the answer to the question from a pilot perspective.

David Spergel  1:29:35

Great, so thank you, Mike, for your presentation and for all the help the FAA has given us as we’ve been learning more about the very impressive system that the FAA maintains. Thank you. I know. You know, for me, one of the many takeaways from this is filling it, you know, just a little bit safer. Every time I fly. I’m thankful for you and your colleagues for what they do to make that possible. And Yep. And we’re now going to take a quick lunch break, we’ll be back at 1230. And see you all soon. The next part of our sessions, series of short presentations by members of the panel on their thoughts on different aspects of our charge. And the format is we’re going to have them come up to the podium and speak. And I’m going to ask each of the speakers then to take questions. It’s actually the angle with this setup, as you can see the people better from the podium than I can where it’s hard to see people behind you. I’m going to try to keep manage the time. So as those questions, you know, come to an end, I’ll cut you off and bring up the next speaker. And we’ll move through the the six topics and then we’ll have some time at the end for some general discussion. The first speaker will be Dr. Nadia Drake, talking about framing the issue of UAP.

Nadia Drake  1:31:10

Hello, and welcome back from lunch, everybody, and welcome to those of you watching us virtually, I’m Nadia. I am a scientist by training. I’m also a science journalist now. And my job is to try and synthesize the information that we’ve learned so far, and summarize the situation. So if you will put together a framework for thinking about UAP. Now I’m going to try and do this in a way that reflects the thoughts of the entire panel, although obviously we have a variety of opinions and ideas among us. So I’d like to leave some time at the end for you to weigh in with disagreements or concurrences as needed. So first housekeeping matter, the definition of UAP changed during the seven months of our fact finding process. UAP initially stood for unidentified aerial phenomena with aerial referring to events occurring in Earth’s atmosphere that is now defined as anomalous which includes the space air and undersea domains. As a panel, I think we have decided to continue focusing our recommendations on the aerial domain because that is where the majority of sightings and events have occurred. And also because we couldn’t fully pivot to address the expanded scope of the new acronym. Beyond that, there are three points I want to make. The first is that for a number of reasons UAP are obviously quite interesting. Right? That is why we are here. Recently, many credible witnesses have reported seeing unidentified objects in the sky, some of which are behaving rather peculiar Lily peculiarly. In some instances, these reports include corroborating data from various instruments, various sensors. The challenge that we have, is that the data needed to explain these anomalous sightings often do not exist, or incomplete for generating a conclusive analysis. This includes eyewitness reports, which on their own can be interesting and compelling, but often lack the information needed to make definitive conclusions about an object’s provenance. We as a panel are thinking about the types of data that might add value to those reports, and which could be useful on their own. As a corollary to date, in the refereed scientific literature, there is no conclusive evidence suggesting an extra terrestrial origin for UAP. Collecting more good data for the scientific community to review and a peer reviewed context will be important for progress to be to be made here. Second point UAP offer an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the power of the scientific method and of empirically addressing a question using a multidisciplinary approach. It is our job as a panel to make some recommendations about how NASA might go about tackling this topic scientifically, taking advantage of the agency’s resources, global outreach and reputation. Key points to keep in mind here are that science is hypothesis science is hypothesis driven. Scientists build confidence in their theories, by relying on well calibrated well collected data, using well established methods with rigorous evaluation and independent corroboration. In science, skepticism is not a bias, nor is it a bad word. It is not our job to define nature, but to study it in ways that let nature reveal itself to us. Regardless of how exciting or disappointing that reality might be. And to that end, when we’re thinking about making recommendations about how NASA can tackle this topic scientifically, I think it’s important to remember that it’s not NASA’s job to replicate the efforts of the department of defense, but rather to consider approaches that are complementary and to what the all domain anomaly resolution office is doing. And so one of the questions that we as a panel, I think need to center is what can we recommend that NASA can do that the DoD cannot? Third point to that, and what are we even looking for? How are we defining this problem? And how do the available data define what seems to be to borrow a cliche, a very slender needle in a very big haystack. We heard a little bit about that today from Dr. Kirkpatrick, who reported that there have been 800 events collected over about 27 years. And between two and 5% of those events display signatures that could be anomalous, defined as anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the sensor, something that is doing something weird, Mr. Free, and some of the experts on our panel have to find the background on which those events exist, the amount of stuff in the sky at any given time, like so. On average, FAA, air traffic control handles 45,000 flights per day in US airspace, with 5400 aircraft in the sky at peak time. Worldwide. On average, there are about 1600 weather balloon launches per day. In the US there are at least 184 of those balloons launched. And that doesn’t include private companies or research flights. There are about 1.6 9 million recreational or model small uncrewed aircraft systems, and an additional 880,000 Drones are registered for commercial use. And these are not controlled by air traffic control. And they are not scheduled flights. So that’s our challenge. So when making recommendations as a panel, I think we need to look at what kind of imprint we want to leave. What does the situation look like five years from now? What does it look like 10 years from now? Why are we making these recommendations? We heard a little bit about this this morning, from both Mike and David, who noted that many discoveries in science are rooted in initially unexplained and bizarre phenomena. So by carefully scrutinizing the sky or however, we end up defining our search space, and by collaborating across disciplines, we are likely to learn new things about our planet. That’s a fact. And that’s the commensal science case we might want to consider when making recommendations here. All right. Does anyone have thoughts,

David Spergel  1:37:29

questions, thoughts, comments? Currently,

Karlin Toner  1:37:37

I guess I’m gonna challenge a little bit. We take from time to time legislation required. And I’m not sure we’ve precluded anything beyond the aerial for this panel. And so I’m just very sad because mustard for us, even though mostly what we’ve seen, and I think national is NASA’s mission space, looking for the Aerial?

Nadia Drake  1:38:02

I agree with you. And I think that is a parameter that we need to define as a panel.

Dan Evans  1:38:08

Yeah, I’ll just quickly jump in and echo some remarks I made this morning that yes, the age change from aerial to anomalous. But it’s also accurate to say that the preponderance of events are in the areal domain. That being said, your panel scope has expanded outwards. And I think we’ll hear a little bit from David later on that very subject.

David Spergel  1:38:30

When I think anomalous, people often think about it as going down and including ocean. But I think what’s very relevant for NASA is going out. Right, and, you know, looking at things in our solar system, and I think, in some sense, I think there’s certain responsibilities in you know, we look at airspace, there’s FAA responsibilities, there’s DoD responsibilities, as you get further and further away from the Earth. Eventually, it’s all NASA once you get up, you know, towards most certainly much of the solar system and out to our galaxy, the tour NASA, and when we start thinking about things like, you know, and this will be David, we’ll get to this observations beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. I think this change in language lets us also think about our you know, further out in the solar system as well. Other thoughts? Great. Did

Nadia Drake  1:39:37

I summarize everything totally, accurately Awesome.

Paula Bontempi  1:39:54

All right. All right. Thank you. So I thought that was the perfect To intro and segue by Dr. Drake for addressing why NASA what, what is or what are NASA’s roles in UAP studies. So, NASA primarily is a science driven agency. It’s committed to exploring and understanding air and space. And this includes, as we were just discussing the unknown, right? Whether that’s the farthest reaches of the Universe, or right here on our home planet. In that light, NASA has over 60 years of experience measuring phenomena in air in space in space, an air that might be aeronautics, astronomy, as well as measuring other Earth phenomena, and this may include aquatic or atmospheric phenomena as well. And they do this using the unique vantage point of space. NASA’s mission, data and technical expertise in science and engineering may also help investigate and understand any of the reported phenomena. It makes sense to explore what new observations or measurements or studies might contribute to the understanding of reported phenomena. In that light, Dr. Fox made this point this morning, there’s a tremendous archive of NASA data. These are from satellites and other space based and ground networks as well as other assets. And these are freely and openly available to the public. Now NASA research as was mentioned also supports a wide range of methods. This includes advanced data analysis, modeling, cutting edge, computational and data visualization tools, and these are all useful for investigating unexplained observations, which may be crucial in studying these phenomena. discoveries and results are all publicly available. And this can be something from the characterization of extra terrestrial solar planets or the hole in the ozone layer. And these are communicated publicly through many outlets through the agency. NASA also has a long standing public trust. This is essential to communicate those findings about phenomena to the public. And as was mentioned several times very important to destigmatize the reporting and raise awareness of cultural and social barriers to doing so. NASA has a unique strength in leveraging public and private partnerships that could result in new technologies that may be useful in observing and understanding reported phenomena. These partners could include other federal agencies we’ve heard from the FAA today, as well as NOAA was identified. And they may collect data that could help to understand reported phenomena. In addition, NASA has a strong record of international collaboration, which could be beneficial to study any of these phenomena as that may require global cooperation and data sharing. And then, one thing that really strikes me is that new understanding of anomalous events really comes from when we bring communities together interdisciplinary communities that would not necessarily collaborate. And in my world, that might be biological and physical oceanographers. And I tell people to think a little more broadly, what if we brought together astronomers and scientists like we did on this panel. So that those interdisciplinary research teams as well as citizen scientists could explore historical and current NASA and partner data for events or more importantly for environmental conditions around the time of reported events. And this may help in our understanding. And then finally, given us his experience with long term missions, long term projects in scientific focus, the agency is really well equipped to handle the extensive and ongoing study of phenomena investigation that this likely requires. So hopefully, that gave you some thoughts as to why NASA I don’t know if any of my fellow panelists agree or disagree. Discuss. Yes,

Federica Bianco  1:44:25

Apollo, thank you. So NASA has a great visibility in the community and not and UAVs are obviously of great interest to a very diverse range of people. So can you speak a bit about the opportunity that this provides for NASA to expand, you know, the knowledge or the understanding of the scientific method?

Paula Bontempi  1:44:46

Yes. So it’s a great question. There are multiple opportunities, I think, UAP present. The first as I mentioned, I think is to bring together interdisciplinary research teams and scientists and citizen scientists to really take a look at with a an objective and perhaps unique eye. What the NASA Data Archive actually means blending the partnerships, a renewed partnership that’s at the federal, the International and the private level. Right. So I think there are any number of pathways that people could pursue that could be really advantageous for helping us to understand what’s happening with any reported UAP.

Shelley Wright  1:45:34

questions. Thank you, Paula. This is jelly. Right. Actually, my question and comment actually goes to both you and Nadia. Dr. Kirkpatrick gave us a definition of anomalous that was that it was not readily understandable to the operator of the sensor. And from the NASA perspective, and we’re a panel, I think we have to consider a broader definition if we’re talking about citizen science. And I’m curious of how we incorporate that, especially within the communication avenues that we were just discussing.

Paula Bontempi  1:46:11

It’s a good question. So not all data in an archive are user friendly, right, right out of the gate. But I think NASA does an excellent job. Making things like quick look or browse products available, you can go on the NASA website, you can look at different aspects of different things that the agency has its mission to study. And I think, if nothing else, people have become a lot more in touch with their surroundings, and their environment and the changes happening there. And so I think there’s probably an opportunity for people to maybe not become overnight experts in how to process satellite data and use it for basic research in a complex fashion. But there are ways to utilize those data to look at your environment, if you think you’ve, you know, seen something or you wish to report something. So communication engagement in the public, I think is a really important part of the D stigmatization for short. Nadia, I don’t know if you have anything to add.

Nadia Drake  1:47:17

I was I was struck by the phrase not readily understandable. I felt like that was actually doing a lot of work. So I think for our purposes, we probably want to come up with a slightly more specific definition of what anomalous actually means. Yes, yeah.

David Spergel  1:47:37

Thanks, Federico, next.

Federica Bianco  1:47:48

Hello, everybody. My name is Federico Bianca. I am an astrophysicist and a data scientist and I bring this perspective to the panel. So for the next few minutes, I want to emphasize some of the things that my colleagues have already mentioned about the data, particularly the status of the data that exists, and what the data that we should collect, to really understand what maybe we’ve already heard in a few cases by a few people that NASA’s role is to explore the universe. Through the scientific method. The application of the scientific method to discovery requires that the data meets some standards that allow the data driven approach, and there are many standards that have been established in the scientific community over the years. I can mention one, for example, is called the fear standard, where fear stands for find the ability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. The current status of the data about UAPs does not meet the standards. The data collection is inconsistent, it’s in our genes, it’s uncalibrated. They they are poorly documented, and largely incomplete. They’re also not enough systematically retrievable, which causes a problem in automation of the analysis. So what could benefit from data science and machine learning methods from artificial intelligence that is developing at a rapid pace, but machine learning and AI cannot be applied until the data meet the standards. Even to study a single event currently requires a significant lift in retrieving the data and the metadata that may or may not be available. And this lift is at the moment entirely personal power, which means that it cannot be automated to apply machine learning methods. Organized repositories need to exist to enable the automation of retrieval of the data and the metadata and this is a necessary premise to enable the systematic scientific approach. So the study of will UAPs anomaly detection is a well developed although notoriously hard discipline and which has seen tremendous advances recently with data science and machine learning. Usually, this means the Tag Team rare and unusual signals in a complex that is no Wizzy and rich with phenomena that we know. So there are two general approaches to anomaly detection in the scientific community. One is the following. If we know the signal that we expect, we can model it, and we can simulate it and maybe inject it in our data. So we can develop methods that are specific to finding those exact signals or signals that are similar to those. And we might be able to conceptualize signals coming from a physical system that responds to the laws of physics, as we know them, but we cannot comprehensively produce all possible signals that could relate to or explain UAPs. So, the alternative approach in detecting anomalies requires a thorough and deep understanding of what is normal and usual, to tease out what is unusual. And unlike the rest, these methods typically fall in the realm of what we call unsupervised machine learning. What is usual maybe the balloons the aircraft and wealth are natural phenomena that we have heard us and what is unusual what is an anomaly is anything that is not consistent with the way in which those things look in our data. Once the anomalous signal is detected, it can be studied in more depth either through the discovery data itself, but that may not be sufficient. So then we may need to collect additional data for to study these these anomalies. And this is something that in astrophysics, we typically refer to as follow up data. This can be very hard, especially if the phenomena that are anomalies are also ephemeral in time, so you have to promptly respond to the detection and set up follow up observations. It’s an extremely hard game, but it’s something that is seeing a large developing in astrophysics in recent years with the study of anomalous detections in the universe. This approach relies entirely on a comprehensive and systematic organization of the data, which is paramount and on a deep understanding of all the data that is actually usual and known. The data that we may want to collect ideally will be collected in a multi sensor and multi platform and multi site manner. I witnesses reports, I want to elevate what Dr. Drake said, cannot ascertain the nature of UAPs. However, they should be considered because they may contain important information. For example, persistent sampling locations are seasonality, but they only really work if join with quantitative data collected by sensors as well as your physical and psychophysical assessments of the witness and the impact that the experience has on them to really reveal the nature of UAPs. You’ve heard it from from my colleagues a number of times, the data needs to be collected by sensors they need to be calibrated or calibrated both. So we need to collect not only the data images, sound spectrum, characterization of what we see, but metadata, the sensor type, the brand, the brand of the sensor, the noise characteristics, time of the acquisition instrument sensitivity, as well as information about the circumstances of the data collection, for example, temperature, or the location or the conditions in which the sensor is at the time of collecting the data. The data should be collected simultaneously by different platforms, ideally, ideally in different location in a multi sensor system. So some of the data that we may want to collect are images, but also temperature sound recording spectral data emissivity that tells you the color in a very fine grid, as well as other as well as monitoring the motion of objects, which has been very important to identify what we have seen as UAPs have been reported. Much of this certainly can be achieved with professional grade infrastructure, and both new and existing infrastructure to do that, such as astrophysical and geographical observatories, boots on the ground and satellites. Some modern observatories, in particular designed for the detection of time anomalies specifically, as well as for the detection of objects that move rapidly in space, Near Earth Objects, asteroids, meteors, etc. So those could be leveraged for the study of UPS. There is also some effort in ongoing in the developing of facilities that are specifically to detect design to detect UAPs. And many of those comply with the characteristics that I just described. This level of information, though, can also be obtained by the public. We could crowdsource the data collection if a platform to crowdsource exists that supports the collection of data and metadata and the transmission of data and metadata. And we think that NASA might be able to play an important role in the development of this platform. To echo what Dr. bontempi said, NASA has a wealth of experience in coordinating scientific studies, efforts across discipline. Then in domains serving as a bridge between communities in Interdisciplinary Studies, and studies across different countries, all of these can be supported, got of these can be leveraged to support the work of the other agencies in the identification and explain explaining, explaining UAPs. Nas also has a really important experience in data curation, we have heard about the sophistication of the analysis of the data that NASA provides of the sophistication of the calibration, that the data that NASA shares arrives to, we have heard about the open data policy that NASA data goes under. Furthermore, NASA has recently spearheaded an effort review NASA and NASA partner archival data, to prepare them for machine learning and AI. So that data can be served to the community directly am ready to apply AI methods on it. This is an important experience, then could be leveraged in the study of UAPs. However, we do want to emphasize that the current status of the UAP data will make this lift really hard compared to even what is being done by NASA for astrophysical data. And finally, I wanted to emphasize on my colleagues at NASA has a great visibility UAPs ever great power of great public interest. And this could be an opportunity to really increase the reach of science, help people understand the scientific process, and maybe diversify the scientific community by attracting new talent into the scientific community due to the visibility of the problem. And I think that’s all of my remarks.

Walter Scott  1:56:42

questions already. So on the whole crowdsourcing front and getting reports from citizen scientists, what do you think along those lines? Is it providing a set of guidelines for how you report? Is it open sourcing a set of applications for cell phones to be able to pull in a lot the right read metadata? What does that look like?

Federica Bianco  1:57:08

Yeah, so I think guidance wouldn’t just accept our guidance, best practices, etc, would just not be sufficient. I think what needs to be provided is a platform. You mentioned cell phones, cell phones have been used for crowdsourcing the study and detection of a number of things, you know, astrophysics, in space science. So that can definitely be done. The issue I think, is going to be to make sure that this platform is that this plus one reaches a large enough community to really have a crowd to source the problem and coordination, something that this could achieve, for example, is the follow up that I mentioned earlier, right. So we need this conduit community that would use the crowdsourcing facilities to be connected, so that if something is cited by one person, that message can go across and a broader community can point their sensors to the problem to the fighting, and the data has to be transmitted to the end that has to be transmitted to a place that can centralize it and curate it.

Reggie Brothers  1:58:18

Please feel free to sit isn’t bad idea. But have you thought about synthetic data? As you were talking, I was thinking, you know, given the fact we don’t have enough quality data to train a net a neural net, if we’re to generate synthetic data based on the information we do have, and then filling out the other characteristics, as we might guess, does that help us train somebody to iterate in AI to be to find other correlations within data as we get it?

Federica Bianco  1:58:43

So we do it all the time in data science, right? We do generate datasets where the datasets are sparse, or scars, and we cannot train machine learning models. It’s a risky business, because in the data that we generate, we embed the bias that we have. So we are thinking about the data, the way in which we think the data looks and the way in which the thing do the anomalies look. So if particularly in anomaly detection, it is a very difficult thing to do. To try to make sure that you don’t bias your models to what

David Spergel  1:59:14

you know, I want to come back to this topic of anomaly discussion in our general discussion. We’re starting to run a little late. So we’re gonna cut off questions now. But we do have a little time later at the end. So don’t forget, don’t forget your questions, bring them up again in discussion, and we’ll we’ll talk more more later. Great. So David’s, our next speaker

David Grinspoon  1:59:44

All right, good afternoon. My name is David Grinspoon. I’m a planetary scientist and astrobiologist, and I’m going to talk for just a couple of minutes about how observations beyond Earth are relevant to our Study of UAPs. Many of NASA’s missions are at least in part, focused on answering the question of whether life exists beyond Earth. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. As part of this, we consider how to search for bio signatures, observations we can make of other planets, which may might betray the presence of life. So we look for things like anomalous gases in the atmospheres of planets, and other anomalies, which may possibly reveal the presence of life. When we discover such an anomaly, we don’t conclude that we’ve discovered life, we seek more data to understand what we’re seeing. And often this leads to other new discoveries. Similarly, we can talk about looking for techno signatures, observations we can make, which might reveal the presence of technological activity somewhere else. NASA is also supporting some research studying techno signatures. While there is at present, no evidence, we’re aware of suggesting an extra terrestrial source for UAPs. These existing NASA programs are relevant to the question of UAPs in at least two way is it a known or unknown natural phenomena? Must it be technological? Is it known terrestrial technology. So these scientific communities have relevant experience in determining and communicating about whether observations which first appeared to reveal extraordinary evidence actually justify making extraordinary claims. Second, if we do acknowledge an extraterrestrial source, however unlikely as one possibility for UAPs, then these objects must have traveled through the solar system to get here. within the scientific community, there’s a widespread, but by no means universal belief that there are extraterrestrial civilizations, and we have a well developed rationale. There’s a lot of literature for discussing this, which I won’t go into now, in the interest of brevity, but it has to do with the vast numbers of exoplanets and the timescales of evolution and the possibility of convergent evolution on different planets leading to somewhat similar outcomes. It’s a fascinating subject. But the the relevant point here is that the same rationale, which says support supports the idea that extra extraterrestrial civilizations may exist, and may be detectable, also supports the idea that finding extraterrestrial artifacts in our own solar system is at least plausible. NASA is the lead agency for solar system exploration. It already has an active program of detecting objects in our solar neighborhood, using both ground based and space based facilities. And it could leverage those capabilities to search for objects in space with anomalous motion, anomalous trajectories, unusual light curves, anomalous spectral signatures, or other characteristics. Most of the solar system has not been searched for artifacts or anomalies. And these modest data analysis efforts could potentially be applied to existing and planned planetary missions. The Galaxy does not stop at the edge of the solar system, and the solar system does not stop at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s all a continuum of possibilities worthy of investigation. If NASA applies the same rigorous methodology toward UAPs, that it applies to the study of possible life elsewhere, then we stand to learn something new and interesting, whatever the ultimate explanation is, of those phenomena. And that’s all I wanted to say right now.

David Spergel  2:04:04

We have time for one or two comments or questions or thoughts?

Paula Bontempi  2:04:12

Yeah, thank you for that, you know, it struck me while you were speaking about bio signatures that we do a lot of that type of analysis, right, and our home planet in different capacities. And so it’s more of a comment. But I wonder your thoughts on you know, bringing together those communities that might not work together, and whether that would aid in, you know, not only establishing what’s normal, but to, you know, enabling the detection, or maybe the understanding explanation of a UAP if reported?

David Grinspoon  2:04:47

Absolutely. I mean, you know, the focus of my talk was was observations elsewhere, but in fact, most of what the field of astrobiology has to study is here on Earth, because after all, it’s our one example of an inhabited planet and it’s a little bit you easier to get to to make observations? So, yes, any any insights you have in that area or any any suggestions for for collaboration between those communities would be very valuable.

Shelley Wright  2:05:17

So, of course, NASA hasn’t been researching the techno signature field for very long, and there’s been a stigma with techno signatures for many decades. Are there any lessons learned, we can impose from the techno signature in the SETI community, to the UAP, and solar system? Studies?

David Grinspoon  2:05:37

So really good question. I guess the immediate thought it sparks in me is that, yeah, techno signatures, were kind of treated, kept at arm’s length for a long time by NASA because of stigma, and ultimately, can’t be kept away forever. If you’re, if you are an agency curiosity driven, trying to understand the whole universe, you have to move beyond stigmas, and just try to honestly look at whatever evidence there is. And so I think in that broad sense, the same lesson ought to apply to UAPs.

Anamaria Berea  2:06:16

Um, as someone who has been working in astrobiology and data sciences for some time now, it strikes me when both Dr. Bianco and you talked that the differences that seemed to me between bio signatures and techno signatures fields, and UAAP field, again, relies on the data. So bio signatures and techno signatures they have very well standardized datasets they have collected, been collecting datasets for some time, and they are able to apply machine learning artificial intelligence algorithms. While it’s a totally different question with UAPs, in how we can apply artificial intelligence here. So again, just like Dr. Of Yaga, how she said, it’s about data standardization. So I hope that the UAP field will learn how to work with the data from the bio signatures and techno signatures fields.

David Grinspoon  2:07:13

Yeah, that’s a good point, the one, the one point I push back on a little bit is whether techno signatures has been has a lot of data in that sense. The one part of techno signatures, which is looking for signals from radio and optical, and that sort of thing that’s been, you know, associated with SETI for a long time. You’re right, there’s a lot of data there that we’ve been collecting, but the term techno signatures, this sort of newly being adopted in it. In a way, it reminds me the distinction, we heard from the FAA about a cooperative and noncooperative, that with techno signatures we’re looking, there’s more of an emphasis on finding technology that is not necessarily intended to signal us but just sort of doing what technology does, and finding ways to, you know, so it’s not looking for signals as much. And in that domain, we have not necessarily been collecting information for that long but, But your point is well taken that there are lessons learned from certainly the astrobiology and the the sort of classical SETI field where we’ve had a lot of data and we could look at how that is analyzed, and try to collect the data for UAPs that will be amenable to that same sort of analysis.

David Spergel  2:08:23

Thank you. Close next.

Karlin Toner  2:08:35

Hello, everybody. I’m Carolyn toner. I’m an aerospace engineer, you know, really struck me when Dr. Drake opened up this afternoon and talked about this really small needle in a really big haystack that we’re looking for. And I’m going to talk to you about reporting a theme that we’ve heard a lot, how can we make that haystack smaller and that needle bigger? So reporting of UAP events has received a lot of attention recently. But I think that there are still barriers for people to report. How are where should they report? Will someone take action on their report? Well, the reporter be believed, or will they be shamed? We’ve heard over the course of our fact finding that many scientists and aviators consider the study of UAPs to be fringe at best. So this suggests there’s a significant negative stigma associated with reporting or even researching such phenomena. That said, By encouraging military aviators to disclose anomalies that they’ve seen or detected, the Department of Defense is receiving many more reports. I think, in the time that we’ve been looking at this topic, growing from an ODI report that was something like 500 to I think this morning, we heard something like 800 now so that’s accelerating And then DoD will soon also mandate if not already reporting by pilots, which will even grow that set. I would propose to this panel that NASA can help make it safer for researchers to explore data in the civil airspace domain. Simply by starting that work internally. NASA could look at how civil anomaly data is shared. study how to incentivize reporting, assess the possibility of crowdsourcing data, which I think we’ve heard a bit about this afternoon, or sponsor and participate in conferences on UAP detection. Our team has really only seen I’d say a few unclassified images of UAP, which lack the contextual data that’s needed to understand their true nature. And I believe we’ve heard a single firsthand account from a former military aviator. So one of my colleagues, Josh has an example, to show just why it would be important for NASA to also shout helped shape how the data and information is reported. But before I turn the mic over to Josh, I want to make a recommendation to my fellow panelists, that we consider advising NASA to more fully assess the cultural and social barriers to studying and reporting UAP. And for NASA to implement a plan to leverage its brand image to start removing these obstacles that

David Spergel  2:11:41

go up and that will take discussion.

Joshua Semeter  2:11:45

So you can call my slide deck if you want.

Joshua Semeter  2:12:00

So it’s not it’s not the charge of our panel to evaluate UAP evidence. But part of our statement of task is to assess the scientific analysis techniques that are available, you don’t have to start it just yet. And the and how we might use them to determine the physical constraints on UAP. You know, the UAP reports with the most detailed contextual informations are the ones from the Navy aviators, and they’re using a combination of of ranging, and infrared imaging information. And for these cases, we can directly calculate critical parameters of a UAP, such as altitude and velocity under certain assumptions. And it’s, you know, the main point I want to make here is that this multi sensor approach is absolutely critical to charting a path forward for UAP investigations, and that pertains to NASA as well. So I’m going to provide one example here just to illustrate the crucial role of science and scientific analysis and the role of scientific analysis to avoid misinterpretation in some sense. Next build. Hit space. Yeah, okay, so this is this video was recorded by pilots deployed from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2015. The example has been given the nickname go fast, because it gives an impression of an object moving very rapidly against the ocean surface. And, you know, the question is, is this impression correct? And, you know, if not, what can we say quantitatively about what that object is doing in kind of Earth’s centered coordinate system. Fortunately, the information needed to determine the altitude and velocity of this object is contained on the display. So go ahead and next. And this includes the elevation angle of the camera, the Asmath angle of the camera, the target range and nautical miles, aircraft altitude, the time reference and seconds, indicated airspeed and knots. You know, this information in this video in particular has been discussed quite a bit on the on the web. So let’s begin with the object altitude. Next, please. So knowing the Jets altitude and the bearing to the target, we can apply basic trigonometry to figure out where that object is in altitude space. And it’s turns out to be, you know, provided the range information is accurate, which can have some uncertainties associated with it, but the object appears to be at about 13,000 feet. And important aspect of this here is that it’s sort of midway between the jet and the ocean. So it’s the ocean that looks like it’s right behind it is actually 4.2 miles away. And this is our first indication that some are Most of the motion that we observe the apparent motion of the object is, in fact, due to the rapid motion of the sensing platform, which is about 430 miles per hour in this case. But we don’t have to guess about this. So we have enough information on this display to actually reconstruct the encounter. Go to the next slide, please. And so this is what this is, this is using additional information on the screen, including the time axis. And so we know that this aircraft is backing about 15 degrees left, and you can compute through a simple calculator the radius, approximate radius of curvature of the flight. And you the bottom line is I won’t go into detail here. But if you can get the bearing and range to the target at two locations with known separation in time, you can figure out how far it moved. And in this case, Osijek moved about 390 meters in 22 seconds, and that corresponds to velocity of just 40 miles per hour. And so that’s the velocity is consistent with wind speeds at 13,000 feet. So it’s not our task to conjecture what this object is, but it’s an example that illustrates the type of data needed to determine critical parameters that will help us identify such objects going forward. In addition to the importance of quantitative analysis, this example also serves to illustrate the kinds of cognitive bias we have to contend with, for UAPs recording from unfamiliar perspectives. And Shawn Kirkpatrick showed another example of that this is this is a parallax effect case. Thank you. Any questions?

David Spergel  2:16:45

Thanks. Actually, before we have questions, actually a good moment. China wants to comment on his one of the questions, if we will bring Shawn up and then take questions for everybody, or more discussion.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  2:17:05

Thanks, that was that was actually very helpful for everyone, I’m sure. Just one piece of clarification on the video that we showed the second one that was the new, newly released one had the three aircraft in it. The question was asked about if it was a stabilized background against which the jitter was showing? I am not 100% certain of that answer, it might just be a bunch of dust on that sensor. But let me go back and get you a more fulsome answer. It is either stabilized background, or it’s just garbage. But in either event, the three aircraft are jittering, because of the platform, but that’s another example of exactly what you’re saying, right? It’s the perception of the of the operator who thinks it’s doing something else when it’s actually just your own camera.

Joshua Semeter  2:17:55

Shot in your event, it seems to me that what you mean by jitter, in this case is the plane is actually making motions that are causing a parallax. So it’s

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  2:18:03

actually more than that. So the plane will move, and that’ll cause the parallax that you just showed, but the sensor itself, the a lot of these cameras are in gimbals. For those of you not certain what a gimbal is, it’s the thing that your your cameras sit on your telescopes sit on it moves it around and different directions. Those can sometimes be stabilized, in which case they they damp out the motion of the platform. And in other cases they’re not. And they jump around. And so what you’re actually seeing in that video, is what we call jitter of the sensor against the platform. So the platform is moving, and the sensor is moving. It’s not a stabilized against the target. But the once it’s collected, sometimes in processing, the background has stabilized frame to frame just like some of those tick tock videos you see. Right. Same idea.

Warren Randolph  2:19:02

Yeah, just wanted to jump in here, I think, make a couple of comments. Just follow up on what Josh said and my experience of flying, you know, over 15,000 hours 30 something years in airplanes and both in space and the environment that we fly in space or you know, an atmospheric flight, very, very conducive to optical illusions. So I get why these pilots would look at that go fast video and think it was going really really fast. I remember one time I was flying in the warning areas off of Virginia Beach military operating area there. And my REO thought the guy that sits in the back of the Tomcat was convinced we flew by a UFO. So I didn’t see it. We turned around. We went to go look at it. It turns out it was Bart Simpson, a balloon you No, oftentimes in space, I would see things and I was like, Oh, that’s really not behaving like it should it’s not, it doesn’t have the trajectory of a satellite or a planet on the back of the star field. And every single time, when I would look at it long enough, I would realize that it was atmospheric lensing. It was the fact that what I was looking at was actually flying behind the atmosphere. And because of variations in the atmosphere, it made the trajectory look like it wasn’t going in a straight line, it was going like this, and they’d go like that. And it would turn in the other direction, always was always the case. My brother, Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, and also now a US senator, I was with him for dinner last night, he shared a story with me, again, that he had shared years ago, but I had kind of forgotten about it. And I think it’s worth sharing. And that is when he was the commander of STS 124, I think it was in 2008, they were getting ready to close the payload bay doors of the spaceship. And before they do that, you got to make sure nothing interferes with the doors. Because if the doors don’t close properly, the space shuttle can reenter the atmosphere, it would come apart, it’s part of the structural integrity of the vehicle. So they see something in the payload bay. And they thought it was a tool, maybe a bolt, they couldn’t quite figure it out, they were potentially going to have to go and do a spacewalk to retrieve it. But before they did that, my brother grabbed the camera, they took a picture of it. And when they blew up the picture, they realized that this is not a bolt or a tool in the payload bay, it was actually the International Space Station, that was 80 miles away. I mean, that’s just a really good example of how this environment we operate in is so so conducive topple optical illusions, oftentimes, guys fly into the water. And there are cases where, you know, pilots have rendezvous on a buoy, because they thought that was their wingman. It’s just very, very challenging environment to work in, especially at night. And in my experience, the sensors kind of have the same issues as the, you know, the People’s eyeballs.

Mike Gold  2:22:23

So per what Scott just said, I think we need to take it as an action to investigate an identified animated phenomena to go after Bart Simpson. I think what Josh is gotcha is very, very helpful and shows why we need multiple sources of data, where the radar hits, where there are other sightings. Unless we can look at this from a holistic perspective, it’s very difficult to draw conclusions. And relative to stigma, and I appreciate the reports that our colleagues gave. I think there’s plenty of stigma right here in this building. And I’m sure you’ve suffered from it at times. And I just want to commend administrator though, who’s always be Senator Nelson to me for his leadership, and candidly, courage and getting an asset to tackle this issue. And as we look at what Shawn had articulated that what he wants NASA to do, as we look at the recommendations for reporting and how we need to collate that reporting, I’m very concerned that this could be effectively done on an ad hoc basis. And I’ve been a part of far too many panels and studies that end up sitting on the shelf. I don’t want this to be one of those exercises. And we can discuss this further. But I would call for and recommend a permanent office within NASA to support this activity, I’ll be likely a modest one, what’s collate this information, collate that data, to archive the information and act as the open forward facing counterpart to Shawn and Aaro, I think then we could continue and actually accomplish the reporting, the stigma issues that have been raised, and we could do so in a relatively affordable fashion. Because again, I don’t want to all of our work to end up being in vain.

David Spergel  2:24:17

So now, Jen’s gonna turn to our charts. And and, you know, as panel would we were convened with a set of questions that we were charged to address, we’ve been addressing them through the topics we’ve talked about, and through things, as we’ve been thinking this through, but we’re going to organize the next part of the discussion with Jen presenting these things. And this is also a chance to get into some of the discussion phase. Because we can look at each of these questions as the topics that we make, we want to make sure we address as part of the report.

Jen Buss  2:24:58

Thanks, David, and I Want to thank the panelists all for all of your work? All of the knowledge that I’ve gained from from each of you through this time, I took it upon myself in preparing for today’s meeting to draft a statement that answers the eight questions that we were provided at the beginning of the last summer when the panel was created. So I’m going to read the question out loud. I’m going to read my statement. And I’m going to pause, let you think and reflect and if there’s remember, this isn’t all of the details associated with each of these answers, right? This is to be a kind of high level mixture. We’ve got the major points there. And this is an initial take for these answers. So the first question goes, what types of scientific data currently collected and archived by NASA or other civilian government entities should be synthesized and analyzed prior to potentially shed light on the nature and origins of UAP. So the panel reviewed data sources, analytic tools, data architectures from NASA, NOAA, FAA, commerce and others. The data that we recognize were not collected for the purpose of identifying UAP, which leaves bias in the data that was collected. Even though there is an immense amount of data available, it is hard to access and the sensors that were used were not well calibrated for identifying anomalous phenomena.

Jen Buss  2:26:46

No questions moving forward.

Jen Buss  2:26:48

Question number two kind of feel like Jeopardy. What what types of scientific data currently collected and held by nonprofits and companies should be synthesized and analyzed to potentially shed light on the nature and origins of UAP. Many organizations exist to track sightings of anomalous phenomena in the Earth’s atmosphere, both nonprofit for profit, and otherwise, the study panel concluded that much of the inputs collected by these organizations are not considered scientific data in nature, and that they do not contain unbiased information. They’re not repeatable. And they typically come with eyewitness accounts, which we’ve heard even today, that there’s hesitations with using only eyewitness accounts to recognize or identify UAP. To the point about commercial or companies, there are a lot of space companies that some lobbied hard to get into present to us. They have troves of data, but they’re collected for a variety of different purposes, then the purpose of UAP. And those systems while they are well calibrated, are only one source of money that could be used. Questions, comments, concerns? Yes, Carla?

Karlin Toner  2:28:13

I’ll bite on that one. You know, I think your answer is correct as to what we’ve seen. But where I would go is if we made a recommendation to NASA that we’re really asking them to build a roadmap. And we haven’t done a robust cataloging, we looked at sources mentioned sources that we think might be relevant, but perhaps more robust effort, cataloging would be a good modest start.

Jen Buss  2:28:44

It’s good, I will only incite defensive trying to answer the exact question as opposed to the panel rather than trying to add recommendations at this point. But yes, point I’ll take it and thank you.

David Spergel  2:28:57

I mean, I think one of the data sets that we just learned about, you know, heard more about today, and thinking about so calibrating things is the FAA data on anomalous, you know, tracking events, right. And I think this is something where, if we had, you know, some imaging software people, you know, sell citizen scientists with cell phone cameras identify some event that looks interesting. One of the places you’d like to be able to turn is the FAA data. And having, you know, if there is to go back to, you know, having a NASA responsibility for data NASA makes because a lot of experience in serving as a clearinghouse for data from across the government for civilian data, right. It’s something we do in lots of different areas. And I think there are some opportunities with datasets there and I think the radar data is one that comes to mind as well. We don’t want to forget about isn’t available datasets. Yeah,

Jen Buss  2:29:58

absolutely. Question three, I think goes more towards the recommendations of what other types of scientific data should be collected by NASA to enhance the potential for developing an understanding of the nature and origins of UAP. So we’ve heard now from two of the panelists on some of the information that should be collected, or the way that some of that data should be organized in a manner to make it available for people to analyze that information. And the only other thoughts that I had here was, was really recognizing the difference in the sensor thresholds, right. So we can always tune a sensor all the way to the resolution that we might need or we might want. And as we collect that data to recognize for the scientists that are doing those analyses, the bounds of each of the systems that they’re that they’re using.

Paula Bontempi  2:31:00

Yeah. You know, what strikes me on that one? When you were reading, though? The answer, the proposed answer was, what may be new, maybe something that’s new to NASA in the sense of like, a time series so we can know what’s normal. So we can perhaps identify what’s not normal or anomalous, right? So I’m not sure to what extent it’s like the most unsexy thing to sell on the face of the planet, right is making consistent long term observations. But I think that the agency may be set up to do just that, for multiple reasons, right?

Jen Buss  2:31:40

Yeah. persistent

Federica Bianco  2:31:42

data collection, the agency does that in a lot of cases for us to physical purposes. So the infrastructure, of course, you know, pointing up and pointing at a different distance, but the infrastructure for collecting these kinds of data organizing and keeping it and that does exist, yeah.

Jen Buss  2:31:57

And there are, in their defense, a lot of satellite companies that are doing that persistent collection as well. Question for which scientific analysis techniques currently in production could be employed to assess the nature and origins of UAP, which types of analysis techniques should be developed? This is a two part with what exists today and what should be. So we’re looking also at recommendations. Based on the information provided by the presenters to the panel. There are very few credible analysis technique techniques available that currently exist to assess the nature and origins of UAV. The onset of artificial intelligence and automated analysis techniques give promise to being able to do that in the future.

Federica Bianco  2:32:54

I wanted to add something to that perhaps, which is that really to design the analysis, you need to know what the data looks like, right? So, you know, we can’t really say what kind of analysis should be created on the hypothetical data that we’re recommending should be collected in some, you know, somewhat specified fashion,

Jen Buss  2:33:14

if it’s all hypothetical, and we want to collect all of this data. And we know what format it’s going to be. And we can design analysis techniques around it.

Federica Bianco  2:33:21

And at that point, it’s likely that there are analysis techniques that are that already exist of anomaly detection work, we just don’t know which one will be more suitable, because the data as it should be, is doesn’t exist yet. Correct.

Jen Buss  2:33:35

She said exactly what I was gonna say, Yeah. And that’s what I was getting out with my point not that those analysis techniques don’t exist in the scientific community, just that they’re not being applied to this problem set right now. And it’s hard to apply them when we don’t have the known data of what would go into those. David?

David Spergel  2:33:53

Yeah, I think something we want to stress here is the importance of uniform data in the way it’s collected. Because particularly when you’re looking for outliers, if you have data coming from many different observing techniques, right, and just having a uniform set of cameras, a uniform set of detectors, so you understand the characterize them, right, because this is a needle in the haystack problem. And, you know, every camera to me, I’d mentioned in the opening session, ghosting and optics. Now, that’s going to be different in every different detector everyday. Right? And you. Before we get to the analysis techniques, we want to make sure we design the data collection, so that your analysis techniques can effectively be used on it. Right? If it can I

Walter Scott  2:34:41

take a slight issue with that, which is it sounds like you’re implying that you need a single way of collecting the data. I’d argue it’s really you need to understand the various ways in which you’re collecting the data and you’re able to cross calibrate across those different approaches. Because I seriously doubt that there is a single detector,

David Spergel  2:35:05

I think a handful of ways so that Yeah, well characterize things, things need to be well characterized to be useful, I guess, the way I would state it, and it takes time and energy to work out gross things. So that that’s, that’s, I think the challenge.

Anamaria Berea  2:35:22

So following up on both your points, I think it’s where we can actually apply artificial intelligence. So we cannot apply artificial intelligence on the current data. But we can apply artificial intelligence in a way that we can design characteristics for the data that we need, and how we can collect the data that we need. So

Mike Gold  2:35:44

this is probably more of a frustration than anything else. So I don’t know how helpful it will be. But I think we’re not looking for a needle in a haystack. We’re looking for anomaly in a haystack. We don’t even know that we’re looking for a needle, that it’s just a discolored piece of hay. I’m from Montana. So I love good hay analogy. I don’t know what the phenomenology is that we’re looking for. We say anomalous. Again, this question earlier, what does that mean? nominalist acceleration? Like, I think as we try to look at the data, we’re starting from an almost impossible position. When if we don’t know what we’re looking for, is it a radiation signature? Is that something electromagnetic is that something like that is why this is so challenging, and frustrating to me that we’re talking about monitoring something that we don’t even know what we’re supposed to monitor?

Jen Buss  2:36:33

Let me just offer Josh, before you jump in the scientific process of hypothesis driven research of that, while we don’t know all of the possible outcomes and the entire world, we can ask very specific questions, and go about it in a very scientific process to understand. So you’re right, we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for. But we know hotspots, as we’ve seen from both FAA and aero, we do know some of those conditions that we might be looking for. So if you start with with kind of what you know, are places to start to go and look, and you start with the data that we have available to us, we might start being able to untangle the chicken and egg problem, you can what

Mike Gold  2:37:23

is the phenomena that we’re looking for?

Jen Buss  2:37:27

So we’ve heard them from Sean, I would pull up Shawn’s chart, but I can’t quickly do that. of the criteria that he said on the trends, I use word criteria, he said trends of six or seven phenomena, I guess, have specific size or within a specific motion range. And it’s something different than what we’ve seen before, something we don’t recognize. And so when you go to look for something that you don’t recognize it, it can be pretty easy. And that we’ve fooled ourselves today, and even watching some of these videos of what’s going on. But when you’re able to corroborate that with three or four other sources, it starts to make sense. Right? So something that looks like magic to the naked eye or to that camera, and that sensor isn’t once you understand all of the effects of what was going on in the surrounding environment.

Reggie Brothers  2:38:28

Got a question? Can we? Because it’s not gonna say frustration you do. Right? It’s regardless of what you’re looking for. If you don’t know what it is whether using AI or match filtering techniques, you can’t find it. Right, you can’t find it. So because the question I have is, can we use social media, that kind of thing as a way of cueing to know where something’s happening? Because we know Google searches can lead you to better understand where outbreaks happen, right? disease outbreaks, can use similar type of conflation of data to start saying, well, something’s going on here. Let’s start queuing sensors in that area that requires some real time capability. But is that something we can think about?

Federica Bianco  2:39:04

Can you object to that just a bit, you can find things that you don’t know how they look. Okay. There is a lot of the algorithms in anomaly detection are really based on let’s know, let’s find out how what we know looks like so that anything that doesn’t look like that can be identified and spotted. And then we can think whether or not we understand it, right. And so I think the point about the homogeneous detectors, really is about that we need to have a solid understanding of the normals that the anomalies with the outliers, as we sometimes perhaps more often call them in in science, right? Yeah,

Jen Buss  2:39:41

absolutely. I do want to be cautious of time. We were supposed to end this about 10 minutes ago.

David Spergel  2:39:48

Right. So this has drifted into discussion, but I think we’re doing discussion. So do you have any last topic you want to hit? If not, then we’ll just open up the general

Jen Buss  2:39:55

I have four more questions that we’re technically supposed to answer. All right.

David Spergel  2:40:00

Let’s do one. We can do four

Jen Buss  2:40:04

questions in two minutes. Right? Okay, why don’t you be drowned? In considering all of the factors above what basic physical constraints can be placed on the nature and origins of UAP? Mike, would you like to take this question? Got it? I, in my my notes to answer this knew that Shawn had presented some trends. So I used that kind of as the basis for what basic physical constraints could be available, and also the Josh’s presentation that he just presented of we know some of these are still in the realm of understanding. We just haven’t applied basic physics to understand what’s there. What we have. Question six, what civilian airspace data related to UAPs have been collected by government agencies, and are available for analysis to a inform efforts to better understand the nature and origins of UAPs and B determine the risk of UAPs to the national airspace. So we saw some of this in I’m going to use examples from today to kind of move quickly. Some of this in Mike Frese presentation, talking about the air risks, right that FAA is is always looking out for we know, by altitude and by sensor and curvature of the earth and line of sight. And as you get higher that you can see more, right, so we have a lot of civilian airspace data that can start to understand the nature and origins of the UAP. And determining the risk is based on how much you know, right? So you think about, I go straight to space, and I think about satellites and one tiny piece of space debris, you can destroy an entire satellite, because they’re moving really, really fast and in the vacuum of space. It’s not necessarily so true in airspace, right? But something that we don’t know could have a severe impact on pilots and their flight plan and all of that, which then could really wreak havoc on all of the United States airspace. And so being able to understand and identify what those are phenomena are, will help de risk the air flight safety in the national airspace. Question seven, what current reporting protocols and air traffic management data acquisition systems can be modified to acquire additional data on past and future UAPs? We’ve heard a lot of the reporting structures it was talked about earlier today. Those probably can be adapted and improved and it’s up to us and discussion as the panel on what those recommendations might be. Question eight and I’m get off stage what potential enhancements to the future air traffic management development efforts can be recommended to acquire data concerning future reported UAPs to assist in the effort to better understand the nature and origins of the UAPs. The potential enhancements, automatic filtering of the knowns has come up as a talking point. These are specific really to acquiring data, the tuning of those sensor platforms, the multimodal spectrum collection, and being able to kind of timestamp or geo stamp each of those to corroborate the sightings. So I will leave the panel with that with time to continue discussion.

David Spergel  2:43:55

Thank you. Great to be here

David Spergel  2:44:12

but before I open it up, I just wanted to restate Federica his answer to Mike for hay. If you know the properties of hay very well, and you can cat you go through your haystack and say I don’t know what this is. But it doesn’t look like hey, you don’t need to have a match filter looking for a needle in a haystack. If you know hey very well. Speak to Middle America now as a New York City resident my impression as we go through Hey, with your you don’t want to do it with your hands. But I defer to you on a choice today. I know Yeah, I think yeah. So I want to, in the final minutes we have here before the public session, look to the future. I think a lot of us have looked at the data we have now with a sense of dissatisfaction. And say, what data would you want? And how would you want to collect it? And just think about, you know, we don’t need to design the detectors. But think about the characterization, that we we’d like, what wavelengths we’d like. And, you know, just to kind of throw that out as one way to think about what we might want to recommend.

Paula Bontempi  2:45:46

So, one thing that strikes me in that question is that I’m not totally certain that we’ve dedicated our time and effort to looking for anomalies. I think, by default, there are some science communities that look for things like the genesis of a hurricane or a harmful algal bloom in the ocean or, you know, something in interstellar space. But I’m not sure we ever focused our interdisciplinary effort on that. And I think the question you ask is a really interesting one part of our statement of task, right, but I’m not sure I can answer that quite yet. That’s how I feel about that one.

David Spergel  2:46:26

Sure.

Shelley Wright  2:46:29

Surely, right. I’m going along with Dr. Bones happy point there. We heard a lot from AARO about specifics about the needle, one to four meters in size zero to Mach two, you can then look at NASA’s assets, right? And look at its spatial resolution, its spectral resolution, in particular, the frame rate to get I’m gonna get to your question here, Dr. Spergel. You can look at the current NASA assets and try to say which ones could find that needle, the ones that Dr. Kirkpatrick put forward? That analysis has not been done. So one of my recommendations would be for NASA to convene a group and a task force to look at its current assets to calculate what current available data current data, and current facilities could answer. Insight into that. Now to get to your future question. Looking at this, I see Walter is framerate, I see a really big issue with framerate. So if you want to catch fast moving objects, you need to take quick images. If you want to get to these very small sizes and resolution depending on altitude, where your actual you’re taking your image from ground or space, NASA will likely have to increase its framerate into its detectors.

Walter Scott  2:47:51

The short answer to what NASA’s current assets would be able to see would be really big haystacks that are moving very slowly, which I think is the point that you’re making. But that doesn’t mean that that data is not useful. Because if it’s able to characterize the background extremely well, that gives you a better idea of what unusual looks like basically, anything that you do that characterizes the background will contribute to an understanding.

David Spergel  2:48:21

So we’re gonna have to cut this off now because we’re now going to our our public session, public comment session. So turn that over.

Karen Fox  2:48:35

Hello, everybody. I am Karen Fox with NASA’s Office of Communications. And we are segwaying into the public q&a portion of this meeting. As a reminder, this is a faculty meeting that has a Federal Advisory Committee Act. And so we are under a guidance which says that these meetings are public, and that we take public questions. We got hundreds and hundreds of questions. And I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everybody who, who submitted them. We’re obviously not going to get to all of them today. But we are going to make attempts to answer some of them online, you can always check back to science.nasa.gov/uap. We’re over time, we will make it clear where we’re putting up some more of those answers. In the meantime, we did have to make some decisions. We stuck to questions that applied to this independent study and UAPs there were a lot of questions about astrobiology and other subjects that we’re not going to get to today. And also in an attempt to get to as many of the questions as possible since so many of them were similar. We’ve we’ve sort of bucketed them. And that is how we’re going to try to address as many as possible. So I’m going to toss the questions to you. And we’ll and we’ll look to getting some answers for our public questions. All right. So first set of questions are specifically about the data being used So, examples, what exactly are you incorporating into your report? What data are we using? What are some examples of data being used? Do we have multisensor data or have objects performing maneuvers that seem truly anomalous? Do we have photos videos? What about having the NASA historian go through the NASA’s historical records? Did you interview military or pilots for this study?

Karen Fox  2:50:24

So looking for some information about the kinds of data I can toss to anyone David looks like he’s dumping it?

David Spergel  2:50:32

Well, I think first and foremost, our goal here was really to create a roadmap. Right? So really, you know, we have been informed by some of the events that are reported and we’ve had. But we’ve certainly not done a complete historical study are in an archive. And I think one of the things we’ve wanted to do was, learn what kinds of events have been recorded, learn about some of the ones that didn’t resolve some of the ones that are unresolved, so we can best think about how in the future, we can collect data so that we can get more robust answers. So that I hope that it did address that question. It does. Others have anything else you’d like to add?

Karen Fox  2:51:19

All right. Well, I will keep going. Another big question category was about transparency, and about sharing information. And so examples in this category are, what is NASA hiding? And where are you hiding it? How much has been shared publicly? Has NASA ever cut the live NASA TV feed away from something? Has NASA released all UAP evidence it has ever received? What about NASA astronauts? Do they have an NDA or clearance that does not allow them to speak about UAP sightings? What are the science overlords hiding? Down events.

Dan Evans  2:52:02

All right, I’ll take a stab at that one, I really want to assure the public. And to double down on the remarks I made this morning that this agency is absolutely cast iron committed to openness and transparency, and honesty. And that commitment also extends to I live NASA TV feeds. They provide real time footage from our various missions. Now, to my knowledge, NASA has never intentionally cut a live feed to hide anything. And that includes you APS, of course, sometimes there are interruptions to our feeds. But that is simply because space is a complex place. There’s a vast array of natural phenomena, human made objects, and so forth. But again, I wanted to reassure the public that we’re absolutely committed to providing the public transparency and openness. Those are the hallmarks of NASA. That’s why we’re here today in public on TV, because we want the public to have the opportunity to see the process of this committee doing its work in public. It’s only right.

Warren Randolph  2:53:13

Just to follow up on what I what I said, I didn’t mean to be to joke about it. But in my 20 years at NASA, no one, either officially or unofficially, in my recollection, have ever discussed or briefed us or had any kind of discussions about anything that would be considered UAP, or UFO or anything like that.

2:53:37

And I’ll ask you to stand for one second and state your name. I’ll ask you to stand for one second and state your name just so everybody know who was speaking,

Warren Randolph  2:53:44

it’s hard to just following up on, on the question about if NASA astronauts ever signed an NDA, or anything of that, any thing like that, in my experience of being in the Astronaut Office for 20 years, there was never any formal or informal discussions at all about UAPs or UFOs, or anyone reporting anything that would suggest something from, you know, beyond our planet. Thank you very much. Yes, please,

David Grinspoon  2:54:21

just want to make a quick comment about the culture of science in relation to this question. Scientists by nature are at least intellectually sort of rebellious. It’s, it’s, it’s in our nature to question authority. You know, that’s how you’re a good scientist. You don’t just take someone’s word for it, you try to discover the truth. And for that reason, you know, this question about what are the science overlords hiding that’s sort of written in a facetious way, but I just want to emphasize that there’s no way that that all scientists could be in on, on on trying to hide something because it’s just not in our nature. Somebody told me to try to hide something as a scientist that would just increase my desire to, to, to Belay that order, and to release it. And I think that’s true of our community in general.

2:55:13

Alright, thank you so much. I’m gonna go on to our third set of questions. Which is, has NASA been tracking Earth’s atmosphere? Or are we also studying bodies of water for for UAP? I think that’s a damn question for NASA or? Yeah.

Paula Bontempi  2:55:32

Here’s the oceanographer.

Nadia Drake  2:55:35

So,

Paula Bontempi  2:55:36

you know, my understanding is this is a completely independent study to assess, you know, what assets, what data, what science, what observations, platforms, NASA has to potentially help evaluate and understand UAP, right. We have? Well, NASA has an Earth Science Division, and many scientists that many centers and many academics and other partners out there that study the Earth as a system. We do this from the unique vantage point of space, and the atmosphere is part of that. So I think Dr. Kirkpatrick stated this morning, that to his knowledge, and I think two hours there, there isn’t anything that’s been reported below the ocean surface. You know, and so I think part of what we’ve been talking about all day is, you know, what assets are out there to actually begin to identify data that could be useful in explaining any of these reports? If and should they come in? So I think that’s probably it, unless there’s something else to add.

2:56:53

All right, then thank you. Moving on to our fourth general bucket of questions. What are you doing to solve the stigmatization surrounding the study of UAP? Take that one. And state your name, if you wouldn’t mind. First.

Karlin Toner  2:57:12

One toner, FAA. I think the fact that NASA has called us together here as a panel to look into this, that NASA is hosting a public meeting that we’ve heard, right, it clearly stated, We’re here to be transparent. I think that’s the first step in trying to really normalize the study of UAPs. And I, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the reporting about how to make it credible. And we talked also about UAP. In one of the earlier talks this morning, of the definition of the A whether it was aerial or anomalous, as the legislation now is, and really the distinction beyond UFOs. Right when we’re looking at UAPs. Here, we’re beyond just airplanes, we’re looking at all types of anomalous phenomena. And so that’s just a more inclusive term there.

Mike Gold  2:58:12

Still, Michael, just wanted to emphasize what Carlin said, which is so accurate, I really consider it quite amazing that we’re here having this discussion as the leadership service, great kudos for this. And beyond, I think a recommendation that I’d like to make is that NASA participate in symposia in panels sponsor research, when you have the NASA logo on that sponsored research on the discussion. It really helps normalize and push back against the stigma. I think NASA can leverage its excellent reputation, both domestically and abroad. To help push back on that stigma. I think it’s important to do so not just for science and discovery, but for national security, that we’ve all seen what’s occurred with balloons from rival nations. We don’t want this stigma to be a vulnerability that rival nations can take advantage of. Yes, Dan.

Dan Evans  2:59:03

Thanks, Karen, just a few additional points. From the agency perspective, we are of course, taking a set of actions to effectively normalize the study of UAP. So that involves collaborating across the government, encouraging an open dialogue and promoting rigorous scientific inquiry. Let me turn to each of those in turn. So in terms of promoting a rigorous scientific inquiry, the primary way we’re doing this is by being truly rigorous, and employing an evidence based methodology in everything that we do. That is characteristic of scientific research. It’s no accident that the people up on this stage are true experts in their reflect his respective fields. Okay. So that is, in turn going to help us to legitimize UAP studies, encouraging open dialogue, so by holding public meetings, so Just this one and having open conversations about findings, then we’re helping to normalize discussions again. And that that really goes arm in arm with our commitment to openness and transparency with the public. And then finally, in terms of collaborating across the government, we’re working very closely with other government agencies, not least Sean’s office AARO to broaden the scope, and the depth of our study. And I honestly believe that this collective interagency approach will lend credibility to the study of UAPs. And it’s going to demonstrate the seriousness with which we’re approaching this issue. Thanks.

Karen Fox  3:00:38

Well, that segues very nicely into what our next set of questions are, which is who we are working with. So the question is, who else is NASA currently working with? Or do we want to work with to study UAP? And is NASA working with international partners?

Jen Buss  3:01:02

I’ll take a stab at it as the questions tasked to this panel, so kindly asked us both in what other government agencies are collecting data, what data is available, NASA is partnering with them in many ways, as well as national, NASA has a wide commercial outreach, and partnerships with understanding what data is available, as well as Nash’s NASS is founded on not founded. But the core principles of NASA are with international partners. So the information that our partners are gathering is typically available to NASA as well. Yes, on all accounts,

Mike Gold  3:01:49

and I may just emphasize an ad that NASA is singular, I believe among government agencies, and its international outreach, again, not to keep talking about the Artemis chords. But you see, countries like Saudi Arabia, that we may not have a great relationship with as government right now. We have Saudi Arabia and Israel in the courts family so that NASA is unique in its scope and ability to reach out. I also think that we’re entering a new era of commercial space transportation, that is going from low Earth orbit out to cislunar space. And that is going to be the purview of the Department of Commerce, which is taking over space traffic management. So I think it’s very important that NASA work with and support commerce as we go through that transition department defense is currently responsible for that. And I think that will help us not only to identify potential UAPs, but to assist in preventing contention, congestion, and eventually conflict. And I also want to note in terms of space debris, debris in orbit right now, I believe represents an existential threat to our very society that we are getting very close to an event that could cause real problems for our ability to access satellites. And that’s what I think there’s great ancillary benefits to the conversation we’re having today that it was we increased our capability to monitor orbit for UAPs. That data could also be very relevant as we look at near Earth objects, and other threats. And again, it’s just end on your objects Apophis, for example. And asteroid is going to come so close to Earth, it will be below geosynchronous satellites. So any effort to begin to catalog and do better in terms of understanding that environment is going to be terrific. And I hope NASA works with commerce and international agencies, on Apophis and other missions.

Karen Fox  3:03:29

I think Federico had something to say to you, I

Federica Bianco  3:03:31

just wanted to add, you know, a lot of the things that we think we might recommend in terms of platforms to collect data that will be useful to study UAVs. You know, we recommend a multi platform and multi site that would also mean likely ground base as well as space based facilities. And this has been done already in astrophysics codes serving the sky, from the ground and from space with different methodologies in different different instruments to get a more comprehensive picture of what’s normal. And then that was an ominous, and about every 10 years, the scientific the astrophysics community in ways but many other branches, convened a panel of experts to see what things can be done to advance the field in the next decade. It’s called the decadal survey for us. And one of the recommendations this year was explicitly for agencies that do astrophysics to work together. So NSF, DOD and NASA to work together, share data share facilities and instruments. So I think this is, you know, there’s a lot of fields will benefit from this including the UAP studies. Absolutely,

Karlin Toner  3:04:44

everyone, toner, I’d like to put an exclamation point on how well NASA is collaborating across the government, I can from the FAA, and I can personally attest that FAA and NASA have a robust engagement in transferring research into practice in the ATM system. I think on the commercial space side, we work well with NASA. And all of our agencies are in the whole of government approach supporting AARO specifically on UAP topic. And and you know, it really comes down to good government and how we deliver because we can each work our own mission space, but to cover the whole space we need to collaborate together.

Dan Evans  3:05:27

And Dan, to put an exclamation point on Carlin’s exclamation point. So I think it’s important to say that, you know, we really do have a good relationship with the automated anomaly resolution office AARO, Sean’s office, and its previous predecessor organization, the UAP Task Force. And we have really benefited from very fruitful collaborations among those various entities. And quite frankly, as, as a taxpayer, one should expect nothing less than the government to be working effectively across different units together, it’s only right. That being said, it’s also important to acknowledge what NASA’s perspective is, in this study, and to acknowledge that the the Department of Defense Intelligence community have massively different equities about the study of UAP. And they have different interests. Ours is a purely scientific one. So you know, we collaborate, we consult, it’s a very good relationship. And I agree wholeheartedly with Carlin, but a whole of government approach is absolutely the right one to take.

Karen Fox  3:06:36

Great, thank you. I will move on to our sixth bucket of questions, which we had many on this topic. Is there evidence that UAP were created from non human intelligence? Yes, please.

Anamaria Berea  3:06:53

I will take this one. First and foremost, we are scientists, and we follow the scientific process. And I hope that the gathering here today showed a little bit of a glimpse on how the scientific process works. It’s not a question that you can answer very quickly with yes or no. And we follow the data, right? So as scientists, we follow the data, we formulate hypotheses, we test theories, we follow the scientific process, the role of this panel has been to create a roadmap and a framework for how all scientists that are interested in this phenomenon, can further study can further collect data can further formulate experiments, getting hypotheses can test different methods, maybe even innovate on the methodology side of things come up with new methods for how we can do basically science, but not just any kind of science, but the science of discovery and exploration, which is basically in the spirit of NASA. So just like Carl Sagan was saying Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We cannot make that kind of extraordinary claims at all, for any kind of big subjects in science, whether it’s UAPs, whether it’s bio signatures, whether it’s techno signatures, this question of whether we are alone in the universe is probably one of the largest questions that we’ve had in our history of science in our history of humanity. And it’s not one that we can take lightly. And that’s why we need so many scientists and multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams to work together and many organizations. So it’s a process. It’s a roadmap, and we work collectively on this. And we hope that within our lifetime, we will be able to answer this big question of whether we are alone or not. And also to better characterize this phenomenon, which is UAPs.

David Spergel  3:09:07

I want to sort of supplement that excellent answer by noting that we have not seen the extraordinary evidence, right. I mean, there’s a sense to give, you know, to make the claim that we see something that is evidence of, you know, non human intelligence, it would be it would require extraordinary evidence. And we have not seen that. I think that’s important to make clear.

Karen Fox  3:09:35

Alright, then I will move on to our seventh set of questions. We received many questions about the budget that is being dedicated to this. How large of a budget will NASA allocate how large of a budget is NASA allocating and how large of a budget will NASA allocate towards this the study of UAPs Dan?

Dan Evans  3:09:56

Yeah, that’s a dumb question. So there are two separate questions. In that, which is what is the budget for this group, this team? And what is the budget going forward? I think now, the budget for this independent study team is very consistent with any other of our external review groups that we bring in to the Science Mission Directorate on an annual basis. So you know, we have maybe 100 200 such groups entirely consistent with that. Also important to say, going forward now that NASA has not established a program relative to UAP. And as a result, there’s no associated programmatic funding. But this is how NASA works. Federal budgeting is a complex journey, of course. And the way NASA particularly NASA Science likes to work is we anticipate and wait recommendations from independent groups such as this one. And we need to wait on final recommendations, and then we’ll make an assessment. So too early to say. But of course, that’s all couched in the fact that federal budgeting is a very complex process, and we will always follow the Lord.

Karen Fox  3:11:03

Alright, we’re making good time. And we have one more question that that encompassed. Many of the ones we got, which is has NASA encountered any aliens or extraterrestrial life? What happens if the public comes across extraterrestrial life? What would NASA do if extraterrestrial life was discovered what the NASA study or do if extraterrestrial life was discovered? Now? I think it’s worth making the distinction that there when we talk about extraterrestrial life, we do have a study within NASA of astrobiology, which is not intelligent life, necessarily. And so I invite you, as you answer this question, to make clear the distinctions as you were talking, in terms of UAPs, as well as any astrobiology work that we do.

David Spergel  3:11:53

I would start by saying one of NASA’s big question is, Is there life out there? Right, and a lot of what NASA is doing, in its exploration of the solar system and beyond, is focused on searching for life in any form. Extraterrestrial, I think one of the things we have learned in the past 20 years is planets are common. We knew, of course, about the planets in our solar system. But we now know there are lots of planets out there. So there are a lot of potential environments for life. And I think one of the most fascinating questions is, do any of those planets host life. And that’s something that NASA is trying to address in a host of different ways. Whether it’s probes that are landing on planets, or designing missions that will look for signatures of life around other planets. So the search for life is a really important thing. We haven’t found life beyond Earth. Yeah. Right. I mean, let’s be clear about this. We haven’t found it yet. But we’re looking, and we’re looking for it and lots of different ways. And, you know, David was discussing techno signatures is one way that we can work both within our solar system and beyond. And there’s so there’s a lot, a lot of different elements, I think, of this potential search. And, you know, just to go back to something so that those phrase an earlier question, you know, is NASA hiding anything about this? No, this is actually what you know, answering this question is one of the things that NASA has and agencies is excited about. It’s what’s something that lots of scientists working with NASA are excited about is, is this question of? Is there life out there? You know, and I think one of the things that makes this question of Are we alone? Such a central question, not just to the scientific community, it’s a central question, I think, for the public. I suspect there are more people watching this than the typical episode of NASA. TV. Right. And this is something where we will have meet, you know, media coming to the press conference, because these questions touch on something that I think is really a deep question for humanity. is, are we alone in the universe?

David Grinspoon  3:14:37

Yeah, it just kind of echo what David said a bit. I mean, obviously, this is something we think a lot about in astrobiology, what, you know, what if we succeed, and, you know, we are very driven to try to find real evidence of extraterrestrial life, and we would be highly driven to share that If we found it, because everyone wants to show that they’ve been able to succeed in what they’re trying to do, and, you know, one, perhaps illustrative example is to think about what happened when we came close when NASA thought maybe they had discovered extraterrestrial life. And, and a big event, actually, in the history of astrobiology was in in the 1990s, when some scientists had thought that they had discovered fossils in a meteorite that came from Mars. And what happens is, you don’t announce it immediately, you make sure that you try to make sure you’re right, because you also don’t want to have false alarms and announce something where and then you go, oops, sorry, we were wrong. That was mistaken analysis. But what happened was when the when the scientists were sure they were right, then there was a big, in fact, presidential press conference with President Clinton and NASA. And it was a big public announcement. And that’s what would happen. If we discovered something we would try to make sure we were right. And then we would very proudly and loudly let the public know about it.

Karen Fox  3:16:06

Thanks. We’ve just one minute left. So I’ll let you finish up.

Paula Bontempi  3:16:09

Yeah, thank you. The only thing I wanted to add, I wouldn’t at all liken it to alien or extraterrestrial life. But in astrobiology and exobiology, you know, there is the exploration of our planet as an analogue for what might be found on other worlds. You know, and what, what is extreme cold was extreme heat, a volcano of black smoke are at the bottom of the ocean, what lives there and how is that even possible and things we still discover, throughout our ocean might look alien to a lot of people, right. And we keep discovering new species of different things, whether they be microbes or algae, or you know, charismatic megafauna, whatever they are. But there are synergies. I know there was an initiative years ago at NASA called oceans across the solar system. And the idea was, could our own Earth ocean be used in the life within it as an analog for what might be discovered elsewhere? So I think that’s an example of a potential synergy of interdisciplinary science, research observations, etc. collection of data and information gathering that could be useful in the future.

Karen Fox  3:17:21

Thank you so much, I will hand it back to David Spergel, your chair.

David Spergel  3:17:33

So let me also just answer the one other piece of that question was, what do you do if you see something surprising, right, where do you report and this is something we’re just to come back to something I mentioned, my opening remarks, the ARL is the our lead agency for UAPs. And while we’ve talked about orange, you know, life in this context, most UAPs, I think, and when one looks at the data, more detail, are going to turn out to be phenomenon we understand, we saw this with some of the balloons or our commercial jets, we saw those examples. Some UAPs. And we saw this with the Chinese balloon that flew over is something an issue sometimes of national security. So we actually do want to encourage people, just from that angle, to report it. So, you know, since just before it will transition to summary, but to answer that question, that, you know, to keep in mind that, you know, the AR O’s role is to be the prime source for understanding those things. And what our charges is to think about what’s NASA’s role, and I think NASA, and this is something, you know, will come, I want to now go back to discussion, we didn’t have that much time for it. To come back to, you know, what we eat what we see as NASA’s role in this. I think one real piece we’ve talked about is big. NASA can help remove the stigma, NASA can draw them more of the scientific community in. And I think what NASA can help do is provide standards of high data quality. I think one of the things that many of us who’ve come you know, not looked at this before I certainly put myself in this group was struck by the limited nature of the data that many events had insufficient data. And that in order to get a better understanding, we will need to have high quality data data will you understand its provenance data from multiple sensors and I think one of the things that, you know, even from the same sensor, as we saw, in Josh’s analysis, also even Sean’s showed us when you can observe event over time, and get velocity information, that gives you a lot of additional information. So we’re gonna want things with high frame rate. We’re gonna want things from Oct perspectives. And so I think those are all going to be pieces of things that we want to think about. I think this is an opportunity for citizen science. I think if we can come up with recommendations in our roadmap that point to ways in which we can collect it, people can collect data, I remain a big fan of these things, they do take over our lives too much, but they are fabulous data collectors have. And I don’t know, there’s something like three, 4 billion or them that are on the planet. And NASA, I think, has the prestige and visibility to develop an app or work with companies to develop apps that could collect data in a uniform and centralized way that I think will, you know, most of the stuff that’s collected, is going to turn out to be commercial planes, balloons, when you have multiple cameras, you can eliminate some of the optical limitations of the ghosting and those effects. Some of them will almost certainly be novel physical phenomenon. Alright, I think it is. We have learned a lot about our planet and how the universe works. There’s a lot we don’t know, I think yeah, you know, as a scientist, what is the most exciting thing is the surprises. And I think that there are things that continue to surprise us about our own planet, there’s phenomenon or atmosphere, the atmosphere that we probably haven’t seen yet, or perhaps we’ve seen and not noticed yet. Right. And there’s, I think, a long history in science, when you look back, and you realize that this discovery had a pre discovery that people had seen something before. And we’re missing it. And those pre discoveries were not of note, because often because we had biases against seeing it, but it wasn’t because there was limitations in data quality. And, you know, one of the things I was taught is, when you have a question you don’t know how to answer, you start by getting better data. And, you know, I will come in, you know, I got to do the summary. And as the Chair, I get to, you know, summarize a conclusion. We need better data would be my my take away, and we need more uniform data. And since I’m so proud of my haystack, we need to be able to understand what’s in the haystack. And it’s a lot more complicated than a haystack, in a sense, right. As you know, it’s got commercial planes, it’s got, you know, drones. And, you know, I think the number of drones out there is large and growing, and will be a continuous source of confusion. We were charged to think about air safety, you know, understanding and characterize and seeing what’s going on with drones is also I think, going to be an important air safety issue. So we’ll need to, you know, to understand the unknown, or start to study the unknown. Another important piece is always going to be characterizing the known really well. And, you know, this is the part I think of a lot of science that seems dry and boring. But it’s calibration and understanding the events you expect to see. You know, in thinking about this area, one of the groups of people that people talk to her particle physicists doing experiments at CERN, where they go through the effort of finding extremely rare events, define new particles. And in order to do that, you need to understand the standard predictions well, so I think another part of the whole stuff worry. And I know this is something a row is working hard on in the context of military is like, you’ve got to characterize what the known things are. You know, when you’ve got that F 35, flying past a balloon, what does it see? What does it see at sunset? What does it see at all observing angles, and that characterizing the normal is an essential thing to do to understand what’s out there. So let me conclude the session by thanking the panelists. It’s been a pleasure learning from you, thanking Shawn and other invited speakers that we’ve had we’ve had for some of our data collection sessions, we’ve learned a tremendous amount from you. And also thank the public for their engagement. I think we were all impressed by the the number and level and sophistication of the questions people sent in. We try to address as many as that we could in the session, as you heard NASA, through science.nasa.gov will provide there’ll be some additional answers provided encourage you to go there. Actually, as a non NASA employee, I’ll put in a little ad for science.nasa.gov. NASA does amazing things. And we’re learning amazing things about the universe and our planet. And just encourage you to go there and continue to learn and continue to explore. So thank you.

The post NASA’s Public UAP Meeting Held May 31, 2023 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Although the information disclosed in the document is extremely minimal, it paves the way for further FOIA requests by The Black Vault and provides a glimpse into the work done by AARO and its organizational structure. The list does not include crucial details such as dates, times, or locations of the events, nor does it indicate whether the cases remain unidentified.

The number of cases listed in the index reflects close to the number revealed in the 2022 UAP report, indicating that from the 30 August 2022 data cut-off point as indicated in the report, to the 6 December 2022 data cut-off point of the list released under the FOIA, AARO logged one additional case worthy of cataloguing:

AARO, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, was established to investigate, analyze, and assess UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) incidents and reports. The office’s primary goal is to determine any potential threats these phenomena may pose to national security, as well as to identify their origin and nature. Despite the limited information released in the document, it highlights the fact that the Pentagon is actively addressing the UFO / UAP issue.

The Black Vault will utilize the case serial numbers to file new FOIA requests in pursuit of additional details regarding specific cases. While the lack of information may be disheartening, the release of the document is a small, but positive step toward greater transparency and understanding of UAP encounters and how investigations of those are handled.

As new information is uncovered and released, the public’s understanding of these mysterious phenomena will hopefully continue to grow. In the meantime, researchers and enthusiasts are left to speculate about the full contents of the 511 cases listed as everyone awaits further disclosure.

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Newly Released Document Reveals Index of UFO Cases at the Pentagon’s AARO [3 Pages, 1.5MB]

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The post Newly Released Document Reveals Index of UFO Cases at the Pentagon’s AARO first appeared on The Black Vault.

The date of the report is: 2148 EST 11/10/2022 | 0248 UTC 11/11/2022 though the actual time of sighting may differ.

The text related to the incident, as sent via email to The Black Vault, stated the following:

TIME/DATE: 02:39z 11/11/2022

TYPE OF INCIDENT: UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENON: HOUSTON TRACON/ATCT (I90), HOUSTON, TX, (TRACON)

INCIDENT DETAILS: Initial/Closeout
Call Sign: N1439X
Aircraft Type: PA28
Origin: 3T5 LA GRANGE
Destination: VFR VFR
New Destination: N/A
Remarks:
2148 EST / 0248 UTC 11/11/2022
PIC of N1439X/PA28 reported an unidentified aerial phenomenon while westbound at 3,000 feet, 10 NM SE of La Grange, TX (3T5). The unknown phenomenon was bright rotating lights about the size of a C172 traveling at a high rate of speed SW bound at approximately 4,000 feet.

ACTIONS/FOLLOW-UP/RECOVERY:
N/A

DIAGRAM MAP: N/A

SOURCE OF INFORMATION:
DEN

On November 15, 2022, The Black Vault filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information related to the incident. The result was a visual of the radar data, laid over the ATC recordings. That clip is below.

It begins with the edited version created by The Black Vault to clip out long pauses, and non-UAP related banter. Edits are notated by a flash on the screen. It is then followed by the entire ATC recording, which plays in full, unedited and in real time.

NOTE: The Black Vault has NOT done a formal investigation on this incident. Rather, the page you are on now was setup to archive a confirmed sighting archived within the FAA’s files. Should any independent investigation add anything to this story, the page will be updated if the information is verifiable.

The Aircraft

The Flight – Compliments of FlightAware

Possible Explanation?

Twitter user “Flarkey” has submitted a possible explanation for the event:

By comparing the @blackvaultcom radar video and @flightradar24 data I think the actual sighting was at Nov 11 2022 at 02:07hrs UTC. This coincides exactly with a fireball meteor sighting seen by at least 4 other people across Texas…@amsmeteorshttps://t.co/cjKN2TFPJJ pic.twitter.com/3okQU2zabN

— 𝔽𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕖𝕪 (@flarkey) January 4, 2023

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment on the thread above via Twitter.

FOIA Release Letter

The post “Very Bright… Rotating White Light” UFO over Texas Described by Pilot in FAA ATC Recordings – 2148 EST 11/10/2022 | 0248 UTC 11/11/2022 first appeared on The Black Vault.

It did not.

The result of this case may resonate throughout future “disclosures” (in the FOIA sense) and decisions by military branches and government agencies, all citing the UAP Security Classification Guide.

This video breaks down the story, what happened, and what it may mean.

The post Navy JAG Denies Major FOIA Appeal Further Solidifying UFO/UAP Secrecy first appeared on The Black Vault.

NASA has selected 16 individuals to participate in its independent study team on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena are categorized as UAPs.

The independent study will begin on Monday, Oct. 24. Over the course of nine months, the independent study team will lay the groundwork for future study on the nature of UAPs for NASA and other organizations. To do this, the team will identify how data gathered by civilian government entities, commercial data, and data from other sources can potentially be analyzed to shed light on UAPs. It will then recommend a roadmap for potential UAP data analysis by the agency going forward.

The study will focus solely on unclassified data. A full report containing the team’s findings will be released to the public in mid-2023.

“Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are at NASA,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what is happening in our skies. Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable, explainable.”

Unidentified aerial phenomena are of interest for both national security and air safety and the study aligns with one of NASA’s goals to ensure the safety of aircraft. Without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform NASA what possible data could be collected in the future to scientifically discern the nature of UAP.

The NASA official responsible for orchestrating the study is Daniel Evans, the assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. As previously announced, the independent study team is chaired by David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation.

“NASA has brought together some of the world’s leading scientists, data and artificial intelligence practitioners, aerospace safety experts, all with a specific charge, which is to tell us how to apply the full focus of science and data to UAP,” said Evans. “The findings will be released to the public in conjunction with NASA’s principles of transparency, openness, and scientific integrity.”

The members of NASA’s independent study team on unidentified aerial phenomena are:

David Spergel was selected to chair NASA’s independent study on unidentified aerial phenomena. He is the president of the Simons Foundation where he was the founding director of its Flatiron Institute for Computational Astrophysics. His interests range from the search for planets and nearby stars to the shape of the universe. He has measured the age, shape and composition of the universe and played a key role in establishing the standard model of cosmology. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, Spergel has been cited in publications more than 100,000 times.

Anamaria Berea is an associate professor of Computational and Data Science at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She is a research affiliate with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and a research investigator with Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Seattle. Her research is focused on the emergence of communication in complex living systems and on data science applications in astrobiology, for the science of both biosignatures and technosignatures. She uses a wide range of computational methods to uncover fundamental patterns in the data. ​​

Federica Bianco is a joint professor at the University of Delaware in the Department of Physics and Astrophysics, the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration and the Urban Observatory. She is a cross-disciplinary scientist with a focus on using data-science to study the universe and find solutions to urban-based problems on earth. She also coordinates more than 1,500 scientists for the 2023 Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Science Collaboration to study the night sky in the southern hemisphere and discover new galaxies and stars. She has been published in more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and received that Department of Energy’s “Innovative Development in Energy-Related Applied Science” grant.

Paula Bontempi has been a biological oceanographer for more than 25 years. She is the sixth dean and the second woman to lead the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island (URI). She is also a professor of oceanography at URI. She spent eighteen years at NASA and was appointed acting deputy director of NASA’s Earth Science Division for the Science Mission Directorate. She also led NASA’s research on ocean biology, biogeochemistry, the carbon cycle and ecosystems, as well as many NASA Earth observing satellite missions in marine science. She is a fellow of The Oceanography Society.

Reggie Brothers is the operating partner at AE Industrial Partners in Boca Raton, Florida. He previously served as CEO and board member of BigBear.ai in Columbia, Maryland. Brothers also was the executive vice president and chief technology officer of Peraton, as well as a principal with the Chertoff Group. Prior to his time in the private sector, he served as the undersecretary for Science and Technology at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research at the Department of Defense. Brothers is also a Distinguished Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and he is a member of the Visiting Committee for Sponsored Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Jen Buss is the CEO of the Potomac Institute of Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia. Before she became CEO, Buss worked extensively with NASA to explore policy issues and strategic planning processes for astronaut medical care and cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. She is nationally recognized as an authority in her field for science and technology trends analysis and policy solutions.

Nadia Drake is a freelance science journalist and contributing writer at National Geographic. She also regularly writes for Scientific American, and specializes in covering astronomy, astrophysics, planetary sciences, and jungles. She has won journalism awards for her work in National Geographic including the David N. Schramm Award from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society and the Jonathan Eberhart award from the AAS Division of Planetary Sciences. Drake holds a doctorate in genetics from Cornell University.

Mike Gold is the executive vice president of Civil Space and External Affairs at Redwire in Jacksonville, Florida. Prior to Redwire, Gold held multiple leadership roles at NASA, including associate administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships, acting associate administrator for the Office of International and Interagency Relations and senior advisor to the Administrator for International and Legal Affairs. He led for NASA, jointly with the Department of State, the creation and execution of the Artemis Accords, which established the norms of behavior in space. He also led the negotiation and adoption of binding international agreements for the lunar Gateway, the creation of new planetary protocols and the first purchase by NASA of a lunar resource. Gold was awarded NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal for his work in 2020.Additionally, Gold was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to serve as Chair of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee from 2012 until he joined NASA in 2019.

David Grinspoon is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tuscon, Arizona, and serves as a frequent advisor to NASA on space exploration. He is on science teams for several interplanetary spacecraft missions including the DAVINCI mission to Venus. He is the former inaugural Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology. His research focuses on comparative planetology especially regarding climate evolution and the implications of habitability on earth-like planets. He was awarded the Carl Sagan Medal by the American Astronomical Society and he is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also an adjunct professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, as well as Georgetown University in Washington.

Scott Kelly is a former NASA astronaut, test pilot, fighter pilot, and retired U.S. Navy captain. He commanded the International Space Station Expeditions 26, 45, and 46. He was also the pilot of Space Shuttle Discovery for the third Hubble Servicing Mission. He was selected for a year-long mission to the space station where he set the record at the time for the total accumulated number of days spent in space. Prior to NASA, Kelly was the first pilot to fly the F-14 with a new digital flight control system. He flew the F-14 Tomcat in fighter squadron VF-143 aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is a two-time New York Times bestselling author and was recognized by Time magazine in 2015 as one of the most influential people in the world.

Matt Mountain is the president of The Association of Universities for Research and Astronomy, known as AURA. At AURA, Mountain oversees a consortium of 44 universities nationwide and four international affiliates who help NASA and the National Science Foundation build and operate observatories including NASA’s Hubble Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. He also serves as a telescope scientist for Webb and is a member of its Science Working Group. He is the former director of The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and the International Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii.

Warren Randolph is the deputy executive director of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Accident Investigation and Prevention for Aviation Safety department. He has an extensive background in aviation safety at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is currently responsible for setting and implementing safety management system principles and using data to inform the assessment of future hazards and emerging safety risks. Prior to the FAA, Randolph served as an aerodynamicist for the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Air Force for multiple flight simulations.

Walter Scott is the executive vice president and chief technology officer of Maxar in Westminster, Colorado, a space technology company that specializes in earth intelligence and space infrastructure. In 1992, he founded DigitalGlobe which became part of Maxar in 2017. He has held leadership positions at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California and was the president of Scott Consulting. In 2021, he was inducted into the David W. Thompson Lecture in Space Commerce by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Joshua Semeter is a professor of electrical and computer engineering as well as the director of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University. At Boston University, he researches interactions between Earth’s ionosphere and the space environment. Activities in Semeter’s lab include the development of optical and magnetic sensor technologies, radar experiment design and signal processing, and the application of tomographic and other inversion techniques to the analysis of distributed, multi-mode measurements of the space environment.

Karlin Toner is the acting executive director of the FAA’s Office of Aviation Policy and Plans. Previously, she served as the director of the FAA’s global strategy where she led the FAA’s international strategy and managed threats to international civil aviation. Prior to the FAA, Toner served at NASA in multiple leadership positions including director of the Airspace Systems Program at NASA Headquarters. She is a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal recipient and is an associate fellow for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Shelley Wright is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Studies. She specializes in galaxies, supermassive black holes and building optical and infrared instruments for telescopes using adaptive optics such as integral field spectrographs. She is a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) researcher and instrumentalist. She is also the principal investigator for the UC San Diego Optical Infrared Laboratory. Previously, she was an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Dunlap Institute.

The post NASA Announces Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Study Team Members first appeared on The Black Vault.

Canadian UFO Reports, around the year 2000. [100 Pages] – These documents were obtained under the Access to Information Act in Canada. They are only a sample of the reports available, and were received from the Department of National Defence (DND).

The Chris Rutkowski Archive

Chris Rutkowski is a Canadian science writer and educator with degrees in astronomy and education. He has a passion for teaching science concepts to children and adults and enjoys bringing science “down to Earth” for the average person. Since the mid-1970s, he’s been studying reports of UFOs and other unusual phenomena including lake monsters, Sasquatch, and the paranormal, writing about his investigations and research in various media.

He has nine published books on UFOs and related issues, including Unnatural History (1993), Abductions and Aliens (1999), A World of UFOs (2008), the children’s book I Saw It Too! (2009), The Big Book of UFOs (2010) and is co-author of When They Appeared (2017), written with Stan Michalak. His most recent book Canada’s UFOs: Declassified (2021) details some of the most remarkable UFO cases investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the National Research Council of Canada.

Rutkowski has taught space and astronomy courses through the University of Manitoba continuing education division and the City of Winnipeg Parks and Recreation Program. He is past-president of the Winnipeg Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

He blogs about UFOs and related issues at:  http://uforum.blogspot.com and he publishes an annual study of UFO reports in Canada at:  http://canadianuforeport.com/

Canadian Military CIRVIS UFO reports from 2010 to 2019 [168 Pages, 38MB] – These documents were released to Chris Rutkowski in October of 2022.

Other Documents

The Black Vault would like to thank Michel M. Deschamps, UFO Researcher/Historian/Archivist, for assisting in obtaining the documents below and allowing them to be listed on The Black Vault!

From Michel M. Deschamps: The following list of documents is a sampling of 8,759 UFO files retrieved from the National Archives of Canada.

I have in my possession five 16mm microfilm reels which I purchased from the National Archives back in the early 1990s, and contains an even greater number of documents, including the very same ones that are available here.

CanUFODoc_1.pdf

CanUFODoc_2.pdf

CanUFODoc_3.pdf

CanUFODoc_4.pdf

CanUFODoc_5.pdf

CanUFODoc_6.pdf

CanUFODoc_7.pdf

CanUFODoc_8.pdf

CanUFODoc_9.pdf

CanUFODoc_10.pdf

CanUFODoc_11.pdf

CanUFODoc_12.pdf

CanUFODoc_13.pdf

CanUFODoc_14.pdf

CanUFODoc_15.pdf

CanUFODoc_16.pdf

CanUFODoc_17.pdf

CanUFODoc_18.pdf

CanUFODoc_19.pdf

CanUFODoc_20.pdf

CanUFODoc_21.pdf

CanUFODoc_22.pdf

CanUFODoc_23.pdf

CanUFODoc_24.pdf

CanUFODoc_25.pdf

CanUFODoc_26.pdf

CanUFODoc_27.pdf

CanUFODoc_28.pdf

CanUFODoc_29.pdf

The post Canadian UFO Reports first appeared on The Black Vault.

This journey began back on July 3, 2020, when The Black Vault filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (Case F-2020-00092) request for all records that pertain to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). That case would take nearly two years to process, wherein the final decision denied access to only one document that was considered responsive to that request.

Now, after a FOIA appeal was granted by the agency, that decision has been reversed. Only problem is, they still want to withhold nearly 100% of the information they have released, as the document itself shows very little.

It appears to be, based on the layout, a PowerPoint presentation printout. The first page which appears to be a generic NRO title slide, holds the only information that can be useful. (S//NF) begins the header, which denotes that the document/presentation is classified at the SECRET level, while NF, or NORFORN, stipulates the record is not for release to foreign nationals.

The header continues to include UAP, however, the remainder of that line is redacted citing FOIA exemption (b)(1), showing information properly classified, along with (b)(3), showing the information is withheld by statute.

The information that becomes valuable to a point, is the date revealed on the same slide. However, it is unknown if this is the date of the document, or the the date of an event. What also adds to that confusion is the “-” character that precedes it, which may have another date redacted printed just before it. This may indicate a date range, thus showing instead of the date of document, it may show a range of dates that an event, or series of events, occurred.

The two pages/slides that followed the title were entirely redacted, though represent the approximate dimensions of a PowerPoint slide presentation. Whether they are photos or simply text will remain a mystery, at least for now.

The Black Vault has at the writing of this article, five other UAP related requests being processed at the NRO. It is unclear what, if anything, will be released on those cases, but they will be published when available.

It should also be noted that the case referenced above was filed in July of 2020, likely indicating that the search of documents stopped at July of 2020. A new request was filed when this document was released to see what, if anything, was created after that date. The results from that case will also be published on The Black Vault, when available.

The document as released via appeal is available below.

###

Document Archive

NRO Releases UAP Report; Shows Immense Secrecy Behind Issue [6 Pages, 1.1MB]

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The post NRO Releases UAP Report And It Shows, Yet Again, Immense Secrecy Surrounding UAP Issue first appeared on The Black Vault.

This memorandum also outlined how they ultimately felt that Zechel may have fraudulently hoaxed CIA letters shown at the conference.

For many years, Zechel’s name was redacted. It wasn’t released until a 2017 MDR case by Jack Brewer brought it out.

In 2021, The Black Vault filed an additional MDR case to see if the final piece of the puzzle, the identity of the NSA employee who wrote the memo, could be revealed.

In a May 26, 2022 letter, though not sent to The Black Vault until a postmarked late July 2022 envelope was received, the NSA claims they “could not locate the original, unredacted copy” of the memo. What this means is that the NSA will never be able to disclose any still redacted information either now, or in the future.

This revelation now sits atop a growing number of UFO related documents that are “lost” and unable to be reviewed for further release. Some of those stories can be seen here and here.

Note: Although the NSA still redacts the name of who wrote the memo, the late Phil Klass wrote about this when the document got first released in 1997. He believed the author was MUFON board member Tom Deuley, who worked briefly for the NSA at the time. The newsletter can be found here, and the pertinent section is below:

Document Archive

NSA and a 1978 MUFON Conference: More Lost UFO Material [11 Pages, 4.8MB]

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The post The NSA and a 1978 MUFON Conference: More Lost UFO Material first appeared on The Black Vault.

Below, you will find the results of FOIA requests submitted for searches on Captain Chesbrough’s email address. They are organized by FOIA case number, and what was specifically asked for.

There is currently one case, however, more have been filed, and the below will be updated when they are released.

Document Archive

Captain Scott Chesbrough, Chief of Staff, Office of Naval Intelligence UAP/UFO E-mails [22 Pages, 2.5MB]

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The post Captain Scott Chesbrough, Chief of Staff, Office of Naval Intelligence UAP/UFO E-mails first appeared on The Black Vault.