The documents include media inquiries, internal talking points, and external commentary ranging from scientific debate to allegations of misinformation. The release is partially redacted in parts under FOIA exemptions (b)(5) and (b)(6), protecting internal deliberations and personal privacy respectively. Much of the internal decision-making, legal advice, and individual identities have been withheld as a result.

The full records are now available below.

UPDATE: A couple hours after publishing these documents, I went through some old files, and realized I forgot to mention something. On April 29, 2021, an appeal was filed by The Black Vault challenging the Department of Defense’s initial response to FOIA case 20-F-1095. The original release, totaling only 12 pages, appeared to suggest that the only responsive material was a private email list to which Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough had been added. In the appeal, it was argued that this could not represent all responsive records, given Gough’s role as the primary contact for UAP-related inquiries within OSD and the April 27, 2020, DoD press release that addressed the specific keywords sought.

I also realized – those original records released were a lot less redacted, revealing the private list and many of the names on it.

Document Archive

Note: Be mindful that in some cases, not all emails originate from DoD or government personnel. Susan Gough was added to a private email list, so make sure you watch what information is being sent and forwarded before making too many assumptions on who the author is.

FOIA Case 20-F-1095 [264 Pages, 42MB]

FOIA Case 20-F-1095 (Original Release in April 2021) [12 Pages, 0.9MB]

The post Emails From Pentagon Spokesperson Uncovered on Gimbal, FLIR1, and GoFast UFO Videos first appeared on The Black Vault.

Above Video Recorded June 2021

On February 23, 2021, The Drive’s WarZone broke a story about a UFO encounter on February 21, which involved American Airlines Flight 2292 and an encounter with a “cylindrical-shaped” object moving at a high speed.

According to articles written by Tyler Rogoway:

“American Airlines Flight 2292, an Airbus A320 flying between Cincinnati and Phoenix on February 21st, 2021, had a bizarre close encounter with what its crew described as a “long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile” moving extremely fast over the top of their aircraft as it cruised along at 36,000 feet and 400 knots. The incident occurred over the remote northeast corner of New Mexico, to the west of the tiny town of Des Moines.”

Then he published:

“Less than 48 hours after our initial reporting on an outright strange incident involving American Airlines Flight 2292 as it flew at 36,000 feet over the northeastern corner of New Mexico on February 21st, 2021, we have confirmation that the event in question did indeed occur and that it is being investigated by the FBI. The incident involved pilots of the Airbus A320 being buzzed by an unidentified cylindrical-shaped object moving at high-speed, which resulted in them querying the FAA’s Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center.”

The Black Vault filed numerous FOIA requests, including ones to the FBI and to the FAA, based on the above reporting.

The FAA Records

In this case, as responded to on June 21, the FAA refused to confirm or deny whether records exist on the event. Their letter is below:

After an appeal, on July 22, 2021, the FAA sent The Black Vault records pertaining to the above flight. Interestingly, some of the responsive records found were the property of the Department of Defense (DoD).

The number of records is unknown that will be reviewed by the DoD, but the FAA did release a small number of their own.

Here they are:

DOWNLOAD [6 Pages, 0.85MB]

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Then, in mid December 2024, all of the ATC recordings and radar track information was released along with the ATC recordings.

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The raw downloads of all data released is found here (note the letter above for instructions on the audio files and their channel assignments):

	21-02-21 Video – AAL2292.mp4		1.9M
	P50 FOIA AAL2292 APACHE 02-21-21 2004-2043Z.wav		74M
	P50 FOIA AAL2292 FREEWAY 02-21-21 2013-2047Z.wav		65M
	PHX FOIA AAL2292 LN 02-21-21 2017-2056Z_Exmpt 3 DCRIT Military.wav		74M
	ZAB 21-02-21 AAL2292 AUDIO.wav		13M

.ZIP File of all files above:

2021-002114.zip

2024-12-18 08:07

95M

The FBI Records

Despite American Airlines recommending to The WarZone to contact the FBI for more information; the FBI told The Black Vault in a FOIA response dated March 2, 2021, that they were unable to find any records relating to the event.

(story continues below…)

The FBI DOES Have Records

After the above article was published, it came to The Black Vault’s attention that another FOIA request, William Puckett, received information from the FBI on this case. Despite the response given to The Black Vault above, there were responsive records. This is outlined at the video above, and the documents are archived here:

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The post American Airlines Flight 2292 UFO Encounter, February 21, 2021 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The U.S. Navy has recently released several Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) briefing documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), shedding new light on the U.S. government’s involvement investigating the phenomenon through the now disbanded UAP Task Force (UAPTF). Some of these briefings were tied to FOIA cases and subsequent appeals filed by The Black Vault, fighting for the release of these records that were originally denied in full or stonewalled due to excessive processing times that went on for years, despite “expedited processing” being granted after the initial filing.

These briefings, created through the 2020/2021 timeframe by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the UAPTF, were prepared for high-level defense committees and officials, including the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), U.S. Marine Corps, and the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence (DDNI) and others. While the documents remain heavily redacted to protect national security, they reveal significant details about UAPs and how U.S. agencies view these unexplained aerial phenomena as potential threats.

The documents all have substantial redactions under exemption (b)(1), which conceals information critical to national security. Even the classification level itself is withheld, emphasizing the sensitivity of the briefings. The UAPTF, operating under ONI, led an interagency effort to collect, analyze, and share operational, scientific, and technical data on UAPs in a bid to understand their implications for aviation safety and U.S. national security. The focus on safety and security is evident, as multiple sections in the briefings underscore the frequency of UAP encounters near military training areas and sensitive airspace, where what they also refer to as “Range Foulers” interfere with air operations.

U.S. aircrews have described close and often unsettling encounters with these objects, which often display advanced, non-traditional flight characteristics and appear through multi-sensor detections, including radar and infrared. The UAPTF’s task, as detailed in the May 17, 2021, briefing, is to gather and centralize such data while removing stigma from reporting incidents, encouraging more aircrews to report sightings without fear of professional reprisal. According to these documents, the task force views these reports as critical for anticipating and addressing potential foreign technology and intelligence threats.

Throughout the briefings, several examples of UAP encounters are shared, though most remain heavily redacted. One example describes a UAP observed as a “spherical” object that moved toward the water’s surface before disappearing, with search efforts for wreckage yielding no results. Another incident notes the sighting of “triangular” objects through visual confirmation and sensors, which, like many other sightings, originated near U.S. training areas where both routine and intensive testing occurs. These briefings reveal that the UAPTF was actively working with partners across the Department of Defense, as well as with agencies like NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the intelligence community, to expand its data analysis capabilities. While a specific classification level was redacted, documents also reveal that a framework is in place to use these reports to “cue various other advanced means of tracking and analysis” across multiple agencies. This coordinated data-sharing approach points to the high priority given to understanding and mitigating the risks associated with UAP encounters.

Each document emphasizes the need to develop a comprehensive approach for analyzing UAP incidents, with experts across science, intelligence, and technology sectors contributing to the process. The UAPTF is tasked with preparing periodic assessments for Congress, with efforts directed toward enhancing data collection, analysis, and the establishment of more streamlined reporting standards.

Document Archive

Briefing for the Deputy Director, Naval Intelligence Director, Naval Intelligence Activity – February 27, 2020 [20 Pages, 2.5MB]

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Briefing for the House Armed Services Committee – March 11, 2020 [17 Pages, 2.0MB]

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Briefing for the United States Marine Corps – Date Unknown [18 Pages, 2.0MB]

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Briefing for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) – May 17, 2021 [15 Pages, 2.5MB]

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Briefing and Emails With STRATCOM – July 2020 [23 Pages, 1.8MB]

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The post U.S. Navy Releases UAP Briefing Documents first appeared on The Black Vault.

This meeting, which is highlighted in documents released by the Department of Defense (DoD), represents an important step in international cooperation when it comes to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) research.

The document, which consists of an email outlining the agenda for the meeting, shows participation from key representatives of several prominent agencies, which include the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NASA, and the FVEY partners focusing on UAP research.

According to the email, “The meeting aims to foster a collaborative environment where FVEY partners can share insights and data on UAP phenomena.”

The meeting commenced with opening remarks from Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, then the Director of AARO who resigned towards the end of 2023.

Representatives from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand also provided updates on their respective UAP research efforts.

“Updates from each partner emphasize the collective effort to understand and address UAP sightings and reports, underscoring the need for a unified approach,” the agenda outlined.

The meeting concluded with discussions on establishing a collaborative framework for ongoing research and regular meetings. The goal, as stated in the document, is to ensure “continuous sharing of information and findings among the FVEY partners.”

This FOIA release not only highlights the significance of international cooperation in UAP research but also underscores the dedication of the Five Eyes alliance to attempt to solve the mysteries surrounding UAPs. Lavac’s FOIA request has brought these critical details to light, providing a clearer picture of the global efforts in understanding and addressing UAPs.

###

Document Archive

FOIA Case 23-F-1049 Document Release [4 Pages, 1.29MB]

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The post FOIA Release Sheds Light on Five Eyes Alliance UAP Research Collaboration first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has issued a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by The Black Vault on July 26, 2022. This FOIA request, identified as case number 22-F-1178, sought to obtain records, including manuscripts, videos, and photographs, submitted to the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) for a security review by former DoD employee Luis Elizondo.

Although the request aimed to uncover information related to either Elizondo’s highly anticipated book or potentially other material he submitted for public release, it instead revealed the prepublication review of a screenplay adaptation of Leslie Kean’s book, “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record.”

This outcome truly highlights the unpredictable nature of FOIA requests and the importance of keeping them broad enough with the hopes to uncover unexpected and potentially valuable information not previously thought of.

In a letter dated February 22, 2024, Stephanie L. Carr, Chief of the Freedom of Information Division, confirmed that the Washington Headquarters Service, Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) located ten pages responsive to The Black Vault’s request. However, portions of these pages were withheld under 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(6), which protects personal privacy.

The correspondence revealed the process and timeline involved in the review of the screenplay titled “Alone.” On September 30, 2020, Elizondo, who says he was the former Director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) that investigated UFOs for the Pentagon, submitted the screenplay for review. The screenplay, based on Kean’s book, involved real individuals affiliated with the DoD. Elizondo requested the review to ensure no classified or sensitive information was disclosed, as his “name and likeness” was being used in the “partially fictionalized screenplay”.

In his submission, Elizondo wrote, “At no time, are real names, dates, or places used that could compromise ongoing operational activities by the Department, nor is any information revealed that could constitute a compromise of sources & methods, OPSEC, PERSEC, or INFOSEC.”

The DOPSR acknowledged receipt of the screenplay on October 13, 2020, and commenced the review. The review process was delayed due to the high volume of submissions and COVID-19 related disruptions. Jeff Springer, an attorney representing Elizondo, expressed concerns about the delays impacting the film project’s progress. In an email dated October 30, 2020, Springer wrote, “Unfortunately our client is in a position where forward progress on the film project is stopped until the review is completed.”

Despite these delays, the DOPSR completed the review, and on December 3, 2020, Kelly McHale, a Security Review Specialist, confirmed that the screenplay “Alone” was cleared for public release. McHale’s email stated, “The screenplay titled ‘Alone’ is cleared for public release. Attached is our final response letter and the first page of the screenplay with our clearance stamp.”

In May 2021, industry trades announced the development of Kean’s screenplay adaptation. According to Deadline, the screenplay was being developed by New Line Cinema and HBO Max, with Bryce Kass as the writer. The project aimed to bring the compelling accounts of UFO sightings and government investigations detailed in Kean’s book to the screen, generating significant interest among both UFO enthusiasts and the general public.

As of now, it remains unclear whether the screenplay “Alone” has moved beyond the development stage or was shelved. In 2023, National Geographic Channel released, “UFOs: Investigating the Unknown”, a 5-part series, in which Kean was listed as a producer. However, no screenplays or films are listed in her credits, nor under those of Kass, that may be based on her book or the draft screenplay “Alone” that was reviewed by DOPSR.

Despite the initial buzz and the involvement of prominent industry players, there have been no further updates on the production or release of the film.

The below release package does not constitute the entire records cache on the DOPSR review of Kean’s screenplay. Rather, these likely only fit the scope of the original 22-F-1178 request, which only included correspondence between Elizondo and the DoD. So on March 1, 2024, a new request was filed by The Black Vault seeking out all records pertaining to DOPSR’s review of the above screenplay under case 20-SB-0149, the unique identifying number given to the above review.

Those results will be posted, when available.

###

Document Archive

22-F-1178 Document Release Package [12 Pages, 2MB]

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The post FOIA Request Unveils DoD’s Review of Leslie Kean’s UFO Screenplay as Submitted by Luis Elizondo first appeared on The Black Vault.

• The Department of Defense released another ‘Briefing Card’ about the AOIMSG, a DoD effort previously studying UFOs.
• This document contains intriguing redactions under exemption (b)(5) and extra information that were absent in previous releases of the same record.
• A question in the ‘Questions and Answers’ section and an entire section under ‘Additional Background Information (Not for release)’ have been redacted, prompting questions about the content and why it’s being withheld in public affairs materials.
• The placement of the “Additional Background Information” section under a question about “extraterrestrials” prompts the questions on whether or not they are related.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has just released another “Briefing Card” pertaining to the establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). The AOIMSG was a DoD entity dedicated to detecting and identifying unidentified objects of interest in special-use airspace.  These newly released records were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) release in case 22-F-0381.

The briefing card, possibly a “draft” version, dated December 9, 2021, carries certain intriguing redactions and extra information that were absent in previous documents released by the DoD, which were chronicled on The Black Vault just weeks ago.

Intriguingly, an entire question in the ‘Questions and Answers’ section is blotted out under exemption (b)(5). This exemption is applied to “inter- and intra- agency memoranda which are deliberative in nature,” according to the denial letter from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

When compared to the previous release by The Black Vault, it appears the redaction was absent, however, it’s unclear if the presumed “draft” version just released holds the same question revealed last time and the redaction was placed in error.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of both releases:

Similarly, an entire section under ‘Additional Background Information (Not for Release)’ is also blanketed with exemption (b)(5), prompting questions about the nature of the redacted content, and its placement within the document itself.

The redactions, and even the entire section about “Additional Background Information” was not included in the May 16, 2023, release to The Black Vault, nor was any information referenced in the denial letter as being entirely withheld.

It should also be noted that the “Additional Background Information” material follows one of the more intriguing sections of the public affairs “briefing card” document; the question about extraterrestrials.

“Has the Department found any evidence of extraterrestrial technology?”, the question reads. The answer set for the public states, “The examinations into incursions by UAPs are still ongoing; we lack sufficient information in our dataset to attribute incidents to specific explanations. It is not the purpose of the AOIMSG to look for evidence of extraterrestrials. Other parts of the government do that; for example, NASA looks for evidence of life on other planets.”

What follows is the information exempted from release under the “Additional Background Information” header, but it is unknown if that information relates to the question about extraterrestrials, or if it entirely unrelated.

The redactions raise eyebrows and quite rightfully so. These are Public Affairs records, and their purpose is to chronicle information meant for the public, not to document information to withhold from the public.

There’s a growing public interest in the potential implications of UAP/UFOs on national security and aviation safety. In the spirit of democratic transparency and the need to build public trust, full disclosure of such information is paramount.

Furthermore, the case for transparency is especially strong given the current climate surrounding UFOs/UAPs. With sightings continuing to be reported by military personnel and the establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) which replaced the AOIMSG, it’s clear that this topic is not fading into the background.

In response to these questionable redactions, an appeal has been filed by The Black Vault.  During the course of that case, the DoD will  reassess the redactions, consider the immense public interest, and hopefully take a step toward greater transparency on this important subject.

As the saga continues to unfold, it’s crucial that we remember the public’s right to be informed, especially on a topic that has captured the world’s attention. As we seek answers to the questions surrounding UAP/UFOs, it’s clear that the fight for transparency is far from over.

UPDATE: On April 3, 2024, the appeal was finalized and the document was released, with the pertinent redactions lifted. That release is also available below.

###

Document Archive

FOIA Case 22-F-0381 Release

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FOIA Appeal 22-A-0381-A

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The post DoD Releases Another AOIMSG Briefing Card: Questions Raised Over Redactions (UPDATED) 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.

In the ongoing fight for transparency regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), The Black Vault just encountered additional hurdles that make the effort even more difficult to achieve. A series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeals were filed to challenge the Department of Defense’s (DoD) use of exemption (b)(7) blocking access to various UAP and UFO related documents within the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). This specific exemption pertains to records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, which could interfere with enforcement proceedings.

The Black Vault argued that AARO, along with other past names of similar efforts like the AOIMSG and UAPTF, were not law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, there’s no acknowledged law enforcement investigation that requires the concealment of the requested information.

Last week, the DoD responded to six of these appeals, upholding the (b)(7)(A) and (b)(7)(E) exemptions. These exemptions concern potential interference with enforcement proceedings and the disclosure of techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, respectively, but again the DoD fails to present what “law enforcement” proceeding it would interfere with.

In an OpEd published on The Hill in June 2023 by Marik von Rennenkampff, it was proposed that these denials are “…circumstantial evidence that a law enforcement entity, such as the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General [DoD/IG], is engaged in a broad, and possibly criminal, investigation of the U.S. government’s involvement with UFOs.” Though, no evidence supports this.

The DoD/IG’s “evaluation” is now closed as of August 15, 2023, thus nullifying the (b)(7) exemption use, yet, the appellate authority claims it still applies in their September 29th, 2023, decisions. In addition to that, the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG) stated in a September 15, 2023, letter to multiple Congressman and Congresswomen, “…IC IG notes that it has not conducted any audit, inspection, evaluation, or review of alleged UAP programs.” This statement, unless untrue or a daring but clever use of word choices hiding their “investigation”, rules out the IC IG being the root of a “law enforcement” exemption use. So, it remains a mystery on exactly why the exemption is being cited.

Despite multiple attempts over several months to obtain a comment from a DoD spokesperson regarding the use of the “law enforcement” related exemptions, no response has been received at the time of writing this article. The silence from the DoD adds to the growing aura of secrecy surrounding the UAP phenomena and the government’s handling of related information.

But in a surprising turn, during the appellate review, the DoD introduced even more exemptions not cited in the original FOIA denial.

50 U.S.C. § 3024(i)(1) is a provision in the United States Code that mandates the protection of intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure. This exemption serves to withhold sensitive information concerning national intelligence activities, methods, or the identities of individuals involved, from being released to the public, ensuring the continued efficacy and security of intelligence operations.

The introduction of new exemptions fortifies the existing barrier between the public and the information on UAP, potentially making any future litigation an even more challenging endeavor. These additional layers of exemption signify a strong intent to keep UAP records shielded from the public eye, and present an even bigger challenge to overcome should The Black Vault decide to proceed to court for the release of this information.

The American public’s significant interest in UAPs and the activities of AARO is mirrored by extensive mainstream media coverage. Under FOIA, balancing this public interest against governmental confidentiality is crucial, yet the scales seem to be heavily tipped towards secrecy in this ongoing saga. It should also be noted, that no current or proposed Congressional legislation will fully overwrite these exemptions. Although proposed amendments, like the “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023”, may aim to open up UAP related records to the public, it does not overwrite any ability by the U.S. government to continue to redact and exempt this information from public disclosure. Documents like the UAP Security Classification Guide (SCG) will continue to allow the full exemption of more modern UAP related material, should the DoD desire to do so. FOIA exemptions, and numerous other statutes, could also still fully apply to older UAP material.

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Christopher Mellon, also has cited the UAP SCG as a roadblock that Congressional language will not circumvent:

Although this is very encouraging, until & unless the overly restrictive UAP security classification guide is revised, there will be little public benefit as virtually all recent data, including UAP videos, will be classified. Congress should press ahead for this guidance to be… https://t.co/JLQdPQoMka

— Christopher K. Mellon (@ChrisKMellon) July 14, 2023

This battle for transparency highlights a broader narrative of governmental secrecy. Each denial and every newly introduced exemption underscores the substantial hurdles faced in shedding light on the unknown, particularly concerning phenomena that captivate public interest and imagination.

###

The post DoD Amplifies UFO Secrecy Yet Again: Additional Exemptions Reinforce “Law Enforcement” Claim first appeared on The Black Vault.

As of now, the origins of this release remain a mystery. There are two main possibilities: either CBP took the initiative to proactively disclose these materials to the public, or they were released as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The Black Vault currently has multiple FOIA cases with CBP. Some of these requests were transferred to other agencies, while others remain open with CBP.

To get to the bottom of this, The Black Vault reached out to CBP for clarification. But after navigating an intricate phone menu system, no representatives were available to provide a comment or an explanation about the nature of the release.

While the actual context and background of the released documents and videos remain unclear, they offer a glimpse at some new cases, though much of the resolution seems to be on the low side. The Black Vault will also be seeking higher resolution versions of the videos, along with higher resolution scans of the documents.

All of the material is now available below.

.Zip Archive

Download ALL documents (.pdf) and Video Files Linked Below In One File [753MB]

Document Archive

The following PDF is exactly how the CBP released the documents. They remain in the order they were released, and seem to be a stack of records reviewed, all thrown into one PDF with no particular order.

All CBP UAP Documents [390 Pages, 44MB]

Video Archive

Click on video to download file name to download. That link is followed by a streamable YouTube version for convenience:

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 1.mp4 [28MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 2.1 .mp4 [110MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 2.2.mp4 [112MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 3.mp4 [117MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 4.mp4 [116MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 5.wmv [3MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 6.wmv [3.5MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 7.mp4 [94MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 8.wmv [4.5MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 9.avi [50MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 10.avi [8.6MB]

• Video pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon 10.mp4 [103MB] (Note: #10 was doubled on the CBP release with numbering only – videos are different. On the CBP release, this was labeled “3.2” but the file within the zip was labeled “10”)

The post UAP Documents and Videos Surface from U.S. Customs and Border Protection first appeared on The Black Vault.

Document Archvie

ATIC, The 1950s, and National Security Policy – by Bruce Ashcroft, NAIC Historian [17 Pages, 10.2MB]

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The post ATIC, The 1950s, and National Security Policy – by Bruce Ashcroft, NAIC Historian first appeared on The Black Vault.

SHOW NOTES

• The CLASSIFIED ‘Mosul Orb’ UAP Case: A New Chapter in Government Secrecy Tactics Unfolds
• Two more case denials

LIVE STREAM VERSION

The post Ep. #123 – DoD Makes Major Play To Block Release of UAP Information first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Pentagon has maintained its silence on the leaked image of the so-called “Mosul Orb” depicting an alleged Unidentified Aerial [Anomalous] Phenomena or UAP seen over an active conflict zone in Iraq back in 2016. The case has been left unaddressed and unconfirmed by the Department of Defense (DoD) since the image and case details first appeared online in January 2023, despite the significant public interest UAP have generated, and the fact that the Pentagon has previously offered commentary on past leaks related to the same. The Pentagon would only say that, “We’re not going to comment on remarks by unnamed sources alleging leaks from a classified report,” in a statement received about the “Mosul Orb” by The Black Vault in January.

The “Mosul Orb”, obtained and released by investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, shows what has been alleged as a UAP, captured by an MC-12, medium-to-low altitude, twin-engine turboprop aircraft over Mosul, Iraq, on April 16, 2016.

However, a new response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The Black Vault (23-F-0389), may indicate the classified and sensitive nature of the “Mosul Orb” case, which sheds light on why the Pentagon refused to comment. The DoD states in a FOIA denial letter received today by The Black Vault, that information relating to the case is “classified,” and it also relates to an ongoing “law enforcement investigation.”

The refusal was justified under multiple sections of the FOIA, including ones related to national security, intelligence activities, and law enforcement proceedings, among others​. “The Initial Denial Authority, in his capacity, has determined that the records withheld in their entirety pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(1), which pertains to information that is currently and properly classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 13526…” the denial letter stated.

This decision, coupled with the Pentagon’s silence on the matter, adds another layer to the ongoing secrecy surrounding UAP-related information.

The classified nature of the “Mosul Orb” UAP and the lack of commentary from the Pentagon may further suggest an active investigation into the leaks. The “Mosul Orb” is only one of multiple cases published by Corbell and Knapp, that may compromise classified information.

Another leak published by Corbell and Knapp in March 2023, dubbed the “Baghdad Phantom“, may also encroach into classified territory. Although FOIA requests are still outstanding about this specific case, the footage originally shot of a “cylindrical” shaped UAP, and released in the form of six still frame images, is likely classified. The footage was captured by an MQ-9 “Reaper” drone, and according to the Air Combat Command (ACC) when speaking to The Black Vault, all footage captured by that platform is inherently classified.

“In accordance with general operational security practices and the MQ-9 Security Classification guide, all imagery captured by the MQ-9 is typically classified unless mission requirements dictate the need to sanitize any video footage for lower classification or public release purposes,” the emailed statement said. “The MQ-9 Security Classification guide and the details within is not releasable or available to the public in accordance with its own level of security classification.”

The Black Vault further pressed for the classification level of the footage, but that would not be answered by the ACC as they stated, “Per the MQ-9’s SCG, we are unable to provide additional clarity into what kind of level of classification video footage is by default other what was mentioned previously.” ACC further stated, “Air Combat Command is unable to verify the validity of the [Baghdad Phantom imagery]… but U.S. Central Command [CENTCOM] may be a better point of contact.”  When The Black Vault contacted CENTCOM for comment, they stated, “We have nothing for you on this.”

These types of responses indicate the recent leaks of both the “Baghdad Phantom” and the “Mosul Orb” are classified in nature, and that an investigation was, is, or will be, underway given the reaction by the DoD to other recent classified leaks.

The Black Vault has asked the Pentagon about investigation(s) into the leaks referenced above on UAP related imagery, yet the request for comment, and all subsequent follow-ups, have been ignored.

One other aspect of the “Mosul Orb” denial letter was the use of an exemption yet to be seen in UAP related requests to the DoD: (b)(7).

The use of Exemptions (b)(7)(A) and (b)(7)(E) by the DoD in response to a FOIA request for records related to the “Mosul Orb” highlights the DoD’s growing concern when in comes to their involvement in UAP-related matters. The exemptions point towards an ongoing “law enforcement investigation” and reveal an intent to protect the “techniques” used in such investigations. Is this in relation to the leak of material relating to this case? Does that indicate that investigation(s) is/are ongoing? Or is this a broad-stroke attempt to exempt ALL information relating to UAP and/or AARO, essentially thwarting any effort to get this type of related information via the FOIA? That has yet to be seen. However, two related in subject matter request denials from the DoD came within 60 seconds of the “Mosul Orb” denial, which may further shed light on the tactics now employed by the DoD to withhold all UAP-related documentation and AARO-related material. 

These FOIA cases by The Black Vault shed light on the continuing struggle for transparency when it comes to UAP investigations. It highlights the tension between public interest, potential national security concerns, and the ongoing mysteries surrounding these phenomena that have been documented for decades.

Despite the Pentagon’s silence on the “Mosul Orb” case and the UAP issue as a whole, the quest for transparency in UAP investigations remains. The conversation is far from over, as The Black Vault continues to probe and question the nature of these unexplained phenomena and the role of our government in investigating and communicating about them. It remains to be seen how this saga will unfold, but one thing is clear: the call for transparency will continue to grow louder. Or at least, it should.

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Document Archive

“Mosul Orb” Denial Letter

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UAPx Communications Denial Letter

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AARO Interview of Robert Jacobs and Robert Salas Communications Denial Letter

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The post The CLASSIFIED ‘Mosul Orb’ UAP Case: A New Chapter in Government Secrecy Tactics Unfolds first appeared on The Black Vault.

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

Karen Fox  00:12

Oh, everybody and welcome to this a media telecon after our independent study on UAP, that’s an identified anomalous phenomena. We hope you weren’t. If you’re here for the media that you had the opportunity to watch the public broadcast today, we will have a link for that up shortly, you can go back and look at it. We will be focusing today mostly on q&a. We’re not going back over all the things we discussed today. So we will be leaving the most time we can for immediate ask questions. I am Karen Fox, with NASA’s Office of Communications. And we will start with just a couple of minutes of introductory remarks. And then we will go quickly into the q&a, a warning for you. If you did not have the opportunity to watch the broadcast. today. We have many people here today, we’re going to try very hard to be good about making sure each person says their name ahead of time, you should feel free to write us in the opposite communications. If for some reason you missed the name, but we will do our best to get you all the names as we go. Once we do questions, you will be invited to press star one to get in the queue. To ask a question. Without further ado, I will toss to two of our panelists, Dan Evans and David Spergel. Each one is going to give just a couple of minutes overview of what this independent study is about and what we’ve accomplished today. And then we’ll move right into our q&a portion.

Dan Evans  01:51

Thanks very much, Karen. So something I mentioned this morning, but I’d like to re iterate this afternoon is that this subject of on identify anomalous phenomena UAPs, if you will, has truly captured the attention of the public of the scientific community. And nowadays, the US government as well. And we at NASA strongly believe that it’s our responsibility, all working together to investigate these occurrences, and to provide the sort of rigorous scientific scrutiny that NASA is well known for our boss, the NASA administrator, Senator Bill Nelson, truly believes that studying UAPs is incredibly important, not least because it provides an opportunity for us to expand our understanding of the world around us. And given NASA’s roots in exploration. As I said, this morning, this work is in our DNA. Secondly, we are approaching this study, highly cognizant of the fact that there is a situational awareness aspect. The presence of UAPs undoubtedly raises concerns about the safety of our skies. And it’s our responsibility, again, working together to investigate whether those anomalies, those phenomenas pose any risks to SP safety. What we’re doing now is we have brought together this team of 16 experts, all of whom are absolutely top notch experts in their respective fields, and pull them together in a highly interdisciplinary approach. We’ve tasked them with helping NASA produce a roadmap, a roadmap that doesn’t necessarily look back at previous grainy footage sort of acknowledges that many UAPs historically, we’ll never be able to get to the bottom of because the data are of such poor quality. So we’re trying to assess whether those phenomena pose any risks to SB safety. And we’re doing it using science. NASA believes that the tools of science apply to the study of UAP because they allow us to separate fact from fiction. And that’s all part of NASA’s commitment to exploring the unknown. And doing so with the openness, transparency and candor that were well accustomed to providing the public. I’ll pass it over to David.

David Spergel  04:35

Thanks, Dan. So as Dan noted, our goal here is to provide a roadmap for how NASA can contribute to understanding and in doing so, you know, mindful of the AR O’s role as leading the whole of government UAP effort. But NASA has some really unique capabilities. It is the civilian agency and as its data is open It handles things in a transparent manner. And as such, I think is the best suited to interact with both the citizen scientists and scientists, professional scientists engage with us. We’ve gone through a data collection stage, which is continued with the our hearing today. And I think what we’ve seen is that many events have conventional explanations. We saw more of this today that many of these events are commercial aircraft, civilian and military drones, whether in research balloons, military equipment, weather phenomena ionospheric phenomenon. That said, we there are remain events that we do not understand. But these events tend to be characterized by poor quality and limited data. And I think one of the lessons we’ve drawn is the need for more high quality data and data that is, well caliber measured with well calibrated instruments, multiple observations, and that there’s a need for high quality data curation. In order to assess these events. Where we have not yet made our recommendations, we’re still at the stage of developing our report. So we just were everything we say now represents really preliminary observations, our report will be out, we hope by the end of July. And that report will be fully open. And you know, it’s really only at that stage that we can, we will have consensus recommendations that we will be presenting to NASA. And these will be a report that we will send through the Earth Science Advisory Board, which will pass it on to NASA Headquarters.

Karen Fox  07:06

All right. Thank you so much. As I mentioned, we will move on to the q&a portion of this.

Operator  07:14

And to ask a question, please press star one,

Karen Fox  07:18

star one. And I’ll remind our panelists to say your name first when you when you answer. And our first question is going to be from Steve Crabtree of BBC, please.

Steve Crabtree  07:32

Hello, can everyone hear me okay? Yeah. Fantastic. I should start just by saying, Dan can tell from your accent that you’re from the UK. So I began my career at the BBC on Tomorrow’s World. I currently look after the sky at night, and I was the editor of horizon for five years. So the chances are, you probably appeared in one of my programs. And David Speigel. David, I did a presentation for the Simons foundation last year about science and science fiction, which my friend is a modern who organized. My question is very television law, I’m afraid. But it’s very straightforward, which is, I’m just very curious as to whether you’ve discussed what to do, if you actually do discover that UAPs are extraterrestrial, because that would suggest an advanced technology. And we know clearly what what happens certainly on the earth when a when an advanced civilization meets a less advanced civilization. So I’m just curious as to whether that has been discussed as a group with everyone on the panel that has done this brilliant presentation this afternoon.

David Spergel  08:46

That was actually not I mean, that’s a fascinating question. I think one or probably many of us have speculated about, but not one that was in our charge.

Karen Fox  08:56

So that was David Spergel speaking and we’re gonna go to David Grinspoon, next.

David Grinspoon  09:01

Oh, yeah, again, as as David mentioned, this is David Grinspoon. It’s not something we’ve spent time thinking about too much as a panel, because it’s not really in our in our remit. But you know, in the astrobiology community, I can tell you that, of course, it comes up a lot. What happens if we’re successful and even more specifically, not just with finding extraterrestrial life, but what happens if SETI detects a signal or we otherwise get what seems like convincing evidence of you know, that we aren’t alone in the universe. And there’s pretty much complete consensus in that community that that what we do is share that knowledge with the world that any any concern that we as scientists might have about the repercussions of that and you know, we could have some longer discussion about what we think that may be, but that’s sort of not not our job. Our job is to investigate Get the universe and share what we find. And so I think you will find that that would be the attitude in the scientific community is just to, to share what we find.

Karen Fox  10:12

Great, thank you so much. Moving on to our second question, which is from Marcia Dunn of the AP.

Marcia Dunn  10:20

Yes. Hi, can you hear me?

Karen Fox  10:22

Yes, you can.

Marcia Dunn  10:23

Okay.I’m struck by Michael’s comment that there’s probably plenty of stigma surrounding the topic right there at NASA headquarters. And given that, how hard was it, to kick off this study by NASA? And how hard was it to get sick and 16 open minded people to serve on the panel? Also, considering that they’ve been bombarded with online attacks? And also, why not just call these UFOs? Why UAPs? And furthermore, why switch the A from aerial to anomalous? Because that makes it even a bigger mouthful to say? Thanks.

Dan Evans  10:58

Alright, so lots of questions. How do we start, this started with the NASA administrator, Senator Bill Nelson, wanting to better understand UFOs. And that, in large part is based on the considerable work that he did when he was in the US Senate. But and I wanted to actually pay a major credit to Senator Nelson for, for doing this, because this has not historically been in NASA’s remit. And so it’s very rewarding that he has the confidence in NASA science, to take a scientific look in this because the administrator believes, as do we, that the tools of science apply here also. Now, how do you go about assembling a team of experts to come and do this task. And, again, I wanted to pay tribute to this incredible group that I’m proud to sit on the stage with right now. This is a complex task. We recognize that there is a need for expertise in multiple scientific disciplines. So we sought out recognized authorities in their respective fields, who could approach this investigation from diverse perspectives. And yes, given the sensitivity, and the stigma associated with the topic, it is important to find individuals who are willing to participate in this endeavor and I can tell you that we have nobody turn us down. Everybody on stage is our first choice because they collectively bring an incredible diversity of expertise to this task, and then combined, that diversity leads us to truly, I think, profound places. Let me address another question. And forgive me if I didn’t get to every single one of your sub questions. The term UAP originally, unidentified aerial phenomena was changed by the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law in December 2022, I believe, to identify anomalous phenomena and that was principally in recognition of the fact that one should expand our search beyond just airspace to potentially include near space, and undersea phenomena as well and consistent with that law than NASA accordingly changed our our charge to encompass multiple domains. Why don’t we call it UFOs? I think because of the stigma associated with UFOs. This is a serious business. I think many experts have told us about the potential risks to us airspace safety. And I think also because we want to employ the rigorous scientific method that NASA is accustomed to providing, I think it’s actually good practice to to call these events UAPs, not UFOs.

14:33

Then I could be mistaken, but I thought it was actually in the Defense Authorization Act of 2022 is where this study was requested. Not it was not.

Dan Evans  14:47

The NDAA Scott actually authorized the establishment of the or domain anomaly resolution office AARO in the NDAA that was signed in for 21 I believe If 22 Exactly 22, excuse me, all right, and is Senator Nelson and Astrid ministry to the directors of this study take place for NASA.

Karen Fox  15:12

And for those online, that was Scott Kelly, who was responding to Dan.

Karen Fox  15:20

All right, moving on to our next question. Gina Sunseri. With ABC News.

Gina Sunseri  15:27

Yes. Questions for Dr. Drake, if she’s available,

Gina Sunseri  15:31

will you talk about the roadmap to this?

Gina Sunseri  15:34

But what would the roadblocks beat that roadmap?

Gina Sunseri  15:37

What are the hurdles that need to be overcome?

Nadia Drake  15:44

Hi Gina,

Nadia Drake  15:45

thank you for the question. This is Nadia,

Nadia Drake  15:47

I think I’m actually going to toss that one over to Dr. Spergel,

Nadia Drake  15:50

our chair to address what the possible roadblocks could be.

David Spergel  15:57

I mean, I think there’s a lot of different kinds of robots. I mean, a lot of them are so I feel in addressing this issue. We steer between the rocks and the cyclone, we have a community of people who are completely convinced of the existence of UFOs. And we have a community of people who think addressing this question is ridiculous. Because you have Oh, students, you know, everything can be explained. And so to me, that’s the greatest roadblock we we want faces here. And I think as scientists, the way to approach questions is you start by saying, We don’t know. And then you collect data, and you try to calibrate your data well, and to go to an analogy we talked about earlier. The first step, if you want to find needles in haystacks or don’t even know to look, what you’re looking for, is you want to learn and characterize the haystack really well. And if you understand a well and how you measure and observe a well, you can find things. But that’s that’s not an approach that we have a community, I think the biggest challenge is you have community out there that says that haystack is filled with gold, and another community saying it’s not to look in a haystack for anything interesting. There’s nothing there. So I think to me, that’s the greatest challenge in this area. That’s right. Josh Smith

Karen Fox  18:00

matter. All right, I’m gonna move on to the next question, which is Bill Harwood with CBS News.

Bill Harwood  18:10

Thank you very much. This is for anyone really, but when you say there are events that, you know, after you’ve ruled out things that are obvious that there are some events that simply can’t be understand, understood at this point? What does that actually mean? And what I’m asking you is, is that more a case of the data that you have either due to quality, the age of it subjective accounts, whatever, that the data just isn’t good enough to reach a conclusion? Or does it mean the data might be good, but what you’re seeing is something that cannot be understood in terms of known technology? Or is it both?

Karen Fox  18:43

Alright, Federica, Bianco Hi.

Frederica Bianco  18:46

So I think you actually hit the nail in the head. The data that we have seen is generally sparse, poor, difficult to analyze. And in the cases in which it’s best, we can determine the nature of the things that look weird, even if they look clear by you know, re measuring them or accurately and accurately finding out that they don’t move so fast, after all, and so on. There are many cases in which we might be under the impression that there might be something anomalous that the data is not provisioned to support an analysis that would allow us to really understand either the shape or the behavior in motion, or the relativity property of the object. So it just cannot be said with the current data. It’s very possible that with better data that will be reconciled with a known phenomenon.

Karen Fox  19:42

All right. Moving on to our next question, we have Marina Koren from the Atlantic.

Marina Koren  19:50

Hi, thank you. I have two questions. The first is for any panelists who would like to take it? Can you tell us more about the online harassment that you receive? Were you surprised to get such harassment? And then a question for either David Spergel, or David Grinspoon, or both David’s you said near the end of today’s meeting that scientists are looking for life beyond Earth? Actively, obviously, and you mentioned techno signatures as one way that you’re doing that. You both also said that NASA should help remove the stigma around UAP. So do you think that NASA should consider the study and analysis of UAP as a way of looking for evidence of life beyond Earth? Thank you.

Karen Fox  20:34

Great, really start with Dan Evans.

Dan Evans  20:36

Okay, so I’m going to address the first question, which was surrounding online harassment as the panelists. And although I won’t get into specifics, I will point out that if you were watching the NASA YouTube feed this afternoon, and looking at the live chat that’s on the side of that panel, then you can sort of see some of the the online trolling. That just is, that’s really the tip of the iceberg. I think the important point is actually this, that if we are truly to approach UAP, with an unwavering commitment, and dedication to the scientific process, then harassment of any nature only serves to detract from that process. And of course, we see this not just in in UAP, but in other fields of science, as well. I will underscore something that I said earlier today is that every single member of our team is a respected authority in their field. They have NASA’s complete and total support. And this is hard work. It’s serious work. And if we are truly to respect the sanctity of the scientific process, that we allow, need to allow science, indeed, to be free, and that freedom stems directly from an absence of harassment to this incredible team of panelists.

Karen Fox  22:14

All right, and really, the second question was to either David Spergel, or David Grinspoon. Yeah,

David Grinspoon  22:21

this is David Grinspoon, it’s an interesting question, because, you know, as I indicated in my talk, during the panel, there is conceptually a connection, perhaps, between astrobiology and SETI and the study of UAPs. In that, you know, it’s a big universe. And we have to admit that there are things out there, we don’t understand. And in fact, in some of those, not well understood or not, not understood, phenomenon may be really important clues to, you know, things like two important mysteries that we want to understand. If you were giving me a finite pot of resources, right now to look for bio signatures and techno signatures, would I put some of that those resources into studying UAPs? Personally, probably not. Because, as we said, we haven’t seen any evidence that indicates that UAPs have anything to do with extraterrestrial phenomena. So so to me, it’s much more straightforward as as a application of our curiosity about extraterrestrial life to look at exoplanets to look elsewhere in the solar system. So I don’t, we don’t have reason yet to explicitly explicitly connect UAPs. With that study in that way, however, as long as there’s a mystery, bait on Earth, or wherever we have to pursue it. And if the data leads us to, to realize that it does have something to do with extraterrestrial life, of course, we’ll be enthralled and fascinated by that and will want to pursue it. But at this point, we don’t really have any explicit data that suggests to us that there’s a connection between UAPs and extraterrestrial life.

Karen Fox  24:13

Thank you so much. Moving on to the next question, which is from Jeff Brumfield of NPR.

Jeff Brumfield  24:20

Oh, Hi, there. I am sorry, to kind of belabor Marina question, but actually, the online chat for the livestream was close to at least on YouTube. So I was wondering if you could just be I’m not asking for names just a little more explicit about the type of harassment isn’t harassment you’re receiving from people who believe aliens are real or people who believe this is a ridiculous question or both sort of gay back to David’s burgles rock and hard place point.

Karen Fox  24:51

So just before I pass that question off, I would like to point out that there were in fact, two YouTube videos going live today. One has had all of that. And we will be sharing, you know, there will be a permanent version going up. So you’ll be able to watch watch. But I do think it is one of the best places to see an example. Because we’re, of course, in a position where, you know, based on privacy and security reasons, we’re not able to give examples.

Jeff Brumfield  25:16

No, no, just a general sense of where this, which can be, you know, you don’t have to point fingers just more of a general sense of what’s going on.

Karen Fox  25:24

Right, Dan Evans will give a response.

Dan Evans  25:27

I think every one of the 16 Strong panel, plus myself receives on a on a daily basis, emails of all sorts concerning this subject, but we’re not talking about that we’re talking about specific attacks on the character of individuals and their suitability to sit on this panel. And again, that’s really just scratching the surface. I’ll go back to the remark I made previously that if we are to follow science, which is exactly what the American public expects of this agency, then science needs to be free to conduct its process. And I think Paul has got a follow up.

Paula Bontempi  26:19

Yeah. This is Paula Bontempi. I just wanted to add to that. Two things. First, you know, the, when the panel was announced, I’m an oceanographer by trade, and I’m the dean of a Graduate School of oceanography. And I had a lot of people asking what possible role an oceanographer could play on this panel. And I’m, you know, I’m a satellite oceanographer. I’m also an optical oceanographer. And so one of the points I think the panel has repeatedly made today is about how, when you blend multiple communities that do and utilize different observations and data and analyses, for their science together, we tend to really break boundaries and push new frontiers in discovery. And that is exactly what NASA is about. And I would add one thing to it, and I would not call it harassment. But one of the really interesting accounts that we did get first person was by somebody who was a pilot who had witnessed an anomalous event and reported it. And the one thing that that person said was how many people would contact that person and just want to give their account of what they had experienced? This goes to the stigma of reporting, these were people that had a story to tell and didn’t know where to tell it or didn’t feel safe telling it. And I think the other thing we’ve covered today is how to go about D stigmatizing reporting. Right? That also gives us more data with which to address understanding, reported events. So I think it all goes hand in hand.

Karen Fox  28:10

Thanks so much. Our next question is from Joey Roulette with Reuters.

Joey Roulette  28:17

Thanks. I don’t know who is best to answer this question. But

Joey Roulette  28:21

it’s about I guess, the overcoming the issue of the low calibrated data. Do you? Does this panel expect to recommend that a satellite or any kind of other sensor system should be dedicated to spotting UAPs? Or UFOs?

Joey Roulette  28:35

What would that look like? Exactly? And

Joey Roulette  28:38

also UAP now encompasses near space, was space part of the study? Are any of your findings? And if not, why did that not, you know, produce any kind of data

Joey Roulette  28:50

that was discussed today? Sorry, I

Joey Roulette  28:51

missed something on that front. But yeah.

David Spergel  28:54

So I don’t think we will this David Spergel. You know, while we haven’t reached our conclusions, yet, I do not think we’d be recommending a dedicated satellite. Satellites cover a relatively small, you have a trade off with a satellite, you can either cover a lot of the planet at very low resolution, far too low to yield anything interesting here or you can cover only a very small portion of the planet. So I think a dedicated satellite would not be very effective approach. We have been discussing ways in which you can engage citizen scientists engage the public in ways in which they could help collect data take advantage of an interest that will require well calibrated instruments. You know, I think we will be thinking through potential recommendations in that area. And you know, and see where we go from there, but I do not see just the limitations of a on how many pixels you have on a satellite, it’s a big planet, to cover at the resolution that you would need to continuously look for for events.

Karen Fox  30:13

Thank you very much. Our next question is from Shane Harris with the Washington Post.

Shane Harris  30:20

Hey, there, thanks for doing this related questions regarding the data that you had access to? Did you have access to military or intelligence agency data, including things like radar tracking information? And did the panel have any access to classified information sources? And if the answer is no to any of those, would that kind of information be more helpful in reaching more definitive conclusions?

David Spergel  30:47

The answer is no. This is an unclassified panel, we didn’t have that. role would, you know, I think background noise there was really more to provide a roadmap to NASA on how we can contribute. The Aaro is charged with being the lead CNS, they have access to the classified data, have issued regular reports on this and plan to issue additional reports, it’s really their responsibility to look through the classified data. I hope that was clear. We had a lot of background noise. Yep, that’s clear. Thanks

Karen Fox  31:31

And Dan Evans wanted to weigh in as well. Yeah, thanks.

Dan Evans  31:34

So just on score a few things that David said the focus our focus on unclassified data. It’s a strategic choice. And it’s meant to prioritize transparency and public engagement. And by working with unclassified data uniquely, we at NASA can share our findings and methods with the public and the scientific community. And that’s important because it allows open discussion, independent verification of the results. And of course, those are key principles in scientific research. Not only that the use of classified data allows for wider collaboration, not just within the US government, but also with our international partners, our our academia, partners, and of course, private industry, it’s important to note that the use of classified data doesn’t necessarily preclude collaboration with agencies that handle classified information, such as the automated anomaly resolution office. And yeah, such collaboration can occur as appropriate and necessary. But really, the focus of this work is on unclassified.

David Spergel  32:36

So this is David’s for let me just add something on classification, which is most data is classified. That’s how it’s taken, not what’s in the image. You know, if an F 35 takes a picture of a bird, it’s classified with military intelligence satellite, satellite takes an image of a balloon from space, it’s classified. So, you know, in many cases around these events, the classification is done not to, to hide the nature of the event, but in order to protect our our technical capabilities for for studying and assessing threats from potential adversaries.

Karen Fox  33:25

Thank you so much. Our next question is from Tim Fernholz with quartz.

Tim Fernholz  33:33

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us about this and for holding the public meeting, just to maybe get you to talk a little bit more about what you might predict. Obviously, you mentioned you’re not interested in the NASA satellite for this. But based on the findings so far, is there any thought that NASA should have a program or program office dedicated towards thinking about UAPs in their research?

Mike Gold  33:59

So as I might go, look best on radio. As we mentioned previously, during the panel, I’ve been part of far too many Blue Ribbon studies and groups have produced reports that have just laid on the shelf. I think we have an inflection point opportunity here to the leadership that administrator Nelson has shown to institutionalize this and be able to tackle the issues that we’ve laid out in a comprehensive in serious fashion. And I think that requires a permanent office at NASA to effectively deal with the issues that we’ve laid out. None of the topics or challenges here can be dealt with quickly. And it really requires a permanent solution. And I think that could be implemented for a modest financial costs. So that’s certainly something at least I personally, will be pushing and recommending that we proceed with if you don’t To visualize something at NASA, the fear is it can go way far too quickly.

Karen Fox  35:07

Thank you so much. Our next question Oh, wait, I take it back then of influence the way into

Dan Evans  35:13

budget land. The very fact, of course, that we’re standing up this team and doing it in an extremely public setting, you know that, that tells you that NASA takes this issue seriously. But it’s also true to say that the funding going forward is going to be determined within the larger context of NASA’s overall budget. That is, of course annually by Congress. And the specifics are going to differ depend on a variety of factors. That includes the extent of the work required resources and an alignment of the UAP study with NASA’s overall mission and goals. As you know, of course, our budget is publicly available. Any allocation for this agency would make regarding UAP will be transparent, subject to public and congressional scrutiny as well it should be.

Karen Fox  36:09

Alright, now we’re moving on to the next question, which is from Brett Tingley with space.com.

Brett Tingley  36:17

Hello, thank you all for doing this. Given that the concepts of replicability and reproducibility are so fundamental to the scientific method, to what extent can such an unpredictable and ephemeral phenomenon such as UAP truly fit into a scientific framework, given we can’t predict when or where UAP will appear, and that there’s such a severe lack of data as outlined in the panel before

Karen Fox  36:43

going to David Spergel for that, and then to Federica Bianco.

David Spergel  36:46

So this is one where in the discussions I, earlier on I talked about Fast radio bursts. This is something we’re actually used to in astronomy, some of the most interesting things are bursts that go off at unpredictable times, and unpredictable locations. And history of Fast Radio versus here, I think, are instructive. And that when they were first seen, they would doubt it, people weren’t sure they were there. Turned out that a class of Fast Radio Bursts turned out to be associated with microwave ovens that were where the doors were open before they were turned off. That produced a distinctive signal that was identified. But ultimately, the Fast Radio Bursts turned out to be a exciting cosmological phenomenon. One who’s discoverers just won the Shaw Prize yesterday. So that kind of shows, sometimes, you know, that very much wasn’t an anomaly. Sometimes anomalies are really interesting, and point to novel physical phenomenon. And I think there’s a number of interesting lessons learned there. When you know, initially, you often find things that are intriguing, you have to study their nature, sometimes they will turn out to have conventional explanations. But ultimately, in order to really detect and study or not, you know, anomalous events that are unpredictable, you have to decide figure out ways in which you can do dedicated observations and optimize your observational strategy to be able to do that. And I think that’s, as we think about UAPs, I think we’re informed by previous successes in identifying anomalies.

Karen Fox  38:53

Federico Bianca was gonna go, but I think she feels that I think David David covered it. Fantastic. We’ll move on to our next question, which is from Brandi Vincent, of defense.

Brandi Vincent  39:08

Thank you. And thank you all so much for doing this today. First, and I’m sorry if I missed this one. But who is the new NASA Science Advisor that’s embedding in AARO? And is someone from DOD and betting at NASA? Tell me a little bit more about sort of what to expect and your thinking there. And then separately, you’ve confirmed that unclassified data isn’t being used for NASA’s current studies by these outside experts. What’s your response to criticism that if NASA is not using classified MASINT or SIGINT data held by NGA, DIA and other DoD archives, that maybe it’s not getting a full and accurate assessment for the public?

Dan Evans  39:53

Okay, so I can respond to those. This is Dan Evans again. Yes, so we are shortly to send over a liaison officer to the Department of Defense, their or domain anomaly resolution office. This is Mark McInerney. He’s sitting in the audience. He is a tremendous expert on large scale curation of data. He is an employee of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. And he really runs the show when it comes to our Earth Observing assets. All that being said, I want to underscore again, that NASA’s interests in UAP do differ from the Pentagon, and from the intelligence community, we are adopting a science focus here. And it’s good because we believe that science has a seat at the table. Individuals such as Mark can translate into both domains between unclassified and classified data. But I will foot stomp a remark I made earlier, namely, that we see true benefit to this team working solely on unclassified data. Because when you restrict yourself to those types of data, you can collaborate freely, with academia, with industry, with international partners, and we need as many eyes on this subject as possible. So there’s actually a huge advantage about it. And also, we can speak about it in public. Again, huge benefit for us to do it like this.

Karen Fox  41:42

Thank you. Moving on to Andrea Leinfelder with the Houston Chronicle.

Andrea Leinfelder  41:49

Hi, I, thanks for taking the questions. First, I want to double check the AR o stat. It said there have been more than 800 UAP sightings collect in the past 27 years. And of those maybe two to 5% are truly anomalous, is that correct? And then second, you know, data has been a really big part of the conversation a day. But I’m really struggling to explain it just a very simple way, how we are going to collect better data, you know, you’ve talked about multiple sources, maybe using existing assets. But if you just kind of give me more of a direct answer on how to collect better data for this random event, thank you.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  42:31

This is Dr. Kirkpatrick from AARO. Those stats are correct. It’s we’re currently tracking over 800 cases. In few percent of those are truly anomalous, those numbers are going to change. They change weekly. And in our our file, our annual report coming up here this summer, you’ll get new numbers that have come out. My hope is that as we build out our website, those statistics will be kept up in real time. So people can just take a look at where we are in the picture. To answer your second question, I’ll start and then I’ll hand it over to you guys. From a how do we get better data perspective, I spoke a little bit this morning about analyzing the data sets that exist in current sensors, whether that’s FAA sensors or overhead sensors, to look at what sensors can actually see the types of things that we’re looking for, which I also spoke about this morning. And then further, we’ve got some purpose built surveillance systems that we’re deploying for just that purpose to look for search and track any of these objects over long periods of time so that we can get a baseline pattern analysis and a life analysis so that we can understand what’s normal, and what’s not normal. And then from there, we will bootstrap ourselves up into what sort of signatures are we picking out? And how do we refine our collection architecture to go after that? This will take time working through the data and the signatures that we have, it’ll be a little bit of searching of some old data, it’ll be looking at dedicated sensors in the future. Dan or David overdue?

David Spergel  44:25

Yeah. So something we are thinking about, and this is I would, you know, as I said at the beginning, we’re still we’re not yet written our report. We’re still in the stage of deliberating is the use of cell phones. We have there’s a water terminal three to 4 billion cell phones in the world. It’s a great citizen science opportunity. And cell phones record not only images, we’re all used to cell phone cameras, but they measure the local magnetic field Are there Graviton monitors, they measure sound, then they encode enormous amount of information about the environment around them. They pick up GPS signals, so have accurate timestamps and location stamps. And something that I think a number of us have been thinking about is, you know, potentially making a recommendation about NASA inlet, either internally, or, more likely externally enlisting a company to develop an app that could record data on cell phones, and then perhaps supporting the development of a website in which this data would be uploaded. If and if you have something seen by multiple cell phones, with good timestamp, data’s at multiple angles, you’re able to infer the location and velocity of that object. Most of the time, that will tell you it’s a plane, it’s a balloon, whatever. And if it’s something novel, you have high quality, uniformly selected data that can be used, and then combined with other data sets, like radar data, overhead data. And you I think the way one would want to understand really, you know, first eliminate the normal and then identify anything interesting is have multi-platform data that one can combine in an interesting way. And I think that’s, I think the way a number of us are thinking about how we might approach this,

Karen Fox  46:41

and Federica Bianco.

Frederica Bianco  46:42

Yeah, just to add that one of the things we emphasize multiple times today already is that the data needs to be well calibrated. So not only do we need to collect large amounts of data, but the information of the metadata so the information about the data has to be collected at the same time. So really, an ideal platform will give you not only the data, but also a wealth of information about the sensor that then allows you to really understand the context in which the data will stay.

Karen Fox  47:10

Thank you. We have about 10 minutes left and many, many questions. So I am going to try and get through as many as we can. But please note when you ask your question, and when you answer it, we might start picking up the pace a little bit, even though I know that’s not what any of us prefer to do. Alright, so our next question is Leonard David with Scientific American.

Leonard David  47:30

You know, thanks for doing this. I guess the question I’ve got is, you know, to what extent is the term UAP giving the folklore kind of mystique of UFOs and we’re talking Roswell crash, recovered aliens, public encounters, you know, on and on. Is that term UAP? Could it have nothing to do with a possibility? Other star folk visiting here?

Karen Fox  48:04

Okay, we have somebody, Mike, are you going to jump in? But

Mike Gold  48:09

Hey, Leonard, it’s good to hear your voice. This is Mike Gold. I think the very term UAP was intended to get away from the assumptions and baggage that are part of the term UFO. Again, I’m a recovering attorney. So I believe words matter, words of power. And I think what was trying to be achieved with that terminology. And what we’re trying to do with this group, is to be agnostic, to be objective, and to look at this issue, purely from a scientific perspective, without bias. So I believe that was the intent. Whether or not it’s been successful is up to you. But I think it was a valuable intent. And it’s certainly a goal that we have this with this group to eliminate the bias and to proceed from an objective scientific perspective.

Karen Fox  49:02

Thank you very much. Next question is from Doris Urrutia from inverse.

Doris Elin Urrutia  49:10

Hello, thank you for having this meeting. So to clarify, how many of the 800 samadhi UAP sightings has the 16 person group been able to view and of the several dozen do a piece sightings that remain anomalous? Are there hints of a natural origin for at least those that the 16 person team has access to view? For example, could this could be anomalous? UAPs be explained by something along the lines of sprites or ball lightning? Thank you.

David Spergel  49:45

So our this is David Spergel. Our remit was not really to go through those 800 events, right, that that really is the responsibility that Congress gave ARL Our task was to To develop a roadmap for NASA, on how they could contribute, where to go

Dan Evans  50:08

precisely that. Great,

Karen Fox  50:10

thank you. Moving on to Natalie Jonas with Aerospace America.

Natalie Jonas  50:19

Yeah, thanks for doing this meeting. I have a question for David Spergel. So you mentioned the creation of an app to submit sightings and media taking people across the country. Is this in production? Is this in production or just an idea to help sort of help centralize citizen science data?

David Spergel  50:38

You know, our job is to make recommendations to NASA. So this is a I would say a potential recommendation. Since we haven’t written a report yet that we might make to NASA and then NASA would make any decision on implementation. We’re, we’re an independent advisory board. You know, our our responsibility is to give advice. As someone who has commissioned independent advisory boards, Nasser’s responsibility is to listen to their advice, take it seriously, and then assess which aspects of it they want to follow.

Karen Fox  51:17

Great, thank you very much. We will be sharing these recommendations of course when they are finished, and we will make them all public. Next question is from Keith Cowen with NASAWatch.com.

Keith Cowen  51:30

By a question for Dr. Evans, this committee is engaged in the topic that I think everybody will agree, the public is equating with the search for life life, Elson the work elsewhere in the universe, even if it isn’t in the charter, even if you don’t want to make that connection. And I get the whole stigma thing, the giggle factor and the threats, trust me. But to be honest, NASA also allows some goofy sci fi movies with aliens to be shot in their facilities with a big NASA logo. My question with regard to the whole transparency issue is why is it that the NASA Astrobiology website, the NASA citizen Citizen Science website, the NASA Education website all make no mention of this committee or the meeting today? Or the topic under discussion? And how can you really do this with a straight and straight face if you really don’t want to just connect the obvious public interest with the program? Astrobiology that has been set up to look for life in the universe.

Dan Evans  52:27

Okay, firstly, I love love your Twitter stream, I get so much information from it. So thank you for that. Look. Point number one. And I want to emphasize this loud and proud that there is absolutely no convincing evidence for extraterrestrial life or associated with UAPs, anything like that? I think that when we stood up this incredible team, we did so in recognition of the fact that we need to get to an answer without assuming an origin going in. And we also acknowledge that there could potentially be very serious risks to us airspace as a result of us not necessarily knowing what is in our skies at a given time. And of course, that has national security implications, as well. To your point about astrobiology. Well, of course, astrobiology primarily focuses on the search for life in the universe. And the study is the origins and the study of UAPs is truly a distinct undertaking, in its own right. It has its own goals, its own methodologies. And that’s primarily concerned with identifying the nature and origin of UAPs. Not necessarily connecting that with the search for extraterrestrial life. As I’ve said numerous times today, we are all committed to transparency, and openness at NASA. And this is why we’re holding these meetings or this meeting in such a public forum. This is why you’ve been able to see the team really do science. And this is why we will be releasing the full report later this summer on our website.

Karen Fox  54:35

Thank you very much. If we move quickly, I think we have time for two more questions. So next up is Julian Barnes with the New York Times.

Julian Barnes  54:45

Hi, thanks for taking the question. Clarification, you mentioned that there had been an uptick of reports after the Chinese spy balloon transmitted the US Do you have any further information about how Many more numbers, that how many more reports that yielded. And then the geometry around the Coface video was pretty interesting. Do you have any other plans to do similar explanations of the other Pentagon videos that might explain why they could be optical illusions or things like that?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  55:29

Hi, this is Dr. Kirkpatrick from AARO, let me answer your first question. And then I’ll tell you what our plans are going forward. So the the uptick that was alluded to by some of the panel members. No, I don’t have an exact number for you from I guess, February until now, we can certainly do the math on what we reported in the last annual report we have, we’ve had a cut off date of December to now which is when it was about 511 or so and last year’s annual report, and it’s over 800. Now that number changes all the time. A lot of the uptick we’ve had recently is mostly because we’ve integrated the FAA data, which is, you know, over 100 new cases, just alone in the last few weeks. So, but that covers many, many years worth of data. That’s not like all at once. So it’s, it’s a little bit of a misnomer to think all of that increases just over the last few months. It’s covers many, many years. And all that will be detailed, of course, in our our report this summer. And as we get the website going, and we can have all these statistics out there for everybody, they can see it all the time. Your second question on the analysis performed on one of those videos, that is ultimately our goal at AARO is that we are going to do that level of analytics, that level of scientific deconvolution of all of these cases as we get them and we can work through them with the scientific community with the intelligence community, reduce those to digestible forms that we can then declassify and put out on the website for people to look at along with all of the associated analysis. That’s that is the ultimate goal, as I’ve said, in many occasions, as we’ve laid out the plans for how AARO is going to operate. And we will do that with our NASA team, with our interagency team with our scientific community.

Karen Fox  57:39

Thank you so much. I promise one last question. And then we’ll have to wrap it up today. Robert Coppinger with spaceflight magazine. Hello.

Robert Coppinger  57:50

So the recommendations are not going to come until the end of July. Or you’re not going to get anything into the FY 24 budget for following work. And Dr. Evans, are you going to lead the collaboration, any collaboration with the UK space agency? Because you’re British? And also Carlene toner, could you? I think I heard you say the FAA might make it mandatory for pilots to to make reports about UAP. Did I hear you correctly those. That’s the more questions. Thanks.

Dan Evans  58:26

Okay, thanks very much. Well, certainly for the purposes of today, I’m absolutely an American citizen. I’m a dual national. Let me get get to budget questions. You know, we have a lengthy budget process right now, this agency is going through internal preparations for the FY 25 budget request. Too early to say what would happen there because it’s a hallmark of us of data science to really have this deep partnership with the community. And by having this august group of independent experts come in, we solidify that partnership, and we look forward to their recommendations. And we’ll take appropriate action at the right time, too early to say which fiscal year if any things would fall into and as I said earlier, it’s a complicated process federal budgeting, to your question about involvement with the UK space agency. No, we have not had any, although, as Dr. Kirkpatrick said, we had a brief meeting last week with the five eyes that I sat in on more as a fly on the wall than anything acknowledging again, that there are different swim lanes and DOD in the intelligence community have vastly different interests in UAP than NASA’s science program.

Karen Fox  59:51

And the second question about the FAA

Karlin Toner  59:56

This is Carlin toner and I’ll start but I might turn it over to Warren Randolph. Follow up. So we heard from our speaker this morning, our FAA surveillance experts, that the controllers do have an operational procedure to report things that they see. And I believe similarly, the FAA does not mandate pilots can report but there is a volunteer reporting system and I have Warren clarify that.

Warren Randolph  1:00:23

Sure. Thank you, Warren Randolph. Yes, the system. First of all, just just to reiterate what Colin just said, and to answer the question directly, there are no plans and there are no requirements for required UAP reporting. So I want to be on our airmen. I want to be clear about that. From the federal government level, there may be internal reporting requirements at different operators or what have you, but there is nothing in the civilian, federal government and the FAA there is no regulatory requirements want to be clear there. Now, there are voluntary reporting environments. And the aviation community utilizes those one is the excuse me, the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System, a s Rs. There are some voluntary, submitted reports from flight crews as well as air traffic, basically citing UFO or UAP. So that’s in the public domain. And I encourage you to take a look at that.

Karen Fox  1:01:28

Thank you so much. To those on the line. I do apologize for those whose questions we could not get to you should feel free to send an email in to Katherine Rohloff. And to me, Karen Fox, and we will try to get answers to you. Thank you so much for our panel. It’s been a long day and I think we are wrapping up now. Thank you so much.

Operator  1:01:54

And this does conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect at this time.

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

In a public meeting of NASA’s Independent Study Team on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) on May 31, 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), shared a video depicting three unidentified objects recorded on infrared video in 2021 from a military range in the western United States. Analysis of the full motion video, combined with commercial flight data in the region, led AARO to assess that the objects were three separate commercial aircraft flying at a great distance from the infrared sensor. The radar tracks for commercial aircraft aligned with the objects, which were only seen as small dots due to their significant distance from the sensor.

Download the full video (Highest Resolution Available)

Download the full video (Highest Resolution Available)

The post DoD Releases New (Explained) UAP Video first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has released multiple documents pertaining to the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case 22-F-0249 with OSD/JS filed by The Black Vault. This development provides intriguing insights into the DoD’s research into Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), and the processes surrounding the establishment and evolution of groups dedicated to this purpose within the Pentagon.

The AOIMSG was a specialized task force established by the Department of Defense (DoD) to investigate and manage Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings and encounters. This group’s primary function was to coordinate and synchronize efforts across various military and governmental departments to gather, analyze, and share information regarding UAP.

The spotlight of this release falls squarely on the OSD(PA) Briefing Cards related to the establishment of the AOIMSG. The unveiling of these briefing cards is a rare glimpse into the DoD’s internal communications and strategies regarding the AOIMSG and its role in researching UAP. The Black Vault has also received numerous cards in the past, also shedding light on UAP research efforts.

Briefing cards serve as critical tools for communication within governmental organizations. They are typically concise, organized documents designed to quickly and effectively brief officials about various subjects. They may contain key talking points, essential facts, prepared responses to anticipated questions, or any other information that may help an official communicate effectively about a topic.

The release of the AOIMSG-related briefing cards thus offers a window into the thought processes, priorities, and strategies of the DoD as it established and structured the AOIMSG. It provides invaluable insights into how the DoD has been approaching the mystery of UAP and how it has been organizing its efforts to investigate these phenomena.

The documents reveal the complexities involved in establishing such a group, including the need for careful coordination, clarity of purpose, and strategic management of information. They also reflect how the DoD has renamed and restructured the groups involved in UAP research over time, in response to evolving needs and understanding. That fact also highlights one of the biggest challenges trying to decipher every facet of the DoD’s UAP investigative efforts, largely due to the continually changing nomenclature and structure of the groups involved in UAP research. The evolution of these groups, while a natural part of the process, can make it difficult to track the DoD’s ongoing efforts and to understand the precise role and mandate of each group.

Despite this, the release of the AOIMSG-related documents sheds light on the DoD’s ongoing efforts to better understand and manage UAP. The insights gleaned from these documents can help enhance public understanding of these efforts and foster a more informed conversation about the government’s role in investigating UAP. They also highlight the frustrations by internal senior defense officials who do not necessarily want to deal with the UAP issue.

In September of 2022, The Black Vault profiled Matthew Cummings, Senior Advisor for MASINT, GEOINT, and Special Programs at Office of the Secretary of Defense U.S. DoD, who’s name came up in previous FOIA requests. It was established then that Cummings played a role in the early days of the AOIMSG, but as of the writing of that article last year, that exact role was unknown, until now.

In these newly released records, it was revealed that Cummings was the acting director of the AOIMSG, and that fact was withheld from the public, according to these documents.

In addition, the same email dated December 9, 2021, written by a redacted name, outlined that Cummings was “not thrilled” about the fact that DoD Public Affairs recommended a “backgrounder for media” to help “further [DoD] efforts to normalize, standardize, and destigmatize reporting on UAP/airborne objects in military airspace.”

This release of the OSD(PA) Briefing Cards and other AOIMSG-related documents offers a valuable peek inside the inner workings of the DoD’s UAP research efforts. As we continue to decode the wealth of information contained in these documents, we can look forward to gaining a deeper understanding of the complexities and challenges involved in investigating the unidentified.

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The post Department of Defense Releases AOIMSG-Related Documents first appeared on The Black Vault.

In May 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General (DoD/OIG) announced an evaluation into the Department’s actions concerning Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), otherwise known as UFOs. This announcement sparked significant interest among researchers, enthusiasts, and skeptics alike, all eager to understand the U.S. government’s handling of these mysterious phenomena. As of 2023, the investigation remains ongoing, according to a recent statement received by The Black Vault.

The DoD/OIG is an independent office within the Department of Defense tasked with preventing and detecting fraud, waste, and abuse within the Department. It also provides oversight and promotes accountability across the Department’s wide range of activities.

In May 2021, the Office announced an evaluation into how the DoD has been handling matters related to UAPs. The announcement followed the release of several videos by the Department of Defense in 2020 that depicted encounters between U.S. military pilots and UAPs. These declassifications led to increased public interest and scrutiny of the U.S. government’s efforts to understand and address these phenomena.

Megan Reed, a spokeswoman for the DoD/OIG, confirmed in a statement to The Black Vault that the investigation announced in 2021 is still ongoing.

“Yes, this project is still ongoing, and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop once we are closer to the report’s release,” she stated in an e-mail.

However, there is currently no confirmation that a public report will be released upon the conclusion of the evaluation. This has raised concerns about transparency and public awareness, particularly given the high level of public interest in UAPs.

Whether the report is publicly released, classified, or not released at all, The Black Vault is prepared to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to access the findings. By utilizing this tool, The Black Vault aims to ensure that the public is informed about the DoD’s approach to UAPs.

The post DoD’s Office of the Inspector General’s Evaluation on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Still Underway first appeared on The Black Vault.

Full Transcript

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Kirsten Gillibrand  00:12

Hearing will come to order. I’d first like to thank our witness, Dr. Shawn Kirkpatrick for testifying here and in today’s earlier closed session, and for as long and distinguished career, both in the intelligence community and in the department defense, Dr. Kirkpatrick is the director of the all domain anomaly resolution office or arrow, Congress established this office in law to get to the bottom of the very serious problem of unidentified anomalous phenomenon or UAP. Dr. Kirkpatrick has a very difficult mission. While we have made progress, there remains a stigma attached to these phenomenon. There is a vast and complex citizen engagement. And there’s also very challenging scientific and technical hurdles. So we appreciate the willingness of Dr. Kirkpatrick to lean in on this issue and the work that he has accomplished thus far. And we look forward to both his opening statement and his presentation of examples of the work arrow has done. In late 2017, m edia reports surfaced about activity set in motion. By the late long serving Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid more than a decade ago, we learned that there was strong evidence of advanced technology reflected in the features and performance characteristics of many objects observed by our highly highly trained service members operating top of the line military equipment. We learned that for at least the past eight years, military pilots frequently encountered or unknown objects in controlled airspace off both the east and west coast across the continental United States. In test and training areas and ranges. We don’t know where they are, they come from who made them or how they operate. As former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist observed had any of these objects had the label made in China, there will be an uproar in the government and media, there would be no stone unturned and no efforts spare to find out what we were dealing with. We can look at the recent incursion of the unidentified PRC high altitude balloon for as an example, because EPA because of the UFO stigma, the response has been irresponsibly anemic and slow. Congress established arrow we made it clear that we expect vigorous action we added very substantial initial funding for the office. But despite our best efforts, the President’s budget for fiscal was 23 and 24, requested only enough funding to defray the operating expenses of arrow. It included almost no funds to sustain the critical research and development necessary to support a serious investigation. It took a letter to Secretary Austin from Senator Rubio and me and 14 other senators to get the office temporary relief for the current fiscal year. In this hearing, I tend to probe a series of specific issues. And the recent incidents where multiple objects were shot down over North America, it seems that Pentagon leadership did not turn to arrow office. To play a leading role in advising the combatant commander, we need to know whether this will continue. We need to know whether the leadership and DOD will bring arrow into the decision making process in a visible way. And we need to know what role arrow will play in inter agency coordination after the NSC Working Group disbands. In the fiscal year 2023. national defense and intelligence authorization acts Congress established a direct reporting chain from the arrow director to the Deputy Secretary of Defense the role of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence and security is limited to providing administrative support, we need to know how this direction is being implemented. UAP are frequently observed flying in extremely high or very low speeds and come in various sizes and shapes. During the recent shutdowns over North America. DOD disclosed disclosed that filters on radar systems were adjusted to allow for detection and tracking of diverse sets of objects for the first time. While opening the aperture can overload the real time analytic process. We cannot keep turning a blind eye to surveillance data that is critical to detecting and tracking UAP. We need to know whether Dr. Kirkpatrick can achieve the necessary control over sensor filters and the storage and access to raw surveillance data to find UAP anomalies. Finally, one of the TAs congress set for Arrow is serving as an open door for witnesses of UAP events, or participants in government activities related to UAPs to come forward securely and disclose what THEY KNOW without fear of retribution. For any possible violations of previously signed non disclosure agreements. Congress mandated that arrow set up a publicly discoverable and accessible process for Safe Disclosure. Well, we know that arrow has already conducted a significant number of interviews, many referred by Congress, we need to set up a public process that that and we need to know where that effort stands. With that I’d like to turn to Senator Ernst for her opening statement.

Joni Ernst  04:32

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you Dr. Kirkpatrick for your testimony today. I’ll keep these remarks very brief so that we have maximum time for your briefing. The recent downing of the Chinese surveillance surveillance balloon and three other objects underscores the need for Domain Awareness. Adversaries like China and Russia are working to hold us interests including our homeland at risk. That’s why your testimony is so important. So look forward to a progress update on the establishment of your office. As members know your office evolved from the Navy led unidentified aerial phenomena task force to the all domain anomalous resolution office known as arrow. Dr. Kirkpatrick, your extensive background in science and technology, research and development and space makes you well suited to discuss these emerging challenges. My priority is that we understand the full range of threats posed by our adversaries in all domains. That is what the joint force needs to be prepared to fight and win in defense of our nation. This committee needs to know about Chinese or Russian advanced technology programs to exploit our vulnerabilities and it needs to know whether your office along with the IC has detected potential Chinese or Russian capabilities to surveil or attack us. Finally, we need to ensure efficient interagency coordination. multiple elements of the DOD and I see own a piece of this mission to add value arrows efforts cannot be redundant with others. Thank you again, we look forward to your testimony.

Kirsten Gillibrand  06:16

Dr. Kirkpatrick, you can give your testimony.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  06:20

Thank you, Chairwoman geo brand, Ranking Member Ernst, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It’s a privilege to be here today to testify on the defense defenses efforts to address unidentified anomalous phenomena. First, I want to thank Congress for its extensive and continued partnership as the department works to better understand and respond to UAP. In an effort to minimize technical and intelligence surprise, unidentified objects in any domain pose potential risks to safety and security, particularly from military personnel and capabilities. Congress and DOD agree that UAP cannot remain unexamined or unaddressed. We are grateful for sustained congressional engagement on this issue, which paved the way for the DoD establishment of the old domain anomaly resolution office in July of last year. Though arrow is still young office, the spotlight on UAP in recent months underscores the importance of its work and the need for UAP to be taken seriously as a matter of national security. All leadership that I’ve had the pleasure of working with whether dod i see DOD, civil, scientific or industrial view Congress as a critical partner in this endeavor. Arrow has accomplished much in the last nine months since it was established. The Aero team of more than three dozen experts is organized around four functional areas operations, scientific research, integrated analysis and strategic communications. And the nine months since arrows establishment, we’ve taken important steps to involve and improve UAP data collection, standardize the department’s UAP internal reporting requirements, and implement a framework for rigorous scientific and intelligence analysis, allowing us to resolve cases in a systematic and prioritized manner. Meanwhile, consistent with legislative direction arrow is also carefully reviewing and researching the US government’s UAP related historical record. Arrow is leading a focused effort to better characterize, understand and attribute UAP with priority given the UAP reports by DOD and IC personnel in or near areas of national security importance. DOD fully appreciates the eagerness for many quarters, especially here in Congress and in the American public to quickly resolve every UAP encountered across the globe from the distant past through today. It’s important to note however, arrow is the culmination of decades of DOD intelligence community and congressionally directed efforts to successfully resolve UAP encountered first and foremost by US military personnel, specifically navy and air force pilots. The law establishing aero is ambitious, and it will take time to realize the full mission. We cannot answer decades of questions about UAP all at once, but we must begin somewhere. While I assure you that arrow will follow scientific evidence wherever it leads. I ask for your patience as DoD first prioritizes safety and security of our military personnel and installations in all domains. After all, a UAP encountered first by highly capable DOD and IC platforms, featuring the nation’s most advanced sensors are those UAP most likely to be resolved by my office, assuming the data can be collected. If arrow succeeds in first improving the ability of military personnel to quickly and confidently resolve UAP they encounter. I believe that in time we will have greatly advanced the capability of the entire United States government including its civilian agencies to resolve UAP However, it would be naive to believe that the resolution of all UAP can be solely accomplished by the DOD and ice alone. We will need to prioritize collection and leverage authorities for monitoring all domains within the continental United States. Arrows ultimate success will require partnerships with the interagency industry partners, academia and the scientific community as well as the public. AARO is partnering with the services intelligence community, DOD as well as civil partners and across the US government to tap into the resources of the interagency. The UAP challenge is more an operational and scientific issue than it is an intelligence issue. As such, we are working with industry, academia and the scientific community which bring their own resources, ideas and expertise to this challenging problem set. Robust collaboration and peer review across a broad range of partners will promote greater objectivity and transparency in the study of UAP. I want to underscore today that only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous. The majority of unidentified objects reported to arrow demonstrate mundane characteristics of balloons unmanned aerial systems clutter natural phenomena or other readily explainable sources. While a large number of cases in our holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases. Without sufficient data, we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution, and I will not close the case that I cannot defend the conclusions of. I recognize that this answer is unsatisfying to those who in good faith assume that what they see with their eyes with their cameras and worth their radars is incontrovertible evidence of extraordinary characteristics and performance. Yet time and again with sufficient scientific quality data, it is fact that UAP often, but not always, resolve into readily explainable sources. Humans are subjected to deception and illusions sensors to unexpected responses and malfunctions, and in some cases, intentional interference. Getting to the handful of cases that pass this level of scrutiny is the mission of Arrow. That is not to say that UAP once resolved are no longer of national security interest. However, on the contrary, learning that a UAP isn’t of exotic origin, but is instead just a quadcopter, or balloon leads to the question of who is operating that quadcopter and to what purpose? The answers to those questions will inform potential national security or law enforcement responses. Arrow is a member of the department’s support to the administration’s tiger team effort to deal with stratospheric objects such as the PRC high altitude balloon. While when previously unknown objects are successfully identified, it is Arrow’s role to quickly and efficiently hand off such readily explainable objects to the intelligence law enforcement or operational safety communities for further analysis and appropriate action. In other words, arrows mission is to turn UAP into SCP, somebody else’s problem.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  13:21

The US government the DOD and the IC in particular has tremendous capabilities to deal with those encountered objects. In the wake of the PRC hab event. The interagency is working to better integrate and share information to address identifiable stratospheric objects, but that is not all arrows lane. Meanwhile, for the few cases in all domains space, air and sea that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, Arrow exists to help the DoD IC and interagency resolve those anomalous cases. In doing so AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity, and analytic rigor. This includes physically testing and employing modeling and simulation validate our analyses and underlying theories, then peer reviewing those results within the US government, industry partners and appropriately cleared academic institutions before reaching any conclusions. I should also state clearly for the record that in our research arrow has found no credible evidence thus far of extra terrestrial activity offworld technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics. In the event sufficient scientific data wherever obtained, that a UAP encountered can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin. We are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA, to appropriately inform us government’s leadership of its findings. For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously and subsequently commented on by the US government. I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit your research to credible peer reviewed scientific journal. US arrow is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media. We know that there is tremendous public interest in UAP and a desire for answers from Arrow. By its very nature, the UAP challenge has for decades lent itself to mystery, sensationalism, and even conspiracy. For that reason, Eero remains committed to transparency, accountability and to sharing as much with the American public as we can, consistent with our obligation to protect not only intelligence sources and methods, but US and allied capabilities. However, arrows work will take time if we are committed to do it, right. It means adhering to the scientific method, and the highest standards of Research Integrity. It means being methodical and scrupulous. It means withholding judgment in favor of evidence, it means following the data where it leads wherever it leads. It means establishing scientific peer reviewed theoretical underpinnings of observed data. An arrow is committed to all of those standards. I’m proud of arrows progress over the last nine months, months, much remains to be done, but the hard work is underway. Thank you for your continued support. And before we turn to questions, I’m going to walk you through some of our analytical trends in a couple of cases that we’ve prepared. So one of the things that arrow does is high integrity analysis. As I’ve said, This chart represents the trend analysis of all the cases in arrows holdings right to date. What you’ll see on the left is a histogram of all of our reported sightings as a function of altitude. So most of our sightings occur in the 15 to 25,000 foot range. And that is ultimately because that’s where a lot of our aircraft are. On the far right upper corner, you’ll see a breakout of the morphologies of all of the UAP that are reported. Over half about 52% of what’s been reported to us are round, or spheres. The rest of those breakout into all kinds of different other shapes. The gray box is essentially there is no data on what its shape is either it wasn’t reported or the sensor did not collect it. The bottom map is a heat map of all reporting areas across the globe that we have available to us. What you’ll notice is that there is a heavy what we call collection bias both in altitude and in geographic location. That’s where all of our sensors exist. That’s where our training ranges are. That’s where our operational ranges are. That’s where all of our platforms are. In the middle, what we have done is reduce the most typically reported UAV characteristics to these fields, mostly round mostly one to four meters, white silver, translucent metallic 10,000 30,000 feet. With apparent velocities from stationary to Mach two, no thermal exhausts usually detected, we get intermittent radar returns, we get intermittent radio returns, and we get intermittent thermal signatures. That’s what we’re looking for, and trying to understand what that is. Next slide. So I’m going to walk you through two cases that we’ve declassified recently. This first one is an MQ nine in the Middle East, observing that blow up which is an apparent spherical object vo EO centers those are not IR if you want to go ahead and click that and play it you’ll see it come through the top of the screen, there it goes and then the camera will slew to follow it. You’ll see it pop in and out of the screen field of view there. This is essentially all of the data we have associated with this event from some years ago. It is going to be virtually impossible to fully identify that just based off of that video. Now what we can do and what we are doing is keeping that as part of that group of 52% to see what are the similarities, what are the trends across all these do we see these in a particular distribution? Do they all behave the same or not? As we get more data, we will be able to go back and look at these in a fuller context. How are we going to get more data, we are working with the joint staff to issue guidance to all the services and commands that will then establish what are the reporting requirements, the timeliness, and all of the data that is required to be delivered to us and retained from all the associated sensors. That historically hasn’t been the case. And it’s been happenstance that data has been collected. Next slide. This particular event, South Asia MQ nine, looking at another MQ nine, and what’s highlighted there in that red circle is an object that flies through the screen. Unlike the previous one, this one actually shows some really interesting things that everyone thought was truly anomalous to start with. First of all, it’s a high speed object, it’s flying in the field of regard of two MQ nines, second appears to have this trail behind it. All right, which, at first blush, you would think that looks like a propulsion trail. In reality, if you want to play the first slide, we’ll show you what that looks like in real time, first video. So we’re looking at that, there it goes. Once you play it again, and then pause it halfway through, right there. Alright, you might be able to see that trail there behind it. That’s actually not a real trail that is a sensor artifact. Each one of those little blobs is actually a representation of the object as it’s moving through. And later in the video as the as the camera slews, that trail actually follows the direction of the camera, not the direction of the object. We pulled these apart frame by frame, we were able to demonstrate that that is essentially a readout overlap of the image it’s a it’s a shadow image, right? It’s not real. Further, if you later, follow this all the way to end, it starts to resolve itself into that blob that’s in that picture on the top of that, right. And if you squint, it looks like an aircraft, because it actually turns out to be an aircraft, go ahead and put that on. So you’ll see the tail sort of pop out there. And so what you’re looking at is this is in the infrared. This is the heat signature off of the engines have a commuter aircraft that happened to be flying in the vicinity of where those two MQ nines were at.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  22:50

Why am I showing you this? So the first one that I showed you, we don’t have resolved yet, right, that is an unresolved case, we are still studying this one we can resolve. But this is the kind of data that we have to work with, then the type of analysis that we have to do, which can be quite extensive when you have to pull these apart, frame by frame. Further, we’re now matching all of this with the models of all of those imaging sensors so that I can say, I can recreate this, I can actually show how the other sensors going to respond. All of these sensors don’t necessarily respond the way you think they do, especially out in the world and in the field. And I believe that’s all I have. And I will open it up for your questions. Thank you

Kirsten Gillibrand  23:42

so much. Dr. Kirkpatrick, can you just give us some raw numbers of how many UAPs you’ve analyzed? How many have been resolved and sort of in what buckets and then how many are still left to be resolved just an update from your January public report where it was 366 or something and about 150 were were balloons and about two dozen were drones. You know, just give us an update if you have one

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  24:08

or so as of this week, we are tracking over a total of 650 cases. Now, the report in January basically said about half of the ones at that time about 150 were balloon were likely balloon like or something like that. That doesn’t mean they’re resolved. Oh, I see. So what let me when we walk everyone through what our analytic process looks like. We have a essentially a five step process right? So we have we get our cases and with all the data we create a case for that event. Might team does a preliminary scrub of all of those cases as they come in just to sort out do we have any information that says this is in In one of those likely categories, it’s likely a balloon, it’s likely a balloon, bird, it’s likely some other object, or we don’t know. Then we prioritize those based off of where they are. Are they attached to a national security area? Does it show some anomalous phenomenology that is of interest, if it’s just if it’s just a spherical thing that’s floating around with the, with the wind and it has no payload on it, that’s going to be less important than something that has a payload on it, which will be less important than something that’s maneuvering. Right. So there’s, there’s sort of a hierarchy of just binning the priorities, because we can’t do all of them at once. Once we do that, and we prioritize them when we take that package of data in that case, and I have set up two teams, think of this as a Red Team Blue team or a competitive analysis. I have an intelligence community team made up of intelligence analysts. And I have an s&t team made up of scientists and engineers, and the people that actually build a lot of these sensors are physicists, because you know, if you’re a physicist, you can do anything, right. And, but they’re not associated with the intel community. They’re, they’re not Intel officers. So they they look at this through the lens of the sensor of that what the data says, we give that package to both teams, the intelligence community is going to look at it through the lens of the intelligence record, and what they assess, and their intel tradecraft, which they have very specific rules and regulations on how they do that scientific community technical community is going to look at it through the lens of what is the data telling me? What is the sensor doing? What would I expect a sensor response to be? And back that out? Those two groups give us their answers. We then adjudicate if they agree, then I am more likely to close that case, if they agree on what it is, if they disagree, we will have an adjudication. We’ll bring them together, we’ll take a look at the differences will adjudicate What Why do you say one thing and you say another, we will then come to a case recommendation that will get written up by my team. That then goes to a Senior Technical Advisory Group, which is outside of all of those people, made up of senior technical folks and Intel analysts and operators from retired out of the community. And they, they essentially peer review what that case recommendation is. They write their recommendations that comes back to me, I review it, we make a determination, and I’ll sign off one way or the other. And then that will go out as the case determination. Once we have an approved web portal to hang the unclassified stuff, we will do, you know, we would downgrade and declassified things and put it out there. In the meantime, we’re putting a lot of these on our classified web portal, where we can then collaborate with the rest of the community so they can see what’s going on. That’s in a nutshell, that is the process. Right? So because of that, that takes time. So of those over 650, you know, we’ve prioritized about half of them to be of of anomalous interesting value. And now we have to go through those and go, How much do I have actual data for? Because if I all I have is a is a operator report that says I saw XY or Z, my assessment is A, B, or C, that’s not really sufficient, that’s a good place to start. But I have to have data, I have to have radar data, I have to have EEO data, I have to have thermal data, I have to have overhead data. And we need to look at all that. Now, from a big picture perspective, I still have that’s all they’re still very valuable data. And we’re looking at applying a lot of things, new tools, analytic tools, like natural language processing. So I can go across all of those reports and look for commonalities how many of them are being described as round spherical objects that are maneuvering, how many of them are not maneuvering, how many of them seem to have plume to it or note that’s also going to be very valuable to give us more of a global picture and a trends analysis of what are we saying and help us get to the determination. So go back to your question, ma’am. We have Have this next quarterly report, we’ll be coming out here pretty soon. Our next annual report, you all have given us moved it up to two June, July, we’re going to be having that done about that timeframe. And we will have a, we’ll be combining a whole number of reports into that one. I think well, we’re currently sitting at around. If I remember correctly, we’re around 20 to 30 ish are about halfway through that analytic process. A handful of them have made it all the way out to the other side, gone through peer review, we’ve got case closure reports done and signed. We’re gonna get faster as we get more people on board. And we get more of the community tools to automate some of the analysis that has to be done.

Joni Ernst  31:00

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And Dr. Kirkpatrick, the ODNI annual Threat Assessment states that China’s space activities are designed to erode US influence across military, technological, economic and diplomatic spheres. Likewise, Russia will remain a key space competitor. In the course of your work, have you become aware of any Chinese or Russia technical advancements to surveil or attack us interests?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  31:32

So that’s a great question. Part of what we have to do as we go through these, especially the ones that show signatures of advanced technical capabilities, is determine if there’s a foreign Nexus that’s really hard if what we observe doesn’t have a Chinese or Russian flag on the side of it. Now, I think it is prudent to say, of the of the cases that are showing, you know, some sort of advanced technical signature of which we’re talking single percentages of the entire population of cases we have. I am concerned about what that nexus is, and I have indicators that some are related to foreign capabilities. We have to investigate that with our IC partners. And as we get evidence to support that, that gets then handed off to the appropriate ice agency to investigate. Again, it becomes an SVP at that point,

Joni Ernst  32:47

somebody else’s problem. Right. Good. Thank you. Yes. Is it? Is it? Is it possible that the Chinese or Russian advanced technologies could could be causing some of these anomalous behaviors? And and you said, there seems to be some indicators. So just for us today, could you describe a potential threat that might exist out there if they are foreign? Sure. Nexus

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  33:19

you know, order to do this research appropriately. We have to also be cognizant of what is the state of the art and development across the s&t community? What is What are the DARPA’s of the world doing? What are? What’s the horizon scanning of emerging technologies appropriate to this subcommittee? What is happening out there? And if somebody could accelerate that capability? How would that manifest itself? And what would it look like? And do those signatures match what we’re seeing? There are emerging capabilities out there that that, in many instances, Russia and China, well, China in particular, are on par or ahead of us in some areas? Right. So previously, I used to be the Defense Department’s intelligence officer for science and technical intelligence. That was our job was to look for what does all that look like? And then, you know, my last several years of course, in Space Command doing space. The, the adversary is not waiting. They are advancing and they’re advancing quickly. If I were to put on some of my old hats, I would tell you, they are less risk averse at technical advancement than we are. Right? They are just willing to try things and see if it works. Are there capabilities that could be employed against us? send both an ISR and a weapons fashion. Absolutely. Do I have evidence that they’re doing it in these cases? No, but I have concerning indicators.

Joni Ernst  35:14

Thank you. I appreciate that. And that’s, that is why it’s so important that you are working with the intelligence community as well. Because you you have the science, the data background, but you also need to know, from various sources, what adversaries may be working on. Correct, correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Jacky Rosen  35:39

Well, thank you, Chair jelibean. Ranking Member Ernst, this is a really important hearing. I’d like to thank you Dr. Kirkpatrick for your service to the country. And as a former systems analyst, myself, I really appreciate your flowchart the description of the process, and particularly the trends analysis going forward, how that’s going to help us and he’s talked about language, the large LLM is a large language models of artificial intelligence that’s really going to help us in the hunt forward, predictive analysis, I think, to some of your point, but we’ve been worried about but I want to focus on Nevada because I want to talk about the impact of UAPs on aviation safety. So when it comes to identify unidentified aerial phenomenal phenomenon, excuse me, one of my first concerns is really about the safety of Nevada’s military aviator. So we have airmen stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, naval aviators flying at Naval Air Station falen, and service members across from across the world training at the Nevada test and training range. I know you know all this and unfortunately, the existence of advanced UAPs in the US airspace, and over US military installations, not a new phenomenon. The Navy’s officially acknowledged that between 2004 and 2021 11, near misses occurred involving UAPs that required pilot action and follow up reports. As a result in 2019, the Navy establish a protocol for pilots to report on their dangerous encounters. So could you speak to any ongoing efforts within DOD to ensure the safety of our aviators with a potential UAP encounter? And what’s your relationship with NORTHCOM NORAD space comm when it comes to this immediate real time response? And how they’re there? They’re right there in the moment, right?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  37:30

That’s a great question. So let me start with my relationship with the commands are very good. I just came back from sitting down with with General van Herk. And all the all the J staff at at North COMM A couple of weeks ago, talking through exactly what we need to do to help them get their arms around this. We are also working very closely with joint staff and the Joint Staff has just been very outstanding in helping work through policy and guidance issues to the forces and to the services. And I would like to just make sure that we we message back to all of the operators the importance of their reporting, and the fact that you’re about to get, you know, a bunch of new requirements that we’re issuing through the joint staff, on all of the data that we’re going to need you to save and report back to us. It is invaluable. And we are working to try to take the most advantage of that to learn what it is that we’re trying to mitigate. To get directly to your question. First thing that we’re doing is we’re normalizing our reporting. Right, we’re standardizing our reporting and the requirements associated with that guidance from the joint staff I think goes out maybe this week. Maybe next week on that we’ve been working with them for some months, that does exactly what I just said. It’s it gives them timelines, it gives them requirements it gives them here’s all the data you have to have. And you got to retain it. The next thing that comes after that is a plan ord that will go out to the commands for mitigation and response. So there’s a couple of things that we have to do. One, I need to work with the commands and with the IC and with our outside of our DOD and IC partners to extend our collection posture targeted at some of these key areas that you saw on that heat map that have a lot of activity, so that we can turn on extra collection when an operator sees something. So part of this is generating it as a response function and what we call a tactic technique and procedure for an operator when he sees something calls back to the operations floor. They can turn on additional collection. What does that collection look like? How do I bring all that together so I can get more data on what is that thing?

Jacky Rosen  40:02

Can Can I ask really quickly Drew, have the authorities you need to extend your collection posture between agencies or branches of the military? Because that seems to me to maybe be a sticking point. I know my time is just about up. I’d love to follow up about your risk management methodologies for some of these, but do you have need any authorities that you don’t have to get

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  40:25

get the data or some authorities that we need? We currently are operating under Title 10 authorities, but we have good relationships across the other agencies but having additional authorities for collection tasking, counterintelligence, something, those are all things that would be helpful. Yes.

Jacky Rosen  40:42

Thank you to follow up. Dr.

Kirsten Gillibrand  40:43

Kirkpatrick, will you help us write that language so we can put it in the defense bill this year, so that we know what authorities you need?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  40:50

We can do that.

Kirsten Gillibrand  40:51

Thank you. We’re gonna start second round. So if you want to stay you can ask another round. I have at least three more questions. So do you want to do you want to go right now? So you in case you have to leave? Yeah, go ahead. I’m gonna stay

Jacky Rosen  41:17

the Chinese spy balloon it did crosser the US airspace shut down by a sidewinder missile, fired from an F 22. Sidewinders costs us close to half a million dollars each. So given the cost of these missiles, the cost per flight, all of these other things, like I said, Follow up on the authorities, your methodologies, the data collection, they can help us in other ways. But how do you think we can develop a sustainable, affordable response to UAPs where we need to that may that will definitely violate our airspace, not may definitely violate our airspace every chance that they can get, because there are adversaries, they want this information. So what do you think some cost effective measures might be that we can get what we need out of that or take them down whatever is appropriate, whatever the appropriate measure is? Let’s put it that

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  42:08

that is actually wrapped into the plan or that we’re working with joint staff to send out what are the commands need from both a capabilities perspective for kinetic and non kinetic engagements? What are the response functions of the of the particular wings or, or navy, what have you? And then what authorities do they need? So one of the one of the challenges that we’ve seen is, is you know, there’s an authorities issues with the with the owners, operators of those ranges that they need to work through. And we’re working that with joint staff and OSD. So big picture, we need to do all that. If you want to get down to the specifics for you know, there are non kinetic options to engage pretty much everything, right? Whether it’s electronic warfare, whether it’s laser technologies for this

Jacky Rosen  43:02

data. That’s right, good data collection, predictive analytics, you can, in simple form, make some assumptions on possibilities.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  43:11

That’s right. And we will inform recommendations back to the department on here’s what could work. Here’s what we’ve seen work. Here’s what doesn’t work.

Jacky Rosen  43:19

Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate it.

Kirsten Gillibrand  43:22

Thank you very much. I just wanted to just talk a little bit about your logistics, who you report to how that’s going. Whether you need different reporting lines. By congressional legislation. Your office is administratively located with the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence security, but you’re not substantively subordinate to the undersecretary. Rather, you are a direct report to the deputy secretary, are you taking direction directly from the deputy secretary? Are you able to meet and brief the deputy secretary is the office of USD ins working with you to have the right framework?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  43:58

So USDA ins the I currently report to USDA ins until they come up with the plan for how they’re going to implement legislation. DOD and DNI are working through that now. I’d have to refer you back to Usdi ins on what their plan is.

Kirsten Gillibrand  44:27

Do I need to update your reporting structure in the next defense bill? Or is this something that you think will work its way out? Or does it need further clarity?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  44:35

I think they’re planning on coming back to you with an answer on what that plan is. And I think at that time that will inform what you want to do.

Kirsten Gillibrand  44:44

Okay, thank you. As you know, Dr. Kirkpatrick, Congress has mandated that your office establish a discoverable and accessible electronic method for potential witnesses of UAP incidents and potential participants in government UIP related activities to contact your office and tell their stories. Congress also set up a process whereby people are subject to non disclosure agreements preventing them from disclosing what they may have witnessed or participated in could tell you what they know that risk of retribution from the or violation of their NDAs. Have you submitted a public facing website product for approval to your superiors? And how long has it been under review?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  45:24

I have we submitted the first version of that before Christmas.

Kirsten Gillibrand  45:31

And do you have an estimate from them when they will respond? Or when you’ll have feedback on that?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  45:37

No, I don’t. Okay,

Kirsten Gillibrand  45:39

we will author a letter asking for that timely response to your superiors. When When do you expect that you will establish a public facing discoverable and access portal for people to use to contact your office as the law requires?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  45:57

So I would like to first say thank you all very much for referring the witnesses that you have thus far to us. I appreciate that we’ve brought in nearly two dozen. So far, it’s been it’s been very helpful. I’d ask that you continue to do that until we have an approved plan. We have a multi phased approach for doing that, that we’ve been socializing and have submitted for approval, some time. Once that happens, then we should be able to push all that out and get get this a little more automated. Great. What I would ask though, is as you all continue to refer to us and refer witnesses to us, I’d appreciate if you do that. Please try to prioritize the ones that you want to do, because we do have a small research staff dealing with that.

Kirsten Gillibrand  46:53

Thank you. And then do you have any plans for public engagement that you want to share now that you think it’s important that the public knows what the plan is?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  47:03

So we have a a number of public engagement recommendations, according to our strategic plan, all of those have been submitted for approval, they have to be approved by USDA and s. We are waiting for approval to go do that. Okay, I

Kirsten Gillibrand  47:22

will follow up on that. And then my last question is about the integration of departments UAP operations, research, analysis and strategic communications. During the recent UAP incidents over North America, it didn’t appear that you were allowed to play that role. Do you agree that the public perception is generally that you and your office did not appear to play a major role in the department’s response to the detection of objects over North America? What can you tell us that’s going on behind the scenes from your perspective? And in the after action assessment process? Is there awareness that there is a need to operate differently in the future and a commitment to doing so

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  48:03

when the when the objects were first detected, I got called by joint staff leadership to come in late one night to review events as they were unfolding unfolding, and to give them an assessment based on what we knew at that time. I did that worked with the director, Joint Staff, the j two and the J three. That night and over the couple of following days on? What are the types of things that we are tracking from a unidentified object perspective? What databases do we use those sorts of things for, for norm for known objects known tracking? Beyond that, the response I would have to, I would have to refer you back to the White House for the decision on how they did the response. We did not play a role and what you would respond other than that initial, you know, advice on what we are seeing and how we are seeing

Joni Ernst  49:10

came out. Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Kirkpatrick, I know that your office has gotten a lot of attention recently. And of course, any new agency there tends to be a push to increase size and funding. We want to make sure that you’re able to meet your goals. But what I also need to ensure is that we’re not duplicating or replicating existing functions, and creating redundancy within DOD and the interagency so What steps are you taking right now to make sure that your particular office and function is is unique to any of the other agencies that might be involved in these types of cases?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  50:00

Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. So I would like to lay down, here’s, here’s what am I, you know, sort of my mission and my goal and my vision here. And so the vision is, at one point, at some point in the future, you should not need an arrow. If I’m successful in what I’m doing, we should be able to normalize everything that we’re doing into existing processes, functions, agencies and organizations, and make that part of their mission and their role. Right now that niche that we form is really going after the unknowns. If you I think you articulated it early on, this is a hunt mission for what might somebody be doing in our backyard that we don’t know about? All right, well, that that that is what we are doing, right. But at some point, we should be able to normalize that that’s why it’s so important. The work we’re doing with Joint Staff, normalize that into power, DOD policy and guidance. We are bringing in all of our interagency partners. So NASA is providing a liaison for us. I have FBI liaison, I have OSI liaison, I have service liaisons, the ice and a half of my staff come from the IC, half of my staff coming from other scientific and technical backgrounds, I have doe. And so what we’re trying to do is ensure, again, as I make UAP into Sep, they get handed off to the people that that is their mission to go do so that we aren’t duplicating that I’m not going to go chase the Chinese high altitude balloon, for example. That’s not my job. It’s not an unknown. And it’s not anomalous anymore. Now it goes over to them.

Joni Ernst  51:48

Very good. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Kirsten Gillibrand  51:52

I want to just to follow up on the filters for surveillance. outside observers have speculated that DOD sets filters on certain sensors to eliminate objects that are moving really fast or slow, because what we are looking for militarily or conventional aircraft and missiles UAP doesn’t fit into these programs with thereby be weeded out and never noticed. The specialist speculation was proven to be true during the UAP incidents over North America, where DoD publicly acknowledged that we were able to start seeing these ups only when we opened up these filters. Obviously, our military operators cannot be overloaded with objects that are not conventional aircraft or missiles, can you nonetheless make sure that the raw data is being captured and subsequently processed? As your office knows what’s really out there? And is that going to cost money will you expect to pay for that money out of arrows budget?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  52:46

One of the key tenants that we’re trying to do in our science plan is understand what those signatures are. So we get all the raw, for example, radar data, prior to the scrubbing and filtering to allow it to enter into our weapons systems and our detection systems. We are now taking all that data and cross correlating it to what pilots are saying they’re seeing or other observations from other operators. What that allows us to do is then see if there are any, any signatures in that data that I can pull out, generate, what we’ll call automatic target recognition algorithms that allow us to then use that signature associated with a observed UAP. Whatever that UAP. May be. We will then make those recommendations of what those changes should be back to the department. So the Deputy Secretary asked me last October to make those recommendations. What changes do we need to make the radars to plat platforms to detection systems and algorithms to pull on those those algorithms make those changes? That’s going to take some time. That’s where the research and development comes in. Right? It’s not it’s not instantaneous right? Now, a lot of the I won’t say, you know, a lot of the the things that fall outside of the ranges of those filters have been identified by people in the loop. And you can’t have people in the loop all the time. You can it’s just not cost effective. So part of our budget is working through what is what does that look like? And then making those recommendations back to the big program offices for them to put into changes in acquisition.

Kirsten Gillibrand  54:43

My last question is about the academic community. Can you give us an update on sort of how you collaborate with the academic community? And whether how the independent study being done by NASA complements arrows work?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  54:56

Sure. Two questions, so I’m willing to try To make it quick the 1979 Carl Sagan said Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I would go one step further. And I would say it’s extraordinary claims require not only extraordinary evidence, but extraordinary science. And so how do you do that you do that with the scientific method. Right. And so as arrow is developing and implementing its science plan, it has to do so grounded in a solid foundation of scientific theory across the entire range of hypotheses that had been presented for what UAP are. That range spans adversary breakthrough technology on one hand, known objects and phenomena in the middle, all the way to the extreme theories of extraterrestrials. All of that has physics based signatures associated with it, whether it’s theoretical from the academic community, known from things like hypersonic weapons, or adversary breakthrough technologies, as we’ve talked about before, or the known objects that we have to go measure. The idea is across that entire range, you have to come up with peer reviewed, scientific basis for all of it. The academic community plays a very big role on the one end of the spectrum, the intelligence community on the other end of the spectrum, and then measurement in the middle, once I have those signatures identified in in validated peer reviewed documents, then I have something 2.2 For all that data, because all that data is going to match one of those signatures, right? And then I can go well, it’s that and not that, or it’s that. And that helps us go through all that. Where NASA comes in and and the study that they’re doing, which I’m supporting, is really looking at the unclassified data sources that might be used to augment our classified data sources. To understand if there’s a signature there, we can pull on so very similar to the radars, but civil capability. So for example, we have a lot of climate science satellites, for example, that look at Earth, lots of them, how many of those is the data valuable in seeing these kinds of objects? The challenge in that is those those platforms don’t necessarily have the resolution you need. So if you remember the slide I put up there with the trends, the size of the objects we’re looking for, are typically reported to be one to four meters. Well, the resolution of many of the climate science, civil science, civil satellites, is much larger than that, which means you’d have a hard time picking out something that’s smaller than a pixel on the imagery on the data. That’s not to say all of it’s not useful. And there are ways of pulling through that data and go into that is what NASA is focused on right now. What is, what are some other data sources that could be used? In addition, things like open source and crowdsourcing of data, we’re exploring public private partnerships, ma’am, as you know, we’ve talked about in the past to look at, is there a way to smartly crowdsource additional data that might be useful to augment some of my classified sources? And what does that look like? And how would we do it so that we’re not overwhelmed by you know, everybody who wants to take a picture of everything?

Kirsten Gillibrand  59:11

Like to tell the committee before we close out, you have another round. Yes. Do you have anything else you’d like to tell the committee before we close?

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick  59:17

Thank you very much for allowing us to come and share a little bit of insight into what arrows up to and what we’re doing. I hope to be able to share a whole lot more in the future. We have a lot of work to do. So if you don’t hear from me outside. It’s because we’ve got a lot of work to do.

Kirsten Gillibrand  59:35

Thank you so much. Dr. Kirkpatrick, thank you for the hearing. Thank you

The post Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Public Hearing – In Full – April 19, 2023 first appeared on The Black Vault.

Key Highlights:

1. Scientific Stigma: McDonald laments the prevailing scientific stigma around UFOs and their study. He argues that this stigma has prevented the scientific community from engaging in a serious investigation of the UFO phenomenon, leading to a significant gap in knowledge and understanding.
2. Credible Witnesses: The paper presents numerous UFO sightings and encounters reported by credible witnesses, including military personnel, pilots, and radar operators. McDonald emphasizes the need to take these testimonies seriously and consider them as valuable data sources for further research.
3. Unexplained Phenomena: McDonald discusses various unexplained aspects of UFO sightings, such as their apparent ability to change shape, move at high speeds, and exhibit unconventional flight patterns. He suggests that these characteristics warrant scientific investigation and should not be dismissed as mere optical illusions or misidentifications.
4. Need for Interdisciplinary Approach: McDonald calls for an interdisciplinary approach to study UFOs, involving experts from various fields such as atmospheric physics, meteorology, psychology, and sociology. He believes that only through collaboration can the scientific community achieve a comprehensive understanding of the UFO phenomenon.
5. International Cooperation: McDonald highlights the importance of international cooperation in UFO research. He argues that UFO sightings are a global phenomenon, and as such, they require a global effort to collect and analyze data, share information, and develop unified research methodologies.
6. Government Involvement: The paper also touches upon the role of governments in UFO research. McDonald acknowledges that government agencies, especially in the United States, have been involved in UFO investigations but criticizes their approach as inadequate and secretive. He calls for greater transparency and a more rigorous scientific methodology in governmental UFO research.

In conclusion, Dr. James E. McDonald’s paper advocates for the serious scientific study of UFOs, emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary and international collaboration to better understand this complex phenomenon. He challenges the scientific community to overcome the stigma surrounding UFOs and to approach the subject with open-minded curiosity and rigor.

The below document was obtained from the Gerald Ford Presidential Library. More records from the library on UFOs are available here.

Document Archive

UFOs – An International Scientific Problem by Dr. James McDonald – Presented March 12, 1968 [40 Pages, 3.5MB]

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The post UFOs – An International Scientific Problem by Dr. James McDonald – Presented March 12, 1968 first appeared on The Black Vault.

On January 4, 2022, The Black Vault filed a FOIA request for his emails relating to various UAP and UFO related keywords. The below is the result of that case, wherein more than 400 pages were found.

A lot of that number are attachments of Congressional bills and language which included UAP references, though you will find other nuggets, as well.

Document Archive

Former Acting DoD Inspector General Emails: UFOs and UAP | April 6, 2020 – January 3, 2022 [408 Pages, 112MB]

Former Acting DoD Inspector General Emails: UFOs and UAP – also AOIMSG and AARO | January 4, 2020 – January 10, 2023 [16 Pages, 4MB]

In regards to the second batch of records above, The Black Vault appealed the decision to withhold one page. That appeal was ultimately denied.

The denial letter is stored before for archival purposes.

The post Former Acting DoD Inspector General Sean O’Donnell Emails: UFOs and UAP first appeared on The Black Vault.

“Unidentified anomalous phenomena,” is anything in space, in the air, on land, in the sea or under the sea that can’t be identified, and which might pose a threat to U.S. military installations or operations.

“We have an important and yet challenging mission to lead an interagency effort to document, collect, analyze and when possible, resolve reports of any unidentified anomalous phenomena,” said Sean M. Kirkpatrick, the director of AARO.

Since the AARO office stood up this summer, Kirkpatrick said his team there has made significant headway in setting up its mission.

The post DOD Office Moving Ahead in Mission to Identify ‘Anomalous Phenomena’ first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the CBO:

The bill would
• Authorize the appropriation of $650 million for fiscal year 2023 for the Intelligence Community Management Account (ICMA)
• Establish an Office of Global Competition Analysis to analyze technology and innovation sectors critical to national security
• Establish a secure system to collect information about unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena (UAP)
• Enhance whistleblower protections
• Allow people to sue the United States government for compensatory and punitive damages
• Void some provisions of nondisclosure agreements that would prevent reports from being filed with the Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena Joint Program Office and prohibit private-sector entities from seeking damages in federal court from individuals who file reports

Estimated budgetary effects would mainly stem from
• Authorizing appropriations for the ICMA
• Establishing an Office of Global Competition Analysis
• Establishing a secure system to collect information on UAP
• Enhancing whistleblower protections
• Allowing people to sue the United States government for compensatory and punitive damages

Areas of significant uncertainty include
• Predicting the number of people who would obtain monetary awards through the judicial system and the amounts of such awards

Below, you can find the report released by the CBO.

Note: One of the first to report on this story was space journalist Leonard David.

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CBO Releases Cost Estimate for UAP Reporting Systems and the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 [7 Pages, 0.3MB]

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The post CBO Releases Cost Estimate for Secure UAP Information Systems and the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 first appeared on The Black Vault.

In December of 2021, The Black Vault profiled a paper by Dr. Spergel that came up in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. This paper appears to have never circulated publicly before.

You can read Dr. Spergel’s paper below, then visit the NASA UAP / UFO Related Internal Communications page for more FOIA finds.

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Thoughts on UFOs by Dr. David Spergel [4 Pages, 0.7MB]

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The post Dr. David Spergel and his UFO paper written prior to becoming NASA’s UAP Study Chairperson first appeared on The Black Vault.

In this short episode, I breakdown a few documents likely related, describing UFO “material” years after the U.S. government / military’s investigation into UFOs known as Project Blue Book.

The documents show that within the walls of the CIA, despite the U.S. government’s public stance, officials and personnel continued to watch UFO developments. They even reference “material” and something “hand carried” to the office of one of the CIA scientists. What was it? A document? A post it note? Piece of wreckage?

Here’s a breakdown, along with what happened when The Black Vault tried to get both documents further declassified.

The Document

The post The CIA, UFOs and “Material” first appeared on The Black Vault.

After a nearly two and a half year effort, The Black Vault was denied under FOIA to get videos declassified depicting Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) citing a harm to national security, if released.

Since December of 2017, two videos that surfaced of alleged Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings captivated the world. Months later, a third was released that only increased public interest into the topic, but also strengthened their voice for transparency about the mysterious phenomena.

Even though the military said they were not cleared for public dissemination and considered leaked, the Navy later would officially release copies of the same in April of 2020 to satisfy public curiosity and calls for transparency. But, how many other videos were there?

At that moment, The Black Vault aimed to find out just that.

So, in April of 2020, The Black Vault began a pursuit to have the U.S. Navy release ALL of their videos that held a UAP designation. And after nearly two and a half years, the untold number of videos with that UAP designation have been fully denied due to national security concerns.

The Pursuit

This story begins on April 28, 2020, when The Black Vault filed FOIA case DON-NAVY-2020-007226 (later renumbered in November of 2020 after a bogus rejection and given new case number DON-NAVY-2021-001457) to the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), the same command that officially released the three UAP videos one day prior.

The request was simple. It asked for all videos that were designated “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”, just like the FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast videos that they had previously released and labeled as “UAP”. The FOIA case  filed sought ALL of them.

It seemed plausible if there were three, there were more at NAVAIR. However, in March of 2022, NAVAIR would deny that request stating that they found no additional videos. It seemed strange they had three, and only those three, but other requests had already been filed by The Black Vault to seek out more places UAP videos might be hiding.

On February 2, 2021, The Black Vault had also filed FOIA request DON-NAVY-2021-001456. Given that it was recognized by Congress, and stated in the media numerous times, this specific case was filed with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) which was said to be the home for the UAP Task Force (UAPTF). Yet, it would take 17 months for ONI to inform The Black Vault that the videos, if any designation “UAP” should exist, would be housed at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (N2/N6), and a new case needed to be filed there. It appeared that the 17 month wait endured, was a complete waste of time.

A new case was filed DON-NAVY-2022-010360 to N2/N6, and only two months after that was filed on July 11, 2022, The Black Vault received the official denial.

“The UAP Task Force has responded back to DNS-36 and have stated that the requested videos contain sensitive information pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) and are classified and are exempt from disclosure in their entirety under exemption 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(1) in accordance with Executive Order 13526 and the UAP Security Classification Guide,” Gary Cason, Deputy Director, DON FOIA/PA Program Office, said in the response letter. “The release of this information will harm national security as it may provide adversaries valuable information regarding Department of Defense/Navy operations, vulnerabilities, and/or capabilities. No portions of the videos can be segregated for release.”

Potentially seeing a justification of an appeal, the U.S. Navy uncharacteristically gave additional details for their decision, which cited the previous release of three UAP videos.

“While three UAP videos were released in the past, the facts specific to those three videos are unique in that those videos were initially released via unofficial channels before official release,” Cason stated in the letter. “Those events were discussed extensively in the public domain; in fact, major news outlets conducted specials on these events. Given the amount of information in the public domain regarding these encounters, it was possible to release the files without further damage to national security.”

The Black Vault has filed an appeal seeking the release of the videos denied.

###

The Denial Letter

DON-NAVY-2022-010360

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The post U.S. Navy Says ALL UAP/UFO Videos Are Classified And Exempt From Release first appeared on The Black Vault.

It is reproduced here, in its entirety, as obtained from the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).

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Report on Unidentified Aerial and Celestial Objects, Project 364, April 30, 1949 by Dr. J Allen Hynek [278 Pages, 12.5MB]

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The post Report on Unidentified Aerial and Celestial Objects, Project 364, April 30, 1949 by Dr. J Allen Hynek first appeared on The Black Vault.