The Pentagon's Alternative History
"It appears the fight for transparency on the UAP topic has only just begun."
A week ago today, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released Volume I of its historical review mandated by Congress in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023. AARO was established after several unsuccessful attempts by the Congressional Defense and Intelligence Committees to centralize reporting, analysis, and public transparency efforts to address unidentified anomalous phenomena within the Department of Defense (DoD).
For those unfamiliar with the term, unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) is the latest US government euphemism for unidentified flying objects (UFOs). After the DoD repeatedly failed to fulfill the will of Congress by not setting up an office dedicated to UAP, the unambiguous legislative language finally provided some hope for transparency. A significant aspect of the encouraging verbiage included a historical review of the government's involvement with the topic dating back to 1945.
Worth reviewing in full to establish context for this discussion, the following is how the legislation spelled out the expectations of Congress:
Not later than 540 days after the date of the enactment of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, the Director of the Office shall submit to the congressional defense committees, the congressional intelligence committees, and congressional leadership a written report detailing the historical record of the United States Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including —
the records and documents of the intelligence community;
oral history interviews;
open source analysis;
interviews of current and former Government officials;
classified and unclassified national archives including any records any third party obtained pursuant to section 552 of title 5, United States Code; and
such other relevant historical sources as the Director of the Office considers appropriate.
The report submitted under subparagraph (A) shall
focus on the period beginning on January 1, 1945, and ending on the date on which the Director of the Office completes activities under this subsection; and
include a compilation and itemization of the key historical record of the involvement of the intelligence community with unidentified anomalous phenomena, including —
any program or activity that was protected by restricted access that has not been explicitly and clearly reported to Congress;
successful or unsuccessful efforts to identify and track unidentified anomalous phenomena; and
any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena or related activities.
When Congress mandated a historical review meant to document “any efforts to obfuscate…information about unidentified anomalous phenomena,” it appears the Pentagon got confused and produced a report that was an obfuscation of information in itself.
Before we get into the specifics of the report's egregious lack of good faith, reviewing some context around those who wrote it is necessary.
Obfuscation Nation
First, I must mention an additional piece of legislation that received a substantial amount of attention last year after former NRO official David Grusch testified under oath before Congress.
In June 2023, Grusch told the House Oversight Committee that the US had indeed covered up crash retrieval and reverse-engineering programs related to UAP. He had filed a complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General over retaliation he received over his investigation into these programs, which the IG deemed "credible and urgent” and subsequently referred to Congress.
Soon after his testimony was received, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced an amendment to the 2024 NDAA titled the "UAP Disclosure Act of 2023." The amendment contained 64 pages of eyebrow-raising legislative definitions such as those for "non-human intelligence" and "technologies of unknown origin."
The main goal was to set up a UAP records declassification review panel to provide public transparency on a topic long shrouded in secrecy. However, the eminent domain clause provided an excuse for a small number of Republicans in the House to ultimately gut the bill and prevent any meaningful results from its passage.
The amendment itself provides a helpful window into the Senators' thought process behind pushing these measures. The language is infinitely more direct and detailed than previous UAP legislation and shows an undeniable increase in how educated lawmakers have become on the topic. The verbiage left no room for semantic interpretation, which is likely the reason it was so worrisome for many in the defense establishment.
What concerns us now is the location of specific UFO documents and how Senators worded the mechanisms to retrieve them. It has long been understood that many of the UAP secrets held by the government are located inside the Department of Energy (DoE) due to its stringent classification guidelines. David Grusch himself stated that "the US government overlaid the Manhattan Project secrecy, personnel…generally what elements were involved corporately and governmentally" onto the subsequent UFO reverse engineering programs.
The Senators appear to have gotten this memo, as they utilize the Atomic Energy Commission's "transclassification" procedure as a justification for drafting the UAP Disclosure Act:
(4) Legislation is necessary because credible evidence and testimony indicates that Federal Government unidentified anomalous phenomena records exist that have not been declassified or subject to mandatory declassification review as set forth in Executive Order 13526 (50 U.S.C. 3161 note; relating to classified national security information) due in part to exemptions under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.), as well as an overbroad interpretation of ‘‘transclassified foreign nuclear information’’, which is also exempt from mandatory declassification, thereby preventing public disclosure under existing provisions of law.
Reading this provision, it's quite obvious that the DoD's involvement with the UAP topic is only scratching the surface. The DoE's decades of involvement alone should raise questions about the thoroughness of AARO's historical report. The report only mentions the Department of Energy once as a "partner" among other agencies "such as" CIA and DIA.
It is extremely hard to believe that AARO, who did not even possess Title 50 classification authority, would have access to the "transclassified foreign nuclear information" called out specifically by Senators as a massive roadblock to accessing essential UAP records.
Disturbingly, yet unsurprisingly, the lead author of the AARO report is no doubt very familiar with these DoE classification guidelines.
A Product of the System
The now-former Director of AARO, Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, has an impressive resume of scientific education and employment capable of convincing almost anyone that he would be more than qualified to lead the DoD's UAP office. However, to those familiar with the subtleties and organizations involved in the effort to cover up the UFO topic, both within the government and private industry, countless red flags were being raised from day one.
Kirkpatrick's involvement with the Department of Energy began at just 17 years old. In recognition of his prodigious scientific accomplishments, the teenage Kirkpatrick was invited to Brookhaven National Laboratory to attend a research program.
A July 1986 Atlanta Journal article reported on his opportunity to work among the scientists at the lab, which is jointly run by the DoE and Battelle Memorial Institute:
When Duluth teenager and budding inventor Sean Kirkpatrick began his ambitious plan three years ago to build a machine that could speed up blood typing with the use of lasers, all he had in mind was "getting my first patent before I was 19."
Now he has a chance to realize even bigger dreams. Kirkpatrick will experience "the kind of thrill I can't explain" while working alongside the federal government's top research scientists in the inaugural High School Honors Research Program sponsored by the Department of Energy.
He was named Thursday as one of 52 students from across the nation to spend Monday-July 25 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, N.Y.
The 17-year-old Duluth High School senior leaves for New York on Sunday.
"I will have the chance to learn from some of the best scientists in the world," he said. "You can't get much more of a thrill than that."
Only the "best and brightest" high school science students from across the nation were given a chance to participate in the program, aimed at "exposing them to the full range of research science and encouraging them to make it a career," according to Department of Energy spokesman Jeff Sherwood.
As someone recruited by the DoE at the impressionable age of 17, it would seem appropriate to assume he was eventually shown the ins and outs of the department's security measures and would likely feel a deep loyalty to an organization that provided him with such a "thrilling" opportunity.
His intense focus on patent and intellectual property rights — and the lucrative incentive that comes with them — depicts a young man already sensitive to proprietary ownership of technological advancements through research and development.
Presuming he read the legislation, the eminent domain clause contained in the UAP Disclosure Act likely made Kirkpatrick more uncomfortable than most.
The Notorious SAIC
Dr. Kirkpatrick went on to work for one of the Department of Energy's biggest contractors, a company known as the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Known mainly for their cleanup projects conducted after disastrous events such as Three Mile Island and the terrorist attacks on 9/11, SAIC leadership was always keen to stay in the shadows as much as possible.
SAIC was founded by physicist J. Robert Beyster using personal savings and two government contracts awarded by Los Alamos and the aforementioned Brookhaven National Labs. According to the Washington Post, the company "adopted a matrix operating model in which different service lines collaborate to serve a given contract." This may have led to SAIC splitting into two units due to conflict of interest concerns, with the main defense business rebranding itself as a company called Leidos while the remaining intelligence contractor retained the original name.
One of SAIC's most well-known former board members is somewhat of a legendary figure among UFO researchers. Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, in a secretly recorded phone conversation with former NASA engineer Bob Oeschler, acknowledged the existence of “areas” of research into UFOs — but his knowledge was “out of date” since he had retired and joined SAIC in 1982.
The transcript of this conversation is worth citing at length, and courtesy of UFO researchers Daniel Elizondo and The Hermetic Penetrator from their outstanding research document titled Loose Threads:
Oechsler: Two things, one, it's my feeling from my research that there is a dichotomy of sorts, one in which there seems to be an indoctrination program to educate the public to the realities that are involved here. The other must be a problem relating to security measures and the need-to-know level…. I have focused a great deal on the technological end of the technologies, and I've studied a great deal of the things that have been going wrong along in the Chesapeake Bay, in connection with the Electromagnetic Continuity Analysis Center and with the EMP projects.
Inman: “All of those are areas in which I am vastly out of date. When I made the decision to retire seven years ago, I made a conscious decision to sever ongoing ties with the U.S. Intelligence Community. I have had some exposure on limited occasions, to some areas of activity over the succeeding seven years when I did the Embassy Security Survey as a consultant to the Defense Science Board. But overwhelmingly my efforts in these seven years have been focused on industrial competitiveness ...
Oechsler: Right.
Inman: ...on the application of science and technology in the commercial world.
Oechsler: I am aware of that.
Inman: So for many of the things, at least as I sort of infer from the conversation of the interest of Mr. Good and Peter Hill-Norton, they are areas where while I had some expertise, it's now, you know, seven years old.
Oechsler: I see.
Inman: And the pace at which things move in that field, the odds of my being accurate are increasingly remote, in understanding those things.
Oechsler: Is it your understanding that there is a cultural dialogue going on, (long pause) today?
Inman: Well I guess I'd have to ask with whom? Between what parties?
Oechsler: Well, between any of the parties that presumably are behind the technology in the crafts.
Inman: I honestly don't know. Have no exposure at all. So I haven't a clue whether there are any ongoing dialogues or not. I'm trying to think who there in the Washington area that is at least much closer to the issues, that might be able to at least give you some guidance.
As this conversation shows, Admiral Inman knew of the existence of a UFO reverse engineering program. As he was unknowingly being recorded, his candor in this conversation far surpasses that of most in a similar position to know the details. Considering the company's brazen willingness to overlook conflicts of interest, it strains credulity that this knowledge of UAP technology was not exploited by SAIC to maintain a competitive advantage.
One of SAIC's leading scientific minds at the turn of the century, and while Inman was on the company's board, was none other than former AARO director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick. At this point, Kirkpatrick had scored one of his long-sought patents with the company.
Patent US6624915B1 filed on 9/7/2000 under SAIC, and listing Kirkpatrick as an inventor, was for "Holographic recording and micro/nanofabrication via ultrafast holographic two-photon induced photopolymerization (H-TPIP)." In short, this invention provides an improved process for nano-fabrication and holographic recording that includes applications for genome sequencing:
The microfabrication of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for biotechnology applications (bioMEMS) is a rapidly growing field. High-throughput DNA analysis is of central importance due to the many applications including, for example, chemical/biological weapons (CBW) defense. Bioagent detection, e.g., anthrax spores, can be accomplished quickly and specifically using high-throughput DNA analysis based on standard techniques like polymerase chain reaction (PCR). For industry, high-throughput DNA analysis has implications for the Human Genome Project.
The industrial challenge of completing the Human Genome Project is based on miniaturization technology which allows for more DNA to be analyzed in dramatically shorter time frames (minutes versus hours).
This sounds very similar to the invention Kirkpatrick came up with that caught the attention of the DoE, as described earlier in this article:
"One use would be in the identification of crystals, like diamonds," he said. "A jeweler would be able to use my machine and identify various jewels. Each gem has its own molecular structure, so they could identity one by its own specific fingerprint. This could really change the area of security."
The other practical use still on the drawing board could significantly reduce the time needed for blood typing.
"It could save lives," he said.
"My machine is portable, so ambulances could carry it and get a blood sample in 10 minutes... instead of taking a sample back to the hospital and waiting an hour or more."
Interestingly, the study of BioMEMS was undertaken by AAWSAP, the UFO program that Kirkpatrick spent much time deriding in the recent AARO report. However, the applications detailed in the DIA Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD) do not mention the holographic method in the SAIC patent.
The DIRD does mention the application of BioMEMS in the creation of a brain-machine interface. This is one of the leading theories to explain the mechanism for piloting these anomalous craft, and the fact that Kirkpatrick was patenting novel ways to implement BioMEMS is an interesting coincidence, to say the least.
There are more disturbing aspects of the connection between SAIC and the UFO coverup — particularly when it comes to blood and DNA — but I will leave it there for now and turn to the numerous problems with the AARO report itself.
The Usual Suspects
Now that we understand the lead author's background, let's examine how the report fails to fulfill Congress's intent There have been many errors pointed out by more knowledgeable researchers than myself when it comes to the more minute details, so I will highlight the absurdities of the historical review in a more general critique.
Initially, we must acknowledge Sean Kirkpatrick's media blitz in the weeks leading up to the report's release. Having left the office at the end of 2023, it seems rather suspicious that Kirkpatrick maintained an unpaid advisory role with AARO after his career transition to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
First reported by investigative journalist Ross Coulthart on November 1st of last year, Kirkpatrick registered an LLC the month before in North Carolina for a company called Nonlinear Solutions. Additionally, Coulthart noted that a contact card for Kirkpatrick had appeared on the ORNL website indicating his departure as the director of AARO was imminent. Oak Ridge, in a similar manner to Brookhaven, is also run by Battelle. This must have felt like a homecoming of sorts for Kirkpatrick.
I find it important to address an interesting side note regarding Battelle Memorial Institute. Former Undersecretary of Defense for Information and Security (USD(I&S)) Ronald Moultrie was one of two military leaders to testify during the initial House UAP hearing in May 2022. According to my good friend Matt Ford of The Good Trouble Show, Moultrie refused to be briefed on UAP in the months leading up to that hearing for the sole purpose of maintaining plausible deniability, allowing him to feign ignorance without technically lying to the committee.
This may come as no surprise to individuals like Luis Elizondo, who resigned from that same office after his calls to brief the president on the UFO issue were stifled and ignored. Elizondo has also alleged that OUSD leadership engaged in retaliation against those who did attempt to alert other individuals of an obvious national security threat.
Ronald Moultrie, the man in charge of the office during this time, may have had a professional incentive to facilitate such an atmosphere in his workplace. Previously, the non-profit government watchdog Project for Government Oversight included Moultrie in their "Pentagon Revolving Door Database." One of the listings on his profile included his position on the board of directors for none other than Battelle Memorial Institute, which is now no longer displayed on the website.
Battelle has been infamous in the UFO lore for their rumored involvement in the recovery of and research into the Roswell crash debris in 1947. The multi-billion dollar non-profit was also intimately involved in the US Air Force's UFO study Project Blue Book, which the current AARO report is aptly drawing comparisons to the conclusions of. Battelle even designed the questionnaire that was provided to UFO witnesses and maintained a database of the responses received.
The third bullet point of Blue Book's summary stated that "there was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as 'unidentified' were extraterrestrial vehicles." Over half a century later, AARO has unsurprisingly drawn the same conclusions despite the problem persisting — and by some metrics, even increasing over such an extended period of time.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, Moultrie left his position as USD(I&S) on February 29th of this year. Whether or not his departure was due to future revelations similar to his voluntary ignorance on the UAP topic is anyone's guess, but it's hard to see his tenure ending at the same time as Kirkpatrick's as just a mere coincidence. They clearly saw eye to eye in their dismissiveness of the UFO issue, as was obvious in their banter during Kirkpatrick's inaugural off-camera press briefing as the director of AARO.
Perhaps Battelle rewarded them both with a comfortable employment opportunity in return for their clumsy reenactment of Project Blue Book. Regardless, both Moultrie and Kirkpatrick are no longer with OUSD(I&S), and their legacy of obfuscation regarding one of the most important topics in human history is now locked in for the rest of time.
A Convoluted Conversation
As demonstrated in the conclusions of both the AARO historical report and Project Blue Book, the focus on the term "extraterrestrial" has been used time and time again as a get-out-of-jail-free card by government agencies. The false binary choice of these craft originating from either Earth or another planet has long provided an off-ramp for any thorough discussion.
Luckily, it appears our representatives in Congress have come to understand the disingenuousness of this strawman argument. In the UAP Disclosure Act, the term "extraterrestrial" does not appear once as it is deliberately replaced by the concept of "non-human intelligence" (NHI).
There are more than twenty references to NHI over the 65 pages of legislation. This indicates a much broader interpretation of the potential origin of UFOs and leaves very little room for the DoD and intelligence agencies to engage in semantic manipulation when providing information.
The UAP Disclosure Act defined NHI as follows:
The term ‘‘non-human intelligence’’ means any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin that may be presumed responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena or of which the Federal Government has become aware.
The words "regardless of nature or ultimate origin" are the key here. There are countless possibilities when it comes to the intelligence behind the UFO phenomenon as demonstrated by an unreleased presentation slide created by retired Army Colonel and longtime Northrop Grumman CTO Karl Nell. Nell, who provided insight into his thinking at the Sol Foundation Symposium in November 2023, posited over 70 possible explanations for the origins of UAP, with categories encompassing the ET hypothesis making up a measly four of these potential sources.
If someone with the level of clearance Nell has held through his career is unable to narrow it down beyond the 70 hypotheses represented in his slide, it begs the question of how and why the AARO report failed to explain their reasoning for doing so.
AARO's exploitation of throwback Hollywood "alien" tropes that have permeated our culture is not only a strategy they deploy on a subliminal level. Throughout the report, they use it to prove specific points they are making, as well as a rebuttal to any criticisms they deem "conspiracy theories."
There is an entire subsection titled "Popular Culture" that blames social media for the reinforcement of the very stigmatizing beliefs that the Department of Defense and intelligence community have been harnessing to box in the conversation around UFOs for decades. The level of shameless victim-blaming by Sean Kirkpatrick and those he serves demonstrates once again the ineffectiveness that using the same old tired Cold War playbook in the internet age results in.
The Next Generation
I believe what we are currently witnessing with this report are the last dying gasps of an old guard unable to calibrate their information operations to humanity's current-day reality. It appears decades of over-compartmentalization have its drawbacks — one of them being that the tried-and-true, good-old-boy strategies of public deception will eventually rot away into irrelevance as the Cold War era is forgotten with time.
Luckily, there has been very recent evidence that the crusty old dinosaurs responsible for the UFO coverup have indeed lost their footing. A YouGov poll published in the days after the AARO report's release shows widespread, much-deserved distrust of the US government's public statements on UAP. It appears the headlines downplaying transparency efforts around the topic generated in mainstream media had close to zero impact on the opinions of the American people.
According to the YouGov poll conducted March 10-12, 2024, 63% of American adults believe the US government is concealing information about what it knows about the UFO phenomenon. This includes a majority across all party lines, indicating partisan talking points of mistrust in government more generally have little to do with how American citizens see DoD's lack of transparency on UAP. Even more fascinating is how the difference in numbers when the level of education is taken into account is nearly non-existent.
Additionally, only 32% of respondents have bought the Pentagon's line that all UFOs are prosaic. It appears the American populace is much more sympathetic to Karl Nell's suggestion that we keep a much more open mind when it comes to the origin of these mysterious craft. The numbers continue to show little for the Pentagon to celebrate.
What has become clear is that worries over the AARO report prompting a general mentality of "case closed" within public opinion are likely way overblown. As it seems most members of Congress share this sentiment, although perhaps not as publicly as they may want, it appears the fight for transparency on the UAP topic has only just begun.