On February 12, 2019, the DIA answered multiple questions that I had for clarification, but in the process, brought up some new ones. From my communication with them, I determined the following:
– It is now confirmed by the DIA, that the name was, in fact, “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.”
What’s up with those Pentagon UFO videos? Sarah Scoles, Wired, 2018
. . .
“But those are all funny things to say, because it doesn’t seem like the Pentagon ever held the program’s data or documents that close, and it doesn’t seem like the videos in that story ever were classified.
“If they were officially declassified, they would have to have been officially classified,” says Nate Jones, director of the Freedom of Information Act Project at the National Security Archive. And a classified video would likely have a marking at least at the beginning and end, even after it was okayed for public consumption. Someone—at the Times, at To The Stars—could have cut those introductory and closing seconds from the video, but why would they do that, when both groups were emphasizing the direct-from-DOD legitimacy of the videos? “It looks very strongly like these weren’t released through any proper DOD declassification channels that I’ve ever seen,” says Jones. “I’ve seen a lot of DOD declassification in response to FOIA, in response to mandatory declassification review, in response to proactive disclosure. And it doesn’t look like this.””
Curt Collins (4/5/2022): UFO Updates facebook group
People are still asking: Where’s the UFO content? Keith Basterfield tweeted: “From all the recently released DIA FOIA AAWSAP material, we still see none of the BAASS AAWSAP material listed in the rear of Lacatski’s book, apart for the 37 DIRDs.” Steven Greenstreet noted the UFO material was out of sight, resulting in the program looking unworthy of SAP status and funding: “Senator Reid, who admitted he was never once updated or briefed on AAWSAP’s progress, requested AAWSAP be given SAP status because of all the ‘highly sensitive’ stuff they had discovered. DIA appears to have been confused about WTF Reid was talking about.”
Tom Delonge, and the Secret DoD UFO Research Program 12 January, 2018
‘The original contractual name for AATIP (and a slightly wider scope of issues for want of a better outline) was the “Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program” (AAWSAP).’
‘Further, “AATIP” was the term used to stipulate UFO work, within the slightly larger Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program (AAWSAP).’ – Paul Dean”
Isaac Koi info as prelude to his upcoming big Bigelow article:
“AATIP & AAWSA documents – As some of you know, I’m working on finishing a long item on Bigelow etc, which I hope to post in the next week or so. In the meantime, to try to reduce some confusion which has arisen about AATIP and AAWSA, I’ll just post a bit (some of which I’ve shared with several friends and fellow researchers during the last few weeks) on that now.
Many of you will be aware that Dr Eric Davis and Dr Hal Puthoff have discussed a series of reports they prepared under for the US government under the AATIP program. For example during a Coast to Coast interview by George Knapp on 28 January 2018, Eric Davis mentioned in relation to AATIP a series of 38 DIRDs (“Defense Intelligence Reference Documents”) regarding propulsion, power generation, material science, human interface etc (2 of which were classified).”
By: Caroline Bleakley Updated: May 04, 2018 05:28 PM PDT
One of the major successes of BAASS was in adopting the novel approach of utilizing the human body as a readout system for dissecting interactions with the UFO phenomenon. This novel approach aimed to circumvent the increasing evidence of deception and subterfuge by the UFO phenomenon in that multiple eyewitnesses co-located in the same vicinity frequently reported seeing widely different events. The evidence was multiplying that the UFO phenomenon was capable of manipulating and distorting human perception and therefore eyewitness testimony of UFO activity was becoming increasingly untrustworthy.
The BAASS approach was to view the human body as a readout system for UFO effects by utilizing forensic technology, the tools of immunology, cell biology, genomics and neuroanatomy for in depth study of the effects of UFOs on humans. This approach marked a dramatic shift away from the traditional norms of relying on eyewitness testimony as the central evidentiary arm in UFO investigations. The approach aimed to bypass UFO deception and manipulation of human perception by utilizing molecular forensics to decipher the biological consequences of the phenomenon.
The result of applying this new approach was a revolution in delineating the threat level of UFOs.
October 11, 2017 – Louis Elizondo goes public at To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science press teleconference with Tom DeLonge, without naming the Pentagon’s AATIP. (YouTube Archive). Transcript of broadcast: click here.
Other key members of TTSA include:
Chris Mellon: FMR Deputy Asst Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Jim Semivan: FMR Sr. Intelligence Service, CIA’s Directorate of Operations
Dr. Hal Puthoff: Director of DOD/CIA/DIA Scientific Research Programs
Steve Justice: FMR Advanced Systems Director for Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works”
Luis Elizondo: FMR Director of Programs to Investigate Unidentified Aerial Threats, USG
TTS ACADEMY: (left to right) Luis Elizondo, Jim Semivan, Stephen Justice, Hal Puthoff, and Christopher Mellon at a recent meeting in Seattle
At the meeting, I was given information on background and shown some revelatory documents and data off the record, some of which will eventually be made public. I was especially curious to meet Luis Eiizondo because he ran a program at the DOD involving the study of anomalous aerial threats. Luis had resigned this position literally the day before we met. I was able to verify who he was and what his tasks were at the Pentagon. He received the highest commendatons from his superiors. I learned that important unclassified data and documentation is expected to be released through the Academy’s on-line Community of Interest (COI) in collaboration with the US government, which will be set up soon.
As an investgative reporter with a long standing interest in this subject, who has worked with a few Academy team members in the past, I was shown some of this data at a meeting with them on Oct 4.
Present for that four hour meeting was Luis Eiizondo, who ran an important program at the DOD. Elizondo is a senior career intelligence officer whose experience includes working with the U.S. Army, the Dept of Defense, the National Counterintelligence Executive, and the Director of National Intelligence. He served as the Director for the National Programs Special Management Staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is also the former Director of Programs to investigate Unidentified Aerial Threats for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. . . .
I was told that important unclassified data and documentation are expected to be released through the Academy’s on-line Community of Interest (COI) in collaboration with the US government, which will be set up soon. . . .
He stated that he ran “a sensitive aerospace threat identification program focusing on unidentified aerial technologies.” His job at TTS/AAS will be “to work as a liaison and interlocutor in the collection of this information for the Science division, allowing us to collect facts for analysis.” How will this be done? One way is through the COI, which will “provide a platform for the detection and triangulation of phenomena events in real time, and allows two-way communication between the public and our team regarding this information.” . . .
It is very important to understand that Lue does not speak for the DOD, since he is no longer employed there; he speaks independently as part of the TTS Academy.
Mainstream News Coverage for Public Exposure of DoD UAP / UFO Program
Louis Elizondo, Former Director of AATIP: Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program
David Fravor … is a former Navy pilot who says he was “pretty weirded out” by an unexplained episode over the Pacific. His story has captured the attention of a Pentagon program investigating U.F.O.s.
“Helene met with a Pentagon spokesperson on Dec. 8 for a response to the information we had gathered. The answer came swiftly. There had been a program to investigate U.F.O.s, but it ended in 2012 after five years, the Defense Department insisted.
Our reporting suggested it continues, largely unfunded, to the present. And that’s what we wrote.”
Flying Saucers and Other Fairy Tales (Op-Ed Christmas Book Review of Jacques Vallée’s Passport to Magonia) [alien-encounters-christmas-ufo.html] by Ross Douthat, NYTimes.com, Dec. 23, 2017
Responding to the revelations about its activities, the Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoas told Reuters: “The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe. It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change.”
She added: “The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed.”
Year End Extravaganza: 12 Guests on Afterlife, the New Disclosure Process and Much More! Dreamland at UnknownCountry.com, Dec. 22, 2017, Host Whitley Strieber featuring guests Gary Schwartz, Dean Radin, Marla Frees, William Henry, Dr. Jeff Kripal, Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka, Dr. Garry Nolan, Peter Levenda, Ralph Blumenthal, Leslie Kean, Grant Cameron, and Linda Moulton Howe on DreamLand podcast (MP3) & YouTube (Parts One / Two),
. . . Susan Lepselter, an anthropology professor at Indiana University Bloomington, pointed out that the times we live in have a lot to do with the fears that inform our thinking about UFOs — from the nuclear era to global warming.
“Our sense of precariousness is very high right now,” Lepselter tells us. “When you think about an alien or UFO, it reminds us we are all citizens of Earth.”
Furthermore a video of the on-board camera and tracing system (ATFLIR) of one of the fighter interceptors involved in the USS-Nimitz UFO-encounter is supposed to show the object and have been available online since 2007.
“So I’ve recovered a number of those artifacts and there were two problems with that that have sort of plagued the research for a long time. … Well it’s about time that science looked at this. Fortunately I’m just getting three of these cases analyzed from France, where people are sending me the actual sample, the actual specimen. Most of that is metal.
The other thing that was very difficult is that beyond chemical analysis, it was very hard to get access to a machine where we could look at the isotopes. Now those machines, at least I have access to at least two different machines, right here in Silicon Valley, because I’m pretty well connected with the high-tech community, including one company that I financed as a venture capitalist. So I have access to their engineers and not only do they have a machine, but they’ve built the machine, so I have access to the people who have actually engineered the instrument and we can begin to look at this. What we’re finding is very preliminary but it’s absolutely fascinating because we’re not finding what we thought we would find. We would find either that the materials were terrestrial, and by the way, when you look at the isotopes, it doesn’t lie because you can look at the ratios of the actual different types of aluminum for example, or magnesium, that is in the sample and you can look at the ratios of the abundance of different isotopes of the same metal, the same element.
So, either it should be terrestrial, which we can find out very quickly, or it could be extraterrestrial, in which case you’d expect that it would vary by a few percent from the standard ratio.
Most of those machines are mass spectrometers and they are often used by geologists, among other people, who look at meteorites. Meteorites are extraterrestrial and they don’t have the same ratio of isotopes that you do if you pick up a piece of iron on earth. So they are used to looking at ratios that are a little bit different, but what we find are ratios that are 100% off.”
The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP)[1] was a secret investigatory effort funded by the United States government to study unidentified flying objects, but it was not classified. It was first made public on 16 December 2017. The program began in 2007, with funding of $22 million over the five years until the available appropriations were ended in 2012.[2][3] The program began in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.[4]
Initiated by then U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) to study unexplained aerial phenomena at the urging of Reid’s friend, Nevada businessman and governmental contractor Robert Bigelow,[5]and with support from the late Senators Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the program began in the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2007 and ended after five years, with a budget of $22 million spread out over five years.[2][3]
Interviewed in the aftermath of the program’s disclosure, Reid expressed pride in his accomplishment, and was quoted as saying “I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.”[2]
The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program has generated a currently publicly unissued 490 page report that documents alleged worldwide UFO sightings over several decades.[6]
The program was headed by an official in U.S. military intelligence named Luis Elizondo, who resigned from an office in the U.S. Pentagon in October 2017 to protest government secrecy and opposition to the investigation, saying in a resignation letter to U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis that the program was not being taken seriously.[7]
While the United States Department of Defense has stated that the program was terminated in 2012, the exact nature of the end of the program is unclear.[8]
Politico published a statement by a former staff member that, “After a while the consensus was we really couldn’t find anything of substance,” …“They produced reams of paperwork. After all of that there was really nothing there that we could find. It all pretty much dissolved from that reason alone—and the interest level was losing steam. We only did it a couple years.”[3]
In contrast, the program’s leader Elizondo, in an appearance on CNN on Tuesday, December 19 2017, stated “We may not be alone.”[9]
Media reporting
Disclosure of the secret program was first noted in the media on December 16, 2017, in simultaneous news stories in Politicoand The New York Times. The story in the Times included doubts expressed by James Oberg, a space writer and UFO debunker, and Sara Seager, a scientific specialist on the atmospheres of extrasolar planets, with Oberg quoted as saying “There are plenty of prosaic events and human perceptual traits that can account for these stories.” However, Oberg also said he welcomed further research.[2][3]
Although the program was not named specifically, program leader Elizondo was prominently reported on and quoted in The Huffington Post in late October 2017.[10] Several days earlier, Elizondo announced his involvement in the creation of a paranormal entertainment company called To the Stars.[11]
The Washington Post reported on December 16, 2017 that Elizondo was responsible for the public release of footage taken by United States fighter jets that appears to show aerial objects maneuvering in inexplicable ways in the USS Princeton aerial object incident. The newspaper also stated that it had conducted several interviews with Elizondo and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon, who is associated with Elizondo in a private venture named ‘To the Stars Academy for Arts and Sciences.’[6]
Jump up^Crawford, Jamie (December 17, 2017). “NY Times: Pentagon study of UFOs revealed”. CNN. …Robert Bigelow, the billionaire founder of an aerospace company. Bigelow has spoken about his belief in UFOs visiting the United States as well as the existence of aliens.