Phillips, Tim

Phillips, Tim – former acting director of AARO

From Tim Phillips’ LinkedIn page 7/19/2025:

“Yesterday was my last day as a Federal Government employee after a combined 45 years of military and Federal Civil Service. Today, I received the Secretary of Defense Civilian Career Service Medal for exceptional civilian service. I am very grateful to my wife and family who supported my career despite the frequent PCS moves, TDYs, and overseas deployments. It was a honor to serve with so many truley exceptional military, Intelligence Community, and Federal Law Enforcement professionals throughout my career. I will miss your company, the national security mission, and most importantly your friendship. I am grateful to have served my country, looking forward to the next adventure, and spending more time with family and friends.

Thank you,

Tim Phillips”

“Today, Phillips posted about his early retirement on LinkedIn (below). Back in April, Phillips was given deferred resignation (DRP) as part of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts. This meant he was on paid leave until he officially retired September 30, 2025. In May, Phillips did an exclusive interview with me at @nypost and told me he was “no longer under the tyranny of the DoD’s Public Affairs Office” and was thus allowed to do public interviews. Phillips went on to do 5 more public interviews, mostly with UFO-centric personalities. But apparently his interviews raised counter intelligence red flags within ODNI and, on July 10th, he was asked to stop all interviews and, moving forward, to get approval from the DoD. One week later, July 18th, he was terminated. Essentially forced into retirement 2 months early. My @nypost  interview with Phillips: youtube.com/watch?v=LcwkyR“

 

“Tim Phillips has been fired effective today. Phillips, the former Deputy Director of AARO, the Pentagon’s “UFO office”, recently did a handful of public interviews (exclusively first with me) regarding his discoveries while at AARO. He was then contacted by ODNI counter intelligence, ordering him to stop doing interviews without DOD approval until his official retirement in October 2025. But today, Phillips received a termination letter from ODNI HR – the DNI terminated his Federal Government employment effective today, July 18th. No details were provided and no appeal was allowed. Phillips states, “I was surprised by this action but senior executives serve at the pleasure of the President. After 45 years of honorable military and government service, often in very dangerous places, I thought I would have an opportunity to discuss why I was terminated.” My @nypost  interview with Tim Phillips: youtube.com/watch?v=LcwkyR“

 

“New statement from DoD & AARO spokesperson, Susan Gough:

‘Tim Phillips is no longer the Deputy Director, AARO, and his views expressed on LinkedIn are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of DOD or the U.S. government.'”

 

“Last month, Acting Director Tim Phillips attended the Defence Geospatial Intelligence Conference in London. This was an opportunity to engage with experts from around the world about GEOINT techniques and tools, which are essential for the successful resolution of UAP cases.”

 

“During his tenure, Dr. Kirkpatrick stood up the office and its operations, investigated more than 800 unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) cases, led an extensive search for U.S. Government and contractor programs associated with UAP, and established the department’s first public-facing website … to bring greater transparency to the department’s work,” the department’s statement said.

The Defense Department announced that Tim Phillips would be the deputy director of AARO until the Pentagon hires a permanent replacement.

“Phillips brings to AARO his extensive experience in geospatial intelligence collection and mission management, expertise that is critical to enabling DOD and intelligence community components to successfully identify, characterize, and resolve unidentified anomalous phenomena,” a separate statement from the department said.

 

See also…

 

 

 

Tim Phillips is the former deputy director of AARO, the Pentagon’s UAP/UFO investigation office. We discuss AARO’s work and the claims made in the recent Wall Street Journal article about EMP tests at a nuclear site and the Project Yankee hazing prank.

  • 00:00:00 – Start
  • 00:02:12 – Background
  • 00:03:22 – Clarifying Seeing the Black Triangle
  • 00:04:29 – AARO’s Data Collection
  • 00:08:20 – Drone reporting
  • 00:11:07 – GREMLIN mobile system
  • 00:15:09 – Limitations of the human sensory system
  • 00:17:01 – What data do we have on “Genuine” UAP?
  • 00:20:24 – AARO’s Hiring – Supernatural beliefs vs. Open Minded
  • 00:23:38 – Our Technology could get mistaken for something from another world
  • 00:26:49 – The Nimitz Incident and the Missing Tapes
  • 00:28:49 – Missing Nimitz log books
  • 00:29:27 – DARPA Took The Tapes
  • 00:31:18 – WASP – Which the Princeton may have detected
  • 00:33:43 – The Langley UAS (Drones) incident
  • 00:34:47 – Langley recorded over UAS detections
  • 00:35:59 – AARO leveraging Title 50, and Title 10. Organization structure
  • 00:38:42 – Transparency, Disclosure, and Declassification
  • 00:41:11 – Why some members of Congress were denied access
  • 00:42:52 – One Witness seemed to be extorting AARO
  • 00:44:38 – Visiting the Nevada Test Site (Area 51)
  • 00:46:10 – Witness Reports are accurate, but of our technology
  • 00:47:57 – Test Objects (Spheres and Eggs) at Area 51
  • 00:49:57 – Revisting Langley
  • 00:52:31 – Mexican Cartel Drones
  • 00:53:26 – Cartels using Drones as weapons
  • 00:53:51 – Drone warfare on the US homeland
  • 00:55:06 – Golden Dome and Data Utilization
  • 00:57:52 – Why are no UAP detected in the Capital Region?
  • 00:59:46 – Gimbal
  • 01:00:50 – Frustration at being asked to look at old cases
  • 01:01:54 – Challenges of publishing classified information
  • 01:03:13 – AARO’s analysis of physical material
  • 01:05:29 – Blue Force Deconfiction – Is it one of ours?
  • 01:07:12 – Gimbal – Is there more data?
  • 01:07:48 – Chapter 33
  • 01:10:11 – Film of the atlas missile interceptor test
  • 01:11:48 – Malmstrom Nuclear Missiles – Transformer Failure or EMP Test?
  • 01:14:42 – Yankee Blue
  • 01:19:53 – Other examples of hazing or disinformation
  • 01:23:59 – Was David Grush Influenced by Yankee Blue?
  • 01:24:47 – NDA’s and the Death Penalty
  • 01:26:27 – The UAP disclosure act
  • 01:29:58 – Public help and a possible UAP identification contest
  • 01:31:17 – SCU’s contribution
  • 01:32:42 – Collection Bias
  • 01:33:16 – Data mining FAA radar
  • 01:34:40 – Possibility of things beyond standard physics
  • 01:35:38 – UAP detection in space
  • 01:37:05 – AARO and Instrumenting other areas of the world
  • 01:39:07 – The need to demystify UAP research
  • 01:41:21 – The future of AARO