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Michael Shellenberger (Public) — “Pentagon Is Illegally Hiding Secret UFO Program From Congress, Whistleblowers Allege” (FULL TEXT)

Pentagon Is Illegally Hiding Secret UFO Program From Congress, Whistleblowers Allege New government whistleblower reveals, for the first time, the name of the Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP) for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER OCT 08, 2024 ∙ PAID

           General Lloyd Austin testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee
             during his confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of Defense on
             January 19, 2021. (Photo by GREG NASH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

One of Congress’ most important responsibilities is oversight of the executive branch in general and the military and Intelligence Community (IC) in particular. The first article of the United States Constitution specifies this responsibility. This role ensures that powerful governmental entities operate within the bounds of the law, uphold democratic principles, and remain accountable to the American people.

This responsibility extends to classified programs like Special Access Programs (SAPs). By law, the Department of Defense (DOD) must notify the “Gang of Eight” (the chairpersons and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate) and/or the relevant congressional committees about their existence.

The National Security Act of 1947 requires that covert operations and Compartmentalized Access Programs (CAPs) by intelligence agencies, including the military intelligence community, be reported to Congress. Specifically, the President must provide a written finding that justifies covert action and submit it to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

While the military and IC may limit the amount of detail shared with Congress, the Constitutional and legal responsibility remains. Sunshine remains the best disinfectant. Readers are, of course, welcome to disbelieve the whistleblowers and the evidence they provide of UAPs. I do not claim to know what they are.

There is, however, a growing body of evidence that the government is not being transparent about what it knows about UAPs and that elements within the military and IC are in violation of their Constitutional duty to notify Congress of their operations.

Over the last four days, a Pentagon spokesperson repeatedly promised to respond to Public’s questions but did not do so. We will update this article with their response should they decide to provide one.

— Michael

There is no evidence that any non-human or extra-terrestrial intelligence has visited Earth, according to a May 2024 report by the office the Pentagon created in 2022 to study unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), formerly called UFOs. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) “assesses that the inaccurate claim that the USG is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and is hiding it from Congress is, in large part,” the report concluded, “the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence.”

The former Director of AARO has since resigned his position and has repeatedly dismissed and ridiculed the topic, claiming that talk of the phenomenon is due mainly to a small group of individuals in the grip of a rumor-based religion.

But critics say that AARO’s 63-page history of the US government’s investigation into UAPs since the end of World War II was riddled with factual errors and poor referencing, including to Wikipedia. And the document was missing historical information that appeared in the 117-page “UAP Timeline” document created by a former or existing US government intelligence officer that Public published last year.

Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President George H. W. Bush, wrote a lengthy rebuttal, concluding, “this is the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading during or after decades of government service.”

And major political figures, including Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, have vouched for the credibility of UAP witnesses and whistleblowers.

“I’ve interviewed solid people,” said former president Donald Trump in September, “great pilots for the US Air Force, et cetera, they’ve seen things that they cannot explain.” Former President Donald Trump interviewed by his son Don Trump, Jr. about UAPs

Trump has said repeatedly that the government has information about UAPs that it has not released. In 2020, during a podcast with his son, Donald Trump, Jr., Trump said, “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.”

In June of this year, Trump said that the government has information about UAPs that it has not released. “I have access,” he said, “and I speak to people about it. I’ve had actually meetings on it. And they will tell you there’s something going on.”

In 2021, former CIA Director John Brennan said, “I think some of the phenomena we may be seeing continue to be unexplained and might be some type of phenomenon that results from something that we don’t yet understand and could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.”

The same year, the current Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, said UAPs could constitute non-human intelligence (NHI).

In 2023, a high-ranking former intelligence officer named David Grusch testified to Congress that the US government had retrieved spacecraft of nonhuman origin and bodies, which US government insiders told Public was accurate.

In July 2022, the Intelligence Community Inspector General concluded that Grusch’s complaint that “elements” of the IC had withheld or hidden UAP-related information from Congress “to purposely and intentionally thwart legitimate Congressional oversight of the UAP Program” was both “credible” and “urgent.”

At the time, Charles McCullough III, the first Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, who the US Senate had confirmed for his job in 2011, represented Grusch.

That does not mean that extraterrestrial beings occupy or are operating the UAPs, nor that the US government and military contractors are hiding crashed alien spacecraft or bodies, as some former astronauts, former IC officers, and former military leaders claim.

There are other explanations for UAPs. Current dominant alternative theories, including those put forward by AARO, are that UAPs are some kind of natural phenomenon we don’t yet understand, like ball lighting or plasma. They could also be part of some new US or foreign government weapons program, such as drones, aircraft, balloons, CGI hoaxes, or birds.

Other UAP skeptics say that some combination of government disinformation and social contagion, like the Satanic panic of the 1980s or the Salem witch trials, among UAP believers in the US military are driving the phenomenon.

Is it possible that the Pentagon and CIA are still playing disinformation games with the American people to cover up unacknowledged programs? Or that intelligence and security agencies, as well as politicians, are creating a UAP hoax to frighten the public? And is it possible that whistleblowers are fabricating parts or all of their testimony?

The US Air Force allegedly used disinformation against a UFO buff in the past to cover up a weapons program. Something similar could be happening today.

However, no available evidence supports that theory. And so, while this possibility should not be ignored, for it to be true, it would require a complicated conspiracy with unclear motivations. As Senator Rubio noted last year, “Most of [the UAP whistleblowers] have held very high clearances and high positions within our government. So, you do ask yourself: What incentive would so many people with that kind of qualification – these are serious people – have to come forward and make something up?”

Rubio also said that individuals in “high clearances and high positions within our government” with “firsthand knowledge” of UAPs were “fearful of harm coming to them.”

Grusch and other UAP whistleblowers say the government retaliated against them and tried to stop them from going public.

Last year, Senator Gillibrand said, “There’s a lot of fear and so I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of it. I don’t know if we’ll ever get the information about Special Access Programs that are ‘need to know,’ only that Congress has not [been] read in on. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.”

The training and experience of many UAP witnesses and whistleblowers, including in the US IC and military, undermine facile dismissals of all these individuals as cranks and grifters.

In 2021, John Ratcliffe, the Director of National Intelligence under former President Trump, said that UAP demonstrated “technologies that we don’t have and, frankly, that we are not capable of defending against.” And, Ratcliffe said, U.S. intelligence analysts had “high confidence” that foreign adversaries were not behind the famous “Tic Tac” UAP that four Navy Pilots encountered over the water.

Last October, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the DOD published their 2023 Annual Report on UAPs. It said that “many reports from military witnesses do present potential safety of flight concerns, and there are some cases where reported UAP have potentially exhibited one or more concerning performance characteristics such as high-speed travel or unusual maneuverability.”

Finally, many videos and photographs cannot be easily dismissed, and people have reported similar UAPs before drones, aircraft, and CGI existed or were widespread. And now, existing and former US government officials have told members of Congress that AARO and the Pentagon have broken the law by not revealing a significant body of information about UAPs, including military intelligence databases that have evidence of their existence as physical craft.

One of these individuals is a current or former US government official acting as a UAP whistleblower. The person has written a report that says “the Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight, or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades.”

Furthermore, these individuals have revealed the name of an active and highly secretive DOD “Unacknowledged Special Access Program,” or USAP. The source of the document told Public that the USAP is a “strategic intelligence program” that is part of the US military’s family of long-standing, highly-sensitive programs dealing with various aspects of the UAP ‘problem.’”

Public is revealing its name here for the first time.

“Immaculate Constellation”

            Photograph of UAP (“Mosul Orb”) over Iraq released by AARO in 2023

The new UAP whistleblower claims that the US military and IC database includes videos and images taken using “Infrared (IR), Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR), Full Motion Video (FMV), and Still Photography.” The government whistleblower made their claims in a report provided to authorized Committees of Congress and their staff.

The whistleblower alleges that the DOD created the USAP, called “Immaculate Constellation,” in 2017 after the New York Times published an article describing an informal Pentagon UAP program called “Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program,” or AATIP.

The report shared with Congress says, “IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION serves as a central or ‘parent’ USAP that consolidates observations” of UAPs and “by both tasked and untasked collection platforms.”

The whistleblower’s report includes seven categories of evidence. It describes in detail various UAP sightings collected by technical assets and US military personnel. “The multitude of wavelengths collected by these sensors,” the report says, “have captured UAP characteristics that are difficult or impossible to observe with the human eye alone. Subtle atmospheric effects associated with UAPs are also visible through the sensors employed by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies.

“The verifiable chain of custody for UAP IMINT [-quality Imagery Intelligence] collected by U.S. military assets,” the person wrote, “ensures a high level of confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the data gathered.”

The report concludes that “the existence of IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION demonstrates the extant capability to detect, quarantine, and transfer UAP and ARV [Alien Reproduction Vehicle] collection incidents before they are observed and circulated within the Military Intelligence Enterprise, thus serving as a means of enforcing internal information security.”

A former IC official confirmed to Public the existence of Immaculate Constellation, “That program is run out of SEC DEF [Office of the Secretary of Defense],” the person said. “They don’t want to acknowledge it’s real.” The same person warned that simply printing the name “Immaculate Constellation” could trigger government surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of whoever publishes it. “They won’t comment on it, but talking about it will put you in the danger zone. They enforce the secrecy with a lot of vigor.”

The whistleblower’s report said that “A significant volume of intelligence reports documenting first-hand encounters with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) or Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) by DOD personnel exists within defense HUMINT [Human Intelligence] databases accessible to the Intelligence Community.”

Immaculate Constellation ”includes high-quality Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) and Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) of UAPs,” the whistleblower’s report adds. “The sources of this intelligence are a blend of directed and incidental collection capabilities positioned in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the upper atmosphere, as well as military and civilian aviation altitudes and maritime environments.”

The report to Congress describes in detail various UAPs. “From 1991 to 2022, the most common UAP shapes reported in this USG dataset were spheres/orbs, discs/saucers, ovals/tic-tacs, triangles, boomerang/arrowhead, and irregular/organic.”

The report describes various incidents found in the HUMINT databases.

One involved orbs surrounding and forcing an F-22 out of its patrol area. “The F-22 broke trajectory and attempted to evade but was intercepted and boxed in by approximately 3-6 UAPs,” according to the report.

“One UAP maneuvered in proximity (>12 meters) to the area directly starboard of the cockpit; there the UAP established a rigid spatial relationship with the F-22, maintaining its exact position and orientation parallel with the F-22’s cockpit despite multiple evasive rolls and maneuvers. Surrounded by the presumed hostile UAPs, the F- 22 was forced out of the mission area under the escort of the UAP formation.”

In another incident, the crew of a Navy aircraft carrier watched a “small orange-red sphere” rapidly descend from a high altitude to 100-200 yards directly above the flight deck of the CVN [aircraft carrier]. “The UAPs appeared to emit a soft orange-red light which, bizarrely, did not illuminate the ocean or the flight deck of the CVN despite the visual appearance of intense luminosity. The surface of the UAP was observed to be dynamic, ‘roiling like the surface of the sun.’”

UAP Disinformation and Disclosure

             Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and James Comer, R-Ky., attend the House
             Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on National Security, the
              Border, and Foreign Affairs hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous
               Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and
            Government Transparency," in Rayburn Building on Wednesday, July 26,
                   2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The Pentagon has changed the names of its UAP investigations. From 2009 to 2017, the Pentagon had a program called Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) to investigate UAP reports. After funding ran out, the informal program, AATIP continued in its wake. From 2017 to 2022, the Pentagon called its study of UAPs the “U.A.P. Task Force.” Starting in 2022, by order of Congress, the Pentagon has had the public-facing program AARO to study reports of UAP and release information to the public.

One possibility is that AARO’s work is a continuation of the US government’s UAP public relations, not its UAP investigations, since 1953, when the CIA’s Robertson Panel recommended a strategy of using experts to dismiss and ridicule UAP witnesses and government whistleblowers.

A declassified 1971 Australian government memo about UAPs claims that the CIA urged the debunking of UFO sightings as cover of its efforts to develop craft powered by anti-gravity.

The CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) wrote an Australian military officer, “acting through the Robertson-panel meeting of mid-January 1953, persuaded the USAF [US Air Force] to use Project BLUE BOOK as a means of publicly ‘debunking’ UFO’s, and at a later stage to allocate funds for the Avro advanced ‘saucer’ aircraft and the launching of crash programme into anti-gravity power.”

The memo describes the CIA’s strategy to discredit UAP witnesses and whistleblowers. “By erecting a facade of ridicule, the U.S. hoped to allay public alarm, reduce the possibility of the Soviet taking advantage of UFO mass sightings for either psychological or actual warfare purposes, and act as a cover for the real U.S.. programme of developing vehicles that emulate UFO performances.”

Other documents support this picture of the US government disinformation. Brigadier General Carroll H. Bolender signed a 1969 memo stating that the Air Force had withheld UAP sightings from the Air Force’s UAP research program, Project Blue Book, and that it had continued to track UAPs afterward.

AARO’s former head, Sean Kirkpatrick, has disparaged UAP whistleblowers and speculated that a “Tic Tac”-shaped UAP that four Navy pilots in 2004 reported had evaded their approach could have been backyard lighting balloons.

Finally, others speculate that the US government is already engaged in a “controlled disclosure” of the reality of UAPs through strategic leaks of photos, videos, and documents. Under this theory, the US military and IC are playing a double game, officially denying the existence of NHIs while also approving the release of photographs, videos, and information from whistleblowers.

The New York Times reported that former Pentagon official and UAP whistleblower Lue Elizondo “got Pentagon approval to publish his [new] book [Imminent] partly by attributing some of the information to other sources whose comments had previously been approved. Elizondo also said he was not approved to discuss his involvement in any other secret projects beyond the program he once led.”

However, Elizondo says he resigned after religious military officials who view UAPs as demonic undermined his work. A leading UAP researcher who utilizes the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to find out what the government knows, John Greenewald, told Public last year that the US government had been increasingly denying his requests for UAP information.

And now, in a forthcoming documentary, “The Program,” about the US government’s alleged UAP retrieval program, by James Fox, Kirk McConnell, a 37-year Congressional staffer for the U.S. Senate and House Select Committees on Intelligence, describes the testimony that members of Congress and staffers have heard.

“We have sources who have asserted not only that there have been crashes,” said McConnell, “but there have been crash retrievals.”

The US government appears to know significantly more about UAPs than it is revealing. But even those who believe the US government has revealed all that it knows should have no objection to Congressional demands for greater disclosure.

Individuals have told Public that many within the DOD, IC, and military contracting community oppose further disclosure.

In April of this year, the Pentagon released declassified documents showing that a proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program was intended to take possession of UAPs and attempt to reverse-engineer retrieved UAPs, if they exist. While the Department’s then-top scientist advocated for the program and said there was “very serious science involved with” it, DHS leadership ultimately quashed the proposal despite support from former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Sen. Joe Lieberman. According to the declassified minutes from the meeting, Reid and Lieberman advocated for this proposed UAP reverse-engineering program “with some sense of urgency.”

In late September, in answer to the question, “is there actual recovered NHI tech?” Harold Malmgren, a former advisor to presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon, said on X, “The answer is yes, in several different hands, both government and private hands.”

Since 2021, members of Congress have expressed growing frustration over the military and IC’s refusal to reveal concrete information to them. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 would cut off funding for “any activity involving [UFOs] protected under any form of special access or restricted access limitations” not reported to Congress, as required by law.

“In other words,” notes analyst Marik Von Rennenkampf, “despite AARO’s sweeping denials of secret, unreported UFO activities, the Senate Intelligence Committee believes that such programs do indeed exist.”

Congressional leaders are seeking to expand upon UAP disclosure legislation passed last year. They want to force the US military, IC, and contractors to turn over crashed UAPs and reveal what else they know. Rep. Nancy Mace has announced Congressional hearings on the topic on November 13 and Senator Kirsten ​Gillibrand announced that she will chair a Senate Armed Services Committee subcommittee hearing on UAPs sometime this year.

The legislation would also expand protections for whistleblowers and require the Government Accountability Office to review AARO’s work. “This formal review by Congress’s in-house investigative agency is a stark demonstration of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s lack of confidence in AARO,” said Von Rennenkampf.

It appeared that the UAP disclosure legislation had died last month, but Senator Mike Rounds told journalist Matt Laslo, “Let me put it this way: it’s not out yet,” and that NDAA’s “negotiations continue.” Even so, few expect the legislation to succeed in its current form.

Whatever happens with the legislation, the historical evidence, whistleblowers, and critics of AARO have put its legitimacy in question. While UAPs remain mysterious, it’s clear that the US government is not being transparent about what it knows about them.

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