On the AAWSAP-AATIP Confusion V.J. Ballester-Olmos and Luis Cayetano I. INTRODUCTION The exact difference between the Defense Intelligence Agencys (DIA) AAWSAP UFO/paranormal program and the Pentagons AATIP UFO program has long eluded ufology. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon (Lacatski, Kelleher & Knapp, 2021), the book that would supposedly clarify the confusion, seems not to provide all the answers, while nevertheless providing some. (1) The current article is not a standard book review, which already exists. (2) Rather, it is a sort of data mining effort, with the book serving as an initial source and reference pertaining to recent developments in the UAP/Government milieu. We will begin by building a timeline that extends far beyond the contents and time range of the book, looking at the whos who of key personalities, and showing affairs related to UFO/UAP studies in the United States in the 21 century. This chronology pertains both to the various developments that occurred and how they are interconnected. Then, as the papers title promises, the AAWSAP and AATIP programs are examined in full detail, outlining a number of contradictions in the existing information. Next, we show how the current UAP saga is but a tiny component of a larger historical milieu, and that, despite recent sightings tending not to have many of the folklore-like, "high strangeness aspects of previous cases (close encounters, or abductions) there remains a consistent dynamic that has pertained for centuries, with modern waves showing similarity to crowd scare episodes reaching back at least to the 17th century. We then review the latest provisions in UAP language in Fiscal Year 2024s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), followed by our general assessment of the book under review. Finally, we reflect on what the future may bring in this arena. There is no straight, clear-cut narrative of administrative events pertaining to the DIAs UFO (nowadays referred to as UAP, for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and more recently Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) project of 2008-2012. Unfortunately, consulted sources show diverse scenarios as to timing, funding, management, etc. Published chronologies differ from one author to another and there remain some outstanding discrepancies. What we are presenting in this paper is our best reconstruction of that UAP program. Accepting a certain degree of uncertainty, we hold it to be quite close to the truth. In popular culture, there is already an established notion that equates UFOs with alien visitors. This is the result of almost 80 years of accumulation of sensational news and reports gathered from countless sources. Governments from many countries, logically, felt concerned by this massive flow of accounts regarding potential adversary aircraft and decided to gather intelligence and study the data. Finally, finding nothing extraordinary or that posed a threat to national security, their archives were declassified, released, and made public. (3) * Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos is owner and curator of UFO FOTOCAT, http://fotocat.blogspot.com/ 1965-2023 bibliography: https://www.academia.edu/113605314/Bibliography_V_J_Ballester_Olmos_1965_2023 ** Luis Cayetano, Ph.D., currently affiliated with Gavilan College, Gilroy, California, has a background in evolutionary ecology and has a tangential interest in UFOs, especially in the psychosocial nature of UFO stories and in the far right and extremist links to the saga. He is the owner of the website Ufologyiscorrupt.com Corresponding author:
[email protected] II. U.S. GOVERNMENT UAP STUDY & RELATED DISCLOSURE: A CHRONOLOGY (Generally starting from the 21 century, though older items are directly related to the core of the present paper) 1989 March. George Knapp, Las Vegas KLAS-TV reporter, reached out to Senator Harry Reid on a story linking Area 51 to UFOs. (p. xiii) 1995 October. National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) created, an organization founded and funded by Robert Bigelow. It had two focal points: UFOs, and consciousness studies. Bigelow has long held an interest in consciousness, to which he sees a connection with UFOs. He ties this with the question of whether consciousness survives death. (p. 14) NIDS billed itself as a privately funded research organization with no ties to the government. Board members included Hal Puthoff, Jacques Valle, John Mack, Harry M. Reid (1939-2021), Democratic senator for Nevada, U.S. Senate Majority Leader (2007-2015), retired from Congress December 2016. A long-time devotee of UFOs, his belief in them was also consistent with his religious beliefs ... by the eighth decade of his life he was ready to concede that LDS doctrine [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, i.e. Mormonism] helped shape his interest in ... alien life. (pp. 14-15). 1995-2004. NIDS conducted research into black triangles, cattle mutilations, and other paranormal/UFO-adjacent topics. A NIDS-related collection of research materials is archived by Swedens AFU thanks to British lawyer/researcher Isaac Koi (pen name): https://tinyurl.com/ywdxvet6 Robert Bigelow, a wealthy Las Vegas businessman, CEO of Bigelow Aerospace (https://bigelowaerospace.com/), has a long record as a strong UFO believer, founding and financing all types of UFO companies, books and projects. He funded a dubious 1991 national survey into UFO experiences and abductions conducted by the Roper Organization and the corresponding analysis conducted by John Mack, Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and Ron Westrum, Unusual Personal Experiences (1992).The poll purportedly showed that some 4 million Americans had been abducted by aliens, but its conclusions and methodology have been severely criticized by skeptics and research experts (K. Frazier, B. Karr, and J. Nickell (eds.), The UFO Invasion (1997); http://tinyurl.com/yc3f8c7k) He has also collaborated with MUFON (https://www.wired.com/story/inside-robert-bigelows-decades-long-obsession-with-ufos/) for the collation and investigation of UFO reports. These associations have drawn questions concerning information hoarding and medical ethics: see Jack Brewer, The Grays Have Been Framed: Exploitation in the UFO Community (2016). Bigelow was associated with conman and UFO fabulist Bob Lazar (January 24, 1990, entry at http://tinyurl.com/mrx2ahzm; see also this interview of Bigelow by Joe Rogan: https://youtu.be/WUYhCmfE1a0?feature=shared) Harold E. Hal Puthoff, Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, has long had skin in the game when it comes to paranormal claims. He was part of the Stanford Research Institute/CIA investigations into using psychics as spies back in the 1970s. More recently, he has been associated with To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA) as its vice president of science and technology. Jacques F. Valle, Ph.D. in Computer Science and M.S. in astrophysics, is the author of numerous books on UFOs. The French venture capitalist and computer scientist has been one of the most prominent advocates of the interdimensional hypothesis for UFOs and posits that they may be part of a control system to influence human societal evolution. Notably, Valle has conveyed in his book Forbidden Science Volume 4: The Journals of Jacques Valle 1990-1999 (2019) that while at Skinwalker Ranch in the 1990s, no UFOs were seen there. John Mack, Ph.D. (1929-2004) was a Harvard psychologist and author who believed that some alien abduction cases represent bona fide examples of human contact with non-Earthly presences. Mack became especially noted for his involvement in the famous Ariel School incident in Zimbabwe in 1994, in which he interviewed numerous children who had witnessed supposed alien beings in the vicinity of the school; a case for which there are alternative, down to Earth interpretations. (4,5) Like other participants in the UFO saga, he was very interested in the link between consciousness and UFOs/aliens. John Alexander. Since August 1996 until its dissolution, full-time staffers included Colm (Deputy administrator), Eric Davis, and George Onet. (https://web.archive.org/web/20071006225323/http://www.nidsci.org/faq.php) 1996 August. Knapp invited Reid to attend a NIDS meeting and connected him with Bigelow. Later that year Reid attended a NIDS board meeting and met director Colm Kelleher, who has conservatively stated: we dont study aliens, we study anomalies. (p. xiv) 2001 June 22. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Air Traffic Control Manual Section 8 (UFO Reports) transfers reporting of UFO/unexplained phenomena to National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), etc. 2002 October 21. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs released a Decision Logic Table Instructions for Recording and Handling Visual Information Material manual. It covered UFO and Other Aerial Phenomena Images. In April 2005, the UFO reference was changed to phenomena. In January 2015, the reference to phenomena https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/the-dod-manual-that-outlined-ufo- photograph-video-handling-procedures/) ~2004 The National Security Agency (NSA) started uploading hundreds of UFO documents https://web.archive.org/web/20210125221424/https://www.nsa.gov/news- features/declassified-documents/ufo/) John B. Alexander, Ph.D., former Army intelligence officer. He was part of a loose association of military officials dubbed ATP (Advanced Theoretical Physics Project, which Alexander founded in 1985) which tried to get to the bottom of the U.S. government/militarys purported knowledge about UFOs. He determined that the governments guess was as good as anyones and that there are likely no recovered pieces of alien technology in government hands. This was spelled out in his book UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities (2011). He strongly credits the notion that some UFOs are of non-Earthly origin and sees the scientific community as harboring a dogmatic rejection of this possibility. Alexander, too, has been associated with Bigelow, NIDS and Skinwalker Ranch. He featured in the book The Men Who Stare at Goats (2006) by Jon Ronson, which described Army attempts to harness telekinesis as a Colm A. Kelleher, Ph.D. in Biochemistry, has worked as Deputy Administrator for Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) and, prior to that, for NIDS, under which he investigated Skinwalker Ranch. He has served biotech consultant for Tom DeLonges TTSA. Kelleher is currently involved in the new Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS). Eric W. Davis, Ph.D. in Astrophysics and aerospace engineer. He worked for NIDS, BAASS and AAWSAP and was a consultant for the Navys initial iteration of the UAPTF. In March 2020, working for Defense contractor Aerospace Corp., Davis delivered a classified briefing to a Defense department agency about retrievals of off-world vehicles not made on this earth. In 2019 he briefed staff members of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee . Davis has been the Chief Science Office of Puthoffs EarthTech International since 2004 and the author/coauthor of several of the BAASS DIRDs. He has published extensively on wormholes and proposed breakthrough propulsion systems such as warp drive. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/politics/pentagon-ufo-harry-reid-navy.html; https://earthtech.org/team/; https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-w-davis/) George Onet, Ph.D. in Microbiology and veterinarian. Full-time and salaried with Bigelows NIDS, he conducted onsite inspections of cattle mutilations at Skinwalker Ranch (see Animal Mutilations section at: http://www.noufors.com/ufo-related_documentation_in_pdf_format.html) The FBI uploaded all FOIAed UFO documents online, totaling 1,618 pages, plus 355 pages of other material related to UFOs, animal mutilation and extra-sensory perception. http://vault.fbi.gov/UFO (http://vault.fbi.gov/unexplained-phenomenon) The DIA uploaded 292 pages of FOIAed UFO documents online, including Moon Dust (http://www.dia.mil/FOIA/FOIA-Electronic-Reading-Room/: ufo1 and ufo2 under Other Available Records) 2004 October 4. Latest update of the Air Force Instruction 10-206-Operational Reporting. Chapter 5, Communications Instructions Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings (CIRVIS), section 5.7.3.3., page 65, required reporting of Unidentified flying objects. CIRVIS reports submitted to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). https://es.slideshare.net/cliffordstone/afi-10-206-oct-4-2004) 2004 October 20. Robert Bigelow shut down NIDS for lack of UFO activity. https://rense.com/general58/bigelow.htm) 2007 June. Robert Bigelow called Reid. DIA intelligence officer and scientist Dr. James requested permission to visit Skinwalker Ranch (Utah), a property owned by Bigelow since 1996 where a series of paranormal events are reported to occur, like metallic UAPs, otherworldly creatures, poltergeist, electromagnetic anomalies, and orange portals. (p. xxvi) After onsite investigation by Kelleher, Davis and Onet (1996- 2002), a published book codified the ranchs mythology, (6) prompting Lacatski to make the aforementioned request to Bigelow. 2007 June. Reid met Lacatski, who wanted to study both UFOs and the Skinwalker Ranch phenomena. (p. xv) 2008 June. U.S. Senates Appropriation Committee members Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Reid, who controlled the dark money, (p. xv) conceived the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) with an allocated budget for $22 million for fiscal years 2008 and 2010. 2008 September 22. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) initiated the AAWSAP project by awarding a two-year contract (HHM402-08-C-0072) to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), with James Lacatski as program manager representing DIA. BAASS was the sole bidder to a set-aside solicitation issued on the Federal Business Opportunities website on August 18, 2008, with a looming due date a mere month out, on September 10! (p. xxv) BAASS was an organization specifically created to execute the United States Defense Intelligence Agency: https://www.dia.mil/ James T. Lacatski, Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering. See Keith Basterfields bio article: http://tinyurl.com/mrz3bh3a According to Luis Elizondo, [Lacatskis] career was ruined because of misplaced fear by an elite few. Rather than accept the data as provided by a top-rank rocket scientist, they decided the data was a threat to their belief system and instead, destroyed his career because of it. Lacatski claims he saw anomalous phenomena while at the Skinwalker Ranch, namely a topological figure that appeared in mid-air and went from pretzel-shaped to Mbius-strip- shaped. Interestingly, Bigelow, a hardened believer in the paranormal and present at the time, did not report seeing http://tinyurl.com/bddaer6d) AAWSAP contract. (p. xxiii) Given that this organization was legally filed in January 2008, seven months before the DIA solicitation, it looks like a clear case of privileged information abuse. BAASS was closed around 2014. Douglas Kurth served as BAASS program manager, while Larry Grossmann served as director. 2008 October 15. Air Force Instruction 10-206-Operational Reporting, updated. Chapter 5, Communications Instructions Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings (CIRVIS), section 5.6.3.3., page 37, required reporting for Unidentified flying objects. CIRVIS reports submitted to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/air-force-instruction-10-206-vanishing-ufo- regulation/) 2009 June 24. Reid requested to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, William Lynn, Restricted Special Access Program (SAP) status for AAWSAP to increase its secrecy level. This was refused. The letter referred to AAWSAP with the unclassified nickname of AATIP. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/harry-reid-and-his-aatip-letter-the- mystery-deepens/) 2009 Late. The Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the DIA, after reviewing 26 Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs), submitted by BAASS as part of AAWSAP, determined the reports were of limited value to DIA and there were [sic] a recommendation that upon completion of the contract, the project could be transitioned to an agency or component better suited to oversee it. Funding for the program was ended in 2012. (James M. Kudla, DIA Public Affairs Office, February 12, 2019. E-mail to Roger 2010 February 11. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)s Order JO7110.65T (Air Traffic Control), Chapter 9 (Special Flights), Section 8, transfers reporting of UFO/unexplained phenomena to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), etc. (https://web.archive.org/web/20160401185440/http://tfmlearning.faa.gov/Publications/atp ubs/ATC/atc0908.html) 2010 December 21. AAWSAP was officially ended. For years, Lacatski personally sought continued funding, without success. He terminated AAWSAP altogether when funds were depleted by August 2012. 2011 July 11. Prospective Special Access Program KONA BLUE established by the Department of Homeland Security (program proposal by J. Lacatski). Terminated December 12, 2011. (See entry for April 16, 2024). Douglas Kurth, former Marine Senior Officer, and Naval Aviator. (http://tinyurl.com/5m3uvpj9) Kurth (call-sign Cheeks) was present during the November 11, 2004, USS Nimitz UAP Tic Tac incident. (7,8) He was asked to identify an airborne unknown contact out at sea and was vectored to the area, where he saw a disturbance which he described as "white water." (https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2019/02/douglas-s-kurth-and-baassmufon.html) 2012 August? From the ashes of AAWSAP an unofficial, unfunded AATIP portfolio was developed at the Pentagon at the personal initiative of Luis Elizondo. (https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/luis-elizondo-and-his-letters-to-the- pentagon-about-his-claims-and-credibility/) 2012 November. Douglas Aircraft - UFO Research Documents posted online, 275 pages. https://checktheevidencecom.ipage.com/checktheevidence.com/DouglasDocs/#PDF) 2014 June 11. Air Force Instruction 10-206-Operational Reporting, updated. Chapter 3,