The Origins of AAWSAP

[boringrealit]

That would be Kellher contradicting himself. He is the lead author of Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, where the idea that AATIP was a cover name is confirmed. He wrote it along with Knapp, whom he had written Search for the Skinwalker previously, and Lacatski.

Lacatski would be in a better position to know, as he wrote and ran AAWSAP, while Kelleher ran BAASS out in Las Vegas, the prime contractor. He would know what BAASS was up to, but may not be as in the know about what Lacatski was doing back in Washington.

I thought about that, that it seemed odd to promote the book and contradict it, but I wasn't sure I remembered correctly.

My impression is that the AATIP that Kelleher is having in mind here is pretty much the AATIP Elizondo talked about in the beginning when he came out. Minus the Tictac. That is, space and UFOs in the sky. A program which fits very well with Stratton's background and not so well with Elizondo's.

Maybe AATIP was connected to AAWSAP, but involved USG secrets such as satellite data and so on, and therefor is classified. Dunno.

 

[boringrealit]

As @Mendel said, Kona Blue was a proposal for a SAP that was refused. It was never a federally (or state) funded program. If its proponents "continued" Kona Blue in their own time and with their own funds and resources, that was up to them. But if this is what happened, it's hard to distinguish it from a hobby or pastime that the participants called "Kona Blue".
I don't know how companies/ corporations, and not-for-profits/ NGOs are registered in the USA, but I'm not aware of a known private sector/ third sector/ academia-based UFO interest group called Kona Blue, and we know there wasn't a public sector/ USG Kona Blue.

I don't think they can just privatize a program easily, even if it didn't reach SAP status. Then I remembered that U.S. have something called FFRDCs. Maybe it was transferred into one of those. I'm not really familiar with what it is and how it works.

Btw, Lacatski makes an interesting name-drop in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. After proposing private funding, he mentions, on page 198, Bigelow and Prince Hans Adam of Liechtenstein as exemplary funders. Possibly a breadcrumb, but I don't think the Prince would be able to fund a FFRDC, if that is the case.

Most likely, a private continuation of Kona Blue would be in spirit and personnel, not classified documentation and material from it and its precursors.

*

When I think about it, maybe the whole chapter is a big bread crumb of what Kona Blue 2.0 could be. The book is written as a "what should we do in the future after AAWSAP/Kona Blue", but it is written like 10 years into that future.

 

[John J.]

I don't think they can just privatize a program easily, even if it didn't reach SAP status.

Kona Blue was a prospective special access program- a proposal. It was turned down. It was never a USG/ agency program, special access or otherwise.
"Prospective special access program" does not mean, in this case, an existing program waiting to get classified as a Special Access Program.
It couldn't be privatized in the sense of a government department or activity being privatized, because it didn't exist as a government/ federal agency department or program.

KONA BLUE was a Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP) that had been proposed to DHS leadership but was never approved or formally established. KONA BLUE never received any materials or funding... ...the Deputy Secretary of DHS disapproved KONA BLUE as a Special Access Program (SAP), and further directed its immediate termination [as a prospective special access program, John J.] citing concerns about the adequacy of justification for the program, and sufficiency of information central to the proposal development, including personnel and budget requirements. ...no data or material of any kind was ever transferred to or collected by DHS under the auspices of KONA BLUE.
... ...
This archived PSAP proposal and associated documents have been declassified in partnership between DoD and DHS and are being released to the public in accordance with both agencies' commitment to transparency.

"History and Origin of KONA BLUE", The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PD...History_and_Origin_of_KONA_BLUE_FINAL_508.pdf

In a response to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, the Department of Homeland Security (to whom the Kona Blue proposal was made) stated

All DHS documents associated with the KONA BLUE PSAP are declassified and approved for public release.
All pertinent DHS records have been searched and no additional information associated with the KONA BLUE PSAP has been discovered.

Department of Homeland Security letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense, 28 September 2023 https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PDFs/UAP_RECORDS_RESEARCH/AARO_DHS_Kona_Blue.pdf, my emphasis.
The PDF contains the Kona Blue proposal (and was first posted here by Mick West in the thread Kona Blue - AARO Report on the Proposed AAWSAP Successor).

 

[NorCal Dave]

Maybe AATIP was connected to AAWSAP, but involved USG secrets such as satellite data and so on, and therefor is classified. Dunno.

Then we and everyone else wouldn't be talking about it. AATIP is always talked about in relation to UFOs and/or AAWSAP. Always. The people like Lacatski and Reid that set all this up, deliberately made it convoluted, from the original deceptive RFP to shopping sensor programs to DHS, that were really about UFOs and meta-materials. It was always a shell game to obfuscate Reid sending money to Bigelow to do dumb shit.

There is simple no reason to invoke other theories involving secret programs or GitMo. Even if Elizondo is disingenuous at best, his conflicting stories all still centered around UFOs. It's all about UFOs and always has been.

I don't think they can just privatize a program easily, even if it didn't reach SAP status. Then I remembered that U.S. have something called FFRDCs. Maybe it was transferred into one of those. I'm not really familiar with what it is and how it works.

Btw, Lacatski makes an interesting name-drop in Skinwalkers at the Pentagon. After proposing private funding, he mentions, on page 198, Bigelow and Prince Hans Adam of Liechtenstein as exemplary funders. Possibly a breadcrumb, but I don't think the Prince would be able to fund a FFRDC, if that is the case.

Most likely, a private continuation of Kona Blue would be in spirit and personnel, not classified documentation and material from it and its precursors.

*

When I think about it, maybe the whole chapter is a big bread crumb of what Kona Blue 2.0 could be. The book is written as a "what should we do in the future after AAWSAP/Kona Blue", but it is written like 10 years into that future.

I think @Mendel made a good suggestion that Lacatski may have been referring to TTSA as the private carry on of what KONA BLUE was envisioned as. Bigelow had already funded a private sorta version of AAWSAP in the '90s called NIDS. The AWWSAP contract allowed him to start it up again with a lot more money and not his own.

TTSA was many of the same people, including Puthoff and Davis from both NIDS and AAWSAP/BAASS along with Elizondo and Mellon. By 2016 Bigelow was done with all of it, having sold Skinwalker Ranch and no longer a source of funding. I have to track down a claim that Puthoff was influential in getting real estate mogol Brandon Fugal to buy the Ranch from Bigelow when he lost interest. Maybe he saw Fugal as a source of funding?

In the end, Puthoff teamed up with ex-CIA Jim Semivan and punk-pop personality, Tom DeLong to found TTSA in 2017. Note this is right before Elizondo resigns and becomes Kean's primary source, along with possibly Mellon, for her NYT article. One could almost make a case for insider trading. Consider:

We know Puthoff, along with Davis, have been obsessed with getting their hands on meta-materials (crashed UFO parts) for years. BAASS was their government sponsored chance that didn't work out. Puthoff was involved, with Lacatski, in trying to sell KONA BLUE to DHS, which ended up including another attempt at getting meta-materials. That didn't work out. Lacatski retires in 2016, pretty much shutting the door on a government program.

Sometime in 2016 through 2017, Mellon is in contact with Elizondo and is working on his disclosure plan, that ultimately involved Leslie Kean. Mellon also seems to be associated with Puthoff and Davis as well. We know he bragged about sending these guys to ARRO in later years.

Puthoff, Semivan and DeLong found TTSA in 2017 as a public benefit company and in September of that year they offer stock:

The company was founded in 2017 as a public benefit corporation by Jim Semivan, Harold E. Puthoff, and Tom DeLonge.[2]​[4]​ The Entertainment Division was created by acquiring DeLonge's previous media company, To the Stars, Inc.[4]​[5]​

In September 2017, the company began offering $50 million worth of public stock through a Regulation A+ equity crowdfunding campaign.[4]​[​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_The_Stars_Inc.

So, they founded a public company all about UFOs and meta-materials just as their buddy Mellon is setting up Kean and Elizondo to write an article about the governments involvement in UFOs. They offer stock 1 month before Elizondo, the supposed head of the government's official UFO program, is going to resign, spill the beans and join TTSA. Sounds like a great investment opportunity. Hmmm.

As Puthoff had hoped, TTSA did acquire some supposed meta-materials and while it was just some of Art's Parts, Elizondo did manage to get a CRADA contract with the Army for research.

In the end, it was all a bust. Elizondo appeared in some minor UFO TV shows produced by TTSA but Art's Pars turned out to be just that, bits of junk that did not come from a crashed UFO. Nevertheless, TTSA was a private attempt to carry out what the creators of KONA BLUE tried to accomplish.

As for Lacatski leaving "bread crumbs" about possible funding, I doubt it. As I noted in the OP, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon is written in an almost juvenile tone reminiscent of men's adventure magazines like Fate. Something Knapp probably grew up reading before becoming a journalism major at UOP. He went on to be a TV reporter and really made his name with interviews of John Lear and Bob Lazar and their wild UFO claims. I figure Knapp, or a ghost writer associated with him, actually put the words on the page, while Kelleher and Lacatski provided the information. It's his bombastic, noir and adventure driven style. As such, I doubt there's a lot of secret Easter eggs and clues to other things. It is what it is.

 

[Mendel]

I don't think they can just privatize a program easily, even if it didn't reach SAP status.

There was no program.

But they could take the Kona Blue proposal, rewrite it and change the name, and shop it to private investors. Which Elizondo did.

That does not create a link to any "government program".

 

[MonkeeSage]

I checked back through Imminent for references to Guantanamo Bay/Gitmo and as far as I can tell Elizondo differentiates his alleged duties at Gitmo and AATIP in a way that gives me the impression they were two unrelated things.

pp. 142, 143

My work with Guantanamo Bay brought endless rounds of drama and stress. An attorney for one of the 9/11 suspects labeled me in open court as the "US Czar of Torture." From that moment, I would forever be branded by some as the nation's Darth Vader. At one point I was informed that Europe had issued an open arrest warrant for me and anyone involved in the notorious Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (RDI) program of high-value detainees (HVDs). The International Court of Human Rights had decreed that any US intelligence officer involved in that effort would face trial if arrested. From my perspective, I was serving my country and my president, and preventing another 9/11.
I came home some nights so exhausted that I could not sleep. My brain played for me the images of those UAP flying in formation in the Predator video. In my nightmares, terrorists hunted down my family. UAP and HVDs haunted my days and nights. But dealing with both was my job. Failure was not an option. I had been to war several times by then and I kept telling myself, At least I am not being shot at and I don't have bombs under my car. That's how I dealt with it. But it took a terrible toll on my health. I gained forty pounds in the process. [...] On both issues I was involved in, GTMO and UAP, I felt the best interest of the American people should be given higher priority. Things were happening that were being withheld from the American public and Congress.

p. 226-227

One more task remained on my docket, and I was solidly in "Bring it on!" mode. Chris Mellon and Jim Semivan awaited me in the lobby of a
hotel not far from the Pentagon. Hal Puthoff arrived shortly after, as did the individual we had all gathered to meet: an independent investigative
journalist by the name of Leslie Kean, whom Chris had arranged for us to meet.
Leslie had been a longtime reporter for major metropolitan newspapers and was very interested in the UAP topic. Years earlier, she'd written a
well-received book about military encounters with UAP and had won a major court victory against NASA over the release of documents relating to a 1965 UAP incident in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. She had known Hal for years; he had done a blurb for her book prior to release.
I was terrified. I had always been taught to avoid the media. Never tell them anything. In fact, I spent the last few years reinforcing that notion
within the Guantanamo Bay portfolio. Now here I was about to talk to a reporter about my "other job." I hoped she wouldn't ask anything of
significance. I had already drawn the boundaries in my mind.
Under no circumstances will I discuss anything classified. And at no time will I provide names of other individuals without their permission
unless they are already in the public eye.
Meeting with Kean lasted an exhausting four hours. To be sitting among Mellon, Puthoff, and Semivan as they spoke of their desire to smash the
wall of secrets and lies invigorated me, but I was still extremely concerned about whether it could be pulled off.
I am certain this was the first time Kean learned of AATIP's existence. That meant I was the Man Who Quit the Pentagon over UAP. Kean was
dogged in her questions but respectful. I answered the questions that didn't break any of my rules, and politely declined the few that did.

p. 235

Sometime shortly thereafter [my note: shortly after his retirement in 2017], someone in OUSD(I) allegedly authorized the complete deletion of all my electronic files, folders, and emails, under the justification that they had "no historic value." Or so claimed a Freedom of Information Act response from the Pentagon itself. If true, this was troubling, because my files had long been singled out for careful preservation by a court order, not due to UAP, but because of the work I'd done on Guantanamo Bay. This protective order had been in place for some time, signed by a judge. My emails and files had been flagged as evidence in a criminal prosecution of those criminally charged for being responsible for 9/11. Everyone knew that my files were earmarked for protection, no matter what. If they really destroyed them, they must have been so afraid of the content of those files that they were willing to break the law and jeopardize the entire 9/11 case to keep people from learning what we knew about UAP.

On the issue of Elizondo allegedly turning over AATIP duties to Tipton, there seems to be some tension between Elizondo's alleged statement to Garry Reid (which fits with Elizondo's claim to have intentionally kept Reid "out of the loop on anything pertaining to AATIP", Imminent, p. 224), and Elizondo's IG complaint.

Nobody in OUSDI was cleared to know about AATIP, yet the "portfolio" was supposedly directed by SecDef to be handled by an SES at OUSDI and there are unclassified emails and calendar invites that allegedly show Tipton was the guy. The attachments 5 & 6 seemingly refer to the email discussions between Elizondo and Tipton (pages 36-40 of the IG complaint) we have already discussed where Tipton never replies back after the October 3rd "Getting spun back up" reply, so there is no documentation that Tipton "voiced his approval" beyond Elizondo's claim as far as I can tell.

 

[boringrealit]

It is possible that TTSA took over some of AAWSAP/KB projects. In fact, I found an odd comment by Mellon in Forbidden Science 6. page 419: "They've taken over the idea ... about research on the brain and telepathy, the anthena of the brain..."

If not AAWSAP/KB, then I have no idea what it might refer to.

My impression is that TTSA was something else, inspired by the stories told to DeLonge.

On the next page they make some even wilder claims about building space/time-crafts, at the time they were going after public funding of 2* 10 million. Hal doesn't look good here.

 

[boringrealit]

I checked back through Imminent for references to Guantanamo Bay/Gitmo and as far as I can tell Elizondo differentiates his alleged duties at Gitmo and AATIP in a way that gives me the impression they were two unrelated things.

pp. 142, 143

My work with Guantanamo Bay brought endless rounds of drama and stress. An attorney for one of the 9/11 suspects labeled me in open court as the "US Czar of Torture." From that moment, I would forever be branded by some as the nation's Darth Vader. At one point I was informed that Europe had issued an open arrest warrant for me and anyone involved in the notorious Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (RDI) program of high-value detainees (HVDs). The International Court of Human Rights had decreed that any US intelligence officer involved in that effort would face trial if arrested. From my perspective, I was serving my country and my president, and preventing another 9/11.
I came home some nights so exhausted that I could not sleep. My brain played for me the images of those UAP flying in formation in the Predator video. In my nightmares, terrorists hunted down my family. UAP and HVDs haunted my days and nights. But dealing with both was my job. Failure was not an option. I had been to war several times by then and I kept telling myself, At least I am not being shot at and I don't have bombs under my car. That's how I dealt with it. But it took a terrible toll on my health. I gained forty pounds in the process. [...] On both issues I was involved in, GTMO and UAP, I felt the best interest of the American people should be given higher priority. Things were happening that were being withheld from the American public and Congress.

p. 226-227

One more task remained on my docket, and I was solidly in "Bring it on!" mode. Chris Mellon and Jim Semivan awaited me in the lobby of a
hotel not far from the Pentagon. Hal Puthoff arrived shortly after, as did the individual we had all gathered to meet: an independent investigative
journalist by the name of Leslie Kean, whom Chris had arranged for us to meet.
Leslie had been a longtime reporter for major metropolitan newspapers and was very interested in the UAP topic. Years earlier, she'd written a
well-received book about military encounters with UAP and had won a major court victory against NASA over the release of documents relating to a 1965 UAP incident in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. She had known Hal for years; he had done a blurb for her book prior to release.
I was terrified. I had always been taught to avoid the media. Never tell them anything. In fact, I spent the last few years reinforcing that notion
within the Guantanamo Bay portfolio. Now here I was about to talk to a reporter about my "other job." I hoped she wouldn't ask anything of
significance. I had already drawn the boundaries in my mind.
Under no circumstances will I discuss anything classified. And at no time will I provide names of other individuals without their permission
unless they are already in the public eye.
Meeting with Kean lasted an exhausting four hours. To be sitting among Mellon, Puthoff, and Semivan as they spoke of their desire to smash the
wall of secrets and lies invigorated me, but I was still extremely concerned about whether it could be pulled off.
I am certain this was the first time Kean learned of AATIP's existence. That meant I was the Man Who Quit the Pentagon over UAP. Kean was
dogged in her questions but respectful. I answered the questions that didn't break any of my rules, and politely declined the few that did.

p. 235

Sometime shortly thereafter [my note: shortly after his retirement in 2017], someone in OUSD(I) allegedly authorized the complete deletion of all my electronic files, folders, and emails, under the justification that they had "no historic value." Or so claimed a Freedom of Information Act response from the Pentagon itself. If true, this was troubling, because my files had long been singled out for careful preservation by a court order, not due to UAP, but because of the work I'd done on Guantanamo Bay. This protective order had been in place for some time, signed by a judge. My emails and files had been flagged as evidence in a criminal prosecution of those criminally charged for being responsible for 9/11. Everyone knew that my files were earmarked for protection, no matter what. If they really destroyed them, they must have been so afraid of the content of those files that they were willing to break the law and jeopardize the entire 9/11 case to keep people from learning what we knew about UAP.

On the issue of Elizondo allegedly turning over AATIP duties to Tipton, there seems to be some tension between Elizondo's alleged statement to Garry Reid (which fits with Elizondo's claim to have intentionally kept Reid "out of the loop on anything pertaining to AATIP", Imminent, p. 224), and Elizondo's IG complaint.
View attachment 90084

View attachment 90085

Nobody in OUSDI was cleared to know about AATIP, yet the "portfolio" was supposedly directed by SecDef to be handled by an SES at OUSDI and there are unclassified emails and calendar invites that allegedly show Tipton was the guy. The attachments 5 & 6 seemingly refer to the email discussions between Elizondo and Tipton (pages 36-40 of the IG complaint) we have already discussed where Tipton never replies back after the October 3rd "Getting spun back up" reply, so there is no documentation that Tipton "voiced his approval" beyond Elizondo's claim as far as I can tell.

I think so too now. I think Kelleher was the honest one. AATIP was exactly what Lue said in the beginning, minus the Tictac research. Just meant to study the sky for UFOs. Maybe it never happened under AAWSAP, since Lacatski said they didn't get the sensors they needed.

Still a mystery why there is so many different lies around it.

*

My impression from reading the stuff about Gitmo in his book is that he had two roles. First he was responsible for SAPs managing. Sounds like the job for a counter intelligence agent. Then he was also working hands-on in some capacity at Gitmo, probably within some SAP not directly connected to UFOs. Maybe at that time more trying to covering up what they had previously done to the prisoners. It is possible that he speaks the truth about placing AATIP in his portfolio of SAPs, which I assume would mean that AATIP actually was a SAP at that point. If he speaks the truth. It was probably being run by Stratton and not by Lue.

This was an interesting quote:

Under no circumstances will I discuss anything classified. And at no time will I provide names of other individuals without their permission
unless they are already in the public eye.
Meeting with Kean lasted an exhausting four hours. To be sitting among Mellon, Puthoff, and Semivan as they spoke of their desire to smash the
wall of secrets and lies invigorated me, but I was still extremely concerned about whether it could be pulled off.
I am certain this was the first time Kean learned of AATIP's existence. That meant I was the Man Who Quit the Pentagon over UAP. Kean was
dogged in her questions but respectful. I answered the questions that didn't break any of my rules, and politely declined the few that did.

So he claim he didn't say anything classified. Does that really hold up, weren't some of the documentation relating to this later declassified? I honestly don't remember, maybe it was only the Kona Blue stuff that was classified earlier. Given how they lie about AATIP, I would assume that at least the name wasn't supposed allowed to be revealed.

But this one is something else:

Sometime shortly thereafter [my note: shortly after his retirement in 2017], someone in OUSD(I) allegedly authorized the complete deletion of all my electronic files, folders, and emails, under the justification that they had "no historic value." Or so claimed a Freedom of Information Act response from the Pentagon itself. If true, this was troubling, because my files had long been singled out for careful preservation by a court order, not due to UAP, but because of the work I'd done on Guantanamo Bay. This protective order had been in place for some time, signed by a judge. My emails and files had been flagged as evidence in a criminal prosecution of those criminally charged for being responsible for 9/11. Everyone knew that my files were earmarked for protection, no matter what. If they really destroyed them, they must have been so afraid of the content of those files that they were willing to break the law and jeopardize the entire 9/11 case to keep people from learning what we knew about UAP.

This might be what it is all about. They wanted those email/files deleted/hidden but it would cause so much unwanted attention so they came up with the idea to blame UFO-secrecy instead.

Wow. Thanks, man.

Keep in mind that "what we knew about UAP" here is emails of a guy who (maybe) was part of a non-SAP, which doesn't seem to be classified at all or have been published through DOPSR and FOIA with out any real problems. He wants us to believe that they "jeopardize the entire 9/11 case to keep people from learning what we knew about UAP", and what they knew about UAPs is the stuff he and Lacatski presented in their books.

This is wild. I think this is the smoking gun.

 

[MonkeeSage]

This might be what it is all about. They wanted those email/files deleted/hidden but it would cause so much unwanted attention so they came up with the idea to blame UFO-secrecy instead.

Wow. Thanks, man.

Keep in mind that "what we knew about UAP" here is emails of a guy who (maybe) was part of a non-SAP, which doesn't seem to be classified at all or have been published through DOPSR and FOIA with out any real problems. He wants us to believe that they "jeopardize the entire 9/11 case to keep people from learning what we knew about UAP", and what they knew about UAPs is the stuff he and Lacatski presented in their books.

This is wild. I think this is the smoking gun.

Interesting hypothesis, but it would seem to invite a lot of potential for additional scrutiny if the goal was to destroy or hide evidence about Gitmo. If the idea were to cover up the Darth Vader of Gitmo, I would think a media circus and congressional interest in Elizondo/digging up his real past would be the worst outcome.

The idea of destroyed emails, AFAIK, originated with a FOIA response John Greenwald received in 2021. Greenwald speculated that this could mean the emails were destroyed ahead of schedule. Elizondo was reached for comment several times by Greenwald on the matter, so he was aware of the speculation. (https://www.theblackvault.com/docum...ce-official-tied-to-ufo-investigation-claims/)

https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/osd/22-F-1235.pdf p. 66

In internal emails discussing the same FOIA response appeal, I read it as saying DoD does have 29 boxes of his records from 2004-2013, they just were not responsive to the FOIA request (ibid, p. 73).

I suspect Elizondo incorporated the deleted files story into his book based on speculation from the FOIA response.

I have also not seen any independent evidence of Elizondo's roles at Gitmo, apart from his own claims.

For me, the simplest picture given all the evidence I am aware of is that Elizondo is a true believer in "the phenomena" and that it poses a national/existential risk for humanity. He got on board (unofficially) with the Lacatski AAWSAP/AATIP program, and once it ended he and Stratton continued the effort/portfolio themselves, with a focus on UAP and the national security angle. Then he tried to bootstrap a new program with Tipton leading the way, with the contingency in case Tipton refused being to implement a public/congressional persuasion plan to get a new program created. This quote from Imminent, pp. 106-107 kind of sums it up for me.

Jim [James Lacatski] refused to lose focus on the overall scope of AAWSAP/AATIP, as he felt it was all interrelated. He felt that if he could show DIA and DoD leadership the results of his efforts, any rational individual would see the value of continuing his anomalous investigations. The only problem: the briefing Jim wanted to share with leadership included words like archangels, angels, demons, and spiritual realm. A bridge, or two, too far for most.
I urged Jim to tone down the paranormal verbiage and focus instead on the importance of this work to US national security. Our UAP investigations made us aware of a very real national security threat and that was what I felt we had to focus on if we wanted people to pay attention.
"Lue, it's the truth," Jim said, his voice sounding increasingly frustrated. "What's wrong with telling the truth?"
He had a point. There should never be anything wrong with telling the truth. But in this case, it's how you tell the truth that matters. Jim made a
few adjustments to the slides, and we moved on. I felt bad for Jim. The program was his baby, and now people were trying to kill it. Jim believed
with all his core that research on Skinwalker Ranch was worth pursuing. Privately, I agreed. Unfortunately, the current atmosphere within DIA was now hostile to that work, and if we were going to have any chance of success, we needed to adjust our message.
Sometime after that, in the spring of 2010, Jim confided in me that he was being pressured to stop all efforts. He was about to take a meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn, hoping he could talk some sense into the deputy secretary and allay any of DoD's fears or concerns. He felt certain everything would turn out okay.
"He only knows what he is being told by DIA leadership," he said. Jim looked tired and beaten. The last few months had not been kind to him. Jim was a caring and sensitive man who believed he was doing his patriotic duty. Jay and I admired him for that.

That said, there is a lot of speculation and filling in the blanks in my conclusions about AAWSAP/AATIP, the Elizondo-Stratton "AATIP", and how it all fits together. So I am happy to see other data that fills in those gaps differently or leads to a different conclusion.

 

[Mendel]

It is possible that he speaks the truth about placing AATIP in his portfolio of SAPs, which I assume would mean that AATIP actually was a SAP at that point.

The evidence says otherwise.

Under no circumstances will I discuss anything classified.

That's the gambit Grusch employed: anytime anyone asks you for actual evidence, say "it's classified".

They wanted those email/files deleted/hidden but it would cause so much unwanted attention so they came up with the idea to blame UFO-secrecy instead.

We haven't seen that "protective order", have we?
Also, they didn't "blame UFO secrecy", they said the files had no historical value.
As AARO pointed out, there is no "UFO secrecy"; you cannot classify anything because "it's UFOs". That's just not a thing.

You're back to building fiction in your head. Which is fine if you're planning to write a novel, but please don't imply it has meaning in reality. Follow the evidence!