Kona Blue - AARO Report on the Proposed AAWSAP Successor

[Mendel]

I believe it is more important to present evidence that people are incorrect rather than labeling them as liars and grifters.

Especially since we don't know who proposed Kona Blue.

 

[yoshy]

Thank you all for the helpful and thought provoking responses . I am convinced by you that we should still avoid accusations like "grifting".

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

This is rude, insulting, and unsupported by evidence.
Cal OES does not monger fear (Earthquake warnings). The NOAA NHC does not monger fear (hurricane warnings).

Metabunk exists to point a finger at bunk, even though you could argue that myth and folklore (and thus, bunk) are as old as humanity itself. Groups whose core of being is founded on fearmongering and bunk should be pointed at, whether it's AE911 or antivaxxers, just to name a few. Please don't normalize what these groups are doing, and please don't imply that every group is as bad as that.

Remote vision, remote communication, and de/re-materialization techniques to observe, communicate, retrieve data, and transfer matter across dimensional and space-time barriers will undoubtedly be of an utmost interest if not a top collection priority for adversarial intelligence/security services. Countermeasures against such techniques would also be a collection priority.

The claim that adversaries could use technologies that are impossible against us is pure fear mongering, and that fact deserves to be pointed out. They're using bunk to further their agenda.

Want to make a tiny note here on the second part. The whole matter is clearly a meme, although, this is a legitimate angle. These sorts of programs are top collection priorities for major adversaries FISS. This is because the programs tend to have broader access to certain types of information and research that other bodies would not. There's a few other functional areas that're similar due to the information requirements during their conduct. Deception Operations are another one for example that're a top collection priority, not at all because of how we practice it, but because the bodies responsible for coordinating and planning them have broader access to intelligence, including more sensitive intelligence, from across the government than other bodies. This makes them a more juicy centralized target for collections.

Are these kind of proposals usually this vague? If I didn't already know what it was about, I would be quite puzzled trying to understand what it was that they wanted to do. It feels like they were trying to obfuscate what they were doing and using the political backing they had as the leverage, as in "look, this will be funded by Congress if you approve it, what do you have to lose? C'mon!"

It's also fascinating to me that these are the only documents the department had. I would have thought there would at least be a few more emails and maybe some notes from the meetings. I couldn't find an explanation stated anywhere as to why it was turned down, but I'm thinking that is a saving grace for the people involved. They had absolutely nothing to show from AAWSAP/AATIP that could justify this expansion. And even if you were convinced that there were non-human crafts threatening US airspace, some of these suggestions are extremely frivolous. A full-time medical team, for what purpose? Even if you assume that every case of purported UFO-related injury or disease were factual, what would that amount to? Also, judging by the things they listed, they would need more than one doctor since I'm pretty sure that MRI scanning and biopsies fall under different specialities.

But the most outrageous proposal, in my opinion, seems to be the suggestion that they train a hundred volunteers. They are proposing a secret government program that they claim have huge implications for national security and they want to have a hundred unpaid people there, who no doubt would be recruited from UFO/woo interest groups, a population rife with conspiracy theorists and people who favour total disclosure on the subject. It seems like such a huge security risk that it is insane that they even proposed it.

I'm not very hostile towards an actual research program/government entity purtaining to the subject matter (like AARO), but even if it had been my decision I would've struck this proposal down, since it is extremely vague, the rationale for some parts of it is, even in the context, unfounded and it contains a huge security risk built into it and the people involved clearly have an agenda and despite the millions in funding they had already gotten, they had absoluty zilch to show for it. Even if I were a believer, it would have been clear to me that these people were not the correct choice to head any government programs of any sort.

Yes/no. IMO the proposal itself isn't really vague in , it's just chalk full of buzzwords for UAP bull. For example a lot of what they say they'll do, is relatively unvague - what they're doing it for or expect to obtain from it on the other hand, yeah, that's pretty vague. Legit proposals get pretty similar but the buzzwords used make it all seem way more sensible. The issue in this case is the buzzwords are largely nonsensical or just raise questions that're unanswered through their use. You don't list that stuff in others, you keep it to the relevant bits, and you showcase an actual thing you plan to obtain from it.

I agree, but...

Who exactly do we accuse? If, for example, Lacatski who set up and ran AAWSAP and tried and failed to get KONA BLUE going told AARO that there was an operational secret program, KONA BLUE, actively recovering and reverse engineering UAPs, that would be pretty blatant. However, if someone like Puthoff heard bits and parts about the new program BAASS might be working on and he would be contracting to and passed that along to AARO, is he lying or mistaken? He could certainly be blowing what he heard out of proportion or assuming that the program did take off, but he wasn't part of it.

Even in the case of Lacatski, he was at DIA in the DoD and while Reid had him pitch the new AAWSAP as KONA BLUE to DHS, who's to say he would have had anything to do with it. I don't know enough about government to say a person at DoD's DIA would just slide over to DHS to run 1 program. His main job was as a missile analyst, AAWSAP was a side hustle. He could have made his pitch for a new AAWSAP, got rejected and stayed at DIA. He then hears about DHS setting up an SAP called KONA BLUE based on his pitch, but again it's at DHS.

He then goes to AARO and says DHS was or did set up KONA BLUE, not knowing that it never went anywhere.

I sound like I'm trying to convince myself of these guys sincerity. It's just that they remind me of an old friend I've mentioned before. Tim used to tell some wild ass stories, but he'd been telling them for so long he believed them to an extent. We called them Timmy Tales and any logical pointing out of why the story could not have occurred as told fell on deaf ears.

If one has spent the last 30-40 years thinking the government has UFOs that they are hiding and reverse engineering, then any trickle of information that might confirm that is passed along as factual.

I do think it is worth noting Joel Wall would've been the acting program manager if the program did jump off. The docus lay that out. It seems Joel though does have a personal relation to this group and that is what led to his involvement in the proposal, rather than say, it just randomly being floated at his office.

 

[NorCal Dave]

I do think it is worth noting Joel Wall would've been the acting program manager if the program did jump off. The docus lay that out. It seems Joel though does have a personal relation to this group and that is what led to his involvement in the proposal, rather than say, it just randomly being floated at his office.

Interesting. Knowing nothing about government, it seemed unlikely to me that Lacatski would just show up at DHS from DIA to run a new version of AAWSAP. DHS would have their own people to put in charge, like Mr. Wall I guess.

 

[Mendel]

These sorts of programs are top collection priorities for major adversaries FISS. This is because the programs tend to have broader access to certain types of information and research that other bodies would not.

First, the proposal is worded such that the (impossible) paranormal methods are collection priorities, not the projects researching them. And second, it's hard to imagine that e.g. Puthoff working with mediums had broad access to anything interesting (why?).

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

First, the proposal is worded such that the (impossible) paranormal methods are collection priorities, not the projects researching them. And second, it's hard to imagine that e.g. Puthoff working with mediums had broad access to anything interesting (why?).

Notice I said "these sorts of programs", not that, this specific one, or even AAWSAP, had access to anything of relevancy. It's that these type of R&D programs attempting to focus on emerging and advanced technology alone, tend to have wider access to materials you do not want your adversary to have, or else your developments and conduct can quickly be counteracted and useless. This is just as true for the R&D practitioners side as it is for those groups that attempt to conduct research surrounding the subjects.
And yes, generally your collection priority would be something within the program or project, not the program or project itself. If you start to draw out your EEFI, rarely will "project existence" make it to the Critical Information classification either, so from the security standpoint, you would not focus on trying to protect the idea of the existence of the project. < This is distinct from the wackadoodle memery that they were trying to do outside of formal govt processes.

It sounds dumb but do remember all our countries "odd" projects during the Cold War were primarily conducted because we were all semi-seriously doing them while trying to mislead our adversaries about what it actually is. In a lot of these cases, the government still does get entirely legitimate output that there'd be a larger preference for adversarial nations not to discover, if all but their ability to point it out degrades our ability to continue misleading them strategically.
By "semi seriously" also it's not that the government is throwing worlds of funding at these, more that they let it happen because there's people that'll do it, know the processes, and can get them output. Just that the government, at least parts, actually have an interest in exploring this for whatever reason, to obtain some output. You can propose and get contracts for really funny things if you know how to deal with all the formal wording requirements and etc.

 

[Mendel]

And yes, generally your collection priority would be something within the program or project, not the program or project itself.

There's a logical disconnect between us here, and I can't figure out where.
There is nothing in Koba Blue that is worth collecting.

Reminder:

Remote vision, remote communication, and de/re-materialization techniques to observe, communicate, retrieve data, and transfer matter across dimensional and space-time barriers will undoubtedly be of an utmost interest if not a top collection priority for adversarial intelligence/security services. Countermeasures against such techniques would also be a collection priority.

remote vision: ESP, mind powers, works as a parlor trick but useless in practice
remote communication: ESP again, does not work except as magic trick
de/rematerialization: breaks fundamental physical laws, does not work
cross dimensional and space-time barriers: ditto

If I had to spy on this project, I'd pull an "Our Man in Havana", do nothing, and make up my reports that it doesn't work, and nobody'd ever know. The idea that any of this is possible, and that we on Earth can replicate it, and that therefore some adversary could beat us to it, is delusional. The CRAP where they analysed that scrap of Magnesium-Bismuth that might well be a bit of missile casing is equally worthless.

I can understand the idea of detracting the enemy intelligence into pursuing these kinds of projects, but that presupposes that a) the enemy is equally gullible, and b) claiming that the adversary has these kinds of projects is detracting ourselves.

So the idea that foreign services could collect this information is pure fear-mongering, because it's 100% bunk, embedded in more bunk. We do not need to research these "techniques" because no adversary is ever going to beat us to them, for the same reason that we don't research perpetual motion machines (which would be undoubtedly very useful if only they were possible).

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

There's a logical disconnect between us here, and I can't figure out where.
There is nothing in Koba Blue that is worth collecting.

Reminder:

Remote vision, remote communication, and de/re-materialization techniques to observe, communicate, retrieve data, and transfer matter across dimensional and space-time barriers will undoubtedly be of an utmost interest if not a top collection priority for adversarial intelligence/security services. Countermeasures against such techniques would also be a collection priority.

remote vision: ESP, mind powers, works as a parlor trick but useless in practice
remote communication: ESP again, does not work except as magic trick
de/rematerialization: breaks fundamental physical laws, does not work
cross dimensional and space-time barriers: ditto

If I had to spy on this project, I'd pull an "Our Man in Havana", do nothing, and make up my reports that it doesn't work, and nobody'd ever know. The idea that any of this is possible, and that we on Earth can replicate it, and that therefore some adversary could beat us to it, is delusional. The CRAP where they analysed that scrap of Magnesium-Bismuth that might well be a bit of missile casing is equally worthless.

I can understand the idea of deteacting the enemy intelligence into pursuing these kinds of projects, but that presupposes that a) the enemy is equally gullible, and b) claiming that the adversary has these kinds of projects is detracting ourselves.

So the idea that foreign services could collect this information is pure fear-mongering, because it's 100% bunk, embedded in more bunk. We do not need to research these "techniques" because no adversary is ever going to beat us to them, for the same reason that we don't research perpetual motion machines (which would be undoubtedly very useful if only they were possible).

Keep in mind I've recognized that it is a lot of hoohah. And no, the fact of the matter is the programs happen and they are collected against. Same as they have been forever. The disconnect we may have may exist towards the actual fields being spoken of. "Nothing in Kona Blue that is worth collecting" is from your frame. There are adversarial collection shops that exist solely to target for collection things like sensory data, how sensors work technologically, and analytical methodologies. Whether or not they're geared towards hoohah, the things behind it legitimately exist, and programs like this tend to have very wide access to said data comparative to other entities (ala AARO has full suite access and has partook in modernizing the aerial sensory capabilities DoD wide, not very many places have that broad access).

If you pulled an "our man in Havana, do nothing, and make up my reports that it doesn't work", you'd be subverting your own program & formulating intentionally deceptive intelligence products, and not actually doing your job because there's angles to this that have nothing to do with the hoohah going on.
If you're in some collection shop collecting against KB, you're not looking to collect against the "remote viewing", you're looking to collect against access KB has to say, using an example drawing from the proposal, emerging neurocognitive approaches to mapping cognitive activity with military & natsec applications. Or in AAROs case as an example, their DoD wide access to technical sensory data.

Also "the idea that foreign services could collect this information is pure fear mongering" is a bad way to frame it. Even if you disagree with the idea they would, they still could, there's programs with far more security measures and countermeasures that are targets for collection and are successfully collected against. And again, the collection would not be about the hoohah really, it'd be about everything else.

Hard to single source but I can find some more if you want, we lack much available direct Soviet sourcing here, but there's plenty available historically about our own efforts collecting against Soviet programs of the sort. The efforts collecting against these were entirely irrelated to the sorts of hoohah programs going at the time like those ran by Puthoff. CIAs FOIA room has quite a bit of documentation relating to it.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/NSA-RDP96X00790R000100010041-2.pdf

Not only is this reflective of our own efforts, but they also reference and make short-form analysis of Soviet efforts. These short-assessments, while not strategic assessments in themselves, tell us about Soviet Intelligence Requirements, Collection Priorities, and activities-of-interest, which allows us to better and more efficiently secure our own assets, but also how to deceive them about our efforts. Further, it gives us information that allows us insight into their decision making process irrelated to the topics themselves.
They also name a few areas that have had outputs outside the woo factor they were originally researched in. As with the example given of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, this was largely considered parapsychology at the time on both fronts due to its closeness with "telepathy" research, but it had outputs relevant outside of it.
Later, in the late 80s, the USAF had an entire program dedicated towards NIEMR use in relation to bioeffects etc in its use as an anti-personnel weapon.

 

[NorCal Dave]

If I had to spy on this project, I'd pull an "Our Man in Havana", do nothing, and make up my reports that it doesn't work, and nobody'd ever know.

I might disagree with you a bit here my friend. IF I'm spying on this and I'm on the full up and up, I would report the futility of the project. IF, I want to just keep my cush job spying on this project, I would report that it looks like they might be on to something, but it's unclear. I'll have to keep looking into it. Maybe for quite a while.

Now IF I, or my friends, wanted to have our own similar program, then the reports would be even more positive, though still vague, so that I could sell it as a "They might have this, so we need to get on this". That's where Project Stargate ultimately came from.

 

[Mendel]

(ala AARO has full suite access and has partook in modernizing the aerial sensory capabilities DoD wide, not very many places have that broad access).

AARO is not bunk.

Later, in the late 80s, the USAF had an entire program dedicated towards NIEMR use in relation to bioeffects etc in its use as an anti-personnel weapon.

NIEMR is not bunk (put a hamster in your microwave and you can see the biological effects).

The fact that the Soviets did parapsychology research or that Russia might be spying on our parapsychology research does not change the fact that it's not a threat.

If you're in some collection shop collecting against KB, you're not looking to collect against the "remote viewing", you're looking to collect against access KB has to say, using an example drawing from the proposal, emerging neurocognitive approaches to mapping cognitive activity with military & natsec applications. Or in AAROs case as an example, their DoD wide access to technical sensory data.

However, that is not the threat the Kona Blue proposal is fearmongering about (see my quote). Kona Blue would have no output that helps with that.

 

[Mendel]

@Tezcatlipoca Do you agree with this:

• We need this project because our adversaries will want to spy on it.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

AARO is not bunk.

NIEMR is not bunk (put a hamster in your microwave and you can see the biological effects).

The fact that the Soviets did parapsychology research or that Russia might be spying on our parapsychology research does not change the fact that it's not a threat.


However, that is not the threat the Kona Blue proposal is fearmongering about (see my quote). Kona Blue would have no output that helps with that.

I never said AARO is bunk, I gave a specific example of something AARO does that KB also claimed it would do, and how its relevant in the context of foreign collections.
I also did not say NIEMR was bunk, I gave an example of a timeframe NIEMR use in context was widely considered "bunk" and thrown into the same category as "remote viewing" and telepathy research. While there is no sourcing on adversaries collecting against this specifically, if they did, they would've had early-access to our research that enabled what we now see NIEMR as. Which, during the timeframe, this could've saved the Soviets an insane amount of R&D resources, which is one of the reasons our top adversaries such as Russia, China, and Iran put so much stock into S&T collection.

I think this reply showcases the disconnect I mean when I'm talking about the fields being spoken of. The program exists, it has materials itself, access to materials, methodologies, etc irrelated to the bunk that present risks if disclosed publicly or to adversaries. If you're targeting this program, you don't care about the bunk, you'd care about all the rest of this. It doesn't matter if the surrounding program is bunk because that's not what you're looking for and in some cases it does not impact what you're collecting against.

And the "the fact" comment is a bit off base IMO. The original point I was making and responding too was that these programs are legitimate targets for collection from adversarial actors. This was debated. I provided sourcing that showcases that state actors do in fact conduct intelligence collection & analysis against these programs. This then changed to "does not change the fact that it's not a threat". The program exists, the program has restricted information and access aside from the bunk. Especially if we speak in Operations Security terms, a threat is defined as intent + capability, so, yes it would be a threat. This is also potentially one of those crux areas where terminology differences are going to have grander impact since public use of the terms differs massively.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

@Tezcatlipoca Do you agree with this:

• We need this project because our adversaries will want to spy on it.

Also sorry for double post tried to quote this in the above but it kept messing up the formatting.

By "this project" do you mean Kona Blue itself? No. I've been relatively open that I don't agree with what any of these guys did, the entire basis of it is a glaring insider threat, and the actual intent of what they were doing as we all agree was a bunch of bunk. The entire way it was created also makes it near impossible to even adjust for use in that context.

If you mean in a broad theoretical sense of a *theoretical* project of the sort, depends on a lot of factors IMO. There are "programs" intentionally created for deceptive purposes, similar to canary traps in the document and data context, although they would look and behave insanely different than how this would. Creating actual deceptive programs instead of running DISO for another, also, would enter a more Strategic Deception context. So, this wouldn't be a "lets just have it in the background for it to be collected against", you'd implement it at a specific time hoping to achieve relatively specific effects.

Like, you wouldn't have a whole woo crew running around the media like this that just make it easier to assess the deceptive program is actually just that. It also wouldn't be so large you'd have a whole crew of affiliated individuals able to run around with their experience interacting with it.

 

[Mendel]

And the "the fact" comment is a bit off base IMO. The original point I was making and responding too was that these programs are legitimate targets for collection from adversarial actors.

No. The original point (my point) was that the need for Kona Blue cannot be established based on "the enemy wants this".

If you are trying to make points about other programs, you're in the wrong thread.

The reasoning in the Kona Blue proposal that I object to is "if these woo techniques were possible, the enemy would want them", which is fearmongering that does not make these ideas any more possible.