Pentagon Releases 1500 pages of UFO documents, including other paranormal stuff.

[NorCal Dave]

I had Fox Business on in the background with morning coffee and Metabunk today, when I heard "UFO report" and saw the GIMBAL video on the screen. Interested, I was surprised when the onscreen graphics quickly added things like "abductions" and "alien sexual encounters". And it was claimed this stuff was coming from the Pentagon. To be fair the hosts weren't to sure what to do with it, they smirked and gave the obligatory "maybe we're not alone".

Sounded more like Skinwalker Ranch, than the US military.

The main story seems to be from The Sun at least that's where I found it. Being a Yank, I'm not sure where The Sun ranks in the world of UK tabloids, but the story claims to be based on actual FOIA documents from the DIA:

THE PENTAGON has released 1,574 pages of real-life X-Files related to its secretive UFO programme after a four-year battle.

The Sun Online first requested a copy of all "files, reports or video files" related to the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) on December 18, 2017.

We filed an a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) just days after the existence of the shadowy programme had been made public.

Finally after more than four years, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released more than 1,500 documents.

It includes government commissioned scientific reports and letters to the Pentagon regarding the UFO programme.

The haul includes reports into research on the biological effects of UFO sightings on humans, sets out categorisations for paranormal experiences, and studies into sci-fi-style tech.

It goes on to add some more exciting findings:

The bombshell Freedom of Information haul includes reports on the DIA's research into the biological effects of UFO sightings on humans.

And this includes burns, heart problems, sleep disturbances - and even bizarre occurrences such as "apparent abduction" and "unaccounted for pregnancy".

And:

The report noted that often these injuries are related to electromagnetic radiation - and links them to "energy related propulsion systems".

And the report - prepared for the DIA - warns that such objects may be a "threat to United States interests".

Humans have been found to have been injured from "exposures to anomalous vehicles, especially airborne and when in close proximity", it reads.

The report added said it had 42 cases from medical files and 300 similar "unpublished" cases where humans had been injured after "anomalous" encounters.

It then brings up even more fringe stuff:

One fascinating document included in an Acquisition Threat Support report, sets out how to categorise "anomalous behaviour" - with encounters with "ghosts, yetis, spirits, elves and other mythical/ legendary entities" classed as "AN3".

Seeing a UFO with aliens on board would be "CE3".

Poltergeists, crop circles, spontaneous human combustion, alien abductions and other paranormal events are also categorised.

It also repeats the now dubious idea that L. Elizondo ran ATTIP:

It was outed by former intelligence official turned whistleblower Luis Elizondo, who headed up the programme, back in 2017.

All above EC: /www.the-sun.com/news/5053632/us-government-releases-1500-pages-secret-documents-ufo-programme/

Something James Lacatski has countered in his own book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, which he co-authored with Colm A. Keleher and George Knapp:

The Pentagon did spend $22 million on a secret study, and the investigation went way beyond UFOs, and it wasn't called AATIP. The correct acronym was AAWSAP, the Advanced Weapons System Application Program.

The program was first proposed and later managed by a career intelligence analyst and rocket scientist named Dr. James Lacatski who'd spent much of his career working for the Defense Warning Office within the D.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Now AATIP in the Pentagon, as described in the articles, was basically zero funded, looked at specific military UFO encounters and very important ones because they had film and it had no contract.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

The Sun article does go on to accurately describe where the program came from:

The slew of newly released documents contains letters from Senator Harry Reid - who asks for the project to be classed as top secret - and documents about contractors.

It shows how a contract was awarded to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BLASS) for $12 million - notably the only contractor to bid for the work - to study "advanced aerospace weapon threats from the present out to 40 years in the future".

In one 2009 letter Senator Reid describes how the programme has already identified "several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace technologies" which required "extraordinary protection".

His request for "restricted special access program" for the BLASS work was rejected by DIA officials.

www.the-sun.com/news/5053632/us-government-releases-1500-pages-secret-documents-ufo-programme/

I think it's further blurring of what "The Bigalow Boys" were doing and looking into as part of the AASWAP/AATIP contract and what the US military is actually concerned about. The fact that they were doing their "research" under the guise of an official government contract gives gravitas to their claims. If the US military is looking into Skinwalker Ranch type stuff, there must be something to it.

The Mystre Wire website has a plug for Lataski's book and claims it was Skinwalker Ranch that started AASWAP/AATIP, not UFOs encountered by the military and not possible threats for foreign adversaries (bold by me):

The program was first proposed and later managed by a career intelligence analyst and rocket scientist named Dr. James Lacatski who'd spent much of his career working for the Defense Warning Office within the D.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency.

In 2007, Lacatski became interested in stories about bizarre activity and unknown aerial platforms reported in and around a property known as Skinwalker Ranch in northeastern Utah.

Lacatski and a few Pentagon colleagues read and discussed a book, Hunt for the Skinwalker, and wondered if the unusual activity investigated by a scientific team at Skinwalker Ranch might represent both a threat and an opportunity for national defense.

In the summer of 2007, Lacatski met the owner of the ranch, Las Vegas businessman Robert Bigelow, and visited the property, where he had a profound encounter with the unknown. That experience led directly to the creation and funding of AAWSAP.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

I propose that now we have actual FOIA papers from the military, that are in reality the files of Bigelow's fringe hunting program that used US funding.

According to The Mystery Wire article, many of the strange things listed in The Sun article were part of AAWSAP/AATIP and are mentioned in the book Skinwalker at the Pentagon:

In addition to the general topic of UFO/UAP cases, the AAWSAP program succeeded in focusing on other mysteries, some of which are directly related to national security and public safety.

Being in the vicinity of metallic/structured craft (e.g. Skinwalker Ranch) and associated phenomena can cause experiencers to bring "something home with them". AAWSAP proposed an infectious agent model for the "transmission" of anomalies from person-to-person. The nickname for this phenomenon is "hitchhikers."

Contracted with multiple laboratories to chemically analyze anomalous samples from alleged crash sites and other sources.

Deep dives – (AAWSAP personnel boots on the ground) into medical cases as a result of getting zapped with a beam from a UAP in Georgia or as a result of a close encounter with small blue orbs (unidentified flying object) causing multiple medical effects. Obtained enough data to show close encounters are a threat to human health.

/www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

Finally, something interesting comes up in the interviews plugging the book on The Mystery Wire. It's a bit incestuous, as co-author Knapp is interviewing his fellow co-authors, but we get these statements from Kelleher:

Well, I was hired in November of 2008. The AAWSAP program ran from September 2008 to late 2010. So one of the first tasks that I had coming on board was to put together a team of UFO focused investigators as quickly as possible.

I personally conducted about 300 telephone interviews in an attempt to recruit different people for different positions at AAWSAP. In addition, I did at least 100, face to face interviews in my office in that period of time.

I think by the end of May of 2009, we had a team of about 50 people.

And as Jim said, over 100 reports, during that 24 months were submitted to the Defense Intelligence Agency, both electronically and by paper. I remember standing in my office, actually, in Las Vegas, with the paper copies in three ring binders. And that set of data actually went to about six feet high on the floor of my office. I mean, it was an incredible stash of data, because it encompassed not only monthly reports, but also reports that were deep dives into specific cases and also topics. So I think it's about time that the entire story of AAWSAP is being told. And you know, Dr. Lacatski was the driving force in Washington, DC, and I was the day-to-day manager in Las Vegas.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

It seems, as some have suspected, this is not a Pentagon project at all, as it is often portrayed. It was run by an employee of Bigelow Aerospace (BAASS) from offices in Las Vegas. It's no secret that it was a contract awarded to BA, but it's always portrayed as Luis Elizondo and his team of DIA/Pentagon scientists working inside the Pentagon to uncover the truth about UFOs. In fact, aside from Lataski and maybe an assistant or two, it's a bunch of guys out in Las Vegas working for Robert Bigelow.

 

[jarlrmai]

Yet again the Pentagon insider influence of Bigelow is being used to launder UFO and UFO adjacent stories.

 

[Mick West]

The documents were released (via FOIA) to several people simultaneously a few days ago. You can download them here:
https://www.metabunk.org/f/1500 Pages of UFO Documents DIRDs BAASS.zip

The health effects one (also attached) is interesting reading.

 

[FatPhil]

The main story seems to be from The Sun at least that's where I found it. Being a Yank, I'm not sure where The Sun ranks in the world of UK tabloids

Amazingly, it's not as low as it's possible to go. It revels in scandal (for example, if cartoonists wish to parody it or its ilk, they typically call their fabricated newspaper /The Stun/, which seems to me to be an obvious reference), and doesn't care too much about investigating anything that it carries. It famously ran a story about record summer temperatutes with the front page headline /Phwoar, What a Scorcher!/, which gives some indication of roughly where it's aiming, reading-level-wise. Also, it always used to be known for being a bit trashy because every day it carried a topless photo inside (always on page 3, and it was such an institution that "page 3 girl" became almost a synonym for topless model), but political correctness has taken over in the last decade, and they've been scrapped. The readership wasn't entirely happy, but I don't know to what publications they migrated (https://www.theguardian.com/media/g...l-without-page-3-but-dont-rush-to-conclusions says sales were ~10% down YoY, but dredges through a whole load of other stats to contextualise that and I didn't take them all in). Whether the demographics of the readership has changed significantly after this egress, I don't know. Having said that, I've not lived in the UK for several decades, things may have changed.

Alas I can't select a US equivalent, as I don't know your newspapers well enough, nor was my g/f willing to proffer a suggestion. It's definitely no /Weekly World News/, but few things are. It is vaguely pretending to be an actual newspaper.

 

[Gary McH-P]

As a Brit, The Sun is akin to a comic. It's not the worst newspaper, The Daily Star takes that accolade hands-down, but the stories are on a par to listening to a bunch of builders telling stories down the pub.

 

[jarlrmai]

The Sun not the worst? I assume you know about their role in gleefully demonising the Liverpool fans who died in the Hillsborough tragedy assisting the police coverup and smear campaign that they conducted to hide their criminal actions that led to the death of 97 people.

There is a reason the Sun is not sold on Merseyside.

 

[Mendel]

Alas I can't select a US equivalent

Article:

Tabloid journalism is a popular style of largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatized and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false), which takes its name from the format: a small-sized newspaper (half broadsheet).[1] The size became associated with sensationalism, and tabloid journalism replaced the earlier label of yellow journalism and scandal sheets.[2] Not all newspapers associated with tabloid journalism are tabloid size, and not all tabloid-size newspapers engage in tabloid journalism.

Leading examples include the National Enquirer, Star, Weekly World News (later reinvented as a parody of the style), and the Sun.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_journalism

Some months back, we talked about extending the site; it would sure be nice if we now had a Metabunk wiki to categorize these 1500 documents cooperatively.

 

[FatPhil]

The Sun not the worst? I assume you know about their role in gleefully demonising the Liverpool fans who died in the Hillsborough tragedy assisting the police coverup and smear campaign that they conducted to hide their criminal actions that led to the death of 97 people.

There is a reason the Sun is not sold on Merseyside.

Of course I remember that mess. I notice that lots of pubs in Liverpool still (2019) have anti-Sun posters on their walls, the hate runs deep, and it's easy to understand why. Yes, at times they truly plumbed the depths.

However, for something that's pretending to be a newspaper, I'd say /The Star/ was worse journalism across the board, having almost no merit at all. And for something that's at least trying to have the same form-factor as a newspaper, and just occasionally making reference to real things that happened to real people, the /Sunday Sport/ and its siblings reign supreme in the badness stakes (the gap between that and the /Weekly World News/ is only wafeur thin, in fact I think it ripped off a whole bunch of WWN stories).

 

[NorCal Dave]

So, we can go with The Sun is bad, but not the worst. Regardless, the story is, at least, based on actual FOIA documents.

I would think the interesting thing here is, did they cherry pick a few mentions of the more fringy things in the documents and used that to create some more sensational pull quotes? If so, it would mean plowing through and researching 1500 pages of documents, something The Sun may not be known for? Or are the documents full of weird stuff?

I'll have to look through them as time allows.

While some in the UFOlogy world are touting this as a big deal showing that the US military was concerned about UFOs, was studying them and then tried to cover it up, it could eventually backfire. In an interview plugging his new book, Lataski, as prompted by co-author Knapp, tries to enforce that AASWAP/AATIP was all about UFOs (bold by me):

George Knapp

Dr. Jim Lacatski, there has been considerable speculation fueled in part by statements from the DOD's spokesperson that the $22 million that was secured by Senator Reid and his colleagues in Congress to fund this program and study had nothing to do with UFOs. It was really just a study of future technologies, presumably by our adversaries. That it was really just just that. Can you address whether AAWSAP was first and foremost, an investigation of UFO phenomena? Why isn't made obvious in any of the documentation that's been made public so far?

James Lacatski
The answer to that is yes. It was completely UFO related. The reason you haven't seen the documentation is we use the statement of objectives format for the request for proposal. That is insufficient for anyone examining the contents of the contract, they must have the proposal. Now, within the proposal, and in this case, it was from Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). It's clearly mentioned, among the topics proposed, a worldwide database of advanced aerospace vehicles, anomalous vehicles. There can be no ambiguity here. This was being proposed as a UFO project.

This despite the fact, that as mentioned in the OP, Lataski claims to have thought up AASWAP/AATIP because of an encounter with the unknown at Skinwalker Ranch (bold by me):

In the summer of 2007, Lacatski met the owner of the ranch, Las Vegas businessman Robert Bigelow, and visited the property, where he had a profound encounter with the unknown. That experience led directly to the creation and funding of AAWSAP.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

AAWSAP/AATIP is always sold as the US military studying UFOs for possible threats to national security, be it from foreign adversaries or otherworldly.

If, on the other hand, these documents reveille that AAWSAP/AATIP was just an extension of what Bigelow had been doing out at Skinwalker Ranch already, just now with the blessing and funding of the US government, how will that play out? Those that lump everything from ghosts and Bigfoot together with UFOs will be fine with it.

But what about the serious minded, UFOs as nuts-and-bolts physical crafts, crowd? What will they think if the it's shown that the program that brought the world GIMBLE and TICTAK, is also bringing the world abductions and alien pregnancies?

 

[Ann K]

...because of course women NEVER lie about the cause of a pregnancy?

 

[NorCal Dave]

Time permitting, I've been glancing over the files released as mentioned in the OP. Obviously I haven't read all 1500 pages, I'm only a semi-retired contractor. But as the wife is on a work trip, I'm taking the evening cocktail solo and enjoying a G&T with some AASWAP/AATIP files. For brevity, I will henceforth refer to AASWAP/AATIP as A/A.

If this already looks to long for anyone, there's a TL,DR summery at the end.

A quick glance at the files does reviles a few things. Most glaring to my eye is that it seems a A/A was just a Boondoggle. Yes, $12-22 million is less than pocket change in the US DoD budget, but it still represents many millions of dollars shepherded along by Nevada Senator Reid to Robert Bigelow's company in Las Vegas. For those many millions, Bigelow Advanced Aerospace Systems (BAASS) produced papers and reports on what, can at best be described as "speculative" or "future thinking" science and, maybe more accurately, Science Fiction.

IF, and it's a big if, this dump represents the total intellectual and product output of the A/A contract, then one can see why Harry Reid might have wanted it kept Classified.

Also very important, if I've read all of this right, there are NO Pentagon or DoD employees were involved in the actual A/A output. Elizondo has been making the rounds on news shows saying in effect "the US government" knows and is talking about UFOs in these files. I think that's just plain wrong, at least in regard to these files. Contracts and memos aside (see below), most of these files were generated by people working for BAASS, NOT the DoD. Remember, Kelleher claims to be the guy running A/A on a daily basis in Las Vegas:

Colm Kelleher

Well, I was hired in November of 2008. The AAWSAP program ran from September 2008 to late 2010. So one of the first tasks that I had coming on board was to put together a team of UFO focused investigators as quickly as possible. So I was thinking back on this and between November 2008, and probably April 2009, I personally conducted about 300 telephone interviews in an attempt to recruit different people for different positions at AAWSAP. In addition, I did at least 100, face to face interviews in my office in that period of time. So we're talking about a pretty rapid clip in terms of bringing forth a lot of people into the office, sometimes there were one or two people outside. But our focus was in hiring a team of PhD level scientists, that would include physics and biology, master's level scientists, technicians, we also looked for database analysts, and military intelligence personnel who had a long history investigative background.

But all of this hiring and recruitment occurred within a four or five month period. I think by the end of May of 2009, we had a team of about 50 people.

And I would say, I've worked with government organizations in the past, NASA and DoD in other capacities, and putting that kind of level of activity together in a 24 month period, I think was pretty extraordinary. And, obviously, Dr. Lacatski, his input in Washington, DC, and greasing the wheels to make all of this happen, putting together a pretty large organization that was focused only on UFO investigations. That was the key.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

Lastly, remember, that at least currently, Lataski claims to have conceived of the entire A/A program himself after a paranormal experience at Bigelow's Skinwalker Ranch.

In the summer of 2007, Lacatski met the owner of the ranch, Las Vegas businessman Robert Bigelow, and visited the property, where he had a profound encounter with the unknown. That experience led directly to the creation and funding of AAWSAP.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

To start there are 54 files consisting of 109 megabytes, if I'm reading things right, in the FOIA dump. So far, what's interesting is what's not in those files, namely a lot of UFOs. There's some, but first I'll go over the non-UFO files as they make up a big chunk of this dump.

First, there are ~15 files of 11,172KB, that are basically bureaucratic in nature, contract reviews and status updates, that we'll get to in a bit.

So that leaves us with 36 files that are called Defense Intelligent Reference Documents (DIRD) which seem to represent the actual "research" conducted by A/A.

Not to be repetitive, but I'll again post what Knapp and Lataski said about the A/A program and it's origins when plugging their new book, namely that it was all about UFOs:

Dr. Jim Lacatski, there has been considerable speculation fueled in part by statements from the DOD's spokesperson that the $22 million that was secured by Senator Reid and his colleagues in Congress to fund this program and study had nothing to do with UFOs. It was really just a study of future technologies, presumably by our adversaries. That it was really just just that. Can you address whether AAWSAP was first and foremost, an investigation of UFO phenomena? Why isn't made obvious in any of the documentation that's been made public so far?

James Lacatski
The answer to that is yes. It was completely UFO related. The reason you haven't seen the documentation is we use the statement of objectives format for the request for proposal. That is insufficient for anyone examining the contents of the contract, they must have the proposal. Now, within the proposal, and in this case, it was from Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). It's clearly mentioned, among the topics proposed, a worldwide database of advanced aerospace vehicles, anomalous vehicles. There can be no ambiguity here. This was being proposed as a UFO project. Now, if you want to look at the tail end of the project, you'll find over 100 documents required to be reported to the Defense Intelligence Agency that were UFO related, in part of course, I mean, they were large, very large documents. And you also have technical studies, and you have that database. Probably the largest UFO database that exists in the world and is currently being used by the US military. So yes, it was completely a UFO project.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

However, if we look at the 36 DIRD files in the dump we find the following:

• 7 files were specifically related to "speculative" advanced propulsion systems: DIRD files # 8, 11, 15,29,30,33,37
• 9 files that are related to "speculative" advanced materials: DIRD files # 1, 2, 4, 5, 13,14, 22, 27, 32
• A couple of files about Microwaves and communications: DIRD files # 3, 21
• A couple files related to philosophy of science or thought, like the Drake equation and Maverik inventors: DIRD files # 17, 25
• A number of files about "speculative" ideas like wormholes, cloaking and anti-gravity: DIRD files # 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 16,18, 19 20,24,28, 31, 34, 35, 36
• And lasers: DIDR file #23

Some samples, such as DIRD #29:

Or DIRD #24:

I have no idea if these things are possible, speculative or complete fantasy.

But, all of these speculative DIRD files are what one would expect if we read the various memos about the nature of the A/A contract:

Note, there is no mention of UFO/UAPs.

After sorting through all of this we come to the 2 files that are UFO/alien related, only 1 of which is a DIRD paper, that is, a DIRD produced by BAASS employees under contract to the DIA. It's from these two files that most of the titillating media headlines have come from. It's what's in these files that Elizondo is commenting about on TV news blips and podcasts.

First up is the non-DIRD file Mick mentioned above in post #3. While it is interesting reading, it doesn't seem to have much to do with A/A. Rather, it's a report from a John F Schuessler compiled in 1996 and pulled from old newspapers, books, UFO magazines and MUFON reports. Just some notes from the introduction to the paper:

So we have Roswell, Linda (Moulton) Howe of Ancient Aliens and "Art's Parts" fame, cattle mutilations, Bud Hopkins, artist turned hypnotist and purveyor of alien abductions and the like, just in the introduction.

Much of Howe's work includes speculations about what she terms "unexplained" phenomena, such as cattle mutilations, crop circles, UFO sightings and alien abductions.[11]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Moulton_Howe

Hopkins is often credited with popularizing the idea of alien abductions as genetic experimentation[3][4][43][44] through the publication of his book Intruders.[2] He has been dubbed "father of the abduction movement" by some.[20]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Hopkins


The report then goes on to talk about obtaining and cataloging the health effects of UFO encounters and gives this set of "Categories of Injuries" from the MUFON Field Investigators Manuel:

After some 16 pages of introduction and explanations and lessons learned and some ladies getting sick after a UFO encounter in Huston, the remaining ~91 pages is just a list of encounters and the reported health effects, starting Down Under in 1873:

A quick glance will reveal everything from eyes fluttering and vaginal probing to death by energy beam.

What any of this has to do with A/A, foreign threats or the Navy videos, I have no idea. I suppose it's, at best, some background information and at worst, just filler.

Nevertheless, this is what BASS was including in their output under contract to the DIA. A '90s era catalog of stuff culled from dubious sources.

Now we come to DIRD file #26, Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Biological Tissue. There are assorted things going on in this short paper, but it starts with this:

Sence 3 guys can be hurt while working on big powerful antennas, then it follows that anomalous advanced aerospace systems can also hurt people AND we can use their injuries to reverse engineer what the aerospace system was: (note, this is one of the few places the idea of a "threat" to US interests is mentioned)

So the report is going to look into the effects of advanced propulsion systems and weapons on people:

It lists the effects of EMR and other energy waves on humans, but it's laden with vignettes and stories like this one:

Note that the whole point of the story is that supposedly somewhere in the 2 page letter the crazy guy brought to the FBI, it revels classified information about EMR weapons that he got a hold of through a FOIA. However, the only evidence mentioned in the story is the shoes.

What the hell was the point of the story? If there was a declassified paper about EMR weapons, why not just say so and talk about it. Why a page worth of a meaningless anecdote?

The paper proports to be compiled from rigorous peer reviewed sources. That may be true for the sections talking about how EMR can affect humans and animals, but as for the source material for the idea that advanced craft are causing EMR injuries, a glance at the References and Working Databases page might tell a different story:

So we have Jacque Vallee, ufology.net, The UFO Enigma and, from the previously discussed file above, John F Schuessler. In fact, Appendix A of this file is just a summary of Schuessler's paper from 1996:

While the names are all redacted in this file dump, Jason Colavito in his blog says this paper is written by Kit Green, and you'll note his name appears several times in the References and Working Databases. More importantly it seems he never thought it was UFOs. Jason References an interview by theufotrail.blogspot that talks about Greens work with BAASS:

Dr. Christopher "Kit" Green is well known among those with an eye to the UFO genre for reasons including his work with the CIA and corporations controlled by Robert Bigelow. In approximately 2010 he provided a paper to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies for inclusion in the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Application Program. The AAWSAP contract was awarded to BAASS by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Green's paper, one of some 38 collected by BAASS at the time, is titled Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Biological Tissues.

and the fact that Green didn't think his paper had anything to do with UFOs:

Longtime staple of the UFO subculture and author of a paper submitted to the AAWSAP, Dr. Kit Green, indicated during an April 6 telephone call he believes cases reviewed in his injury study did not represent people harmed by paranormal or extraterrestrial phenomena, but by human beings. "The perpetrators - in my judgment - are human," Green stated.

"I don't think it's a guy with slanty eyes from far, far away in his shape-shifting universe," Green explained during the call. "I think these are human technologies."

http://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-ufo-injury-study-that-wasnt.html?m=1

Finally, I just tried searching through the file dump for terms like "GIMBEL", "foreign threat", "UAP", "Navy video" and "UFO" among others. For program that is supposed to be all about UFO/UAPs, the term UFO only appears in the Scheuller paper from 1996.

So that's what $12-22 million will get you. 1500 pages, that seem to be a cross between a think-tank and a Science Fiction convention. There's a dubious old '90s report and an updated re-hash of said report, along with some memos and status updates that show A/A had nothing to do with UFOs.

TL,DR:

The 1500 pages from a FOIA concerning AASWAP/AATIP, are largely uneventful. They're mostly speculative papers about possible future tech. There are NO UFO/UAPs in any of the documents produced by Bigelow Aerospace for the AAWAP/AATIP contract with the DIA, aside from an old "90s era paper that used dubious sources and was just thrown in as background.

 

[RTM]

You deserve a lot more G&Ts.

 

[jarlrmai]

Just incase someone else raises it, it's "GIMBAL" not "GIMBEL"

 

[JMartJr]

A/A

= AAWSAP/AATIP?

Trying to keep Up with acronyms of a acronyms...

 

[NorCal Dave]

You deserve a lot more G&Ts.

It's 5:30 here, so I'm on it.

Just incase someone else raises it, it's "GIMBAL" not "GIMBEL"

Dually noted:

= AAWSAP/AATIP?

Trying to keep Up with acronyms of a acronyms...

Correct sir, I didn't want to keep typing AAWSAP/AATIP, so just shortened it to A/A.

 

[FatPhil]

@NorCal Dave
> I have no idea if these things are possible, speculative or complete fantasy.

The first two are pure fantasy. Negative mass doesn't solve the problem they'd want to solve, and their claims about it are between false and meaningless. Lots of energy isn't a source of anything unless there's something with less energy you can dump that energy into, and if they're claiming it's everywhere, then clearly there's nowhere with less energy.

 

[Rocky]

Amazingly, it's not as low as it's possible to go. It revels in scandal (for example, if cartoonists wish to parody it or its ilk, they typically call their fabricated newspaper /The Stun/, which seems to me to be an obvious reference), and doesn't care too much about investigating anything that it carries. It famously ran a story about record summer temperatutes with the front page headline /Phwoar, What a Scorcher!/, which gives some indication of roughly where it's aiming, reading-level-wise. Also, it always used to be known for being a bit trashy because every day it carried a topless photo inside (always on page 3, and it was such an institution that "page 3 girl" became almost a synonym for topless model), but political correctness has taken over in the last decade, and they've been scrapped. The readership wasn't entirely happy, but I don't know to what publications they migrated (https://www.theguardian.com/media/g...l-without-page-3-but-dont-rush-to-conclusions says sales were ~10% down YoY, but dredges through a whole load of other stats to contextualise that and I didn't take them all in). Whether the demographics of the readership has changed significantly after this egress, I don't know. Having said that, I've not lived in the UK for several decades, things may have changed.

Alas I can't select a US equivalent, as I don't know your newspapers well enough, nor was my g/f willing to proffer a suggestion. It's definitely no /Weekly World News/, but few things are. It is vaguely pretending to be an actual newspaper.

Yeah the Sun is pretty bad. Although I did get a story written about something I posted once. I couldn't believe it. I'll see if the page still exists. Anyway, the UFO reporting gets eyeballs and clicks. That's why we always see it on mainline media. It helps ratings for sure. There is a lot of interest in it whether you believe in it or are skeptics like us. Even though I'll still click on it or watch it.

 

[Ben Harris]

Time permitting, I've been glancing over the files released as mentioned in the OP. Obviously I haven't read all 1500 pages, I'm only a semi-retired contractor. But as the wife is on a work trip, I'm taking the evening cocktail solo and enjoying a G&T with some AASWAP/AATIP files. For brevity, I will henceforth refer to AASWAP/AATIP as A/A.

If this already looks to long for anyone, there's a TL,DR summery at the end.

A quick glance at the files does reviles a few things. Most glaring to my eye is that it seems a A/A was just a Boondoggle. Yes, $12-22 million is less than pocket change in the US DoD budget, but it still represents many millions of dollars shepherded along by Nevada Senator Reid to Robert Bigelow's company in Las Vegas. For those many millions, Bigelow Advanced Aerospace Systems (BAASS) produced papers and reports on what, can at best be described as "speculative" or "future thinking" science and, maybe more accurately, Science Fiction.

IF, and it's a big if, this dump represents the total intellectual and product output of the A/A contract, then one can see why Harry Reid might have wanted it kept Classified.

Also very important, if I've read all of this right, there are NO Pentagon or DoD employees were involved in the actual A/A output. Elizondo has been making the rounds on news shows saying in effect "the US government" knows and is talking about UFOs in these files. I think that's just plain wrong, at least in regard to these files. Contracts and memos aside (see below), most of these files were generated by people working for BAASS, NOT the DoD. Remember, Kelleher claims to be the guy running A/A on a daily basis in Las Vegas:

Colm Kelleher

Well, I was hired in November of 2008. The AAWSAP program ran from September 2008 to late 2010. So one of the first tasks that I had coming on board was to put together a team of UFO focused investigators as quickly as possible. So I was thinking back on this and between November 2008, and probably April 2009, I personally conducted about 300 telephone interviews in an attempt to recruit different people for different positions at AAWSAP. In addition, I did at least 100, face to face interviews in my office in that period of time. So we're talking about a pretty rapid clip in terms of bringing forth a lot of people into the office, sometimes there were one or two people outside. But our focus was in hiring a team of PhD level scientists, that would include physics and biology, master's level scientists, technicians, we also looked for database analysts, and military intelligence personnel who had a long history investigative background.

But all of this hiring and recruitment occurred within a four or five month period. I think by the end of May of 2009, we had a team of about 50 people.

And I would say, I've worked with government organizations in the past, NASA and DoD in other capacities, and putting that kind of level of activity together in a 24 month period, I think was pretty extraordinary. And, obviously, Dr. Lacatski, his input in Washington, DC, and greasing the wheels to make all of this happen, putting together a pretty large organization that was focused only on UFO investigations. That was the key.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

Lastly, remember, that at least currently, Lataski claims to have conceived of the entire A/A program himself after a paranormal experience at Bigelow's Skinwalker Ranch.

In the summer of 2007, Lacatski met the owner of the ranch, Las Vegas businessman Robert Bigelow, and visited the property, where he had a profound encounter with the unknown. That experience led directly to the creation and funding of AAWSAP.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

To start there are 54 files consisting of 109 megabytes, if I'm reading things right, in the FOIA dump. So far, what's interesting is what's not in those files, namely a lot of UFOs. There's some, but first I'll go over the non-UFO files as they make up a big chunk of this dump.

First, there are ~15 files of 11,172KB, that are basically bureaucratic in nature, contract reviews and status updates, that we'll get to in a bit.

So that leaves us with 36 files that are called Defense Intelligent Reference Documents (DIRD) which seem to represent the actual "research" conducted by A/A.

Not to be repetitive, but I'll again post what Knapp and Lataski said about the A/A program and it's origins when plugging their new book, namely that it was all about UFOs:

Dr. Jim Lacatski, there has been considerable speculation fueled in part by statements from the DOD's spokesperson that the $22 million that was secured by Senator Reid and his colleagues in Congress to fund this program and study had nothing to do with UFOs. It was really just a study of future technologies, presumably by our adversaries. That it was really just just that. Can you address whether AAWSAP was first and foremost, an investigation of UFO phenomena? Why isn't made obvious in any of the documentation that's been made public so far?

James Lacatski
The answer to that is yes. It was completely UFO related. The reason you haven't seen the documentation is we use the statement of objectives format for the request for proposal. That is insufficient for anyone examining the contents of the contract, they must have the proposal. Now, within the proposal, and in this case, it was from Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). It's clearly mentioned, among the topics proposed, a worldwide database of advanced aerospace vehicles, anomalous vehicles. There can be no ambiguity here. This was being proposed as a UFO project. Now, if you want to look at the tail end of the project, you'll find over 100 documents required to be reported to the Defense Intelligence Agency that were UFO related, in part of course, I mean, they were large, very large documents. And you also have technical studies, and you have that database. Probably the largest UFO database that exists in the world and is currently being used by the US military. So yes, it was completely a UFO project.

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/skinwalkers-inside-the-pentagon/

However, if we look at the 36 DIRD files in the dump we find the following:

• 7 files were specifically related to "speculative" advanced propulsion systems: DIRD files # 8, 11, 15,29,30,33,37
• 9 files that are related to "speculative" advanced materials: DIRD files # 1, 2, 4, 5, 13,14, 22, 27, 32
• A couple of files about Microwaves and communications: DIRD files # 3, 21
• A couple files related to philosophy of science or thought, like the Drake equation and Maverik inventors: DIRD files # 17, 25
• A number of files about "speculative" ideas like wormholes, cloaking and anti-gravity: DIRD files # 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 16,18, 19 20,24,28, 31, 34, 35, 36
• And lasers: DIDR file #23

Some samples, such as DIRD #29:

View attachment 50931

Or DIRD #24:

View attachment 50932

I have no idea if these things are possible, speculative or complete fantasy.

But, all of these speculative DIRD files are what one would expect if we read the various memos about the nature of the A/A contract:

View attachment 50929

View attachment 50930


Note, there is no mention of UFO/UAPs.

After sorting through all of this we come to the 2 files that are UFO/alien related, only 1 of which is a DIRD paper, that is, a DIRD produced by BAASS employees under contract to the DIA. It's from these two files that most of the titillating media headlines have come from. It's what's in these files that Elizondo is commenting about on TV news blips and podcasts.

First up is the non-DIRD file Mick mentioned above in post #3. While it is interesting reading, it doesn't seem to have much to do with A/A. Rather, it's a report from a John F Schuessler compiled in 1996 and pulled from old newspapers, books, UFO magazines and MUFON reports. Just some notes from the introduction to the paper:

View attachment 50928

So we have Roswell, Linda (Moulton) Howe of Ancient Aliens and "Art's Parts" fame, cattle mutilations, Bud Hopkins, artist turned hypnotist and purveyor of alien abductions and the like, just in the introduction.

Much of Howe's work includes speculations about what she terms "unexplained" phenomena, such as cattle mutilations, crop circles, UFO sightings and alien abductions.[11]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Moulton_Howe

Hopkins is often credited with popularizing the idea of alien abductions as genetic experimentation[3][4][43][44] through the publication of his book Intruders.[2] He has been dubbed "father of the abduction movement" by some.[20]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Hopkins


The report then goes on to talk about obtaining and cataloging the health effects of UFO encounters and gives this set of "Categories of Injuries" from the MUFON Field Investigators Manuel:

View attachment 50927


After some 16 pages of introduction and explanations and lessons learned and some ladies getting sick after a UFO encounter in Huston, the remaining ~91 pages is just a list of encounters and the reported health effects, starting Down Under in 1873:

View attachment 50926


A quick glance will reveal everything from eyes fluttering and vaginal probing to death by energy beam.

What any of this has to do with A/A, foreign threats or the Navy videos, I have no idea. I suppose it's, at best, some background information and at worst, just filler.

Nevertheless, this is what BASS was including in their output under contract to the DIA. A '90s era catalog of stuff culled from dubious sources.

Now we come to DIRD file #26, Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Biological Tissue. There are assorted things going on in this short paper, but it starts with this:
View attachment 50923


Sence 3 guys can be hurt while working on big powerful antennas, then it follows that anomalous advanced aerospace systems can also hurt people AND we can use their injuries to reverse engineer what the aerospace system was: (note, this is one of the few places the idea of a "threat" to US interests is mentioned)

View attachment 50924


So the report is going to look into the effects of advanced propulsion systems and weapons on people:

View attachment 50925



It lists the effects of EMR and other energy waves on humans, but it's laden with vignettes and stories like this one:

View attachment 50922



Note that the whole point of the story is that supposedly somewhere in the 2 page letter the crazy guy brought to the FBI, it revels classified information about EMR weapons that he got a hold of through a FOIA. However, the only evidence mentioned in the story is the shoes.

What the hell was the point of the story? If there was a declassified paper about EMR weapons, why not just say so and talk about it. Why a page worth of a meaningless anecdote?

The paper proports to be compiled from rigorous peer reviewed sources. That may be true for the sections talking about how EMR can affect humans and animals, but as for the source material for the idea that advanced craft are causing EMR injuries, a glance at the References and Working Databases page might tell a different story:
View attachment 50921


So we have Jacque Vallee, ufology.net, The UFO Enigma and, from the previously discussed file above, John F Schuessler. In fact, Appendix A of this file is just a summary of Schuessler's paper from 1996:

View attachment 50920



While the names are all redacted in this file dump, Jason Colavito in his blog says this paper is written by Kit Green, and you'll note his name appears several times in the References and Working Databases. More importantly it seems he never thought it was UFOs. Jason References an interview by theufotrail.blogspot that talks about Greens work with BAASS:

Dr. Christopher "Kit" Green is well known among those with an eye to the UFO genre for reasons including his work with the CIA and corporations controlled by Robert Bigelow. In approximately 2010 he provided a paper to Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies for inclusion in the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Application Program. The AAWSAP contract was awarded to BAASS by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Green's paper, one of some 38 collected by BAASS at the time, is titled Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Biological Tissues.

and the fact that Green didn't think his paper had anything to do with UFOs:

Longtime staple of the UFO subculture and author of a paper submitted to the AAWSAP, Dr. Kit Green, indicated during an April 6 telephone call he believes cases reviewed in his injury study did not represent people harmed by paranormal or extraterrestrial phenomena, but by human beings. "The perpetrators - in my judgment - are human," Green stated.

"I don't think it's a guy with slanty eyes from far, far away in his shape-shifting universe," Green explained during the call. "I think these are human technologies."

http://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-ufo-injury-study-that-wasnt.html?m=1

Finally, I just tried searching through the file dump for terms like "GIMBEL", "foreign threat", "UAP", "Navy video" and "UFO" among others. For program that is supposed to be all about UFO/UAPs, the term UFO only appears in the Scheuller paper from 1996.

So that's what $12-22 million will get you. 1500 pages, that seem to be a cross between a think-tank and a Science Fiction convention. There's a dubious old '90s report and an updated re-hash of said report, along with some memos and status updates that show A/A had nothing to do with UFOs.

TL,DR:

The 1500 pages from a FOIA concerning AASWAP/AATIP, are largely uneventful. They're mostly speculative papers about possible future tech. There are NO UFO/UAPs in any of the documents produced by Bigelow Aerospace for the AAWAP/AATIP contract with the DIA, aside from an old "90s era paper that used dubious sources and was just thrown in as background.

Thanks for that!

 

[FatPhil]

Thanks for that!

Just a friendly request - can you trim quotes to just what you are responding to? (I believe in a modern browser, if there's just one small bit you want to respond to you can select that bit with the mouse, and when you select reply only that chunk of text will be quoted for you.) It's possible that the "reactions" aren't available to you as you're a new member, but pretty soon you'll be able to express "thank you"s or agreements (or disagreement, laughter, etc.) by clicking on a little icon instead of needing to make an actual reply post.

 

[yoshy]

@NorCal Dave thanks for the examples you posted.

#29 says

It is easy to prove that there are negative masses all around us

No, no it is not. Seriously, who wrote this? "albeit hidden behind positive masses" makes the claim even more bizarre. Discovering negative mass would be a guaranteed Nobel.

 

[NorCal Dave]

No, no it is not. Seriously, who wrote this?

Hard to say. Here is a partial list of the DIRD papers and the authors from the thread on AASWAP:

But there is no number for the papers. It seems all the papers were contracted through Hal Putoff's EarthTech company:

Puthoff discussed AATIP, stated that he chose the topics of study, and explained how his company, EarthTech International, became involved:

"Well I came into the picture when BAASS contacted me, contacted my organization and asked me to collaborate as a subcontractor... I was contracted to commission papers from experts around the globe. ...over a two-year period, I let out thirty-eight contracts. ...if you read between the lines, and you see... This was definitely a UFO program. ...These papers were collected together and put out as a series of Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs). They were put up on a special server called JWICs (Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System)." https://www.blueblurrylines.com/2020/04/the-pentagon-ufo-money-trail.html

2010 Date? - EarthTech subcontracted 12 more technical studies to be used as DIRDs, for a minimum estimated price of $24,000.

https://www.blueblurrylines.com/2020/04/the-pentagon-ufo-money-trail.html

This here from a FOIA, suggests the paper in question is numbered 38 and was written by a Dr. F. Winterburg of UN, but doesn't list the campus:

https://www.theblackvault.com/docum...ification-program-aatip-dird-report-research/

But this appear to be him at UNR:

Friedwardt Winterberg

(born June 12, 1929) is a German-American theoretical physicist and was a research professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

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

I don't think he's won a Nobel yet.

 

[FatPhil]

"albeit hidden behind positive masses" makes the claim even more bizarre. Discovering negative mass would be a guaranteed Nobel.

An interesting historical side note is that before we knew about the existence of anti-matter, it was hypothesised as an alternative solution to an equation in massenergy-squared. Everyone had just assumed only positive mass would be a solution to the equation, but Dirac (IIRC, please correct me if I'm wrong, this has faded into "lore" in my head) pondered how a negative massenergy solution would behave, and proposed an anti-electron. After everything was shaken out, the positron ended up having positive massenergy, of course, and we still don't know of anything with negative mass.

 

[JWrightBrain]

I'm not really certain I can take this report on Human Physiological Effects seriously. I mean on page 25, it basically is a superhero origin story. How can you uncritically list "ESP Development" as an actual outcome of encountering a UFO?

 

[NorCal Dave]

I'm not really certain I can take this report on Human Physiological Effects seriously. I mean on page 25, it basically is a superhero origin story. How can you uncritically list "ESP Development" as an actual outcome of encountering a UFO?

I'm not sure what you're looking at, you did not actually insert the attachment so it's hard to read. This is page 25 of DIRD #26 Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Biological Tissue likely written by ex-CIA guy and buddy of Puthoff and Davis, Kit Green:

https://documents2.theblackvault.co...Field_Effects_on_Human_Biological_Tissues.pdf

My bad, I got confused, you're quoting from John F. Schussler's UFO Related Human Physiological Effects:

As mentioned above, it's unclear exactly why this paper was included. It doesn't seem to be a DIRD, rather it's an old (even at the time) "report" that Schuessler cobbled together uncritically from random UFO reports purporting to show health effects related to sightings.

Schuessler was head of MUFON when he put this together in 1996. Again, what it had to do with AASWAP is unclear. BAASS did hook up with MUFON for their AASWAP contract eventually paying them $350,000 to tune up and have access to the MUFON database. This caused some consternation in some MUFON circles, but it appears Schuessler helped bring this about. Maybe BAASS just threw his paper in to give it some gravitas. Sort of like "Hey look, my MUFON report got taken seriously by the US DoD!!", though it would have only been seen by Lacatski and few others if at all. I suppose it's also possible that for helping with the MUFON database, BAASS "bought" the report from Schuessler.