The Origins of AAWSAP

[NorCal Dave]

Where did the AAWSAP files come from and where did AASWAP originate? For the answer, I broke down and paid the $9.98 for the Kindle version of:

Skinwalkers at the Pentagon by Dr. James Lacatski, Colum Kelleher and George Knapp. I think I would have sub-titled it How Some Dead Animals Brought Us The Tic-Tack and Squandered $22 million of Tax Payer Money.

It's a long post and I'm going to need a G&T after this. And might get moved to RAMBLES as it's not a specific claim. But it seemed to me that AAWSAP/AATIP plays such a big part in a lot of what we talk about on Metabunk, that a good overview of the history and players is important background information.

Here's a quick tl,dr version for those in a hurry:
What one gets is that long time UFO/paranormal journalist and C to C AM regular, George Knapp is the Godfather of AAWSAP. In a nutshell, he hyped up some dubious accounts of strange happenings and cattle mutilations on The Sherman Ranch in Utah to the point that UFO/paranormal enthusiast millionaire, Robert Bigelow bought it.

Bigelow, using his own money, set up the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) headed by Colm Kelleher to investigate what would come to be called Skinwalker Ranch for ~8 years.

Afterwards, Kelleher and Knapp wrote a book about.

DiA employee, James Lacatski read the book, traveled to the ranch where he met Bigelow and had a minor "vision". With the help of Nevada Senator Reid, whom had been introduced to Bigelow by Knapp many years before, Lacatski crafted a government contract to look at UFOs, strange stuff and Skinwalker Ranch. All under the guise of future aerospace technologies and threats.

The contract was writing so that only Lacatski could be in charge of it. Bigelow's BAASS company was the sole bidder and was awarded the contract, so that Lacatski was in charge of funneling $22 million to Bigelow's company, which was run by Kelleher. At least some of this money was used to send Kelleher back to Skinwalker Ranch, now with tax payer dollars.

Many people from Knapp's circle of UFO/paranormal researchers, such as Hal Puthoff and Kit Green, got a little taste as they helped provide what would become the DIRD files. BAASS also "rents" MUFON's database and may have used some of their field investigators.

Lacatski was the originator and the only person ever in control of AAWSAP. There was NO formal AATIP. That acronym was created solely as a ruse to be used in a letter that got circulated at the DoD so as to hide AAWSAP. Wether or not people like Chris Melon or Luis Elizondo used the term AATIP to describe their unfunded and unofficial UFO research is unclear. It appears that the NY Times article of 2017 got a hold of the AATIP name and applied it to what was really AAWSAP. Once in the public sphere it might have been used accordingly

After funding dried up, Lacatski eventually retired, and as before, he now joined Kelleher and Knapp in writing a book about it.

Of the $22 million, only $350,000 is accounted for as it went to MUFON and appears on their tax filings. This was for use of their UFO database and possibly some training of field investigators, or the use of MUFON investigators. It's a little unclear.

In the end, AAWSAP produced the 1500 pages that this thread is about along with mountains of reports about different encounters. It's unclear though, how many of the reports were actually generated by BAASS employees and sub-contractors for AAWSAP, or were just culled and rehashed from MUFON and other databases.

As this is Metabunk, I will provide a timeline below using quotes from the book for those that want to see what was actually in it.

IMPORTANT NOTES: I can't stress this enough, but after reading through this book, it's important to remember a few key ideas about where the authors are coming from:

Cattle and other animals mutilated by unknown entities, intelligently guided "orbs", silent black triangular aircraft, poltergeist, 7' tall wolf creatures, government agents in black suits (MiB) and all the other high strangeness that reportedly occurs at Skinwalker Ranch, and elsewhere, is Prime Facie. That these things happen as described is a giving fact. There is no notion of mundane or terrestrial explanation for any of these encounters, rather, an attempt to understand the underlying phenomenon. Cattle don't just die and get picked over by scavengers, they are dissected by otherworldly entities.

UAPs are real, as in extra-dimensional/extra-terrestrial and AAWSAP was trying to glean real world applications from the reported observations of these UAPs.

UAPs, 7' tall bipedal wolves, glowing orbs, poltergeists, remote viewing and all other high strangeness are hopelessly intermingled. When someone describes seeing a floating triangular craft in the sky, and skeptics point out that the same person also saw fairies and Bigfoot and is fantasy prone, it doesn't work. It's all manifestations of the same phenomenon.

ALSO IMPORTANT:
This book is not a piece by a research skeptic like Brian Dunning or somebody at The Skeptical Inquirer outing what they thought was going on at ASSWAP and BAASS. This is written by the guy at the US DoD that claims to have thought up ASSWAP and ran it for the government and the guy that ran BAASS, the prime contractor to ASSWAP. They're the ones claiming a 7' bipedal wolf was seen in suburban Virginia

Book Overview (you can skip if you want):
Not trying to do a review here, just give a general feel of the book. It's strange and familiar at the same time. Familiar, in that like many books on UFO's, paranormal, crypt-ids and the like, it contains chapters that are basically case studies inter woven with the narrative about AASWAP. So roughly every other chapter is a "here's what this person saw and this is what happened to them" along with some authoritative sounding technobabble. Sort of a mild Gish Gallop.

The strange part is the almost juvenile way parts of the book are written. This is supposed to be about the origins of something as important as AAWSAP, but instead of giving us straight forward facts about it, it does so instead in a narrative style that feels like a young adult's adventure novel. We're not told, for example, that Elizondo was present at a meeting with other AAWSAP people. Instead we're told "Luis Elizondo was at the table looking dapper with his jet black hair" and "told tales of saving the soldiers under his command with his superior intuition and remote viewing abilities".

I'm not saying is has to read like a PhD dissertation, it is intended for a general audience, but it's almost silly sounding at times describing BAASS employees conducting "soup to nuts" UAP investigations with "real boots on the ground". I suspect Knapp, or possibly a ghost writer associated with him, put down most of the actual words. It's in his similar sensationalistic style that I've seen in skimming some of his other books.

AAWSAP time line:
Unless otherwise noted, all external content is from:

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program. RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

At times it will appear that the page numbers are jumping around. I'm trying to keep this overview chronological, while the book skips around a bit

1995: Wealthy hotelier and UFO enthusiast, Robert Bigelow, founds The National Institute for Discovery Science, known also as NIDS, with the purpose of studying strange things and anomalies.
Note some of the names involved in NIDS.

The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) was created in 1995, in part because of Bigelow's frustration with a lack of definitive results from the investigators who had accepted his financial support. NIDS had two primary focal points—UFOs and consciousness studies, more specifically whether human consciousness survives death. A world-class Science Advisory Board (SAB) was assembled, made up of academics, writers, former intelligence officials, and other professionals who'd spent years in the murky trenches of Ufology and other frontier sciences. The board had its first organizational meeting in December 1995 in Las Vegas. A second meeting in January 1996 marked the first time most of the NIDS board was together in the same room. Among those in attendance were physicist Dr. Hal Puthoff; computer scientist and longtime UFO investigator and author, Dr. Jacques Vallee; former astronaut and U.S. Senator, Harrison Schmitt; Dr. John Mack of Harvard; former US Army Intelligence officer Dr. John Alexander; and several other notables. Journalist George Knapp made a presentation to the board about the UFO files he'd obtained during a trip to the former USSR.

(pp. 14-15)

1996: Bigelow purchases The Sherman Ranch in Utah because he heard a lot of strange things happened there, though there is little evidence for that aside from some stories. Note also, the strange stuff starts with co-author Knapp:

Claims about the ranch first appeared in 1996 in the Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret News,[2] and later in the alternative weekly Las Vegas Mercury as a series of articles by investigative journalist George Knapp. These early stories detailed the claims of a family that allegedly experienced inexplicable and frightening events after they purchased and occupied the property.

When NIDSci founder Robert Bigelow purchased the ranch for $200,000, this was reportedly the result of his having been convinced by the stories of mutilations that included tales of strange lights and unusual impressions made in grass and soil told by the family of former ranch owner Terry Sherman

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

1996: Nevada Senator Harry Reid attends a NIDS advisory meeting and Colm Kelleher becomes part of the NIDS permanent staff and goes on to study the now renamed Skinwalker Ranch.

The senator was invited to attend what turned out to be the fifth overall meeting of the NIDS board. It was held in Las Vegas on August 3, 1996. Vallee delivered the main presentation at the meeting. Organizational issues were discussed and debated. Board members learned that three full-time staff members had been hired: biochemist Colm Kelleher, physicist Eric Davis, and microbiologist/veterinarian George Onet—three men whose abilities would later be put to the test at a Utah property that would eventually be known to the rest of the world as Skinwalker Ranch.

(p. 15)

2004: NIDS shuts down and releases a few reports and the book Hunt for the Skinwalker by Kelleher and Knapp.

In 2005, the book Hunt for the Skinwalker, written by Colm Kelleher and George Knapp, chronicled the effort of the NIDS scientists to study and understand the place that came to be known as Skinwalker Ranch.

(p. 18)

2007: Lacatski is employed at the Department of Defense's (DoD) Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) Defense Warning Office (DWA) as a rocket scientist specializing in missiles. In 2007 he reads Hunt for the Skinwalker and is intrigued:

In 2007, Dr. James T. Lacatski was an intelligence officer serving in the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office (DWO). He served as Team Leader for writing the annual Missile Defense Threat Environment series, the SECRET-level threat documents used by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

(p. 19)

Reading the Hunt for the Skinwalker back in March of 2007 intrigued Lacatski. "I read the book cover to cover," Lacatski says. "I was legitimately interested in this as useful to the military, and useful to my particular group, which was looking at possible threats to new weapons systems; that's what attracted my attention."

(p. 37)

2007: Lacatski uses official letterhead from his office to write a letter to Bigelow asking to visit Skinwalker Ranch. While at the ranch he claims to see a "tubular bell" like object in the kitchen of the office/dwelling units. No one else in the room sees the object.

After some internal discussion with his colleagues and superiors at DIA, Lacatski decided to take the bull by the horns. On June 19, 2007, he wrote that bombshell letter on official DIA letterhead to Robert T. Bigelow asking to visit his Utah ranch for the purposes of "…developing a strategy on how my office (DWO) can characterize the potential threat aspects of the phenomena encountered in your research efforts."

(p. 38)

Bigelow introduced Lacatski to the managers in the dining room/kitchen of their house, which they had lovingly upgraded into a comfortable two-person home. Abruptly, Lacatski was transfixed by something behind where Bigelow and the couple were chatting: an unearthly technological device had suddenly and silently appeared out of nowhere in the adjacent kitchen. It looked to be a complex semi-opaque, yellowish, tubular structure. Lacatski said nothing but stared at the object, which was hovering silently. He looked away, looked back, and there it still was. It remained visible to Lacatski for no more than 30 seconds before vanishing on the spot.

(pp. 39-40)

2008: Lacatski specifically writes the bid document for AASWAP in a way that a successful bid can only be administered by his department. The Request for Proposal is also left deliberately vague, mentioning mostly future advanced aerospace theories and concepts.

…he used Congressional interest from bipartisan Senate leadership and the assistance of two DIA Directors to obtain multiple years of funding directed to the DIA Directorate of Analysis, specifically DWO. Lacatski then developed the strategic guidance and architecture for a new contractor support effort, and with the concurrence of the DIA Directorate Directorate of Finance, wrote a small-business set-aside solicitation (HHM402-08-R-0211) using the then-new statement-of-objectives format. It was issued 18 August 2008 on the Federal Business Opportunities website, with a proposal due date of 10 September 2008. On 22 September 2008, a contract (HHM402-08-C-0072) was awarded to the sole bidder, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), for an initial duration of two years.

As shown in HHM402-08-R-0211, Lacatski placed the following statement of objectives for the new Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) into the solicitation. The name of the program was specifically chosen to assist in the routing of new congressional money to DWO. This is a crucial point because the use of any other name, for example AATIP, would have been problematic, as the routing of the money would not have gone to DWO.

(pp. 19-20)

The Senators also designated the Defense Warning Office (DWO) at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as the architect of the program, thoughtfully named the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) specifically because the program and the money was targeted to DWO at DIA. No other names for the program were either contemplated or discussed; this AAWSAP name was created in order to make sure the $22 million Program Element (PE) reached DWO, and only DWO, at DIA. No variations on the AAWSAP name would have been allowed because of the technical nature of the PE financial conduit.

(p. 42)

2008: The proposal for AAWSAP said nothing about UFOs, UAPs or other phenomenon, though Lacatski says that was what it was about, but then said it was also about the paranormal:

3. REQUIREMENTS: a) The contractor shall complete advanced aerospace weapon system technical studies in the following areas: 1. lift; 2. propulsion; 3. control; 4. power generation; 5. spatial temporal translation; 6. materials; 7. configuration, structure; 8. signature reduction (optical, infrared, radiofrequency, acoustic); 9. human interface; 10. human effects; 11. armament (RF and DEW); 12. other peripheral areas in support of (1-11); b) It is expected that numerous experts with extensive experience (minimum of 10 years) in breakthrough aerospace research and development will be required. c) A technical plan for conducting the advanced aerospace weapon system studies must be submitted by the contractor.

(pp. 21-22)

"This was a UFO program period. That was its perfect purpose from the start," says Lacatski. "And furthermore, this was about how UFOs might fit into the realm of what we might consider the paranormal." Lacatski believed then, as now, that a study focused solely on UFOs—on various unknown, nuts-and-bolts-type craft flitting around in the skies over military bases and facilities—would never get to the heart of a much larger and complicated mystery. "You're going to be hunting for aliens cruising by from now until doomsday and you are never going to solve anything."

(p. 25)

2008: Bigelow forms Bigelow Advanced AeroSpace Services, BAASS, to fulfill the AAWSAP contract. Colm Kelleher is hired to run BAASS from offices in Las Vegas and Skinwalker Ranch.

In 2008, Robert Bigelow formed a sister company to Bigelow Aerospace and responded to the DIA's solicitation. The name of the new company was Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). It is understood that no one else actually submitted a proposal to the solicitation. In September 2008, Robert Bigelow was notified that BAASS had won the AAWSAP contract, and that Jim Lacatski was designated as the Program Manager and Contracting Officer Representative (COR). Funding for the first year was approximately $10 million with the opportunity to renew the contract on an annual basis thereafter.

(p. 43)

By early November 2008 Bigelow had hired Colm Kelleher, who rapidly transitioned from a biotechnology management position in San Francisco to recession hit Las Vegas. Kelleher was the first full-time BAASS employee, and his job title was BAASS Deputy Administrator (with Bigelow as CEO and Administrator).

(p. 44)

2008: Kelleher's first hire for BASS is former navel aviator Douglas Kurth, who informs Kelleher about the Nimitz/Tic Tac event.

…Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kurth presented himself for interview at Bigelow corporate headquarters. Kurth had an impressive resume. He was quiet spoken but exuded professionalism and efficiency. Within ten minutes of the beginning of the interview, Kelleher knew he had BAASS's second hire. Towards the end of the interview, Kurth dropped a bombshell. He explained that in his previous career he had been the commanding officer of the Red Devils, a Marine Corps F/A-18C squadron that was a part of the USS Strike Group Nimitz southwest of San Diego in November-December 2004. Kurth went on to describe in detail his participation in what has now become known as the Tic Tac event, arguably, in 2021, the most famous UAP case in the world.

Kelleher knew that this event, during which United States Navy Commander David Fravor had now famously seen and engaged with the unidentified object that later became known as the Tic Tac, could be an important case to investigate for the fledgling BAASS organization as a part of the AAWSAP contract. Kurth wrote up his recollection of the Tic Tac case and even produced a comprehensive list of eyewitnesses to contact, which Kelleher submitted to Jim Lacatski at DIA. Lacatski, in turn, brought his friend Jonathan Axelrod on the case, and within months Axelrod and his team had comprehensively interviewed and obtained detailed testimony from more than a dozen pilots, radar operators, and other witnesses from the USS Nimitz, USS Princeton, and other sources.

(pp. 44-45)

Jason Colavito on his blog has suggested that Jonathan Axelrod is in fact Jay Stratton:

Knapp broke the news that Jay Stratton, the former head of the Pentagon's UAP Task Force, has resigned from the Pentagon and is joining Radiance Technologies to work on UFO issues. Stratton is almost certainly the "Axelrod" from Knapp's Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, an official, radicalized by Bigelow and by Knapp's first Skinwalker Ranch book, who claimed to be haunted by poltergeists and werewolves after visiting the ranch. "Axelrod" claims credit for keeping the UFO topic going after the end of AAWSAP and is responsible for bringing a "dapper" Lue Elizondo into the UFO fold. He is also very likely the unnamed Pentagon official who fed Politico's Bryan Bender approving quotes about Elizondo and Chris Mellon for the past four years to give their wild claims official-sounding cover.

https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/midweek-ufo-update-revenge-of-the-skinwalker-ranch-ghostbusters

2008-2010 (?): BAASS contracts with people like Hal Puthoff to create what would become the DIR files that have been released:

The purpose of Project Physics was to create a repository of position papers by world experts that defined the current and projected state of the art in Aerospace Technology, all pertaining to the 12 technological areas chosen by DIA. In order to accomplish this BAASS contracted with Hal Puthoff, CEO of EarthTech International, with instructions to choose the precise nature and scope of the approximately 38 position papers that would encompass those 12 technical areas.

(p. 47)

2009: People like Axelrod had visited Skinwalker Ranch, seen weird stuff and were experiencing the after-effects of what ever happens there following one home like a contagion, including bipedal wolves:

Neither Axelrod or Wilson could make out anything definitive in the gloom, but, as if in psychological agreement with what Costigan was seeing, they instinctively acknowledged that the source of their fear was 50 yards further down the track. At that point, all three felt close to their breaking point, each one convinced that continuing towards the dark oval shape would lead to certain death.

(pp. 4-5)

Later, an even more bizarre event with strong links to the Skinwalker Ranch erupted in the Axelrod home. Again, Jonathan was out of town on a work assignment. It was after midnight, and Ruth had turned off all the lights in the kitchen and was preparing to go upstairs when her eye caught a movement out in the yard. She walked over to the window for a better look, then froze as she witnessed one of the most bizarre sights she had ever beheld. Standing upright and leaning against one of the trees at the perimeter of her yard was a huge wolf-like creature. She saw the creature plainly in the dim night light. It had long hair and looked like a wolf. But it was standing on two legs. Ruth stood paralyzed, feeling both confusion and a kind of dread.

(p. 6)

Also, by the time of the dinner, two of Axelrod's team, Jim Costigan and David Wilson, as well as Axelrod himself, had visited Skinwalker Ranch and were already experiencing some ranch-aftermath high strangeness events in their homes.

(p. 49)

2009: At a dinner in DC, the first we hear about Luis Elizondo:

Further down the dinner table sat Luis Elizondo, who worked collaboratively with Axelrod and was at the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI). Elizondo looked dapper with jet black hair and was considered a brilliant Special Agent and analyst with a lot of expertise on counterintelligence investigations. Little did anyone at that dinner table realize that nine years later Lue Elizondo would become a media star and a household name in global UAP investigations. As he enjoyed his steak tartare, Elizondo regaled those around him with some war stories, including one hair-raising exploit about how his advanced intuition and remote viewing capabilities had saved his life and the life of his men while on a covert combat mission in war-torn Afghanistan.

(p. 49)

2009: Senator Reid, fearing that AAWSAP's incredible success would lead to it being exposed at the DoD and the prospect that the Russians and Chinese were already exploiting UAP tech, he writes a letter to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, where in, AATIP is first used. Also note the assumption in the book that the Russians and/or Chinese already are working on UAP tech. How or where they got it is not mentioned.

…the breadth and the scope of the investigative horsepower of the fledgling organization had astonished the senior politician. Given what he had just heard from Bigelow, Reid was concerned that BAASS would get too high a profile at DoD in the near future and that the AAWSAP contract would be exposed and essentially unprotected from potential opponents at DoD.

In Reid's mind there was a grave danger that China and Russia, who were not similarly handcuffed, would succeed in taking quantum leaps forward from exploiting UAP-based hardware and thus gain an irreversible technological upper hand over the United States.

A new unclassified nickname, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), was created for use within the unclassified letter because it was decided for security reasons not to use the AAWSAP acronym. Reid's letter was carefully crafted to initiate the process of urgently conferring Special Access Program (SAP) status to some of the more sensitive projects at BAASS.

(pp. 90-91)

2009: BAASS paid MUFON for access to their data base and to upgrade it. BAASS was assisted in this by John F. Schuessler. You'll recall that on of the non DIR papers in the FOIA dump was a '90s era report by Schuessler. While it's assumed that people like Puthoff and Green were paid as sub-contractors to provide DIR papers, it's unclear why Schuessler report was included in BAASS's intellectual output, though MUFON did get their data base upgraded by the US taxpayer.

With the assistance of John F. Schuessler, a founder and board member of MUFON, in February 2009, BAASS executed a purchase order contract with MUFON that entitled BAASS to receive notification of significant reports on UAP sightings from anywhere in the United States within hours, receive timely reports from specially-trained MUFON investigators regarding investigations of these incidents, and receive physical evidence (including photographs, digital recordings, samples of soil, insects, plants, and animals) for scientific analysis. BAASS had multiple laboratories that were ready to conduct forensic, photographic, metallurgic, chemical, isotope, biological, and chemical analysis of any specimens that BAASS received from MUFON.

(p. 110)

As a result of substantial funding from AAWSAP BAASS to MUFON, MUFON's Case Management System (CMS) database was upgraded to support project operations and a considerable effort was made at the MUFON archives to catalog archive holdings.

(p. 111)

Ultimately MUFON elected to continue the contract under their existing structure, justifying the income as financing their core mission. The MUFON Federal tax filing from 2008 and 2009 reflects the money from Bigelow shows a total of $344,667 as "contributions" from BAASS rather than contracted work, services rendered, or goods purchased.

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

2009: AAWSAP investigates the Tic Tac:

Since the Tic Tac investigation was initiated and executed by AAWSAP BAASS, Axelrod's 13-page report was one of the 100 reports AAWSAP submitted to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Once The New York Times had broken the story in December 2017 and apart from extensive media coverage of the event, the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) also conducted an in-depth forensic investigation of the incident and in April 2019 released a 270-page report that included an analysis of the speed and acceleration of the Tic Tac.12 The SCU report corroborated the main elements of Axelrod's June 2009 report, which had been written and submitted fully ten years before the SCU report.

(p. 114)

2010: BAASS gets into remote viewing with Hal Puthoff. Note that the "secret" control location they pick is Skinwalker Ranch:

It was very fortunate that BAASS counted among its ranks of senior advisors none other than Hal Puthoff, the father of the CIA's Remote Viewing Program and arguably the world's authority on the development of Remote Viewing methodology. Puthoff's enormous experience in the STAR GATE and other remote viewing programs, together with an international cadre of collaborators, meant that BAASS could "jump start" a remote viewing program with only minimal set up time.

(pp. 119-120)

In March 2010, Joseph McMoneagle, one of the premier remote viewers in the U.S., was asked to observe a target designated as "22610" using traditional blind targeting protocols. "22610" was actually Skinwalker Ranch.

(p. 120)

2010: BAASS constructs migration routes of bipedal dog-like creatures, along with their accompanying glowing orbs:

Eleven of the individuals recounted firsthand encounters with a dog- or wolf-like creature that could run at speed on two legs, sometimes in conjunction with "orb like activity."

From the details provided in interviews about bipedal creatures, BAASS constructed a map showing the "migration routes" of these creatures. Whether these extraordinarily frequent bipedal dog-like creatures overlap with local "Skinwalker" lore is not known. Frequent sightings of small blue, white, yellow, and red orbs that were usually flying low to the ground was a persistent feature of these reports.

(p. 130)

2010: BAASS looks into how seeds and plants are affected by Skinwalker Ranch:

A 360-page report that included comprehensive descriptions of the plant and seed data obtained by the AAWSAP BAASS team on Skinwalker Ranch was delivered to the DIA in April 2010. The purpose of the plant research on Skinwalker Ranch was to obtain pilot experimental data on whether plants could function as biosensors or reporters for any putative electromagnetic energy or other radiation on the property.

(p. 139)

2010: BAASS tried to get together with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations-Special Projects, also known as AFOSI-PJ so as to help them identify when UFO reports were a actually special military projects being seen by the public. In return, BAASS wanted info on some base incursions from the '70s. It seemed the AFOSI-PJ already knew how to keep abreast of public UFO sitings as related to special aircraft projects, as one would expect.

BAASS wanted to establish a relationship with AFOSI-PJ for several reasons. The primary reason was to explore the possibility that BAASS could share its UAP sighting data (with all witness personal details redacted) with AFOSI so that AFOSI could identify those sightings that involved Air Force Special Access Programs. Then, by elimination, BAASS could concentrate on the sightings that were "unknown." By eliminating the cases that were "ours," BAASS could thus prevent a waste of its time and resources on investigating secret Air Force technology.

…BAASS needed data from AFOSI on historical and current UAP events, specifically for data that AFOSI had gathered on the October-November 1975 incursions by unknown flying objects into the so called "Northern Tier" Air Force bases at Wurtsmith AFB Michigan, Loring AFB Maine, Malmstrom AFB Montana, and Minot AFB North Dakota.

(pp. 95-96)

He explained that during the years and decades of research and development (R&D) of both F-117 and B-2 aircraft, AFOSI-PJ maintained a very active surveillance of UAP reports and UAP organizations producing those reports. The purpose was to "deconflict" with the Air Force R&D programs. Hennessey confided that a substantial number of "UAP sightings" during the 1970s-2000 were identified by AFOSI-PJ as known Air Force SAPs and R&D efforts.

(p. 97)

2011-2016: AAWSAP was only funded for fiscal years 2009-2010. From 2011 onward Lacatski, along with Reid tried different funding arrangements including moving AAWSAP to the Department of Homeland Security DHS. Eventually Lacatski retired as was AAWSAP:

Lacatski published the last of the 38 DIRDs on January 11, 2011. Voluminous high-quality material (more than a hundred separate reports, as detailed in Appendix I) was submitted to the DIA in just over two years of the program's existence.

(pp. 26-27)

For FY11, congressional funding was not available, otherwise AAWSAP could have continued in the DIA for the 3rd year.

(p. 27)

Money was available for FY12, but money was not the only issue.

As the AAWSAP program manager since its beginning at DIA, Lacatski knew that in order to continue the successes achieved and to reach its full potential, the program needed to move out of the Department of Defense (DoD). For FY12, DIA leadership had tried to transfer the program within the DoD, but without success and, unfortunately, missing the fiscal year's appropriation deadline. Since AAWSAP was not strictly defense-oriented in nature, on February 7, 2011, Lacatski gave a very in depth briefing to colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate.

(pp. 27-28)

Lacatski worked with both senators to achieve the goal of a new DHS AAWSAP-like effort, but DHS leadership ultimately did not accept the new funding.

(p. 28)

For FY14 with the assistance of Congressman Steny Hoyer, and again in FY15, Senator Reid and Lacatski attempted to fund AAWSAP through the DoD. Both attempts failed. Finally, on May 13, 2016, Lacatski retired from government service. So, after nine years of effort, the work of AAWSAP ended.

(pp. 28-29)

Obviously there were more things going on at AAWSAP and BAASS, but this is the basic outline, straight form the people that did it.

As noted above, about 1/2 of the book is made up of case studies which I'm not going to get into except for these brief excerpts that show the kind of investigations BAASS were doing. Seems they didn't know how to work their camera, or a bipedal wolf was screwing with them:

The AAWSAP BAASS investigators continued the routine of all-night surveillance. Each time the Sony HDR SR10 camcorder was deployed in record mode, and each time prior to the night watch the investigators verified that the camcorder was recording. Then on July 27 at 9:00 p.m. "Investigator One" noticed the camcorder was not functioning in the record mode. An operational check was conducted, and Investigator One alerted his colleagues that the camera had been manually switched from Record Mode to Demonstration Mode. The only way for this to happen was for someone to physically switch the setting, and Investigator One had been standing within 30 feet of the camera the entire time. As he examined the device for clues to how this could have happened, Investigator One noticed that the camcorder had taken a series of photograph-like images, portraying unknown, unidentified objects.

(p. 66)

 

[Mendel]

. "You're going to be hunting for aliens cruising by from now until doomsday and you are never going to solve anything."

Candid words.

 

[Mendel]

Investigator One alerted his colleagues that the camera had been manually switched from Record Mode to Demonstration Mode. The only way for this to happen was for someone to physically switch the setting, and Investigator One had been standing within 30 feet of the camera the entire time. As he examined the device for clues to how this could have happened, Investigator One noticed that the camcorder had taken a series of photograph-like images, portraying unknown, unidentified objects.

Via https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/hard-drive-camcorders-hdr-sr-series/hdr-sr10/manuals :

Spoiler: picture of a remote control

This suggests that
• there is no need to touch the camera to operate it
• you can take still photographs ("photograph-like images"?) in movie mode
• by default, when movie recording stops (e.g. because the media is full?, or the remote was used), demonstration mode will automatically activate after 10 minutes, i.e. with no operator (or skinwalker) interaction needed

"The only way for this to happen was for someone to physically switch the setting" is bunk.

 

[NorCal Dave]

"The only way for this to happen was for someone to physically switch the setting" is bunk.

You're missing the point my friend, the "phenomenon" switched the camera settings, with or without the remote control .

 

[Mendel]

You're missing the point my friend, the "phenomenon" switched the camera settings, with or without the remote control .

the "phenomenon" being the passage of ten minutes of time

 

[jackfrostvc]

Lue Elizondo's complaint to the Inspector General gives his view of the history of AAWSAP/AATIP
He said he became the director of AAWSAP and AATIP was a project within that, and then he later focused the efforts on AATIP.
It's long:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgqoaeore81lbxs/Luis Elizondo IG Complaint Redacted.pdf?dl=0

 

[NorCal Dave]

Lue Elizondo's complaint to the Inspector General gives his view of the history of AAWSAP/AATIP
He said he became the director of AAWSAP and AATIP was a project within that, and then he later focused the efforts on AATIP.
It's long:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgqoaeore81lbxs/Luis Elizondo IG Complaint Redacted.pdf?dl=0

I'll check it out. This book claims that Lacatski was the sole director of AAWSAP form beginning to end, but that's just what he claimed. It all seems very convoluted.

 

[jackfrostvc]

@NorCal Dave
This is where Elizondo talks about Lacatski handing over AAWSAP(that includes AATIP) to him. And where he says he then reduced the program to focus on AATIP
He also talks about trying to get funding for 2113-2014, but the moeny was apprropriated by another group.

 

[NorCal Dave]

@NorCal Dave
This is where Elizondo talks about Lacatski handing over AAWSAP(that includes AATIP) to him. And where he says he then reduced the program to focus on AATIP
He also talks about trying to get funding for 2113-2014, but the moeny was apprropriated by another group.

View attachment 52080

Interesting. This is obviously contrary to what Lacatski is saying and I don't see how it can just be difference in how a transition was perceived. He never makes any mention of Elizondo taking over and maintains that AATIP was just a made up word used in a letter, that was latter picked up by people like Elizondo, who was not part of AAWSAP.

Lacatski claims to have run AAWSAP until funding ran out in FY2011, then attempted to gain funding for the next few years. Like Elizondo's claim, Lacatski tried to move AAWSAP out of DIA for a variety of reasons, though Elizondo's "perceived sense of stigma" make more sense if DIA learned AAWSAP was paying BAASS to map were-wolf migration patterns in Utah.

Elizondo is only mentioned in the book a few times, but they are all positive. Now he and Lacatski are publicly at odds with each other, each maintaining a different story. Interesting to see how this plays out. Right now Elizondo is clearly better at the PR game.

Who does one believe??

 

[jackfrostvc]

Interesting. This is obviously contrary to what Lacatski is saying and I don't see how it can just be difference in how a transition was perceived. He never makes any mention of Elizondo taking over and maintains that AATIP was just a made up word used in a letter, that was latter picked up by people like Elizondo, who was not part of AAWSAP.

Lacatski claims to have run AAWSAP until funding ran out in FY2011, then attempted to gain funding for the next few years. Like Elizondo's claim, Lacatski tried to move AAWSAP out of DIA for a variety of reasons, though Elizondo's "perceived sense of stigma" make more sense if DIA learned AAWSAP was paying BAASS to map were-wolf migration patterns in Utah.

Elizondo is only mentioned in the book a few times, but they are all positive. Now he and Lacatski are publicly at odds with each other, each maintaining a different story. Interesting to see how this plays out. Right now Elizondo is clearly better at the PR game.

Who does one believe??

In a presentation Lue did in Italy, one of his slides says AAWSAP was renamed (I think 2010, Id have to check) to AATIP

 

[NorCal Dave]

In a presentation Lue did in Italy, one of his slides says AAWSAP was renamed (I think 2010, Id have to check) to AATIP

Lacatski's claim is that the name AATIP was created in June of 2009 as a ruse, but that the name was picked up later by Pentagon people (Elizondo, Mellon?) doing unofficial investigations only into UAPs when they had time. Kind of a UFO lunch club:

Because Lacatski, the DIA program manager, wished to protect the AAWSAP name for security reasons, AATIP was a "made up" substitute name for Reid's letter to describe the AAWSAP.

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program . RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

On June 24, 2009, Reid took the bull by the horns and, in consultation with the intelligence community, drafted a bold letter to then Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn.

A new unclassified nickname, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), was created for use within the unclassified letter because it was decided for security reasons not to use the AAWSAP acronym.

After AAWSAP had shut down, the AATIP designation was used to describe a completely separate, small initiative that was underway at the Pentagon to study UAPs encountered by military personnel. AATIP involved a small group of people working on the UAP problem, with direct knowledge of their superiors, when their day jobs allowed them to.

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (p. 91). RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

Again, he says that AATIP was smaller outgrowth of AAWSAP in the pentagon, but that it no budget:

The creation of AAWSAP and its pioneering investigation of the Tic Tac case with Axelrod and team was directly responsible for the later establishment of a smaller, corollary effort, called AATIP inside the Pentagon that focused exclusively on UAP encounter incidents involving US military personnel. The small cadre of UFO-curious military personnel occasionally consulted some of the same scientists who had worked with NIDS and BAASS. The core of that group formed the basis for what became the UAP Task Force, formally created by Congress in the summer of 2020 (but which had already been operating for a few years, despite not having a budget, an office, or a formal name).

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (pp. 157-158). RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

Then talks about the differences between AAWSAP and AATIP:

Some of the principals and "brain trust" that came together to create AAWSAP in 2008 have studied the modern history of the UFO phenomenon from 1947–2021. Because of this, as recounted in this book, the design of AAWSAP programs and projects took the broad tapestry of modern UFO interactions with humanity into account, and fundamentally this broad focus is what differentiated AAWSAP from AATIP.

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (p. 173). RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

And that AATIP happened after AAWSAP:

Thus, an eerie cause-and-effect lineage exists beginning in 1996 with NIDS's research forays onto Skinwalker Ranch, Lacatski and Axelrod reading Hunt for the Skinwalker in 2007, continuing through the creation of AAWSAP in 2008, then of AATIP years later, and eventually to the UAPTF in 2018.

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program . RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

So Elizondo and maybe Mellon and others, knew of and adopted the fake made up name AATIP, to describe what they were doing freelance at the Pentagon? They couldn't come up with their own name?

And yet if AATIP was a thing, why would Lacatski say something like (paraphrasing what's above) "no we made that up", but, uh, "some guys used it later"?

Maybe the celebrity status that was beginning to occurred later has clouded some memories?

From 2017 until the publication of the UAPTF Report in June 2021 the two most high-profile advocates for a government program to study UAPs were Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and Luis Elizondo.

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (p. 158). RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

Honestly, I have no idea who to believe, if anyone.

 

[jackfrostvc]

It was 2008 according to Elizondo's slide
Not saying I believe any of this, just presenting what he said

 

[NorCal Dave]

Not saying I believe any of this, just presenting what he said

I'm the same brother, I have no idea who to believe. I was just presenting what Lacatski says.

On the one hand, Lacatski would seem to have more credibility as it seems he did create and run AAWSAP. Even Elizondo claims that Lacatski asked him to take it over (your post #8). But Lacatski also seems to be good with AAWSAP mapping were-wolve migration patterns and other crazy stuff in the book that I left out for brevity.

Elizondo went from obscurity to hanging out with (minor) rock stars and having major news outlets asking him to come on and comment.

I don't know.

 

[tinkertailor]

This is a great read, thank you for biting the bullet and giving us this information.

As someone who binge-reads MUFON entries regularly, I am absolutely shocked that their database has 350k of Uncle Sam dough into it. It reads like something that isn't updated often. I'd be interested to see a detailed record of where that money went.

 

[NorCal Dave]

I'd be interested to see a detailed record of where that money went.

Yeah the money thing got me thinking a bit more.

As noted above, the AWWSAP funding mechanism was designed to only go to the DOW, where it was expected to end up on Lacatski's desk so he was the only person running it as a side gig:

And while the focus of the program had never changed since its inception in 2008, all during that time Lacatski still had to perform his duties as a ballistic missile and land-attack cruise missile threat analyst.

(p. 28)

Next Lacatski crafted the Request for Proposal documents with a clear objective, namely AWWSAP wanted research papers on speculative future technologies:

The DIA RFP was specific in that it requested that the study focus on 12 main areas of Advanced Aerospace performance: (1) Lift, (2) Propulsion, (3) Control, (4) Power Generation, (5) Spatial/Temporal Translation, (6) Materials, (7) Configuration/Structure, (8) Signature Reduction (Optical/IR/RF/Acoustic), (9) Human Interface, (10) Human effects, (11) Armament (Radio Frequency and Directed Energy Weapons), and (12) Other areas in support of the first 11 performance items.

(pp. 42-43)

And this is confirmed by the FOIA documents that included memos about the contracts:

All straight forward. AWWSAP was asking for ideas about future tech. However, the book points out that if one reads between the lines, it really means UFOs:

A glance at the list of specifications for the study of Advanced Aerospace Vehicles included such items as "Spatial/Temporal Translation" and "Human Effects," and indicated that the entire list could also be utilized for the study of UAPs.

(p. 43)

So how does an aerospace company craft a proposal in response to the RFP if they don't know to read between the lines? Or put another way, was there an aerospace company that knew that the RFP was asking for a lot more than was listed?

Apparently there was, as Bigelows BAASS was the only bidder and their proposal included a lot of stuff not related to the original RFP (I've condensed the nine approaches to just their titles and short descriptions here for brevity):

By 10 September 2008, a single proposal had been received by DIA. In satisfaction of the requirements in the statement of objectives, BAASS proposed the following nine approaches:
First Approach—Global Data Collection BAASS will initiate a thorough, detailed high-caliber data base about what has been seen, recorded or measured

Second Approach—Contact Program A second approach is to seek out and contact scientists, engineers and companies that may have access to novel technologies;

Third Approach—Laboratory Program BAASS would like to carefully use the property it owns in the Uintah Basin of Utah and the Uintah Basin in general as a living laboratory.

Fourth Approach—Collect Oral Histories As an adjunct to the above second approach, we consider it important to mount an effort to collect oral histories from a host of credible individuals

Fifth Approach—Potential Use of Bigelow Aerospace Space Platforms Therefore, our fifth suggested approach involves facilitating such research on board space platforms that Bigelow Aerospace intends to fabricate and deploy in low earth orbit in coming years.

Sixth Approach—DIA Data Access A sixth area of opportunity, of course, lies with the DIA itself. Elimination of waste of time and money to acquire material or data of any kind already in the possession of various aerospace and electronics contractors, and by components of the intelligence community,

Seventh Approach—Biological Effects of Advanced Technologies This seventh approach addresses biological effects and human effects in particular.

Eighth Approach—Remote Sensing As an adjunct to satisfying the specific technical requirements of the program, an eighth approach is the implementation of a high-quality remote sensing ("remote viewing") program.

Ninth Approach—Expert Analysis and Synthesis

(p. 22-24)

Note that only the Second Approach even vaguely resembles what the RFP asked for. The Third Approach is going back to Skinwalker Ranch. That's not in the RFP, nor is Remote Sensing, the Eighth Approach.

Never the less, Lacatski and AAWSAP accepted most of this:

In response to the BAASS proposal, DIA awarded a two-year AAWSAP contract (HHM402-08-C-0072) commencing on September 22, 2008. Approaches 1-4, 6, and 9 were accepted for a cost of $10 million for the 1st year.

(p. 25).

Note here, that while Approaches 5,7 and 8 were not included, according to the book, Remote Sensing/viewing (8) was dabbled with and one of the DIRD papers (#26) and the Schulleser report were about effects on humans (5). So only Approach 7 wasn't used, as Bigelow didn't have a space ship at the time.

So:

To reiterate, AAWSAP was the official DIA designated name for the contract and BAASS was the official organization tasked with executing the AAWSAP contract.

(p. 46)

Then there is this pat on the back:

Once the plan had been accepted by the DIA, Lacatski and his colleagues became amazingly effective at running interference to protect the AAWSAP from the usual hordes of bureaucratic parasites and bottom feeders that were endeavoring to purloin some of the contract's money. In fact, Lacatski and his team were 100% successful in protecting the AAWSAP finances from assorted "haircuts," taxes, tithes, and other bureaucratic attempts to extract money from the program. The DIA AAWSAP contract thus became a shining example of the original program money actually being used for its stated purpose.

(pp. 46-47)

Except the money WAS NOT used for the stated purpose. Yes AAWSAP did end up with 36 DIRD paper ranging from speculative to Science Fiction, but the whole point of this book is that they were doing so much more beyond the original RFP.

In that light, if we read between the lines as AAWSAP bidders were seemingly expected to do, the above quote can be read as Lacatski kept what was going on and what the money was being used for, secret and away from prying eyes.

As the money was going to way more than the RFP talked about, maybe that's why Reid was concerned about getting AAWSAP conferred as a Special Access Program. And his letter makes no mention of Skinwalker Ranch or Remote viewing, rather, it hints at the what was in the original RFP, future tech and threats:

The third paragraph of the majority leader's letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn was very specific: "In order to support this national effort, a small but highly specialized cadre of Department of Defense (DoD) and private sector individuals are necessary. These individuals must be specialized in the areas of advanced sciences, sensors, intelligence, counterintelligence, and advanced aerospace engineering. Given the likelihood that these technologies will be applied to future systems involving space flight, weapons, communications and propulsion, the standard management and safeguarding procedures for classified information are not sufficient. Even the use of conventional SAP protocols will not adequately ensure that all aspects of the project are properly secured."

(p. 91)

The more I look through this book, the more it seems like a mistake. It seems they're outing the fact that what AAWSAP was officially intended as and what it was are two different things.

It was supposed to be about theoretical future aero space tech and possible threats. That's what the RFP says.

What it actually was, is a conduit that allowed Senator Reid to funnel money, controlled by Lacatski to his friend and campaign contributor, Robert Bigelow, so that Bigelow could basically re-start his NIDS program to look into UFOs, Skinwalker Ranch and other wierdshitology with many of the same people. This time with public funding.

Bigelow, whose company received some of the research contracts, was also a regular contributor to Reid's reelection campaigns, campaign finance records show, at least $10,000 from 1998 to 2008.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/16/pentagon-ufo-search-harry-reid-216111/

 

[Mendel]

the above quote can be read as Lacatski kept what was going on and what the money was being used for, secret and away from prying eyes.

this sounds a lot like fraud, including how the money was spent on other activities than had been officially solicited

campaign contributor,

including a putative kickback

 

[NorCal Dave]

this sounds a lot like fraud, including how the money was spent on other activities than had been officially solicited


including a putative kickback

I'm just sharing what's in the book. At first, I got caught up in all weird stuff, there were whole chapters I didn't talk about.

But as I looked more at how Lacatski describes AASWAP coming together, the way it put out the RFP and what it got in return and from whom, it just doesn't look right.

The 36 DIRD papers that BAASS delivered to AAWSAP more or less fulfill original RFP, they're musings on future tech. If that was what AAWSAP was paying $22 million for, then it's a little over $600,000.00 per paper. That seems a little pricy for someone's views on "Negative Mass Propulsion" (29) or whether "Maverik Inventors versus Corporate Inventors" (17) is better.

So clearly the money was going to other things. Stuff not in the RFP. We know MUFON got ~$350,000.00 from their tax files.

And the book tells us the money, appropriated by Reid, was basically used by Bigelow to run his NIDS program under a different name with public dollars.

Granted, $22 million is a paltry amount in the US DoD, but it could have been more. It was $10 million for FY2010 and $12 Million in FY 2011, with the expectation that funding would continue as it almost did.

And it's a good amount for this situation. $10-12 million a year allowed Bigelow to run his program, but it's probably small enough to not set off alarm bells, at least for a while.

 

[jackfrostvc]

It wasn't the first time they spent around $20 Mill on a program that explored non standard things. Just four years earlier, they had a program that according to the news article below from 2004, was meant to look at missile designs, but it seems to have also included a study to look at teleportation.

Here is an article about it from 2004

 

[NorCal Dave]

Here is an article about it from 2004

Did you red out the names? If so, don't tease.

Studies of spoon bending and remote viewing is Hal Puthoff, who of course shows back up in AAWSAP.

It may be a "crackpot" program, but are we talking about the same group of "crackpots"?

Well here we go. It seems that report was authored by Eric Davis in 2004, just as Bigelow's NIDS program at Skinwalker Ranch, where Davis worked, was shutting down:

www.scribd.com/doc/218005054/The-Air-Force-Research-Lab-s-August-Teleportation-Physics-Report-2004

The senator was invited to attend what turned out to be the fifth overall meeting of the NIDS board. It was held in Las Vegas on August 3, 1996. Vallee delivered the main presentation at the meeting. Organizational issues were discussed and debated. Board members learned that three full-time staff members had been hired: biochemist Colm Kelleher, physicist Eric Davis, and microbiologist/veterinarian George Onet—three men whose abilities would later be put to the test at a Utah property that would eventually be known to the rest of the world as Skinwalker Ranch.

Kelleher, Colm A.. Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program (p. 15). RTMA, LLC. Kindle Edition.

I can't understand the report, but I did notice a few choice pull quotes (bold by me):

A well-known theoretical/experimental/operational program directed by H. E. Puthoff, R. Targ, E. May and I. Swann was conducted at SRI International and the NSA, and sponsored at various times by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) over more than two decades

Psychic Uri Geller (1975) is the original model for demonstrating Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. 56 PK metal bending. During a talk that he gave at the U.S. Capitol building, Uri caused a spoon to curve upward with no force applied, and then the spoon continued to bend after he put it back down and continued with his talk (Alexander, 1996)

We have Davis and Puthoff, from Bigelow's Skinwalker Ranch program, fake psychic Uri Geller, Puthoff's discredited SRI studies and a lot of math.

So, yeah, the same group of people have been collecting chunks of money from the DoD for dubious research for quite some time.

There is also LOTS of recommendations like this throughout the report looking for funding:

An experimental program similar in fashion to the Remote Viewing program should be funded at $900,000 – 1,000,000 per year in parallel with a theoretical program funded at $500,000 per year for an initial five-year duration.

Here's a pdf of Davis' report for the more mathematically gifted among us:
sgp.fas.org/eprint/teleport.pdf

 

[Mendel]

If that was what AAWSAP was paying $22 million for, then it's a little over $600,000.00 per paper.

Eric Davis's report was funded with $25,000, according to the USAtoday article that @jackfrostvc quoted. Hmmm.

Red text: "Davis, a physicist with Warp Drive Metrics"

second source:

Article:

To find out, the propulsion research lab at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio — the same cutting-edge lab that helped bring stealth technology and lasers to the Air Force — commissioned a study.

"We have to be looking well into the future, not just the needs of tomorrow or even next year," says Col. Mike Heil, who directs the laboratory. "We're looking at perhaps 30 years."

The Air Force paid $25,000 to a researcher at a company in Las Vegas called Warp Drive Metrics.

What they got back was 78 pagesof mathematical calculations and diagrams. And after much talk of "wormholes" and "parallel universes," came a conclusion: "We are still very far away from being able to entangle and teleport human beings and bulk inanimate objects," reads page 46 of the report (PDF file).

In other words, says Heil: "The concept of transporting any large amount of matter is highly impractical and looks to be highly impractical well into the future."

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna6940417

The paper can almost be called award-winning:

Article:

On April 1st, magician and debunker James Randi announced the winners of the 2004 Pigasus Awards.

Category #2, to the funding organization that supported the most useless study of a supernatural, paranormal or occult claim: The award goes to the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, who paid $25,000 to Dr. Eric W. Davis at a Las Vegas company called Warp Drive Metrics to study the "conveyance of persons by psychic means" and "transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes."

Source: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200506/zero-gravity.cfm

Spoiler: Eric Davis biography excerpt

Article:

Dr. Eric W. Davis, FBIS received his Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Arizona in 1991. His fields of specialization include spacecraft exploration of the outer solar system, planetary sciences, relativity theory and cosmology, space mission engineering, and NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics.

Eric is a research physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies-Austin and EarthTech International, and is also the CEO of Warp Drive Metrics (now in Austin, TX). He contracts with and consults to the Air Force Research Laboratory/Propulsion Directorate-Propellants Branch and the Department of Defense. During 1996–2002 he was with the National Institute for Discovery Science in Las Vegas, NV where he served as the staff Aerospace/Astro-Physics researcher. He also participated in and consulted to the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program, and cofounded the Advanced Deep Space Transport Technology Assessment (Breakthrough Propulsion Physics) Group at NASA-JSC.

He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, Senior Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, and member of the American Astronomical Society.

Source: https://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.eric.w.davis

 

[NorCal Dave]

Eric Davis's report was funded with $25,000, according to the USAtoday article that @jackfrostvc quoted. Hmmm.

Yes, so if we go with some inflation and say that for the 36 DIRDs, AAWSAP paid BAASS $30,000 each give or take, they would account for ~$1 million of the overall budget. Still plenty of money left over to fool around with.

And we can keep this revolving door spinning.

In 1972 Puthoff tested John McMoneagle at SRI with CIA support:

In 1972, physicists Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ undertook a series of investigations of psychic phenomena sponsored by the CIA, for which they coined the term remote viewing.[57][58][59][unreliable source?] Among other activities, the project encompassed the work of consulting "consciousness researchers" including artist/writer Ingo Swann, military intelligence officer Joseph McMoneagle, and psychic/illusionist Uri Geller.[60] This ESP work continued with funding from the US intelligence community until Puthoff and Targ left SRI in the mid-1980s.[61][62] For more information, see Parapsychology research at SRI.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International

McMoneagle claims to have worked with Radin at the CRL, UNLV (I had to leave the part in about humans evolving from otters, because why not):

He reports that he worked with Dean Radin at the Consciousness Research Laboratory, University of Nevada, Las Vegas to seek patentable ideas via remote viewing for a "future machine" Radin conceived.[22] McMoneagle also says he has worked on missing person cases in Washington, San Francisco, New York and Chicago,[13] as well as employing remote viewing as a time machine to make various observations such as the origin of the human species. According to McMoneagle, humans came from creatures somewhat like sea otters rather than primates and were created in a laboratory by creators who "seeded" the earth and then departed.[23]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle

Radin does in fact head the CRL, but it's no longer affiliated with UNLV:

The Consciousness Research Laboratory (CRL), a private research facility in Palo Alto, California, was originally founded at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in 1993. It dropped its university affiliation in 1998 at which time it moved to its present location.

/www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/consciousness-research-laboratory-crl

But, it used to be and back in 1997 UNLV announced that it had a new professor for the Bigelow chair of Consciousness:

A professor of psychology at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, Calif., has been hired as UNLV's first Bigelow Chair of Consciousness Studies, President Carol C. Harter announced Thursday.

Charles T. Tart will assume his duties in UNLV's College of Sciences this fall.

The Bigelow Chair of Consciousness Studies was established and funded by a gift of $3.7 million from Robert T. and Diane Bigelow of Las Vegas. The chair will initially be filled on an annual basis by distinguished visiting science scholars.

www.unlv.edu/news/release/unlv-hires-consciousness-studies-chair

So Mr. Bigelow again, meanwhile, Puthoff's SRI studies were found wanting:

While the SRI projects were classified at the time, the research materials were subsequently made public in 1995, and a summary of the early history of SRI and the origins of Stargate was published the following year.[2] Scientists and skeptical writers would later find serious flaws in the methodology used at SRI, leaving the work largely discredited.


The paper was problematic even among Puthoff and Targ's colleagues at SRI. Two other scientists also worked on tests that involved Geller and other remote viewing subjects. Charles Rebert, an expert on electroencephalography (EEG), and Leon Otis, a psychologist, held much more strictly to rigid scientific methods during the tests with which they were associated. Rebert and Otis went so far as to document their objections to what they termed as "fraudulent and slipshod" work and to demand that any experiments they had been involved in be stricken from the paper before publication.[23][24]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology_research_at_SRI

Nevertheless, we have Eric Davis touting his work in the above-mentioned paper and almost 40 years after the original SRI work, we have Puthoff working with McConeagle yet again at BAASS for AAWSAP:

It was very fortunate that BAASS counted among its ranks of senior advisors none other than Hal Puthoff, the father of the CIA's Remote Viewing Program and arguably the world's authority on the development of Remote Viewing methodology. Puthoff's enormous experience in the STAR GATE and other remote viewing programs, together with an international cadre of collaborators, meant that BAASS could "jump start" a remote viewing program with only minimal set up time.

In March 2010, Joseph McMoneagle, one of the premier remote viewers in the U.S., was asked to observe a target designated as "22610" using traditional blind targeting protocols. "22610" was actually Skinwalker Ranch.

(pp. 119-120)

And getting back to the 36 DIRDs. Here is a partial list of them and who wrote them, including, of course Davis, who was working for Puthoff's Earth Tech and Puthoff himself:

This supposedly comes from a slide that Chris Meloon had shown:

Part of this material was later posted on the site of Chris Mellon (of TTSA), but later removed. Mellon later displayed two of the missing slides during an episode of Unidentified, and we've used those to create a PDF to recreate the document. AATIP Powerpoint Briefing 2009.

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


It's literally the same people doing the same s%#*t and getting paid by the government.

Fun fact, Dean Radin from the CRL is also or now(?) the Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences where they seek to:

To move beyond current taboos, we must demonstrate reliable and robust effects, ideally that are visible to the naked eye. To pursue this goal, we are creating powerful new protocols that systematically identify the conditions under which the largest effects can be observed. The goal of IONSx is to create an ethical consciousness-dependent switch that responds to a specific mental signals from an operator. By consciousness-dependent we mean that it does not rely on conventional technology, electromagnetic or other physical force, and that it is non-local.

://noetic.org/science/ions-x/

 

[jackfrostvc]

Apparently the CIA despite Puthoff's URI Geller report , decided there wasn't anything in it and stopped funding

Here's a story about it

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/may/09/cia-uri-geller-video/

 

[NorCal Dave]

Apparently the CIA despite Puthoff's URI Geller report , decided there wasn't anything in it and stopped funding

Yeah, but if your Puthoff, so what? Some 40 years later he was doing the same remote viewing crap with the same guy and getting paid by the US government. Again. His supporters, like the authors of this book point to all his publications, but it's just a big Gish Gallop:

Publication in scientific journals is often viewed by both the scientific community and by the public at large as a mark of legitimacy for researchers. Proponents of Puthoff and Targ claim 28 published papers, 15 of which showed positive results. An in-depth review of these papers showed that only 13 of the 28 total papers were published under commonly accepted standards of peer review. Of these 13, nine showed positive results. Three of these nine, however, were "retrospective experiments"; meaning that they were "experiments not specifically planned in advance, but apparently reconstructed from separate trials".[41] These retrospective experiments appeared to suffer from the sharpshooter fallacy—the creation of the target after the answers have been given. Of the remaining six studies, only two were found to show actual statistical significance due to the use of inappropriate statistical analyses. Those remaining two studies have yet to be fully replicated.[42]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology_research_at_SRI

The other thing here is what about these guys in the government that are dolling out this money, what's their angle? Is the guy funding Davis to the tune of $25,000 for a nonsense paper just a bureaucrat following orders?

What's Lacatski's angle? According to the book, this was a perfect match. He had become intrigued by stuff at Skinwalker Ranch and Senator Reid was friends with Bigelow, who happened to own the ranch. So, Lacatski could conduct research on the ranch, by proxy, through BAASS because Reid could arrange for BAASS to be funded by AAWSAP which was controlled by Lacatski.

It's all very serendipitous.

Or is he just another government rube, caught between a powerful politician and a group of people who seem to be good at getting the government to fund some of their speculative nonsense?

 

[Mendel]

speculative nonsense

there you go, stigmatising breakthrough research again

 

[jackfrostvc]

John Greenwald managed to find find some documentation for the contract that Eric's 2003/2004 paper was written for.

This is it: https://documents2.theblackvault.co...-00428-F_ResponsiveRecords_F0461199C00252.pdf

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Have you seen this New York Post report?




-Harry Reid wanted to suppress the ghosts and goblins aspect because he knew how bad it would look.
1. A misappropriation of funds for the benefit of a political contributor and friend.
2. It was wasn't even a mundane corrupt sweetheart deal; such as awarding a contract to manufacture parts for the military. But to research ghosts and goblins. Embarrassing. To Reid the ghosts and goblins aspect is a secret vice.

- James Lacatski et al. lack all embarrassment and are frustrated that the ghosts and goblins aspect was suppressed. To them this is the Great Mystery; and they want to get their story out. They are so invested in the prima facie reality of the Great Mystery aspect that they think this new book will be a bombshell which will alter worldwide opinion just by simply talking about it. It will wake people up to this revolution in human understanding. To them UFOs are only one small aspect of the Great Mystery, and far more mysterious than simple nuts & bolts spaceships.

-I reserve George Knapp. His life blood is telling gossipy sensational stories. I think he would have been most happy in life if fate had made him owner and publisher of Hush Hush Magazine in 1950's Hollywood.

-Leslie Kean suppressed the ghosts and goblins aspect because she is an old fashioned nuts & bolts flying saucer UFOlogist. Flying saucers are spaceships piloted by Space Aliens.

Luis Elizondo is a Dale Gribble-like fantasist. AATIP never even existed.
[h3][/h3]

 

[Mendel]

AATIP never even existed.

Except as Elizondo's hobby.

As noted above, the AWWSAP funding mechanism was designed to only go to the DOW, where it was expected to end up on Lacatski's desk so he was the only person running it as a side gig:

And while the focus of the program had never changed since its inception in 2008, all during that time Lacatski still had to perform his duties as a ballistic missile and land-attack cruise missile threat analyst.

(p. 28)

If we assume, hypothetically, that this was a grift scheme intended to benefit Bigelow, then he'd have looked for someone gullible with a desk in the Pentagon who could serve as pro forma administrator of a multimillion dollar expenditure program. After two years with Lacatski, someone got suspicious, and the scheme stopped working, so they changed the name (AAWSAP—>AATIP) and the face (Lacatski—>Elizondo), but it wouldn't work again, until UAPTF and now AOIMSG.

I wonder if Lacatski's and Elizondo's superiors knew what they were doing.
I wonder what UAPTF and AOIMSG funds are being spent on.
I wonder why it took almost 6 months to pick a director for AOIMSG.

But maybe they have a senior analyst now:

Article:

The AOIMSG Analysis Lead synchronizes intelligence analysis and reporting on behalf of the Director of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). The AOIMSG synchronizes DoD efforts to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in Special Use Airspace and assesses and mitigates any associated threats to safety of flight and national security. The Analysis Lead:

• - Synchronizes AOIMSG analytic efforts with key members of the Department of Defense (DoD), the Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) and the Intelligence Community (IC) to include: the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and other U.S. Government (USG) departments and agencies, as necessary, and ensures coordination across these agencies with regard to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena reporting and analysis;
• - Manages analytical workflow to, and through, DIA and across the DoD and other USG departments and agencies;
• - Establishes processes and procedures to ensure that reported anomalous objects are analyzed by subject matter experts in appropriate intelligence disciplines;
• - Ensures intelligence analysis and reporting is conducted in-line with IC standards and best practices;
• - Ensures all-source intelligence analysis has access to additional collection and reporting, as necessary;
• - Oversees the inclusion of intelligence analysis into regular AOIMSG reporting, in conjunction with the AOIMSG Director, ODNI and the AOIMSG Reporting Lead.
• - Oversees the development of Action Plans and resource requirement plans for intelligence analysis, in support of the AOIMSG mission;
• - Advocates for additional resources to support DoD and DIE intelligence analysis in support of the AOIMSG mission;

Source: https://www.dni.gov/icjointduty/vacancies/ousdi-22-0023u.htm

So technically, AOIMSG should have a collection lead ("synchronizes intelligence requirements and collection"), an analysis lead, a reporting lead, and a director very soon.

 

[Mendel]

From the May 17 congress hearing with Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray (see https://www.metabunk.org/threads/congress-public-hearings-about-ufo.12417/ ):

AAWSAP seems to be overlooked (or referred to as AATIP?). Does the DoD even know they paid for MUFON, and all of these DIRD papers?

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

If we assume, hypothetically, that this was a grift scheme intended to benefit Bigelow

We have to be careful about how we frame this. This wasn't a mundane scheme to siphon money into Bigelow's pockets because he's a greedy guy. This was an effort to subsidize his well-meaning attempt to do research into something Bigelow really believes is important. A beneficent effort.

 

[Mendel]

This wasn't a mundane scheme to siphon money into Bigelow's pockets because he's a greedy guy. This was an effort to subsidize his well-meaning attempt to do research into something Bigelow really believes is important.

I don't know how to tell the difference.

Except when I see people getting conned.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Have you seen this New York Post report?

Just watched it. Thanks for the heads up Mr. Wolf, although it would have saved me reading this poorly written book had I'd seen it earlier.

It's a bit long, but I think he really blows up the whole AAWSAP/AATIP story, using their own words against them. I thought he meticulously built the story of AATIP as it was understood and then just as meticulously tore it down. And Elizondo is all over the place with his various statements.

As it's from the New York Post, and the post is considered too conservative by many, and it pokes fun at The Old Grey Lady (NYT) being duped, it'll get filed with the Post's Hunter Biden lap-top story and ignored.

But it should be mandatory viewing.

This was an effort to subsidize his well-meaning attempt to do research into something Bigelow really believes is important. A beneficent effort.

Just because Bigelow really believes in paranormal were-wolves, doesn't exactly make his research well-meaning. I've read enough about him, that proof of conciseness after death is his ultimate goal. In a way he's a trope, the politically connected wealthy industrialist looking for immortality.

And if all this stuff is so important, he can continue spending his own money on it, which he has before. AWWSAP was a sneaky way to get the government to pay for his well-meaning research.

 

[NorCal Dave]

AAWSAP seems to be overlooked (or referred to as AATIP?). Does the DoD even know they paid for MUFON, and all of these DIRD papers?

These guys may not. As pointed out in the video above, AATIP was the big original story and to a large extent still is. AAWSAP is rarely mentioned, and if it is, it's as AATIP's original name. So, it was still just Elizondo checking out the FLIR/Nimitz case and other UFOs, in the popular understanding.

These guys could also legitimately say that AAWSAP had nothing to do with UFOs according to it's contract documents. It was about speculative future tech, therefore no need to mention it.

Plus raising AAWSAP could get embarrassing if they had to talk about what the money was really spent on while possibly throwing a former Senet Majority Leader under the bus.

And clearly, nobody on this panel had a clue about it, or someone would have asked about it. Especially if a Republican could have pointed out wasteful government pork being funneled to the doner of a former Democratic Senet Leader.

 

[jarlrmai]

Bigelow has money and political backing, this creates all sorts of opportunities for true believers and grifters alike.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Bigelow has money and political backing, this creates all sorts of opportunities for true believers and grifters alike.

Indeed! Puthoff, Davis and the crew seem adept at selling crazy to the US government, as well as Tom Delong and maybe to an extent Bigelow himself. Kelleher, Davis and Puthoff as an advisor were part of NIDS,, which it appears came out of Bigelow's own pocket. He's the known true believer here, maybe he got fleeced before he fleeced the DoD with Reid's help.

I can't get a handle on Lacatski in this. The idea that he just happened to work at DOW and he happened to read Hunt for the Skinwalker and that as a rocket scientist he believed it all and that he thought this paranormal crap would help identify future missile threats and that his position at DOW would allow him to administer the AAWSAP contract with no supervision, at least for a while, seems awfully convenient.

Maybe it did happen that way. Maybe when Bigelow got the letter from Lacatski and told Reid about it, they realized what they had and had a go at using him and he got to play ghost hunter.

 

[LilWabbit]

Indeed! Puthoff, Davis and the crew seem adept at selling crazy to the US government, as well as Tom Delong and maybe to an extent Bigelow himself. Kelleher, Davis and Puthoff as an advisor were part of NIDS,, which it appears came out of Bigelow's own pocket. He's the known true believer here, maybe he got fleeced before he fleeced the DoD with Reid's help.

I can't get a handle on Lacatski in this. The idea that he just happened to work at DOW and he happened to read Hunt for the Skinwalker and that as a rocket scientist he believed it all and that he thought this paranormal crap would help identify future missile threats and that his position at DOW would allow him to administer the AAWSAP contract with no supervision, at least for a while, seems awfully convenient.

Galilei believed in astrology. Jung in the esoteric. Both greatly contributed to advancing scientific practice and non-extraordinary/parsimonious theories in their professional fields. It is not unheard of that one can be a brilliant expert in a narrow professional field while privately espousing beliefs that reflect a less professional methodology of establishing a truth. This fact becomes more problematic when these beliefs begin to interfere and compromise one's professional work.

Maybe it did happen that way. Maybe when Bigelow got the letter from Lacatski and told Reid about it, they realized what they had and had a go at using him and he got to play ghost hunter.

At least it's not implausible.

 

[jackfrostvc]

John Greenwald managed to find find some documentation for the contract that Eric's 2003/2004 paper was written for.

This is it: https://documents2.theblackvault.co...-00428-F_ResponsiveRecords_F0461199C00252.pdf

The contract above, for which Eric Davis wrote the 2003 paper on whether teleportation could be scientifically possible, makes no mention in the SOW section as far as my cursory look at it can tell, that such a paper would fit under it. Unless we are only seeing part of the paperwork?
. If someone would like to look through it and have a deeper look at the doco above to check thoroughly, that would be good.
From the paper clipping previously posted, this project got about $20.5 million

I guess it could loosely fit under this maybe, I suppose if you could teleport a missile/rocket, that would be a out of the box idea I guess

 

[NorCal Dave]

I guess it could loosely fit under this maybe, I suppose if you could teleport a missile/rocket, that would be a out of the box idea I guess

That was my thought.

Reading through the rest of the objectives and things asked for it all seemed pretty straight forward "rocket science". It's broken down into 3 areas:

3.3.1.1 Area I - High Energy Density Matter (HEDM).
3.3 .1.2 Area II - Chemical Sciences.
3.3 .1.3 Area III - Aerophysics.

What's interesting is that Area II is described this way:

3.3 .1.2 Area II - Chemical Sciences. The goal of this technical area is to advance material and propulsion technology for application to military space, missile, and aerospace systems. Technology activities include: advanced polymeric and co-polymer propulsion materials; surface science electrochemistry of composites; magnetoplasma dynamics, plasma and fusion propUlsion. Key areas of interest include devising methods to obtain high-strength, low-weight, easily processable and cost efficient resins and materials.

documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/usaf/2020-00428-F_ResponsiveRecords_F0461199C00252.pdf

Sounds like chemistry related to rocket science. And yet, the vaguely worded and open-ended "Objective 3, Advanced Propulsion", that we agree is probably where Davis slipped the teleportation paper in under, is listed here under Chemical Sciences. My younger son is a grad student in chemistry, and I don't remember him ever working on teleportation, but I'll double check.

I think what AAWSAP certainly showed us, is that politicians and bureaucrats can craft RFPs and contracts that can ask for one thing while really asking for much more. Maybe this happens all the time on a smaller scale. Vague objectives are thrown in here and there so that people in the know, like Davis, can get paid to write a paper on Teleportation as "Chemical Science".

Again though, what's in it for the government guys paying people like Davis for a Teleportation paper? In the case of Lacatsksi, if we take his book at face value, he really believes in all the Skinwalker Ranch paranormal stuff and this was his way of helping to study it, with government money. Was the guy that approved Davis's paper a diehard Trekky that really hopes to be able to say "Beam me up Scotty" someday?

At least it's not implausible.

Agreed. As you noted, that he, like others before, had paranormal beliefs along with his scientific training, is the most plausible part of it.

The idea that he had these beliefs and was in a unique position to help Reid secretly funnel money to his political doner Bigelow, so he could restart to NIDS as BAASS to research exactly the things Lacatski was interested in, just seems very convenient.

Edit: forgot source for contract.

 

[FatPhil]

Have you seen this New York Post report?

Thanks for that, that was a very useful catch-up for me (I kinda stopped paying attention to loons leeching taxpayer money when it was Puthoff/Targ/Swann/SRI).

If I had just one complaint about it it would be that he completely missed the "can't even get the name right" callback that jumped out like a foil baloon on a sunny day to me. In the final segment before the summing up, Lue is shown referring to Lacatski as Lakatski (e.g. timestamps 2415, 2418, 2423, and 2437 - is it possible to get one of those into the screencap image?). Given that host seemed prepared to take the piss out of almost anything, I didn't think that a cheap jab in that direction would have been out of place.

However, I guess my main take-away from watching that is "bullshitters gonna bullshit".

 

[FatPhil]

Thanks for that, that was a very useful catch-up for me ...

OT: By complete coincidence, immediately after watching that I watched the new Beavis and Butt-head movie. I could barely tell the difference at some points, it was quite surreal!

 

[NorCal Dave]

OT: By complete coincidence, immediately after watching that I watched the new Beavis and Butt-head movie. I could barely tell the difference at some points, it was quite surreal!

OOT: There' a "new" Beavis and Butt-head movie? Those guys have to well into their 40s by now!! At least one of them woulod be fat and bald at this point. Are they still running around in old AC/DC shirts and untied shoes?